The Sheep-Stealers

By Violet Jacob

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Title: The Sheep-Stealers

Author: Violet Jacob

Release Date: June 30, 2018 [EBook #57427]

Language: English


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The Sheep-Stealers



New 6s. Novels

DONOVAN PASHA
  BY GILBERT PARKER

CAPTAIN MACKLIN
  BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

IF I WERE KING
  BY JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY

THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA
  BY BRAM STOKER

MOTHER EARTH
  BY FRANCES HARROD

THE WINDS OF THE WORLD
  BY MILLICENT SUTHERLAND

THE STORY OF EDEN
  BY DOLF WYLLARDE

THE ASSASSINS
  BY N. M. MEAKIN

NEXT TO THE GROUND
  BY MARTHA MCCULLOCH-WILLIAMS

BY BREAD ALONE
  BY I. K. FRIEDMAN

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21 Bedford Street, W.C.



The Sheep-Stealers

By

Violet Jacob
(Mrs. Arthur Jacob)

London
William Heinemann
1902



_First Edition, August_ 1902
_Second Impression, September_ 1902

_All rights reserved_

_This Edition enjoys copyright in all countries signatory to the Berne
Treaty, and is not to be imported into the United States of America_



_To my Mother_



CONTENTS

Book I

Chapter                                               Page
     I. The Two Communities                              3
    II. Rhys                                             8
   III. The Dipping-Pool                                19
    IV. At the Yew-Stump and After                      29
     V. Rebecca                                         40
    VI. A Dead Man and a Live Coward                    51
   VII. To Abergavenny                                  59
  VIII. Master and Man                                  66
    IX. Two Meetings                                    76
     X. Forget-me-nots                                  83
    XI. The Brecon Coach                                92
   XII. George's Business                              102
  XIII. The Seven Snow-Men                             110
   XIV. The Uses of a Cast Shoe                        120
    XV. The Beginning                                  134
   XVI. In which George Proves to be but Human         147
  XVII. The Sheep-Stealers Part Company                156
 XVIII. Mrs. Walters Goes to Chapel                    165
   XIX. The Moth and the Candle                        174
    XX. The Pedlar's Stone                             183
   XXI. The Way of the Transgressor                    192
  XXII. A Bad Debt                                     201

Book II

 XXIII. White Blossoms                                 213
  XXIV. A Card House                                   223
   XXV. Llangarth Fair                                 232
  XXVI. Howlie and Llewellyn Understand Each Other     243
 XXVII. Four Opinions                                  254
XXVIII. A Martyr                                       263
  XXIX. The Half Loaf                                  271
   XXX. Nannie Sees her Duty                           278
  XXXI. The Way to Paradise                            286
 XXXII. A Dark Lantern                                 293
XXXIII. A Bird in the Hand                             302
 XXXIV. The Pursuers                                   312
  XXXV. New Year's Eve                                 325
 XXXVI. The New Year                                   336



BOOK I



CHAPTER I

THE TWO COMMUNITIES

IN the earlier half of the nineteenth century, when most of the
travelling done by our grandfathers was done by road, and the
intercourse between districts by no means far apart was but small, a
tract of country lying at the foot of the Black Mountain, which rises
just inside the Welsh border, was as far behind the times of which I
speak, as though it had been a hundred miles from any town.

Where the Great Western engines now roar down the Wye valley, carrying
the traveller who makes his journey in spring through orchards full of
pink blossom, the roads then lay in peaceful and unsophisticated
quiet. Soon after leaving Hereford, the outline of the mountain might
be seen raising itself like an awakening giant, over green hedges and
rich meadowland from the midst of the verdure and cultivation.

Between its slopes and the somewhat oppressive luxuriance through
which the river ran, a band of country totally unlike either of these
in character, encircled the mountain's foot, and made a kind of
intermediate stage between the desolate grandeur of the Twmpa (as the
highest summit was called) and the parish of Crishowell with its
farmyards and hayfields far beneath. The lanes leading up from
Crishowell village were so steep that it was impossible for carts to
ascend them, and the sheep-grazing population which inhabited the hill
farms above, had to go up and down to the market-town of Llangarth,
either on foot or on ponies brought in from the mountain runs. The
"hill-people," as the slower-witted dwellers in the valley called
them, came seldom down except on market-days, when the observer mixing
in these weekly gatherings in Llangarth market-place, might
distinguish them as a leaner, harder race with a wider range of
expression, due possibly to their larger outlook on the natural world.
They were neither entirely mountain nor entirely valley bred, though
retaining something of each locality, and something of the struggle
between nature and civilization seemed to have entered into them,
giving them that strenuousness which all transition must bring with
it.

They lived, too, in the midst of what one might call a by-gone
element, for the fields and uplands round their homes were full of the
records of preceding generations. Strange graves scattered the
hill-sides, ancient dates were cut in the walls of their houses, names
identical with those on forgotten tombs might be found on
outbuildings, and, in the hedges of the perpendicular lanes, stones
stood here and there which tradition vaguely designated as
"murder-stones," showing where the roadside tragedies of earlier times
had taken place. Local history told, too, of bloody battles fought
round the spurs of the mountain in ancient British times, and, at one
spot, a mound, visible to the eye of archæology, marked the place
where three chieftains had been buried after one of those fights.
Perhaps it was this which had given the name of "The Red Field" to a
small farm at a short distance from the plateau. Imaginative people
finding themselves in that region of neither yesterday nor to-day
might have felt the crowding-in at every step of dead personalities,
past customs and passions, in fact, a close treading on their heels of
generations which had lain for years in their graves in Crishowell
churchyard, or in the burying-places beside the little Methodist
chapels.

An element of superstition which all this could not fail to bring with
it, stalked abroad through those misty fields and lonely pastures,
and, one can hardly wonder that at the time of which I am speaking, it
was a powerful factor in the lives of the illiterate shepherds and
even of the better-educated farmers who owned sheep-runs on the
mountain. Stories were extant of strange appearances seen by late
riders on the bridle-tracks, and certain places were passed, even by
daylight, with a great summoning-up of courage.

One of these shrines of horror was an innocent-looking spot called
"The Boiling Wells," in the middle of a green track stretching over
the Twmpa's shoulder, where a flat piece of slate rock jutted from the
turf, and three small springs of water bubbled eternally up through
the earth. Near this place two young farmers, returning at dusk from a
sheep-run, had had an experience which they and all the hill-people
were not quick to forget, for they had arrived breathless one evening
at the Red Field Farm to detail to an open-mouthed audience of
farm-labourers how they had been overtaken by a thunderstorm near the
Boiling Wells, and how, as they neared the water, the horses had
refused to pass it, wheeling round and flying from something visible
only to themselves. Then the two men had become aware of a man's
figure hovering in the dusk, and a luminous face had peered at one of
them from between his horse's ears. At sight of this they had fled as
fast as their terrified beasts could carry them, and, after galloping
wildly in the increasing darkness for some time, they had been brought
to a stand by finding themselves running against the fence which
divided Red Field Farm from the mountain land.

In fact, the tales of fear which grew around this and other places in
the neighbourhood were endless, though sceptics hinted that these
strange things happened oftener on market-days than on any others, and
that those who claimed to have seen more than their neighbours owed
their pretensions more to having been what was called "market-peart"
than to anything else. Still, the effect on the public mind was
disquieting, and, in winter evenings, it kept many inside their doors
or in the inspiriting vicinity of the farm buildings.

To the dwellers in Crishowell village, who were disinclined to
question anything, all these tales, as they came down to their ears
from the higher regions, were unmitigated horrors, to be accepted as
best might be and retailed at corners over pipes with much repetition
and comment, coloured here and there to suit the narrator's cast of
mind. Living in their bit of valley where wages were small, needs few,
and public-houses many, they had scant ideas beyond the round of
weekly work, which terminated, in many cases, on Saturday night in a
prolonged visit to some favoured inn, and a circuitous return to the
domestic hearth afterwards.

Sunday, indeed, brought to these unsophisticated labourers its veneer
of respectability. A bucket of water in the back garden, an inherited
Sunday coat, a virtuous resolve not to smoke in any part of the
churchyard in which the parson could see them, converted them from a
quarter to eleven till half-past twelve, noon, into a chastened
community which filed noisily into the battered pews of Crishowell
church, there to remain till the final "Amen" let them loose upon the
joys of a Sunday dinner in the family circle. After this, they might
cast from them the garments of righteousness and sit about on gates
with acquaintances to whom they apparently never spoke.

Though the hill-people descended into Crishowell, the Crishowell
people rarely went up among their neighbours; only the Methodists
among them journeyed upwards to attend the Chapels with which the
higher land was dotted. In out-of-the-way corners by the thickly
intersecting lanes these grim, square, unadorned little buildings were
to be found. The wayfarer, coming unexpectedly upon one as he turned
some sudden angle of his road, might pause to glance over the low wall
which divided its unkempt precincts from the public path, at the few
crooked tombstones rising amid a wilderness of coarse hemlock which
spread even to the Chapel door, imparting a forlorn effect to the
spot, and pervading the air with its rank smell. Many of these places
were falling into disrepair from disuse, as, in summer weather, the
meetings would often be held on the hill-side, where the short turf
would bear marks until the next heavy rain of iron-bound heels and
heavy feet which had trodden in a ring round the spot. When the wind
chanced to sit in the east, the sound of the hymns and psalms would
come down with a kind of wail, by no means unimpressive, though
somewhat prolonged and nasal, to the nearer parts of the valley, the
favourite themes of death and judgment to come seeming singularly
appropriate to the hard, fervent faces and the background of frowning
mountain from which they sounded.

If it was a narrow religion which had obtained such a grasp upon these
upland men and women, it was yet one from which they gained a great
deal that few other things could have taught, and virtues adapted to
their exposed life grew up among them, possibly in obedience to those
laws of supply and demand which are part of Nature's self. Children
reared in unyielding austerity, forced to sit meekly through hours of
eloquence against which their hearts rebelled, while their bodies
suffered in silence, groaned under their trials. But, when they had
crossed the threshold of grown-up life, the fruits of these
experiences would show in a dormant fund of endurance and tenacity,
submerged, no doubt, by the tide of every-day impressions, but apt to
re-appear in emergencies as a solid rock rises into view at low water.

Such were the two communities living close together on the borders of
two nations, nominally one since the middle ages, but, in reality,
only amalgamated down to a very few inches below the surface.



CHAPTER II

RHYS[1]

IT was the day after Christmas. The frost and snow, supposed to be
suitable to the time, had held off from the West country and were
waiting ready to pounce upon the world with a new year. The evenings
had been damp and chilly of late, with not a breath of wind stirring
to lift the fog which hung over the Black Mountain and pressed like a
heavy, dead hand right into Crishowell village.

On the green track which led along the plateau at the foot of the
Twmpa the air to-night lay still and thick. Noises made by the animal
world were carried a long distance by the moist atmosphere, and sounds
were audible to people who had learned to keep their ears open for
which they might have listened in vain at ordinary times. The water,
running through wet places, could be heard distinctly trickling among
roots and coarse grasses and patches of rush, as well as the quick
cropping of sheep and occasional scuttering of their feet over muddy
bits of path; and along the track from the direction of Llangarth came
the dull thud of a horse's advancing hoofs and the constant sneezing
of the animal as he tried in vain to blow the clinging damp from his
nostrils. As they loomed out of the fog which gave to both horse and
man an almost gigantic appearance, the rider, without waiting to pull
up, slipped his leg over the pommel of the saddle and slid to his
feet, the horse stopping of his own accord as he did so.

It was almost too thick to see more than a yard in front of one's
face, and Rhys Walters stood a moment peering before him with narrowed
eyes into what looked like a dead wall of motionless steam. Then he
bent down to examine the spongy ground. It oozed and sucked at his
boots when he moved about, and he frowned impatiently as he knelt to
lay his ear against it. While he listened, a sound of distant running
water made itself faintly heard through the windless evening, and his
horse pricked his ears and turned his head towards it. The young man
remounted and rode abruptly to the left, in the direction of the
Boiling Wells.

As he went along with the rein lying loose on the bay horse's withers,
the animal made a sudden plunge and swerved violently aside as a sheep
appeared out of the mist and ran startled across the path under his
very nose. But Rhys seemed hardly to notice the occurrence, except by
a stronger pressure of his knees against the saddle, for he was
thinking intently and the expression on his hard countenance showed
that he was occupied with some affair much more difficult than
horsemanship, which had been a simple matter to him from his very
earliest youth.

He was a man to whom one physical exercise was as natural as another,
his firmly-knit frame being equally adapted to everything; and, though
rather over middle-height than under it, he conveyed the impression of
being very tall, more by his leanness and somewhat high shoulders than
by actual inches. His hands and feet were well-shaped, though the
latter fact was not apparent, on account of the stout leather leggings
and clumsy boots which he wore, and every movement of his spare figure
had the attraction of perfect balance and unconsciousness of effort.

His long face was one which few persons of any discernment would have
passed without a second glance; fewer still could have determined what
it actually expressed. He had eyebrows of the real Welsh type coming
down low towards the nose, the eyes underneath being set near together
and looking either brown or grey according to the light in which they
were seen. They were usually called brown, to match the tanned
complexion and dark hair to which they belonged. His cheekbones were
high, his nose long and pointed, though the refinement which it might
appear to indicate found its unexpected contradiction in a straight
and unsensitive nostril.

When he spoke, Rhys used much less gesticulation than was common to
his countrymen (for he was three-parts a Welshman), but his thin lips
moved a great deal and the quick turns of his close-cropped head--he
kept his hair short when it was the fashion among men to wear it
rather long--showed that he did not by any means possess the true
phlegmatic temperament. Above all, he looked entirely at one with the
natural and animal creation around him. Had he been a poorer man, he
might easily have been taken for a poacher, had he been a richer one,
for a country gentleman of active and sporting tastes; as a matter of
fact, he was neither of these, being a farmer and the son of a farmer.
His earlier childhood had been spent in what one might almost call
savagery, and the rest of his youth in Hereford Grammar School, where,
except for a far more polished speech and accent than was natural to
his position, he had learnt but a certain amount of what his parents
wished him to acquire. He had also learned much of which they, in
their greater simplicity, had never dreamed.

Of these two, Eli Walters and his wife, only Mrs. Walters was alive,
and she lived with Rhys at Great Masterhouse, a farm standing high in
Crishowell parish on the skirts of the mountain land. It was a long
and ancient stone house which had consisted of one storey until Eli
had added an upper floor to suit his more modern ideas of convenience,
and, as this outcome of his full purse and soaring mind extended but
half the length of the dwelling-house, it gave the approaching
stranger a notion that it might be some kind of religious building
with a squat tower at one end. Owing to the impossibility of
dovetailing a proper staircase in, the upper rooms were reached from
outside by a ladder with a weather-beaten railing running up it. To
this protection Eli, who occupied a room at the top, had often had
reason to be grateful, for the excellent beer produced in Hereford
town had played a larger part in his latter years than was altogether
decorous; many a time, on winter nights, Mrs. Walters, sitting below
in the kitchen, had listened sternly to his uneven footstep in its
spasmodic descent to earth.

Great Masterhouse looked towards the Twmpa, and, from the kitchen
window, the view presented to the eye a strip of turf forming a
parade-ground for troops of cocks and hens. This sloped to a tortuous
little stream, upon which the ducks, having picked up everything worth
having near home, might cruise down to a pool in search of more
alluring gluttonies. At the south side of the house lay the strip of
garden that was all of which the farm could boast. It was used for
vegetable-growing alone, and wore a dreary aspect all the year round,
enlivened only for a short time in spring, when a pear-tree, trained
up the dead wall of the additional storey, broke out into a green and
white cloud. Old Walters, it is true, had taken some interest in the
few yards of flower-bed it had contained in his lifetime. He had
planted sweet-williams, peonies and such like, for he was a man who
loved beauty in any form, though, unfortunately, he had been as apt to
see it in the bottom of a beer-jug as in any other more desirable
place.

His wife cared for none of these things, for she regarded the culture
of what merely pleased the eye as a wanton throwing away of time. It
seemed to her to be people's duty to make themselves as uncomfortable
as possible in this world by way of suitable preparation for the next.
So, after Eli had finished alike his drinks and his gardenings and
been carried down the hill to Crishowell churchyard, the flowers
disappeared from the poor little garden, and rows of sensible cabbages
and onions raised their aggressive heads from the places they had left
empty.

At the back was a great yard surrounded by outbuildings, and this
place gave to Great Masterhouse the only picturesqueness it possessed.
From it one looked at the curious old back-door which opened on a
stone passage to the kitchen, and might admire the solid oak and
heavily-moulded lintel. Inside there was a niche in the wall into
which a strong wooden beam could be shot, while above it a porch
projected bearing the date 1685. Patches of golden-brown stonecrop
sprawled over this, and a heap of dried bracken which lay upon the
doorstep for all who entered to clean their boots upon, added to the
antiquated effect. Such had been Rhys' home during his twenty-seven
years of life.

At his father's death, when Great Masterhouse with the good slice of
land belonging to it passed into his hands, he was fully prepared to
do his duty by his inheritance, and in this he was supported by his
mother, who was a practical woman, as well as by his own dislike of
being bested in the affairs of life, a failing to profit in any way by
his advantages. In other words, he hated to be done, and she, like
many other worthy persons whose minds are professedly set above this
froward world, hated it too.

Mrs. Walters had been right in many deeds of her married life, though
she had not, perhaps, made her sterling virtues very attractive to her
husband and son. Those inclined to blame her for this were too quick
in forgetting that her life had been no bed of roses, and that to one
of her type, daily contact with a weak, idle nature like that of Eli
was a perpetual martyrdom. She was an utterly humourless woman, and
her want of humour, which is really no less than the want of a sense
of proportion, added a thousand-fold to her trials.

She took everything too hard, giving to each untoward trifle which
crossed her path the value of a calamity, with the result that the
mountain she had created fell and crushed her. She was truthful and
upright in the highest degree, and though her hardness and pride
repelled her husband and her want of elasticity wearied him to the
verge of madness, her integrity was a matter of admiration to him. His
weaker spirit might have been dominated by hers, but for that touch of
originality in him which forbade his being entirely swayed by another.
He was a man addicted to cheerful company, joviality and
good-fellowship; in conversation he was a desperate liar, which made
him none the less amusing to his friends on market-days, and they
rallied round him with unfailing constancy, receiving his sprightly
ideas with guffaws of laughter, slapping their own legs, or other
people's backs--whichever chanced to be handiest--as his wit struck
them in assailable places.

When he first married, Eli was very much in love with his unsuitable
companion, but the day soon came when he grew tired of her. He wearied
of her dark, hawk-faced beauty, and her narrowness of mind oppressed
him; his want of seriousness also bred a contempt in her heart which
she allowed him to feel plainly. It was not long before this led to
quarrels--of a mild kind, it is true--but enough to make husband and
wife see the mistake they had committed; and when their first child, a
boy, arrived, Anne Walters wrapped herself up in her baby's existence,
finding in it an outlet for the intense feeling which had all her life
been dormant, and was now awake in her for the first time. At Rhys'
birth, some two years later, she had little to bestow on him but a
well-meaning interest, for her whole soul was occupied with her eldest
born; so Eli, longing for companionship of some kind, took possession
of him and proceeded to alternately spoil and neglect him.

Between the two, as the child grew older, there existed a curious
relationship, more like a defensive alliance between two small powers
against a greater one than anything else, tacit, unspoken, and,
strange to say, better understood by the boy than by the man.

Eli stood in awe of his wife, and young Rhys knew it; he was not
afraid of her himself, for fear was a sensation he was physically
incapable of feeling, but he saw in his father's society a road of
escape from Anne, whose unsympathetic attitude towards his youthful
errors was at once dull and inconvenient. A worse education for a
little boy could hardly be imagined, and Rhys' shrewdness was perhaps
a source of greater danger to his character than any quality he
possessed; he was too acute to be deceived in Eli, and he knew
perfectly the worth of an affection which, though genuine of its kind,
would not hesitate to neglect him if it grew tired of him, or to
sacrifice him if he stood in the way.

The one great good which he got out of his profitless childhood was an
intense familiarity with outdoor life. The sky was his ceiling, the
earth his carpet, and he wandered about the pastures around, the
mountain above, and the valley below, with the same assurance that
other little boys of his age felt in wandering about their nurseries.
He knew the habits of every living creature and every nesting-place
for miles; he could climb like a mountain-sheep or run like a hare,
and his observation of Nature became so highly developed as to make
him, in some respects, very like an animal. He knew the meaning of
every sound, distant or near, and the whole world teemed with voices
for him which it generally keeps for birds and beasts alone.

It was only natural that he should be attracted by the delights of
poaching, and an inveterate poacher he became; he set nets for
partridges and laid night-lines in the trout-streams of the valley,
and no outdoor rascality entered his head which he did not immediately
attempt. On the few occasions on which he was caught, Mrs. Walters,
after rebuking him severely, took him to his father and insisted on
his being thrashed, and when this happened, Rhys knew that there was
no escape; so he took his punishment with as much equanimity as he
could, merely resolving to work his next escapade on more careful
lines.

When he was five years old his brother died; had he lived to be older
he might have done something to humanize the selfish and uncivilized
little boy, and his death, which was the blackest grief that Anne had
ever known, seemed to turn the poor woman's already hard heart into
stone. With her elder child she lost the one real interest she had
contrived to glean from her narrow life, and when the funeral was over
and there was nothing left but an aching blank, she turned further
from her husband and the boy, shutting herself round with a wall of
indifference. Rhys was absolutely nothing to her. She was glad that he
was so strong and healthy, and sorry that he was so disobedient;
beyond that she hardly gave him a thought. He was a sealed book to
her--a sealed book with a binding which offended her and which it did
not occur to her to open.

It was just at this time that an earnest preacher, a light in his sect
and a man of extraordinary personal influence, came to hold meetings
among the Methodists of the mountain district, and Anne went to hear
him speak. With her grief, her silent bitterness, and her unsatisfied
life, she was an ideal subject upon which this man's zeal could act.
Before he had well begun what he called his "struggle for her soul,"
the work was half done and the issue decided; the hard doctrines and
straitened ideas which he preached appealed to her in a way that
nothing else could; the wholesale condemnation of sinners which he
announced was entirely in accordance with a type of mind that had ever
hated the Devil more than it had loved God, and she threw herself
wholly into the sea of his relentless Christianity, for there were no
half-measures with her.

Eli looked on at the spectacle with apprehension, quailing as he
thought of her possible attempts at his own conversion to the paths of
the more active and elaborate righteousness. But as time went on, and
he found that his personal salvation formed no part of his wife's
plans, he was a good deal relieved and felt very grateful to the
preacher, welcoming anything which helped to keep them separate and
divert her attention from his comfortable habits of life. He never
interfered with her in any way, though he would sometimes stroll into
the kitchen when a meeting was being held there, loitering about and
pretending that he was not quite sober, while he internally enjoyed
the agonies she suffered from fear that her decorous guests should
suspect what she perceived with horror. Thus did the malicious old
farmer gratify his sense of humour.

So the years passed on until it occurred to the pair that Rhys'
education should be considered. He must go to school, and they
resolved to send him to the Grammar School at Hereford. The small
amount of pride that Eli had was centred in the pleasant thought that
he was, in his calling, a rich man. With all his laxity he had been
shrewd in business, and could look round on his possessions with the
knowledge that there was enough and to spare for his son and his son's
son after him. The boy should better himself in life, should have the
education which he had lacked, should spend his money with the best of
the gentlefolks' children with whom he would be brought into contact
at Hereford. The end of it was that Rhys, considerably interested in
his new position, found himself one morning on the top of the Hereford
coach with a Bible given him by Anne in one pocket and
half-a-sovereign given him by Eli in the other. He was very much
pleased with the half-sovereign.

His feelings as he rolled along were mixed. He could not but welcome
the prospect of the livelier interests and companionships before him,
but, at the same time, he knew very well that that freedom which had
been the breath of his nostrils would be his no longer; and, until he
saw how much he might be compensated for its loss in other ways, he
could not exactly rejoice. As regards any sentiment at leaving his
parents, he had not much.

He did not flatter himself that either would miss him to any
distressing degree, and though he felt a little lump in his throat as
he bade good-bye to his father, the sensation had passed almost as
soon as he was out of sight. No, a new world was opening, and he
prepared to plunge into it with a curiosity at once suspicious and
hopeful.

Education in those days was neither so cheap nor so general as it has
become now, and boys like himself, and even the children of much more
well-to-do farmers than was Eli Walters, had to content themselves
with what schooling could be got in their native villages. Hereford
Grammar School was chiefly attended by sons of professional men, and
many of the neighbouring squires were satisfied to let their boys pick
up all the learning they needed there. When Rhys, with his
uncultivated country speech, made his appearance, many were inclined
to despise him, holding aloof from him as from a being vastly inferior
to themselves; and, when they found out, as they soon did, that his
father was a common farmer who worked with his hands, some became
actively aggressive and began, after the manner of boys, to practise
small cruelties upon the new-comer.

But they had caught the wrong man, and it was not long before their
mistake was brought home to them. Rhys, with all his faults, was no
shivering milksop fresh from his mother's apron-strings, but a hard
and cautious young savage, with a heavier fist than most of his
oppressors could boast of, and a cheerful willingness in using it
freely.

So, though the bigger lads taught him the healthy lesson that there
were higher powers than himself, his contemporaries soon decided that
it was wiser to leave him alone. Besides, how was juvenile
snobbishness to resist the attractions of one who could make such
catapults and slings, knew things that only gipsies and poachers
understood, and was familiar with phases of outdoor life which they
had never so much as imagined? Though he made few friends during the
six years he spent at school, he had many admirers, and as, little by
little, his accent dropped from him and he adopted the manners of his
associates, he began to be looked upon as something of a personage,
and left school with a veneer of sophistication which hid from
ordinary view the fact that he had no more changed in character than a
man changes who accustoms himself to the perpetual wear of his Sunday
clothes.

When he returned to Great Masterhouse and settled down to help his
father on the farm, he was accepted by his kind as a much-travelled
and very fine young man. On market-days in Llangarth, Eli was not a
little proud of his tall son with his green tail-coat and superior
air, and he smiled complacently to see how the young fellows nudged
each other as he went down the street, and what admiring glances were
cast after him by the farmers' daughters. Among the latter he produced
the same effect as an eligible duke might in a community of society
young ladies. Poor old Eli, lying on his death-bed a few years later,
told himself that it would not be his fault should Rhys be
unsuccessful in life.

     *   *   *   *   *   *

Rhys Walters rode along the plateau until he passed the Boiling Wells.
There he turned again eastwards, going down an old grass-grown
watercourse, the bed of which had become something like a path. The
mist was not so thick, and a light showed through it a short way in
front, like a little staring eye with long shining eyelashes piercing
the damp. As he neared the house from which it proceeded, a door
opened, letting a luminous stream into the fog, and a head peered out.

"Be that Mr. Walters?" said a voice.

"Here I am," replied Rhys, slipping from his horse.

The man came out and led the animal away to the back of the house, and
Rhys entered, wiping the damp from his hair.

-----

[1] Pronounced "Reece."



CHAPTER III

THE DIPPING-POOL

A GROUP of men, sitting round a blazing fire, some on heavy wooden
chairs, some on a long settle, looked up as he entered. All were
smoking. Those on the chairs gave them a deferential push back when
they saw the new-comer.

"Very damp night outside," observed Rhys, nodding to the company.

"Indeed, so it be, sir. Come you in here near to the warm-ship, Master
Walters," said a jolly-looking individual who sat closest to the
chimney-corner, pointing invitingly to his next neighbour's chair. His
next neighbour, an undersized man with a goat's beard, called Johnny
Watkins, jumped up obediently.

"Thanks, thanks, don't disturb yourself," said Rhys politely, seating
himself in the corner of the settle, "this will do very well for me."

The fire-place round which they were gathered was the broad kitchen
range of the Dipping-Pool Inn, in which modest establishment bar and
kitchen were one and the same place. Being situated in such an
out-of-the-way spot, it was too little frequented by any but the few
travellers over the mountain to make any addition profitable, Hosea
Evans, the landlord, whose sign hung outside, entertaining his guests
comfortably in the kitchen. He was assisted in his business by one
Mary Vaughan, who stood in what would have been the character of
barmaid in a larger hostelry, and brought to the company such drinks
as were called for from the inner room in which she sat. Within the
memory of a few old people, the dried-up bed of the brook, which made
a rough path to the house, had been a swift stream running into a pool
before the door. This had been used for sheep-washing at one time, and
Hosea, when he took the little inn, had not troubled himself to invent
a new name for it; so, though its appropriateness was not apparent,
the "Dipping-Pool" it remained.

It was an unpretending, whitewashed house, squatting in the green
creek as though ashamed to be seen within range of the public eye.
Many people thought that it had reason to be so, as its present
proprietor had borne an indifferent character for honesty in certain
small ways, and had left Llangarth, where he had formerly lived, on
account of the inconvenient attitude of local opinion. He was a
thick-set, smiling man, of florid complexion, round whose broad face
the red hair, beard, and whiskers formed such a perfect halo, that
now, as he entered the kitchen and his head appeared over a wooden
screen standing at the door, it produced something of the effect of a
sunrise.

"Well, Mr. Walters," he began, when he had shut the door of the inner
room carefully and sat down cumbrously beside Rhys, "and how be you
minded to do?"

The company took its pipe out of its mouth and turned its gaze upon
the young man. There was a pause. "There's a good deal against it,"
said Rhys, returning the stare, "but let's have a drop of something
hot before we sit down to the matter. How about the kettle, Hosea, and
a bottle of spirits?"

"Wal, I don't have no objection, not I," hazarded Charley Turnbull,
the man by the chimney-corner, drawing a large hand across his mouth,
and reflecting that Rhys would pay for it.

A call from Hosea brought in Mary Vaughan. She stood waiting while he
gave the order with her eyes fixed upon Rhys, who was studiously
contemplating his muddy boots; he never so much as looked up to bid
her good-evening.

"When you've brought the liquor, don't be settin' up, girl," said the
landlord. "Go you up-stairs and leave we to our bysiness. I'll mind
the hearth."

Mary's look wandered over the assembly, lighting for a moment upon
Rhys Walters; her eyes were large and brilliant, and shone out of her
serious face like flames; there seemed to be a slow fire behind them.
She made no reply, but brought what was wanted, leaving the room with
an indistinct good-night.

"If her did get to know, it would not do for we--indeed that it would
not," remarked Johnny Watkins, shaking his head.

"Lawk! no; her would soon tell the old man," answered Turnbull. "Be
the door fast behind her, Hosea?"

"Yes, sure."

"But put you the key well into the hole," continued Charley, "that
there be no sound to go through."

"Be her a wag-tongued wench?" asked a man who had not yet spoken, and
who, having come from a distance, was a stranger to some of those
present.

"No, no," replied Hosea, "but her father do keep the toll-gate down
below Pig Lane."

"Ah, well, to be sure."

The company again sat silent while the kettle was put on to boil and
the fire stirred up; a shower of sparks flew out as Hosea punched and
turned the logs with a plebeian-looking poker.

"Master Rhys--beg pardon, Mr. Walters, sir--no offence. Us have knowed
ye since ye was no more nor a little lump of a boy," began Charley,
who regarded himself as spokesman, with the every-day result that he
was quietly accepted as such. "If you be to come along of us at the
time we know of, us have thought, and indeed we all do say"--here he
looked round upon the men for corroboration--"that Rebecca bein' a
Bible person and a leading woman of power and glory in this job, we
will be proud if you be she."

The orator stopped and replaced his pipe in his mouth as a kind of
full-stop to the sentence.

Rhys Walters had never before considered himself in the light of a
"Bible person," and he smiled slightly. "Is that your wish?" he
inquired, scanning the faces in the firelight.

"Yes, surely," said Johnny Watkins, his squeaky voice audible above
the murmur of assent. "Stevens and I were sayin'"--here he pointed to
a man, who, finding himself brought under popular notice, wriggled in
his chair with mingled anguish and enjoyment--"just before you come
in, sir, what a beautiful female you would be."

Rhys, who had about as much resemblance to a woman as a pointer has to
a lap-dog, laughed, and the others, at this, laughed too, while Johnny
Watkins began to perceive in himself a wit of the highest order.

"It's very well I'm a clean-shaved man," said Walters, stroking his
lean jaw. "It wouldn't have done for your style of looks, Hosea."

The company, being one to which a personality never failed to appeal,
again roared with laughter, and Watkins saw with dismay that a greater
than he had arisen; he made one mighty effort.

"Yes," he remarked, at the pitch of his penetrating voice, "yes. An a'
might have set fire to the toll-gate with a's whiskers!"

Hosea turned upon him an awful glare, for his red hair had long been a
weapon in the hands of his foes. He had no sprightliness of retort,
but he was determined that Johnny's pleasantries should not continue
for want of a solid, knock-down blow.

"If I had a beard like a billy-goat waggin' about under an ass's
face," he said solemnly, "I'd keep it out o' the sight o' folks, for
fear it might be made a mock of--that I would."

Johnny Watkins gave a gasp which made his beard wag more vehemently
than ever, and retired abashed into silence.

Rhys had not come through the fog at that hour of the evening to
listen to profitless disputes. The matter in hand, which was a
projected attack upon a toll-gate not far from Llangarth, interested
him more now that he had become the prominent person in it, for he had
arrived at the inn uncertain whether or no he would lend active
support to the affair, it being more of a piece of out-of-the-way
amusement to him than anything affecting his opinions.

At this time a wave of wrath which had a considerable foundation of
justice was surging over South Wales. By a general Highway Act, a new
principle of road-government had been brought in, under which the
trustees of turnpike roads might raise money through tolls, sufficient
to pay the interest of the debts and keep the highways in repair. For
this reason the gates were withdrawn from the operation of the Highway
Laws, the tolls increased in amount, and every means used by those in
authority to uphold the revenues of their trusts. The gates had, in
some cases, been taken by professional toll-renters, men who came from
a distance, and who were consequently regarded with suspicion by the
intensely conservative population of the rural districts. These
people, having higher rents to make up, had refused to give credit to
farmers, or to allow them to compound for tolls on easy terms as had
been formerly their custom.

The effect of all this had been to rouse the public to a state of
fury, which had resulted, in many places, in serious riots. In
carrying out the provisions of their respective Acts, the trustees
were under little or no control; they erected fresh gates, interpreted
the laws as they thought fit, and there was no appeal from their
decisions. Added to these difficulties, a succession of wet harvests,
and the fall in price of live stock had reduced the farmers' capital,
and they and their dependents resented, as well they might, the new
devices for raising money out of their emptying pockets.

The first riot had broken out at Carmarthen, and was the signal for a
series of like disturbances all over the country. Although it had
taken place in May, and now, as Rhys Walters and his companions sat by
the Dipping-Pool fire, the year had almost reached its end, the reign
of terror created was still going on, though it had not, so far, begun
in Breconshire. The Carmarthen rioters had banded themselves together
about three hundred strong, under a person whom the law never
succeeded in identifying, and who, assuming the name of "Rebecca,"
appeared dressed as a woman and mounted upon a black horse. "Rebecca
and her children," as they were called by the terrified neighbourhood,
marched upon one of the gates in the town armed with every conceivable
kind of weapon, pitchforks, pistols, hay-knives--to say nothing of the
crowbars and the mallets which they carried with them and with which
they intended to destroy the bar. "Rebecca" had been chosen as a name
for their captain in reference to an Old Testament text, which tells
how Rebecca, bride of Isaac, on leaving her father's house, was
blessed by Laban in these words: "Let thy seed possess the gate of
those that hate them."

About two o'clock in the morning the strange tribe, some mounted and
some on foot, had appeared near the toll and placed sentinels in the
surrounding streets; and, before the astonished inhabitants, roused
from their beds by the noise and the loud orders of Rebecca, could
realize what was happening, the work of destruction was going bravely
forward, the rioters using their implements like demons, not only upon
the toll-bar, but upon all who tried to hinder them.

The toll-keeper came to his door remonstrating with the mob, but his
appearance provoked a shower of stones, and he fled back into shelter
pursued by shouts and jeers. His wife, a brave woman and a much better
man than her husband, then came out and stood quietly in the middle of
the road, and, in the lull of surprise which her action provoked,
entreated the leader to spare the house, as her child lay dangerously
ill within. One or two of the more ruffianly flung stones at the
woman, but Rebecca turned upon them, dealing one of them a blow which
sent him staggering, and announcing her intention of going to find out
the truth.

Then, in the grey early light, the extraordinary figure, gigantic in
its female dress, dismounted and stalked after the distracted mother
into the toll-house. When it emerged, the order was given to retreat,
and the cavalcade dashed through the wrecked gate and disappeared in
various directions into the country, just as the local police,
according to time-honoured custom, were arriving half-an-hour too
late. One or two dismounted stragglers were caught and punished, but
the ringleader and most of the offenders escaped, though every effort
was made to trace them; but it was whispered with bated breath that
Rebecca rode abroad in distinguished company, and that many of the
younger farmers, and even the gentry, were not above suspicion.

After this matters grew worse and worse. The success at Carmarthen
encouraged the lawlessness that broke out on every side, and in some
districts there was hardly a toll-bar remaining intact. Seeing this,
the magistrates took decided action, the military were called out and
special police enrolled, with the result that when the opposing forces
met, each encounter was more serious and bloody than the last.

The panic spread on all sides. People told each other lying tales of
cruelties practised by the devastating hordes, with details which made
the hair of the respectable stand upright, while children who had read
of Rebecca in their Bible lessons and now gathered from their elders
that she was actually going about, fancied that Old Testament days had
come back. They were prepared at any moment to meet any sort of Sunday
character, from Joseph in his coat of many colours to Satan himself,
horned, tailed, black, and pitchforked, and without a stitch of
clothes upon his unhallowed person.

"I think I shall have to come with you, neighbours," said Rhys, "and
we had better be stirring and settle our doings. We should be ready
for the first week of the year, for we don't want the moon rising on
us too early. She ought to be up about eleven; that would do well
enough. We'd be done and home by then."

"And how about horses?" inquired Hosea. "Them knowin' old badgers in
Llangarth will soon see who's movin'. An' ye can't dress up a beast as
ye can a man."

"Trew enough," observed Charley Turnbull solemnly. He was beginning to
wonder how he could get hold of a horse of some one else's.

"As to that, I shall ride a young mare I haven't had above a week.
She's never been seen in the valley, and a lick of white paint down
the faces of some o' your nags, and a white stocking here and there
makes a wonderful difference. Those who have white-footed ones can use
the blacking brush. And you must risk something," added Rhys, looking
hard at Turnbull, and guessing his thoughts exactly.

"Woman's clothing be a fine protection," remarked Stevens; and
Turnbull wished he had not been so reckless in giving away the part of
Rebecca.

"Be you to ride all o' one side like the wenches do?" inquired the man
who came from a distance, "or will ye put your leg across the saddle
like a Christian?"

"Oh, I'll ride astride," said Rhys, "or I shan't be able to lay about
me so well if need be."

"Petticoats an' all?"

"I suppose so."

Here a roar of laughter went up at the thought of his appearance,
which Mary could hear plainly in the room overhead.

Had poor old Eli been in his son's place, the whimsicalities of his
own costume would have given him hours of study and enjoyment. But it
was not so with Rhys; humour was not predominant in him. He did not
live sufficiently outside himself for that.

"I must look round for some sort of clothes," he said, rather stiffly.
"It would be well for everybody to have something to hide their faces.
I'll get Nannie Davis up at the farm to lend me an old sun-bonnet."

"An' I'll give ye a brown bit of a gown my sister Susan left here when
her was over for Crishowell feast September last," volunteered Hosea.
"It's been hangin' behind the door ever since."

"An' I'll find ye a cloak more fit for a skeercrow than for any other
person," said a man called Jones. "Will ye have it?"

"Oh, yes, it'll do," replied Rhys.

"G'arge! an' you'll be a right hussy! Fit to skeer the old limb
without any o' we."

Here there was another laugh.

"When ye spoke o' skeercrows," observed Johnny Watkins, who had been
silent much longer than he liked, "it minds me o' a crewel turn one o'
they figgers served my poor mother. Father could never abide the sight
o' one since."

Rhys looked encouragingly at Johnny. He was nothing loth to change the
subject. "What was that?" he asked.

"It were when old Hitchcock were parson down at Crishowell. He and his
lady had a great notion o' each other, an' when each fifth of August
come round--bein' their marriage-day--any one as did go to the
Vicarage with a 'good luck to ye, sir and madam,' or 'many happy
returns o' the day,' got a bottle o' beer from Madam Hitchcock to take
home an' drink their good health in. My mother, though she were a bit
hard o' seein', did use to go, an' never missed a weddin'-day from the
time her come to the parish to the day her was taken up on high. One
year, as her went, her peered over the garden wall an' dropped a bob
to the parson as he was in the midst o' the onion-bed standing quiet
an' lookin' at the fruit. At the house, the missis were at the window
an' her bobbed again. 'Wish you luck o' this day, ma'am,' says she.
'Thank you, Betty,' says madam, smilin' sweet. 'And good luck to the
Reverend Hitchcock that's standin' among the onions outside. Never did
I see the reverend parson look so well an' handsome,' says mother,
smilin' an' laughin' more than was needful, her bein' a bit bashful.
The lady give a look at her so as poor mother were fairly dazed, an'
down come the window wi' a bang an' madam was gone. Mother waited
there three-quarters of an hour full, until a lad were sent out to
tell her to go home an' no ale. One day as her an' father was passin',
her said to father, says mother, 'Hitchcock be a wonderful man for
flowers. Never a day do I go by but he's there squintin' at them.'

"'Lawk, you poor foondy[1] woman,' says father, 'do parson have straw
round a's legs? 'Tis the skeercrow.' An' when he found how the dummy
had cheated him out o' his beer, never could he look one i' the face
again. 'Twas crewel, that it was."

-----

[1] Foolish.



CHAPTER IV

AT THE YEW-STUMP AND AFTER

THE mist lifted a little as Rhys Walters left the Dipping-Pool and
turned out of the watercourse on to smooth turf. He could not help
smiling as he thought of Charley Turnbull's misgivings, though in his
heart he sympathized with them more than he would admit, even to
himself.

He looked forward with pleasure to the coming raid, and with still
more to the prominent part he was to play in it, but through his
pleasure ran the devout hope that he would not be recognized. Not that
he feared the law more than he feared anything else, but his
respectability was dear to him, as dear as his love of adventure, and
the struggle to eat his cake and have it was a part of his inmost
soul.

Only one person at Great Masterhouse was to know his secret, and that
was Nannie Davis, an old servant who had belonged to the establishment
since his birth, and who had screened and abetted many of his boyish
pranks. She was built on an entirely opposite pattern to her mistress,
and the unregenerate old woman had often felt a positive joy in his
misdoings, the straitened atmosphere which clung round Mrs. Walters
being at times like to suffocate her. From her Rhys intended hiding
nothing. He knew that, whatever protest she might see fit to make, she
would neither betray him nor grudge him the clothes necessary to his
disguise. His plan was, briefly, to tell his mother that he had
business in Abergavenny, a town some fourteen miles on the other side
of the mountain, and, having ostentatiously departed for that place,
to make for the Dipping-Pool. To the Dipping-Pool also he would return
when he had seen the adventure through, and from thence in a day or
two home in peace. At least so he trusted.

The direct line from the inn to Great Masterhouse took him past one of
the many remains of old buildings to be found round the mountain. Only
a yard or so of broken wall indicated where a long-disused chapel had
stood, and the roots of a yew marked the turf; where passing animals
had scraped the bark with their hoofs, reddish patches proved what
manner of tree the solitary stump had been. Some stones had been
quarried from the ground close by, leaving a shallow pit almost
overgrown with grass.

It was a dismal enough place, he thought, as he rode past, and his
heart almost stopped as he heard his own name sounding from the
quarry. Having found superstition inconvenient he had long ago rid
himself of it, still the voice in the mist sent a perceptible chill
through him.

"Rhys! Rhys!" came from the hollow, and a figure was distinguishable
by the old wall.

He turned towards the spot, but the horse reared straight up; he had
his own ideas about things which sprang out of mists. Rhys was never
cruel to animals, seldom even rough, and he patted his neck, gripping
him tightly with his knees and pressing him forward with those
indescribable noises dear to horses' hearts.

The voice rang out again, this time with a very familiar tone.

"Mary! Is that you?" he called sharply, dismounting by the wall.

"Oh, Rhys!" she cried, as he came face to face with her, "don't you be
angry! I've come all the way from the Dipping-Pool so as to see you
here."

And as she caught sight of his expression, she burst into violent
weeping.

He stood in front of her frowning, though the sight of her distress
touched him a little through his vexation. She had always touched him
rather--that was the worst of it.

"What have you come here for?" he asked, feeling great misgivings as
to the reason. "Come, sit here like a good girl and tell me. Lord!
your dress is dripping. 'Tis like a madwoman to go running over the
country these damp nights."

And he drew her down upon the yew-stump and put his arm about her. The
horse began to crop the short grass. He was completely reassured, and
like many who considered themselves his betters, he found his stomach
a source of much solace and occupation. Mary leaned her head against
Rhys, and her sobs ceased as she found his arm round her; she was cold
and wearied, and she was suffering an anxiety that was more than she
could well bear.

"Rhys," she said, "I know all about it. Mr. Evans was telling Turnbull
o' Tuesday evening, an' I heard every word. Don't you go--don't you.
I've come all the way through this lonesome place to ask you." And she
clung to him, imploring. He sat silent for a moment.

"Damnation," he said at last between his teeth.

Mary's tears broke out afresh. "Now you hate me for it, I know," she
sobbed, breaking away and standing before him, a slight wild figure
against the clearing atmosphere. "But oh! how could I help it?"

"Nonsense," said the young man impatiently, "come back and don't be a
fool. I couldn't hate you, and that you know."

"Is that true?" she asked, clasping her hands and fixing her large
eyes on him. The wet mist had made her hair limp and heavy, and a lock
of it showed on her shoulder, under the cloak she had thrown over her
head. Even tears, cold, and wet could not make her anything but an
attractive woman, and he put out his hand and took hers. It was like a
piece of ice.

"You silly wench," he said, pulling her towards him and kissing her.
"Why do you come out like this, catching your death of cold? Not but
what I'm glad you came, all the same, for I don't seem to see you
now-a-days, as I used to. What is it you want me to do?"

"Don't go to the toll-gate wi' them Rebecca people," she begged. "It's
a black business, and oh! if you were to get caught what would they do
to you? Rhys, there's a man in Carmarthen jail that I used to know,
and I've heard tell that they won't let him out for years an' years.
And what would become of me?"

"Mary," he said sharply, "have you told any one of this?"

"Never a soul have I spoken one word to, as God above made me," she
answered. "'Twas likely I'd tell any one, and you in it; why should
you think so bad of me, Rhys? I'd never mistrust you like that. An'
for my own sake----"

He interrupted her with another kiss.

"Don't be angry, my dear, I don't distrust you at all. And I love you
truly, Mary, indeed I do."

"Well then, if you do, you'll promise not to go along with Evans an'
the rest, won't you?" she coaxed, putting her arms round his neck.
"Promise, promise."

"I can't, Mary, I can't, so there's an end of it."

"Very well," she said in a trembling voice, "then good-bye, for I'd
best be going."

She took up a corner of her cloak, and pressed it to her eyes; there
was something infinitely pathetic in the gesture. It was an acceptance
of so much--more even than lay in that one interview.

"Dear, don't you be afraid," said Rhys, "there's not the smallest
chance of any of us being caught. We have it spread all over the
country, that there's to be a fine to-do that night at the gate by the
river, and every constable will be down there and out of our way."

"But the soldiers," said the girl; "they say they're hanging about
everywhere. They'll be pouncing out upon you--mark my words--wi' their
swords an' dreadful things, and, like as not, you'll be killed. Oh,
Rhys! Rhys!"

"The soldiers will all be at the Wye gate with the police, you little
blockhead, if there are any at all."

"Ah! you can't tell."

"Well, if they do come," exclaimed he, with a laugh, "they're not
likely to catch me. If there's a run for it, I fancy I know this
country better than any young fool that ever put on a yeomanry uniform
and thought himself a soldier. Since you know so much, Mary, I may as
well tell you the whole job. I'm to set out for Abergavenny two days
beforehand, but I shan't go there, I shall go to the Dipping-Pool."

"I'm glad of that," she said simply, "for then I'll see you."

"And so," he went on without heeding her, "if the yeomanry should get
wind of it and come down to the gate, I shall have a good mare under
me, and I'll be into Abergavenny before the news of it gets even as
far as Great Masterhouse. There's a man there who will swear to my
having been in his house two days."

"But how do you know they'll keep their mouths shut--them at the
Dipping-Pool, I mean? There's that Watkins, it's anything for talk wi'
him."

He struck his fist on his knee.

"I'll break every bone in his sneaking body if he says a word now or
after, and so I'll tell him. He's frightened out of his life of me as
it is, and I'll scare him still more."

"Oh, Rhys, you're a wild man," she sighed, "and your look makes me
cold when you talk like that. Listen now, you won't hurt my father?
He's an old man, but he's not one o' those to stand by and see his
gate destroyed without a word. I mind him well when he could use his
hands wi' the best."

"I won't lay a finger on him, Mary."

The girl's heart smote her, when she remembered how her father's
danger had weighed on her mind, as she sat waiting for Rhys to come
by. Since seeing him, the old man had become but an afterthought; and
yet, she had always been reckoned a good daughter. But her world had
turned on a different pivot for the last six months. She recognized
that and sat silent.

"You needn't fear about him," continued her companion, observing the
lines of repressed pain round her closed lips.

"I wasn't thinking of that; Rhys, you know what I'm thinking about.
It's not the word for a maid to say to a man, but I must. When--when
is it to be, Rhys?"

He plucked up a piece of grass and turned it over and over in his
fingers before he answered. To say the truth, he had no desire to
marry any one just now. That he loved the girl beside him he could not
deny; that she loved him and had trusted his word completely was a
fact of which he was profoundly aware. Of another fact he was
profoundly aware too, and that was, that, if he were to make her rue
it, he would be a blackguard. He did not want to be a blackguard, and
he hated the thought of her being in trouble; she was good and true
and loving, and she had, in spite of her position, a refined and
delicate beauty he never saw among the girls who made eyes at him in
Llangarth and giggled when he spoke to them. She would look lovely in
the pretty clothes and the surroundings his money would buy for her.
And, as he understood love, he loved her.

But what was she? An inn servant; there was no getting over that. His
mother would be horrified were he to bring back a wife taken from such
a place. For this, it is true, he cared but little, for the antagonism
which had existed in his boyhood between himself and Mrs. Walters had
stayed unchanged. They were on more equal terms, that was all. What he
chose to do he would do. All the same his pride rebelled a little at
the thought of marrying Mary, for he liked making a figure in the eyes
of his neighbours.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke. The horse had ceased cropping
and was pricking his ears; he whinnied softly, so softly that the
sound was hardly more than a gurgle in his throat, but it was enough
to make Rhys spring up and seize him by the bit. He led him down the
sloping side of the old quarry, dragging Mary with him, and the three
stood together at the bottom, Rhys in his shirt-sleeves, holding his
coat over the animal's head. The trot of horses came near as they
waited stock-still and breathless in their shelter; evidently the
riders, whoever they were, would pass very near, and the sound of
voices was audible between them and the direction of the Dipping-Pool.
The horse began to stamp about.

"Mary," whispered Rhys, "they're coming close past us and they must
see this brute. Do you lie down flat by the wall and I'll mount and
meet them. I'll be bound they are lost in the mist and will think I am
in the same plight. I can lead them a bit wide of here, and, when
they're passed, go you home. I'll get on to Masterhouse; it's late,
and I'd have to be leaving you in any case."

"But," she said anxiously, as though there had been no interruption,
"you haven't answered me. Tell me; it's to be soon, oh! isn't it?"

"After the toll-gate business," he answered. She held up her face and
they kissed each other; then he hurried on his coat, threw himself
into the saddle and disappeared over the top of the quarry.

He rode straight to the right across the path by which he judged the
riders to be advancing. As they came upon him, he slackened his pace
and stood, as though irresolute which way to take. The new-comers
pulled up and hailed him. "Hoy! sir!" shouted the foremost of the two.

He turned and saw a man, some years younger than himself, followed by
another, whom at a rapid glance he took to be his servant. The master
seemed little more than a boy; he had a young, fresh face, and curly
hair flattened in rings upon his forehead by the moisture of the air.
He might have stood for an equestrian statue of frank and not too
intellectual youth. The servant carried a valise, and was mounted on
an elderly-looking flea-bitten grey.

"I have lost myself in this infernal mist," observed the young fellow,
coming towards him, as he had hoped, and leaving the quarry on his
left.

"Indeed, sir! So have I," replied Rhys.

"Plague on it for that," he went on, "for now you can't tell me which
way to go."

Walters smiled a little. "I don't know where you are bound for," he
remarked.

The other laughed out.

"Lord! I had forgotten that. Well then, my name is Harry Fenton, and I
am going down to my father's at Waterchurch." He said this all in a
breath, as though anxious to get it out and go on to more, if need be.

"Then you are Squire Fenton's son, of Waterchurch Court," said Rhys,
who had suspected his identity ever since he came in sight.

"Yes, that's who I am. And who are you?"

The social standing of this competent-looking man puzzled him hugely.
Curiosity and admiration, too, struggled within him like dogs on a
leash, while good manners kept a faltering hold on the string. "Excuse
me, sir," he added, reddening, "if I am impertinent."

"Not at all, sir," replied the other; "my name is Rhys Walters." This
information seemed to convey something to the younger man, for he
opened his eyes very wide and looked eagerly at his companion.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "then you are Walters of Great Masterhouse." Then
he reddened again as he remembered that he was talking to a farmer
whom he did not know, and had omitted the "Mister."

"At your service," said Rhys.

"It's surprising to find _you_ lost," observed Harry, treading as
accidentally upon the truth as if it had been a lady's dress.

Rhys smiled, this time internally. Like a devout lover he loved
strategy, even more for herself than for what she might bring him.

"I have heard that you know your way in places where no one else
does," continued young Fenton.

"Masterhouse is so near the mountain that one has to be pretty sharp
these dark nights. But I've been baffled this time. However, I have a
suspicion where we are now. With your leave, sir, I'll go with you for
a little and put you on the right track."

"I should like that very much," said Harry, gratefully, "but my home
and yours lie so far apart that it would be taking you much out of
your road."

"The mist is clearing, so that, when I've left you, I can canter home
in twenty minutes. It will be no trouble."

"Oh, thank you indeed; I am afraid my poor mother will think I am
bogged, or have fallen in with Rebecca; women are always nervous,"
said the boy, with a male air which was entirely lost on Rhys. At the
mention of women his thoughts had flown to the quarry hard by, and he
was anxious to push on and leave the coast clear for Mary's escape.

They went steadily forward, side by side, the elder man steering west
along the plateau, to where the lanes began to run down to Crishowell,
the younger riding unquestioning alongside. The servant jogged quietly
along in the rear.

"That's a good-looking nag you have under you, Mr. Walters," remarked
Harry, when they had gone some way, "and he seems in good condition
too."

Rhys pinched the bay's neck critically.

"Not bad," he said. "Yes, he's a nice little beast. I like him as well
as any I've got."

"Ah," said Harry, "and I suppose you have plenty more like him." He
sighed wistfully, remembering his fellow-traveller's reputed wealth.
He loved horses dearly, but though he was Squire Fenton's eldest son,
the one he was riding represented his whole stud. While there were Bob
and Tom and Llewellyn to be provided for, he had to do as best he
could with one, and Bob and Tom and Llewellyn shared his tastes. Not
that he grudged his brothers anything, for he was much too generous,
but he could not help envying the man beside him. He wished, too, that
he had something to serve as a yeomanry charger besides his own horse,
for, by all accounts, there would be work soon. That was what was
bringing him home.

"There have been tremendous doings at Carmarthen," he remarked, after
a pause.

"Yes," said Rhys, quietly, "and I suppose we shall soon see the same
here. I believe the yeomanry are to come out too. There's a great raid
pending in these parts."

"That's what I have come down for," replied his companion, a glow of
interest rising in his face. "They'll have us out at last, and I hope
we shall get some fun for our pains. Have you heard much about it?"

"It's a good deal talked of. They talk too much, these rioters,"
replied Rhys with a short laugh, riding up closer to Fenton. "Never
you mind, sir, how I know it, but know it I do. It's to take place
before long, and it's to be the Wye gate, down by the river at
Llangarth."

"By Gad! is it? Well, we'll come out as strong as we can and be a
match for the whole crew. You are a yeomanry man, aren't you?"

"No, I am not. Though I have often thought----"

"Ah, but you'll come out, surely Mr. Walters!" interrupted Harry,
cutting the sentence short, "a man like you, with the Lord knows how
many horses and men!"

"I should dearly like it," answered Rhys, "but I am going to
Abergavenny very soon, and I cannot tell when I may have to be off.
It's an urgent matter. It may just fall out that I'm at Abergavenny
when I most want to be here; and I can't put it off either, or go till
I'm sent for."

"What a monstrous pity!" There was vexation in Harry's voice. Besides
his zeal for law and order as exemplified by fighting and pursuing, he
was strongly attracted by this man and longed to see more of him.

They had come down the side of a straggling thorn hedge, and now, at
its angle, they halted by a gate.

"Now," said Rhys, "this lane will take you down into Crishowell.
There's no mist below, if I know anything, and you'll see your way to
Waterchurch easily. So here we will part."

The boy held out his hand.

"A thousand thanks for your company," he said cordially. "And you
won't fail us if you can help it, will you?"

"If it's possible to be there, I'll be there somehow," was the reply.

And in that Rhys Walters spoke truth.



CHAPTER V

REBECCA

AS though to drop connection with its predecessor and to start the
world afresh, the new year brought a change of weather. The wind,
which for some time had lain in the south-west, was veering round to
the east, and the sodden earth was drying herself rapidly. Rheumatism
was becoming a less general theme for conversation in Crishowell, and
people's clothes were again seen hanging out to dry in gardens.
Forlorn-looking strings, which had stretched nakedly from pole to
pole, now upheld smocks, petticoats, and well-patched trouser-legs,
whose active prancings in the breeze almost made the spectators' legs
leap in sympathy. Four or five old men, whose goings-out and
comings-in gauged the state of the barometer as accurately as if they
had been occupants of pasteboard "weather-houses," were to be met
about; and Bumpett, the pig-driver, whose excursions into foreign
parts a few miles away made him an authority on all matters, opined
that a frost was not far off. He also added that the roads would be
"crewell hard" by the Wye toll-gate, and that we "should see what we
should see." This information made the women look mysterious and snub
those of their sex who had not been observed in talk with the great
man; the men said less, though they smoked their pipes in a more
chastened manner.

Meanwhile, the storm which had been brewed over the Dipping-Pool fire
was ready to burst.

In a steep upland lane, about nine o'clock one evening, a little band
of horsemen was coming quietly down towards the valley. The high banks
crowned with ragged hazel on either hand and the darkness around (for
the moon was not due for an hour or so) made it difficult to
distinguish who or what they were. As gaps in the bank let in a little
extra illumination, and stars began to assert themselves over the
dispersing clouds, it could be seen that they were about twenty-five
in number, and that all, with one exception, wore masks. They were
fairly well mounted, and the strange person who kept a few yards ahead
of the rest rode an animal which any one, knowing even a little about
a horse, would have picked out at a glance. She was a liver-chestnut
mare just under sixteen hands, with a shoulder such as was rarely to
be found in the motley crowd of horseflesh at local fairs. Youth and a
trifle of inexperience were noticeable in her among the sober-stepping
and sturdy beasts following, and she mouthed her ring-snaffle as she
went. Her long bang tail swung at each stride, and her length of
pastern gave her pace an elasticity like that of a Spanish dancer.

But if the mare was a remarkable figure in the little procession, her
rider was immeasurably more so, being, apparently, the tallest female
who had ever sat in a saddle. Her long cloak and voluminous brown
skirt fell in a dark mass against the beast's sides, giving her figure
a seeming length and height double that of any of her companions. On
her head she wore a large sun-bonnet, tied securely over a shock of
hair which looked false even in the scant light; the lower part of her
face was muffled in her cloak, so that but little feature could be
seen. The strange woman rode astride, and, as an occasional puff of
wind lifted her skirt, it revealed leggings and boots; one lean, brown
hand on the rein was visible under the concealing drapery, and the
other carried a heavy thorn stick. From under the shock of hair looked
the eyes of Rhys Walters.

The whole company was formed of the same material which had met in the
inn kitchen the day after Christmas, with several additions and with
the exception of Johnny Watkins, whose heart had failed him at the
last moment, and of Charley Turnbull, who was nowhere to be seen.
Hosea Evans was there, unrecognizable in his black mask and cropped
whiskers, for he had parted with a portion of these adornments,
fearing that they might betray him. He had hesitated to shave
entirely, lest people should be too curious about his reasons for
doing so, and had merely trimmed them into less conspicuous limits
with the scissors.

Every one was armed in some fashion or another. Sticks were the
principal weapons, though two or three carried pitchforks, and one of
the more ambitious spirits displayed an antiquated horse-pistol which
he would have been sorely put about to fire. A few of Rebecca's
followers were afoot, and had brought with them a crowbar and a couple
of serviceable mallets. These went more slowly behind the horses.

The element of burlesque which pervaded the affair was not lost upon
Rhys, and it cooled him a little as he rode along, to think what a
ridiculous troop he was heading. His own garments, too, offended him
greatly, and he would have discarded them at the beginning, had he not
been sure that some one else would have put them on, and, with them,
assumed leadership of the band. He secretly determined to get rid of
them as best he might, when the night's work should begin.

Crishowell village was in the centre of a loop which the Brecon road
made round it, and when the first few lights it contained at that hour
were visible in front, the party turned into the fields, avoiding its
vicinity and straggling along by hedges and by such cover as was
available. The highway lay like a grey ribbon in the starlight, and
they had the good fortune to cross it without meeting a human being;
only a prowling fox sneaked up one of the ditches as they passed. They
then entered the lane which opened before them, and, down it, made for
the other side of the loop, for there, just at its end, stood the
toll.

At a bend of the way, Walters ran into a rider who was coming to meet
them, and the sudden stop which this caused in the narrow place had
the effect of bringing every one smartly up against his predecessor's
tail. As the new-comer was caught sight of by the huddled-up pack, a
loud laugh burst from all and made the empty lane ring.

"Be quiet," cried Rhys angrily, under his breath. "You fools! can't
you keep from waking the whole place with your noise? Good God! what
sort of a tom-fool have we here?"

Before the astonished young man stood a travesty of himself, dress,
dark cloak, sun-bonnet, and all, the only additions being a mask and a
white woollen comforter, one end of which hung down over a substantial
back. The rotund cheeks of its wearer swelled out the bonnet, the
strings of which were drawn almost to suffocation. The voice of
Charley Turnbull escaped, with apparent difficulty, from these
surroundings.

Since the evening at the Dipping-Pool, Turnbull had been in a state of
the most cruel and poignant distress. Steven's remark had brought home
to him, too late, the truth that women's clothes would be a more
effectual disguise than all the masks and mufflers in the world; with
keen vexation he realized that he had overlooked that. The police's
likelihood to pursue the ringleader at all costs was nothing to him,
for he was a man of few ideas, and liable, when he had one, to make
the most of it, to the exclusion of all others. That sentence,
"Woman's clothing be a fine protection," rang in his ears from morning
till night, and, what was worse, from night till morning.

As the days rolled on his agony increased. Often he was on the verge
of breaking out of the project altogether, but thoughts of the jeers
which would assail him robbed him even of the courage to do that.
Finally, he came upon a plan to meet his difficulties, the result of
which now brought him face to face with Rebecca and thus attired.

"Here I am, Mr. Walters, sir," he began, "and I hope you won't take it
ill o' me that I be come lookin' so like yourself. You see, it were
this way. I says to myself, I says----"

"Come on, come on," interrupted Rhys, "we must be moving. And be quiet
behind there, if you can. We are getting near the road."

"I says to myself," went on Turnbull, keeping abreast of the mare's
walk at the risk of being jogged to pieces, "there's Mrs. Walters, I
says, a God-fearing lady as ever stepped. What would she do if aught
was to happen to you, sir? Ah, Master Rhys, we must think o' them at
home. So then, I thought this way--if there be two of us, them as be
after us won't know who to get hold on, they won't indeed. So you
see----"

"Yes, yes, I understand," exclaimed the other, exasperated beyond
bearing; "for God's sake, get behind and let me be. We're pretty nigh
in sight of the lane's end."

A little way down the Brecon road, not more than a couple of furlongs
off, rose the dark mass of the toll-house, its slates here and there
catching the starlight. Indistinct black bars could be seen crossing
the highway; above them burned the steady flame of the toll-gate
light.

It was perfectly still, and not a footstep was to be heard coming or
going as Rhys pulled up. Several of the men, small farmers
principally, crowded round; their hearts were in the matter, and their
eager faces looked steadfastly towards him through the fog of horses'
breath which the fast-approaching frost was making. To them the matter
was sober earnest, and they meant to see it through to the end; the
burlesque view of it occurred to them not at all. Those with the
mallets and crowbar pressed up.

"Give me a stone, Price."

One of the men picked up a flint. Rhys took it and turned in his
saddle; he was getting excited himself. "Come after me down the
grass," he said, "and when you see the light go out, fall to."

They cantered down the roadside to within a few yards of the
toll-house, and paused.

Then they saw Rebecca's cloaked arm go up, a stone whizzed through the
air, there was a smash of splintering glass, and the light went out.

     *   *   *   *   *   *

At the same time another little body of horse and foot was gathered in
no very patient frame of mind a couple of miles off. The Wye toll-gate
in Llangarth stood at the beginning of the great bridge spanning the
river on the north side of the town, and, as it had been rumoured that
Rebecca was to make her descent upon that place, all the police
available were waiting there on foot as well as about twenty horsemen
picked from the flower of the Hereford yeomanry.

The latter were cooling their heels in the courtyard of the Bull Inn,
which stood a little back from the street, while the police hung in a
group round the side door of that establishment, some member of the
force now and then moving off to look up the road for sign of the
approaching rioters or for anything to break the monotony of their
vigil. For six nights now they had been assembled in the same place
with no more exciting termination than being marched to the Police
Station and dismissed in the early morning, and they were getting
heartily tired of the experience. An occasional stamp from a horse or
a long-drawn yawn from one of the men was heard above the soft steady
roar of the Wye, which was shallow below the bridge and purred like a
contented animal over the shingle. The landlady looked out of a back
window on her way to bed, holding her hand before the tallow-candle
she carried. The light shone red through her fingers as she glanced
out upon the gallant figure of Harry Fenton, whose smart uniform
showed plainly in the glow streaming from the inn door upon the yard.
It was the first time she had ever seen him, as Waterchurch lay some
way off, and he had been much from home of late years.

Quarter to ten sounded from Llangarth Church, and a sergeant of police
went to have another look up the quiet street. Harry gave his horse to
the man next him to hold and strolled after him, the landlady at the
window admiring the clank of his sword and the attractive jingle he
made as he went.

As the two men stood at the corner, the silence of the street was
broken by an uneven clattering, and a boy, much out of breath and
weighted by an extremely heavy pair of country boots, came rushing
towards them over the cobbles. Harry caught him as he was about to
pass the courtyard. The boy tried to speak, but for want of breath was
obliged to desist.

"Who is he?" asked Harry of the sergeant.

The policeman took him by the shoulder and turned him round as
unceremoniously as if he had been a spinning-top, displaying the
purple face of a boy about eleven years old.

"You're Howell Seaborne, as works for the parson of Crishowell, aren't
you?" said the man. "Howlie, they call him, sir."

"Ya'as a' be. Can't you leave oi alone, 'stead o' shoikin' that woy?"

"Wait a minute, give him breath," said young Fenton.

The boy turned a pair of light, prominent eyes on the speaker, and, at
the same time, saw his uniform and the soldiers in the yard. He thrust
a grimy forefinger towards them.

"It's them oi be come for!" he exclaimed, as he regained his wind. "Oi
were down in Crishowell Loine, doin' no 'arm, and oi see them
comin'--comin' all of a string wi' sticks an' guns----"

"But who? What?"

"Fifty men roiding an' a great woman."

"When? Where?" cried Harry, catching hold of him much more roughly
than the sergeant had done.

"Yew're 'urtin' me, sir," whined the boy. "Oi shan't tell nothin' till
yew leave go."

Fenton took away his hand with a gesture of irritation. "Come on, no
nonsense," he said, "tell me at once, where were you?"

"Down in the loine by Crishowell. They be all gone down to the goite
on the Brecon road; an' oi've been runnin' fit to burst to fetch the
soljers. It's Rebecca, it is."

In two minutes the yeomanry were dashing out of the court, the police
holding by the soldiers' stirrups, meaning to keep up with them as
long as they could, and to drop off when the pace should become too
much for them. The boy flattened himself against the wall as they went
by. When they were round the corner, he tied up a loose bootlace and
looked about him. Then he went to a pump which stood on one side and
jerked the handle; a stream of water flowed out as he put his head
underneath and let it run copiously over his face. He had large front
teeth and a retreating chin, and, in the cascade, he looked not unlike
a drowning rabbit. When he had finished, he snuffled two or three
times, rubbed his countenance with his coat-sleeve, and set out from
the Bull yard at a steady jog-trot. How he could run at all in the
boots he wore was a mystery, but long practice, no doubt, had made it
possible.

When the soldiers had turned along the road to Brecon and got clear of
the town, the police had, one by one, succumbed to the pace and might
be seen upon the highway in threes and fours, stepping out as best
they might.

The riders kept to the grass as Rhys had done, partly to muffle the
sound of hoofs, and partly because the roads were fast hardening, and
in some places had become actually slippery. The little wind there was
was beginning to sting their ears, and the stars above to flash in the
frost. The clouds had rolled completely off and lay in a dark bank
along the western horizon; the night got gradually lighter. Harry and
a senior officer rode a little ahead, neither saying a word to the
other; their eyes were fixed on the stretch of road in front, and they
breathed hard. Far behind, the constables pressed along with that
hopeless feeling in their legs which the sight of retreating horses
creates. Last of all toiled Howlie Seaborne in his big boots.

As Harry and his companion came round a slight bend, a sound, which,
so far, had been but an unintelligible vibration, struck on their ears
with meaning. The blows of heavy mallets were distinct, though the
wind went from them to the dark mass which surged and swayed over the
road in front. Lights were flashing from the toll-house, and the
voices of men rose and fell above the noise of struggling hoofs. The
two officers took their horses by the heads and drove in their spurs.

"Fenton," said the elder man as they separated a few minutes later, in
the midst of the mob, "whatever we do, let us get Rebecca."

By the time the yeomanry arrived, the little crowd which had seen Rhys
put out the light had swelled considerably, and people, hearing the
noise, had rushed from neighbouring cottages, catching up pitchforks
or any weapons they could lay hands upon. A brisk fight was in full
swing; Rhys' blood was up, and he had torn off the sun-bonnet and his
voluminous garments and turned his high coat collar up over the lower
part of his face. The false hair, which had been so securely fastened
that it had refused to come off with his headgear, hung low over his
eyes, giving him a wild appearance which fitted his violent gestures
and the tumultuous scene around him.

When Harry came up and saw him in the thick of the struggle, never for
one moment did he suspect that the rebel before him was the man who
had ridden with him through the mist scarcely a week before. As his
friend's injunction about Rebecca reached him he looked eagerly around
for some likeness to a female figure, but could see no trace of any
such person, Charley Turnbull having, as the fight increased,
ensconced himself safely behind an outhouse, where he stood unseen but
ready to fly at any moment.

The rioters had been so much taken up with their work, and the turmoil
had been so great, that it was as though a bolt were falling on them
from heaven when they saw the yeomanry coming. Five or six of the
mounted assailants had been forming a protection for those who were
engaged in breaking up the gate with their tools, and among these was
Rhys, with Hosea beside him. As their opponents charged at them and
tried to dislodge them with their pitchforks, he leaned down from the
young mare's back and dealt sounding blows right and left. Blood was
running from a wound in his knee, but he cared nothing for that, for
the rage for fight was in his heart as he laid about him, the mare
plunging now and then and forcing back the press before her.

Among those who were valiantly protecting the toll was Mary Vaughan's
father, the toll-keeper, a tall white-haired old man, whose great
height and flowing beard made him a central figure in the mob. He had
stood in front of his gate until overpowering numbers had forced him
from his place, and now was charging bravely at Walters and his
followers. Suddenly a cry rose from the defenders, "The soldiers! The
soldiers!" and Rhys saw his men waver for a moment at the sound. "One
more," he shouted to those with the mallets. "Down with the gate!"

There was now only one post left standing, and the insurgents turned
upon it at his cry for a last blow before they should scatter in front
of the impending yeomanry and take to the country. The toll-keeper,
dropping his pitchfork, threw himself like a game old bull-dog upon
Rhys' foot and tried to drag him from the saddle. Hosea gave a shout
as Rhys turned round. The two men's arms whirled simultaneously in the
air, and two violent blows descended upon Vaughan; as Rhys struck out,
a lump of mud and stone whizzed sharply in his face, and his stick
came down upon the toll-keeper's shoulder. Evans' blow struck him full
on his grey head, and, with a groan, the old man fell, as he had
stood, at the foot of his shattered gate-post.

Hosea saw what he had done and was seized with terror, but his native
cunning did not desert him; the advantage of Rhys' near presence was
plain. "Oh, Mr. Walters, you have killed him," he cried loudly.

It was all the work of a moment. Rhys dashed the mud from his eyes and
saw the senseless heap on the ground before him; and behind, two or
three yeomen who were fighting their way towards him. With an oath, he
sprang desperately through the mob and turned the mare's head straight
for the Black Mountain.



CHAPTER VI

A DEAD MAN AND A LIVE COWARD

WHILE Harry's brother officer was leaning over the dead man on the
ground, Charley Turnbull was in terrible difficulties in an adjacent
field behind the toll-house. As he heard the sound of hoofs he guessed
that the yeomanry was coming up, and he stole, with a trembling heart,
across the grass to where a gap in the hedge promised safe egress on
to the Brecon road. If he could but reach it without being seen, he
would have a good furlong's start. The gates from field to field were
locked, he knew, and, being so, presented insurmountable obstacles to
a man of his temperament. He urged his old black horse along as
silently as he could, trying the while to unfasten the strings of his
bonnet, which, in truth, were almost choking him; but his fingers
shook, and his heart beat so violently that he felt almost as if it
would throw him from his unaccustomed saddle. Turnbull never rode if
he could help it.

As he reached the gap he left off pulling at his sun-bonnet, for he
needed both hands with which to hold on to the reins. The horse cocked
his ears, blew a long, snorting breath, and seemed anxious to test
with his nose the nature of the difficulty he was asked to meet.
Seeing the little ditch which divided the hedge from the road, he
stuck out his forelegs stiffly in front of him, and snorted yet
louder; he was a large, gross horse, with bunches of hair on his
fetlocks, and his voice tallied with his appearance. Turnbull, in an
agony lest the sound should reach the toll, where things were getting
much quieter, gave him an angry blow. The beast started forward,
pecked, crashed sideways through a stiff bit of wattle on one side of
the gap, and landed by a miracle upon his ample feet in the hardest
part of the road.

The yeomanry officer, while his men were scattered in pursuit of the
rioters, was still giving instructions to the police over Vaughan's
body, when he heard a breaking of wood, and saw Charley's fat figure
coming almost headlong through the gap. Howlie Seaborne, staring
round-eyed at the scene by the gate, looked up on hearing the sound.
The long trot from the courtyard of the Bull Inn had told somewhat
upon his appearance, which was a little more dishevelled than before.

"There a' be!" he shouted. "There a' be! That be Walters--'im as is
Rebecca! Did yew 'ear Evans a-croin' out?"

The officer knew that Harry was in pursuit of the murderer--whoever he
might be--for he had seen him forcing his way after the big man who
had made towards the hill. He had not heard Hosea's cry, but Howlie's
words were enough; there, at any rate, was the very ringleader of the
band, barely half a furlong off. He mounted quickly.

Charley had just presence of mind enough to pull his horse's head
towards Brecon, to cling with all his strength to the mane till he had
righted himself in the saddle, and to set off at as great a pace as
his underbred beast could muster. All that he could think of was those
clattering hoofs gaining on him from the toll-gate, and his fear of
the animal under him was as nothing to his fear of the man behind.
Where he should make for he neither knew nor cared; flight--blessed
flight--that was all that his scattered senses could picture. Again
and again he struck his horse; use his heels he could not, for the
simple reason that his wide skirt had got entangled in the stirrups as
he came through the gap, and held his legs firmly bound to the
leathers. Half-a-mile had not passed before his pace began to slacken,
and, thrash as he might, he could not get the black horse to keep up
the gallop at which he had started. Besides, he was getting breathless
himself. The rider behind shot alongside, shouting to some one yet in
the rear, and a strong hand jerked the bridle out of his convulsive
grasp.

"I've got him!" cried the yeomanry captain exultantly to his follower
as they pulled up, "Sergeant, jump off and have him out of the saddle.
It's Walters of Great Masterhouse--I thought he was a better horseman
than that!"

The sergeant dismounted and seized the prisoner round the waist, but
he clung like a limpet to the horse's neck. Finally, a strong pull
brought him heavily down in the road. Both man and officer burst into
a peal of laughter.

"Sir, sir," said the stifled voice from the ground, "I swear to
Heaven, sir, I be'ant he. Indeed, indeed, I were just pushed sore
against my will into this night's work."

"Who is the fellow?" asked the captain, when he had finished laughing.
"The boy said he was Walters."

The sergeant took out a knife and ripped the bonnet-strings apart;
mask and bonnet fell together.

"It's Charles Turnbull, sir," he said, grinning widely. "Turnbull the
auctioneer at Waterchurch village."

"Are you sure it's not Walters?" said the captain, who had never seen
Rhys.

"No, no, sir, indeed I be'ant," cried the auctioneer, scrambling to
his feet, and stumbling helplessly in the skirt. "Rhys Walters o'
Masterhouse was dressed the same as me, but he's off. Riding for his
neck he is. I never struck a blow, sir, that I didn't, for I were
behind the toll-house, lookin' on, and I says to myself----"

"That'll do," said the captain shortly. "Now then, sergeant, up with
him again; you can leave his clothes as they are, for the police will
want to see all that. Pick up that thing on the ground."

The sergeant picked up the sun-bonnet with another grin, and then
hoisted Turnbull into the saddle.

"You can pull the reins over the horse's head and lead him," said the
officer, "he is not likely to try and escape. He hasn't got courage
enough even for that. And now for the lock-up at Llangarth."

As the three started to retrace their steps towards the town, the bell
from the church steeple rang out half-past ten; the sound floated out
in their direction, for the chill east wind carried it sharply along
the highway. The captain turned up the collar of his cloak, and wished
that he were at home in his comfortable quarters with the blankets
snugly over him. To trot was out of the question, for the auctioneer,
having no reins to hold on by, and possessing no other means of
securing himself on horseback, would inevitably come to grief, while
he, the officer, was now responsible for his safety until he should
deliver him into other hands at Llangarth. The sergeant hooked
Turnbull's reins over his arm, and blew upon his unoccupied fingers.

"It's getting mighty cold, sir," he hazarded.

"We can't get on any faster with this bundle of old clothes to look
after," said the captain crossly; "if you keep your mouth shut, the
cold won't go down your throat."

His temper was not improved by the prospect of the next couple of
miles at a foot's pace, and the toll was only just coming in sight.
The road between them and it was dull and straight, and seemed
interminable to two of the riders, Turnbull alone having no great
desire to get to the end of the journey.

A deathly silence surrounded the ruins of the gate as they reached it
at last, and only a couple of figures were moving near the house in
that odd, diffused light which precedes moonrise, and which was
beginning to touch up the eastern sky. To one of these, which proved
on inspection to be Howlie Seaborne, the captain gave his reins as he
dismounted. A light could be seen burning through the diamond-paned
window. He put his foot on the plinth and looked in, but a half-drawn
dimity curtain, and a pot in which a geranium was struggling for life,
prevented his seeing what was passing inside. Stepping down again, he
turned to the door, and, as it was ajar, pushed it softly open and
went in. After one look at the room he removed his busby, and stood
holding it in his hand.

A low bedstead made of unpolished wood had been drawn into the middle
of the floor. The patchwork quilt which covered it trailed upon the
carpetless flags, and had evidently been brought in a hurry from some
more pretentious bed to spread upon this one. Upon it was the dead
figure of the toll-keeper. He lay there waiting for the arrival of a
magistrate from Llangarth, straight and still, as he would lie waiting
for that other Judge who would one day come to judge his cause. He had
wrought well, and his hands, laid simply by his sides, were still
clenched. A dark bruise on his left temple from which the blood had
oozed made a purple patch on his white, set face. His hair, grey,
though abundant, was stained with blood; a pair of strong boots were
on his feet, and the pipe he had just been smoking when he rushed out
to meet the rioters was still in his pocket. Near him was the stick he
had caught up from its corner by the door as he went, for a constable
had found it by his body on the road and had brought it in. It had
left its mark upon several skins that night.

Vaughan was a widower, his wife having been dead some years, but one
of those nondescript female relations who rise up to stop gaps in the
lives of the poor was in the house, and, as the yeomanry officer came
in, she was blowing up the flickering fire with a pair of brass-bound
bellows. A constable who had been left to watch the body sat in the
background.

The captain stood silent, his shadow cast by the spasmodic firelight
almost filling the small room. Everything was so still; the sound of
the bellows jarred on the stillness; the trivial, persistent noise was
like an insult to the presence which was there. He turned sternly to
the woman at the hearth; her elbow rose and fell as she looked at him
over her shoulder, the flames playing on the outline of her face. The
constable in the distance coughed and spat.

A rush of sharp air came in at the door, and the bellows faltered for
a moment, then went on again with redoubled vigour. The woman nodded
towards the threshold.

"That be she--his daughter," she explained as she turned again to the
fire.

The soldier drew reverently back as a girl entered and sprang past
him. She sat down on the flags by the bedside and took the dead man's
hand in her own two hands. Not a tear was in her eyes; she only gasped
like a trapped animal, and the man listening could see how her lips
opened and shut. The sound of the bellows drowned everything. He
strode to the hearth and shook the woman violently by the arm. "For
God's sake, put away that infernal thing," he said.

She rose from her knees and hung up the bellows in the chimney-corner,
the fire-irons clattering as she searched about among them for the
hook. When he looked round again he saw that the girl had fainted and
was lying face downwards on the floor.

He turned to the bellows-blower, who, now that her occupation had
ended, was standing idle by the fire; she took but little heed of what
had happened.

"You had better do something for her," he suggested after a pause.
"Isn't there another room that we could take her to? Poor thing, I can
carry her there."

"She's a shameless wench," said the woman without moving.

He went to the bedside and raised Mary in his arms. "Go on," he
ordered, nodding decisively towards the door at the back of the room,
and the woman went sullenly forward, while he followed with his
burden.

He laid the girl in a large wooden chair which was almost the only
piece of furniture to be seen. Kneeling by her, he rubbed her palms
until her eyelids opened vacantly, and she tried to sit up. As
recollection dawned in her eyes she gave a sob, hiding her face.

"He's dead, he's dead," she murmured more to herself than to her
companions.

"Aye, he be dead," responded the elder woman in her uncompromising
voice, "and afore you've had time to bring him to disgrace too."

"Sir, sir," faltered Mary, turning to the captain, "how was it?
How----?"

"Rhys Walters did it," interrupted the woman shortly, "he killed him.
Ah--he'll swing for it yet."

Mary got up like a blind person. Her hands were stretched out before
her, and she walked straight to the wall till her face touched it. She
put up her arms against it, and stood there like an image; only her
two hands beat slowly upon the whitewashed stone.

"'Twould be well if she had a ring on one o' they hands o' hers,"
observed the woman.

The scene was so painful that the man who was a participator in it
could endure it no longer. Pity for the dead man who lay in the
dignity of a death bravely come by, was swallowed up in pity for the
poor young creature before him. One had faced death, the other had yet
to face life. The two little hands beating against the wall, the hard,
stupid face of the woman, the cheerless room, all were too horrible to
a man of his disposition to be gone through with any longer. He could
do nothing for Mary if he stayed, though he could not help feeling
cowardly at leaving her to face the first moments of her grief with
such a companion. A flutter of icy wind came through a broken pane
near him, and his horse out in the road stamped once or twice; his
mind ran towards the inn at Llangarth, and he thought of the bright,
warm light in the bar.

"Here," he said, holding out half-a-sovereign to the woman, "and mind
you look after her."

As he passed through the kitchen where the toll-keeper lay, his eye
fell upon the bellows, and he shuddered. "Poor girl," he said, "poor
wretched girl."

Howlie Seaborne was one of those rare persons whose silences are as
eloquent as their speech. While the owner of the horse he held was in
the toll-house, he stood placidly by its head, his eyes fixed upon the
prisoner's face; he grinned steadily. The formation of his mouth was
unusual, for, while other people's smiles are horizontal, so to speak,
his, owing to his rabbit-teeth, was almost vertical.

At last Turnbull looked angrily at him. "'Twas you cried out I was
Rhys Walters," he said with a malignant glance.

If Howlie heard the words, there was no sign of the fact on his
changeless countenance; his one idea appeared to be to see as much of
the auctioneer as he could.

"I'll remember this some day," continued Turnbull; "do ye mind the
hiding I gave ye at Crishowell auction last year? Well, ye'll get
another o' the same sort."

"Oi do," replied Howlie, his words leaving his grin intact; "if oi
hadn't, yew moightn't be a-settin' up there loike a poor zany, an' on
yew're road to the joil."

Turnbull grew purple. "I'll do for ye yet," he said thickly.

At this moment the officer came out and got on his horse, throwing a
copper to the boy as he let the bridle go.

"You're a young fool, for all that," he observed as the coin rang upon
the road; "_that's_ not Walters of Masterhouse."

"Naw," answered Howlie, his gaze still fixed upon the auctioneer.

As the three men rode on towards Llangarth his boots could be heard
toiling heavily up Crishowell Lane.



CHAPTER VII

TO ABERGAVENNY

THAT the toll-gate raid would end in a murder was the last thing
expected by Rhys. In all the riots which had taken place since the
beginning, nothing worse had happened than broken limbs and bruised
bodies, such having been the luck of Rebecca and her followers that
only a few captures of unimportant hangers-on had been made. Indeed,
it is likely that without Howlie's unseasonable prowlings and
recognition of his adversary Turnbull, and his determination to pay
off old scores, the matter might have had no greater consequences than
the terrifying of society in general and the building up of a new
gate.

As Rhys took the young mare by the head, and turned out of the crowd,
a man who had been some way from Hosea when he shouted, was so much
demoralized by the cry, that his hand, almost on one of the rioters'
collars, dropped to his side. In a flash there came back to Harry
Fenton the evening he had strayed in the mist round the spurs of the
Black Mountain, and his eyes were opened. This tall, shock-headed
figure which was scattering the people right and left as it made for
Crishowell Lane was the man he had ridden beside and talked to so
frankly in the innocence of his soul. With wrath he remembered how
much he had admired his companion, and how apparent he had allowed his
interest to become. He had returned home full of talk about his new
acquaintance, his good-nature in turning out of his road for a
stranger, his fine seat on horseback, and now it made the boy's face
hot to think how Rhys must have laughed in his sleeve as his victim
had fallen into the trap laid for him. He had been put on the wrong
scent by the very ringleader of the mischief he had come so far to
help in preventing. His wounded vanity ached; he had been tricked,
bested, mocked, deceived. There was only one solace for him, and that
was action, action which would not only be his refuge, but his bounden
duty. He almost jerked the bit out of his horse's mouth as he wrenched
his head round and shot after his enemy, through the crowd and up the
resounding highway on the young mare's heels.

Rhys' start was not great--about fifty yards--and Harry thought with
satisfaction that he was better mounted than usual. His brother
Llewellyn had lent him his horse, one lately bought, and the best that
either of the young men had ever had. As long as the animal under him
could go, so long would he never lose sight of that devil in front, if
both their necks should break in the attempt. He would give Llewellyn
anything, everything--all he possessed or ever would possess--if he
might only lay hands on the man who had cheated him and whose high
shoulders now blocked his view of the starlit horizon which seemed to
lie just at the end of the open highway.

Rhys swung into the lane, and, once between the hedges, he drove in
his heels; the road turned a corner a short way ahead, and he wanted
to get round it while he had the lead of Harry. Further on there was a
thin place in the hazels on his left, and he meant to get in on the
grass, though in reality it took him out of his direct route to the
mountain. But the going would be softer, and there was the chance of
entangling his enemy in the geography of the trappy little fields.

He did not know which of the uniformed figures that had poured down to
the gate was on his track, but he felt an absolute consciousness that
the man behind was as determined to ride as he was himself, and he
suspected who that man might be. As he came to the bend he looked back
to make sure. He could not tell in the uncertain light, but he saw it
was war to the knife; every line of the rider's figure told him that.
He turned the mare short and put her at the bank; that it was not
sound he knew, but the hedge let through a gleam of standing water,
and there was not enough resistance in it to turn her over if she made
a mistake. She scrambled through, loosening clods of earth with her
heels, but the good turf was on the further side, and she got through
with a clatter of stones and wattle. They struck to the right across a
field, and, when they were well out in the middle, Rhys saw that Harry
had landed without losing ground, and he settled himself down to a
steady gallop. As he reflected that his goal was nothing less than
Abergavenny, and thought of the distance lying before him, he knew
that his best plan was to hustle his pursuer while they were in the
valley, and trust to his knowledge of hill tracks and precipices when
they had left the pastures behind. It would not be a question of pace
up there. All the same, fifteen long miles were in front of him, and
behind him--manslaughter.

Directly in his way some hundred yards ahead a wide dark patch
stretched across the meadow. He knew it to be a piece of boggy ground
deep enough to embarrass a horseman, and too well fed by a spring
below to freeze, but he also knew the precise spot at which it could
be crossed without difficulty. The recent wet weather had made it
bigger than usual, and he headed for it, hoping that Fenton would
choose a bad bit, and at least take something out of his horse in the
heavy clay. In he went, knowing that where there were rushes there was
foothold, and keeping his eye on a battered willow-stump which stood
like a lighthouse at the further border of the little swamp. A snipe
rose from under his feet, a flash of dark lightning whirling in the
greyness of the atmosphere. He was through and making steadily for the
line of hedge before him.

But Harry had not hunted for nothing; ever since his earliest boyhood
he had followed hounds on whatever he could get to carry him, and long
years of riding inferior beasts had taught him many things. He had
never possessed a really perfect hunter in his life, and he was
accustomed to saving his animals by every possible means; mad with
excitement as he was, he instinctively noticed the odd bit of ground,
and pulled straight into the mare's tracks. Walters, looking back from
an open gate through which he was racing, ground his teeth as he saw
how well he had steered his enemy.

Soon the ground began to slope away, and Rhys knew that they were
getting near the brook running only a few fields from the road. Just
beyond it was Crishowell village, and the land would ascend sharply as
soon as they had left the last cottage behind.

The Digedi brook was as unlike the flag-bordered trout-stream of the
midlands as one piece of water can be to another, for it rose far up
in the Black Mountain near the pass by which Walters hoped to reach
Abergavenny, and, after a rapid descent to the valley, passed the
village, circling wantonly through the pastures to cross Crishowell
Lane under a bridge. There was hardly a yard in its career at which
its loud voice was not audible, for the bed was solid rock, and the
little falls, scarce a foot high, by which it descended to the lower
levels, called ceaselessly among the stones. The water-ousel nested
there in spring, and wagtails curtseyed fantastically by the brink. In
summer it was all babble, light, motion, and waving leaves. As the
young man came down the grass, he saw the line of bare bushes which
fringed it, and heard the pigmy roar of one of the falls. Flat slabs
of rock hemmed it in, jutting into the water and enclosing the dark
pool into which it emptied itself. On an ordinary occasion he would
have picked his way through the slippery bits and let his horse
arrange the crossing as his instinct suggested, but he had no time for
that now. He took the mare by the head, and came down the slope as
hard as he could towards a place just above the fall. He saw the white
horseshoe foaming under him as they cleared it and the boulders on the
edge, and he smiled grimly as he pictured Fenton's horse possibly
stumbling about among the rocks. He made straight for the highway, the
mare's blood was up, and she took the big intervening hedges like a
deer.

They were now on the road, and he pulled up for a moment to listen for
any sign of his pursuer, but there was no other sound than the barking
of a dog in Crishowell. The slippery boulders had probably delayed
Harry. He cantered on steadily past the village with its few lighted
windows; as the barking had raised a reply from every dog's throat in
the place, no one heard him till he had passed the last outlying
house, and he made for the steep lane leading up to where he had
parted with Fenton on the night of their first meeting.

It was highly unlikely that he would come across any one at that time
of night, for the Crishowell people went early to rest, like all
agricultural characters, and the news of Rebecca's attack on the toll
could hardly have reached them yet. Now that he had time to think a
little, he began to realize the full horror of the thing that had
happened. He had killed a man; worse, he had killed Mary's father;
worse still, it was known that he had done so. Curse Hosea! curse him!
Why had he been such a madman as to shout out his name? No one need
have identified him but for the innkeeper's crass folly. What he was
going to do he knew not, beyond that he must make for Abergavenny,
where he might possibly lie hidden for a time till he could devise
some means of leaving the country. Poor little Mary too, his heart
smote him as he thought of her; in one hour she had been robbed of her
father, and was losing her lover--losing him as every beat of the
mare's hoofs carried him further away towards the great lone mountain
that he had to cross that night somehow. He hoped the wet places up
there would not have frozen over before he got through the pass, for
it was hard underfoot already and the puddles crackled faintly as he
rode over them. Every moment it was getting lighter, and he could see
a piece of the moon's face above the high banks of the lane. He put
his hand down on the mare's shoulder; she was sweating a good deal,
though they had only come a couple of miles at most, but she was raw
and excitable, and had pulled him considerably since they had come
over the brook, taking more out of herself than she need have done.
She had good blood in her--thank Heaven for that--and she would want
it all. He had paid a long price for her, and, if ever money were well
spent, it was then; the young fool behind him was not likely to get
much out of his ride. He pulled up once again, just to make sure that
Harry was nowhere near, standing in the shadow with his hand over his
ear and the mare quivering with excitement under him. Yes, sure
enough, there were galloping hoofs distinct on the stillness of the
sharp night some way below. Fenton was in the lane.

On they went, sparks flying from the flints as the shoes smote hard
upon them. The air grew more chilly as they got higher up and the road
more slippery; Rhys leaned forward, encouraging the mare as she
laboured valiantly up the heart-breaking slope. The banks flew by,
gates, stiles; soon they were passing the ruined cottage that stood
not a hundred yards from the egress to the mountain; he could see the
bare boughs of the apple-trees that tapped against the battered
window-panes.

Suddenly the mare lurched, scraping the earth with her feet, and the
moon seemed to sway in the sky and to be coming down to meet the
hedge. A crash, and she was lying on her off side with Rhys' leg
pinned underneath her. A mark like a slide on the blue, shining ground
showed how the frost was taking firm grip of the world.

She struggled up again before he had time to find out whether he was
hurt or not, and stood over him, shivering with fright. Fortunately
she had hardly touched him in her efforts to rise, as his foot had
come out of the stirrup, and he was able to pick himself up in a few
seconds with a strong feeling of dizziness and an aching pain in his
shoulder. His first idea was to remount as quickly as possible, but,
when he put his foot in the iron, he almost fell back again on the
road. Something hot was running down his face, first in slow drops,
then faster; he could not raise his right shoulder at all, and his arm
felt weary and numb. A gust of wind brought the sound of Harry's
galloping fitfully up the lane, making the mare turn half round to
listen, her nostrils dilated; she seemed quite uninjured. Rhys seized
the stick he had dropped as they fell, and, with it in his available
hand, struck her two violent blows on her quarter. She plunged forward
like a mad creature, and set forth for her stable at Great
Masterhouse.

As she disappeared he dragged himself with great difficulty through
the hedge on his right. Before him the fields fell away
perpendicularly to the valley, and the moon was white on the grass
that lay like a frosty, vapoury sheet round him. He saw a deep ditch
running downward with the land, and had just sense and strength enough
left to stagger towards it, a black, positive silhouette on the
moon-struck unreality of the surrounding world.

As he rolled into it he lost consciousness, and so did not hear Harry
Fenton a minute later as he tore past.



CHAPTER VIII

MASTER AND MAN

A MAN was sitting on the low wall which enclosed the spectre of a
garden trimming a ragged ash-plant into the plain dimensions of a
walking-stick. He worked with the neatness displayed by many
heavy-handed persons whose squarely-tipped fingers never hint at the
dexterity dormant in them.

It was easily seen that, in order to assign him a place in the social
scale, one would have to go a good way down it; nevertheless, he
reflected the facial type of his time as faithfully as any young blood
enveloped in the latest whimsies of fashionable convention, though,
naturally, in a less degree. The man of to-day who looks at a
collection of drawings made in the early nineteenth century can find
the face, with various modifications, everywhere; under the
chimney-pot hat which (to his eye) sits so oddly on the cricketer,
beneath the peaked cap of the mail-coach guard, above the
shirt-sleeves of the artisan with his basket of tools on his back. As
we examine the portraits of a by-gone master, Sir Peter Lely, Joshua
Reynolds--whom you will--we are apt to ask ourselves whether the
painter's hand has not conveyed too much of his own mind to the
canvas, making all sitters so conform to it as to reproduce some
mental trait of his own, like children of one father reproducing a
physical one. Those who find this may forget that there is an
expression proper to each period, and that it runs through the gamut
of society, from the court beauty to the kitchen wench, from the
minister of State to the rat-catcher who keeps the great man's
property purged of such vermin. The comprehensive glance of the man on
the wall as compared with the immobility of his mouth, the wide face
set in flat whiskers which stopped short in a line with the lobe of
his ear, dated him as completely as if he had been a waxwork effigy
set up in a museum with "Early Victorian Period" printed on a placard
at his feet. His name was George Williams, and, in the eye of the law,
he was a hedger and ditcher by occupation; on its blind side, he was
something else as well.

The garden, which formed a background to the stick-maker, was indeed a
sorry place, forming, with the tumble-down cottage it surrounded, a
sort of island in the barren hillside. A shallow stream on its way to
the valley ran by so near the wall, that there was only room for a few
clumps of thistle between it and the water. When the dweller in the
cottage wished to reach civilization, he had to cross a plank to a
disused cart-track making from the uplands down to the village. Hardly
any one but the tenant of this unprofitable estate ever troubled the
ancient way with his presence, but, in spite of this, Williams looked
up expectantly now and then to where it cut the skyline a furlong or
so mountainwards. Behind him the tall weeds which were choking the
potato patch and the gooseberry bushes straggled in the grey forenoon
light, and the hoar-frost clung to a few briars that stretched lean
arms over the bed of the stream.

The cottage was built of stone and boasted a slate roof, though, what
between the gaps showing in it and the stonecrop which covered the
solid parts, there was little slate visible. One could assume that the
walls were thick from the extreme breadth of the window-sills, and the
remote way in which the pane stared out like an eye sunk deep in its
socket. The window on the left of the door was boarded up by a shutter
which had once been green, the other one being nearly as impenetrable
by reason of its distance from the surface. Were any one curious
enough to examine the latter, he might see that it was surprisingly
clean; the place was wild, inhospitable, weed-sown, but not dirty. A
faint column of smoke escaped from one of the squat chimneys which
adorned either end of the roof.

The ash-plant which Williams was trimming had two strong suckers
sticking out of the root. When it was held upside down, the position
in which it would eventually be carried, Nature's intention of making
it the distinct image of a rabbit's head was clear to the meanest
imagination. George's imagination was not altogether mean, and he
whittled away diligently, smiling as the thing grew more life-like in
his hands, and so much absorbed that he gradually forgot to watch the
track and did not see a small figure coming down it till it was within
a few yards of him.

The person arriving on the scene had such a remarkable gait that one
might have singled him out from fifty men, had he been advancing in a
line of his fellow-creatures instead of alone. As he came closer, it
grew odder because the expression of his face could be seen to
counteract the expression of his legs. The latter proclaimed
indecision, while the former shone with a cheerful firmness; looking
at him, one was prepared to see the legs fold inward like an easel, or
widen out like a compass, plunge sideways up the bank, or dive
forwards down the road. For this, as for all other phenomena in this
world, there was a reason. The man had driven pigs for nearly fifty
years of his life.

The healthy red of his cheeks was an advertisement for this
disquieting trade, and his twinkling eyes and slit of a mouth turned
up at the corners as if they had caught something of their appearance
from the pigs themselves. Prosperity cried from every part of James
Bumpett, from the seams of his corduroy trousers to the crown of his
semi-tall hat. He carried a stick, but he did not use it to walk with,
for long habit had made him wave it smartly from side to side.

Williams transferred his legs deferentially from the inside to the
outside of the wall as the old man approached, and stood waiting for
him to come up.

The Pig-driver seated himself beside him and plunged immediately into
his subject.

"Is it aught with the business?" he asked. "I come down at once when I
got your message."

"No," replied the younger man, "it's this way. It's about Mr. Walters
o' Masterhouse. He's there below--an' his head nigh broke." He pointed
backwards to the cottage with his thumb.

"Lord! Lord!" ejaculated Bumpett.

"He told me to send word to you. 'Bumpett,' he says, 'Mr. Bumpett at
Abergavenny; don't you forget,' an' he went off with his head agin my
shoulder. How I got him along here I don't rightly know. He's a
fair-sized man to be hefting about."

The old man looked keenly into George's face.

"What did he want with me?" he inquired.

"Indeed I never thought for to ask him," said Williams simply. "'Twas
two nights ago, I was going up by Red Field Farm to look round a
bit"--here both men's eyes dropped--"and about one o'clock I was nigh
them steep bits o' grazing, an' come straight on to him. Lying down in
the ditch he was, not twenty yards from Crishowell Lane. I didn't know
what to make of it."

"Well, to be sure!" exclaimed Bumpett. "Was it drink?" he asked after
a pause.

"Drink? no!" cried George. "I took a piece of ice from the road and
put it on his head. He come to then. I never saw such a look as he
give me when he saw me, and he fought like a wild beast, that he did,
when he felt my hand on him, though he was as weak as a rabbit when I
got him up. 'Tis plain enough now why, though indeed I did wonder
then. He's done for Vaughan the toll-keeper, too; knocked him stone
dead."

Bumpett stared blankly. For once in his life he was quite taken aback.

"He was out wi' Rebecca," explained Williams. "I guessed that by the
strange hair he had tied all over his head so firm it were hard to get
it loose."

"What did you do with it?" inquired the Pig-driver sharply.

"Brought it with me," said the young man. "Was I to leave it for some
o' they constables to find?"

"Well, indeed," observed Bumpett, "you're a smarter lad than I took ye
for. I don't mind telling ye that I thought to see him along o' me in
Abergavenny by now."

"You've had to tell me a thing or two before this," said George rather
sullenly.

"Ye've told no one?" inquired Bumpett suspiciously.

"Not I," said George. "What's the use of pulling a man out of the
law's way if you're to shove him back after? I thought once I'd have
to get the doctor, he was that bad, ranting and raving, but he's
stopped now."

"I suppose I'd better go down and see him," said the Pig-driver,
rubbing the back of his head meditatively with his hand. "What are we
to do with him, Williams?"

"I can't turn him out," answered the young man, "I don't like to do
that."

"By G'arge, he couldn't have got into no safer place too," chuckled
Bumpett. "We'll keep him a bit, my lad, an' he might lend a hand when
he gets better. He'll have to know what sort of a nest he's lighted
on, sooner or later, if he stops here."

Williams gave a kind of growl.

"When the country's quieted down a bit we'll have to get him off out
o' this. Straight he'll have to go too, and not be talkin' o' what
he's seen. Did they take any of the others, did ye hear?"

"They got Turnbull the auctioneer, and about a dozen men from
Llangarth; them on the horses were that rigged up wi' mountebank
clothes you couldn't tell who was who--so I heard tell in Crishowell.
And they were off over the Wye, an' into the woods like so many
quists. The yeomanry tried the wrong places in the water, and some of
them was pretty nigh drowned. There was no talk of chasing--they'd
enough to do pulling one another out."

"Well, well, to be sure!" exclaimed the Pig-driver again with infinite
relish, his cheeks widening into a grin as he listened, and his eyes
almost disappearing into his head. Then he sighed the sigh of a man
who broods upon lost opportunities.

George whirled his legs back into the garden in the same way that he
had whirled them out, and steered through the gooseberry bushes
towards the cottage followed by his companion. Entering they found
themselves in a small room, dark and bare.

Although smoke might be seen to issue from the chimney at this side of
the house, it was curious that not a vestige of fire was in the
fire-place. A table stood under the window, a few garments hung on a
string that stretched across a corner, and two bill-hooks, very sharp
and bright, leaned sentimentally towards each other where they stood
against the wall. A piece of soap, a bucket of water, and a comb were
arranged upon a box; at the end of the room were a cupboard, and a
wooden bedstead containing neither bedclothes nor mattress. Besides
these objects, there was nothing in the way of furniture or adornment.

Bumpett glanced round and his eye reached the bedstead.

"Name o' goodness, what have ye done with your bedding?" he inquired,
pausing before the naked-looking object.

"It's down below."

A partition divided the cottage into two, and George opened a door in
this by which they entered the other half of the building. Chinks in
the closed-up window let in light enough to show a few tools and a
heap of sacks lying in a corner. These were fastened down on a board
which they completely concealed. The Pig-driver drew it aside,
disclosing a hole large enough to admit a human figure, with the top
of a ladder visible in it about a foot below the flooring. The young
man stood aside for Bumpett to descend, and when the crown of the
Pig-driver's hat had disappeared, he followed, drawing the board
carefully over the aperture.

The room below ran all the length of the house, and a fire at the
further end accounted for the smoke in the chimney. Fresh air came in
at a hole in the wall, which was hidden outside by a gooseberry bush
planted before it; occasional slabs of stone showed where the place
had been hollowed from the original rock, and the ceiling was studded
with iron hooks. Near the fire was a great heap of sheepskins,
surmounted by George's mattress and all his scanty bedding, on which
lay Rhys Walters, his head bound round by a bandage, and a cup of
water beside him which he was stretching out his hand for as they
entered.

"Here's Mr. Bumpett," announced Williams, going gently up to the bed.

"Well," said Rhys in a weak, petulant voice, "this is a bad look-out,
isn't it?"

"Indeed, and so it is," answered the old man, as if he had been struck
by a new idea.

"And I don't know when I can get up out of here."

"Bide you where you are," interrupted the Pig-driver. "You couldn't be
safer, not if you was in Hereford jail itself," he concluded
cheerfully, sitting down on the bed.

Rhys frowned under his bandage.

"That's where I may be yet," he said, "curse the whole business."

"I'd been lookin' out for ye at Abergavenny," said Bumpett, "an' not
seein' ye, I thought all had been well, and ye'd gone off licketty
smack to Evans's."

"If I could get hold of Evans, I'd half kill him," said Rhys between
his teeth. "He cried out my name, and I had to ride for it, I can tell
you. Give me a drop more water, Williams."

George went to the opposite wall and drew out a stone, letting in the
pleasant babbling noise of the brook. The foundations of the cottage
were so near the water that he stretched his arm through, holding the
mug, and filled it easily. In flood-time the room was uninhabitable.

"I thought there was nothing that could touch that mare of mine,"
continued the sick man, as George went up the ladder and left the two
together, "but young Fenton's mind was made up to catch me, though I'd
have distanced him if this damned frost hadn't been against me. I
could have dodged him in the mountain and got him bogged, maybe."

"Well, well, you're lucky to be where you are," remarked Bumpett.
"There's no one but Williams and me do know of this place. Best bide a
bit, and when they give up searchin' for ye, ye can get down to
Cardiff somehow."

Rhys made no reply; his thoughts went to Great Masterhouse, to its
fields, to the barns round which he had played as a child, to its
well-stocked stable, to the money it was worth, and he groaned. He was
a beggar practically, an outlaw, and the life behind him was wiped
out. Many things rose in his mind in a cloud of regret, many interests
but few affections; nevertheless, now that she was absolutely lost to
him, he longed for Mary.

For some time neither of the two men spoke.

"'Tis a bad job indeed," broke in Bumpett as he got up to leave. He
was a man of his tongue and the silence irked him.

"Where are you going to now?" said Rhys listlessly.

"Down Crishowell way," answered the Pig-driver. "I've got business
there. Mr. Walters, I've got a word to say to you afore I go. Do you
know that this place you're in belongs to me?"

"To you?" said Rhys; "I thought Williams rented it from Red Field
Farm."

"Ah, 'tis called Williams'," replied Bumpett, sitting down again, "but
I do pay for it. I may make free with you in what I'm saying, for I'm
helping to keep you from the law, and it's right you should help to
keep me. Give me the oath you'll swaller down what I'm telling you and
never let it up again."

"What can I do to you, even if I want to?" asked Rhys bitterly.

"Swear, I tell ye."

"I swear it, so help me God," repeated Rhys, his curiosity roused.

"Though I began drivin' o' pigs, I'm the biggest butcher in trade at
Abergavenny, am I not?" cried the old man, putting his hand on Rhys'
knee and giving it a shake. "Well, I sell more mutton than I ever buy.
Do ye understand that? Do ye see what you're lyin' on?" He pointed to
the sheepskins. "George is my man and he finds it for me--him an'
others I needn't speak of. We've taken toll of you before this."

And, as he chuckled, his eyes disappeared again.

Walters tried to sit up, but grew giddy at once and dropped back on
his pillow. He drew a long breath and lay still. The last words made
him hate the Pig-driver, but as, at present, he owed him everything,
he reflected that hatred would be of little use to him.

"How do you get it all up to Abergavenny?" he inquired at last.

"Ah, you may well ask. And 'tis best you should know, for I'll be glad
to get a hand from you when you're up again. Do ye know the Pedlar's
Stone? There's not one o' they zanys along here will go a-nigh it."

Rhys knew the place well. On the way to the mountain, about a mile
further up, a little rough, stone cross stuck out of the bank, its
rude arms overhanging the hedge. It marked the spot where a pedlar had
been murdered some hundred years back, and none of the working people
would pass it after dark, for even in the daytime it was regarded with
suspicion.

"The sheep comes here first, George he knows how. Do ye see them hooks
in the ceiling? Did ye take note of the trap ye come down here by? No,
I warrant ye didn't, ye was that mazed when ye come. It's all cut up
here, an' after that it goes up jint by jint to the place I'm telling
you. Williams, he can get two sheep up between ten o'clock and one i'
the morning. If ye go along the hedge behind the stone, there's a big
bit o' rock close by with a hole scraped in underneath it. It's deep
down among the nettles, so ye wouldn't see it if ye didn't know.
That's where they lie till I come round afore daylight wi' the cart on
my way to Crishowell. Crishowell folks thinks I'm at Abergavenny, and
Abergavenny folks thinks I'm at Crishowell."

Though in his heart Rhys hated the Pig-driver for what he had been
doing to him and others like him, he could not help admiring his
astuteness; but he made no comment, for admiration came from him
grudgingly as a rule where men were concerned.

"Now," said the old man, "I'll say good-day to ye, Mr. Walters, I must
be gettin' on."

He clambered up the ladder, leaving Rhys alone.



CHAPTER IX

TWO MEETINGS

GEORGE and the Pig-driver left the cottage together a few minutes
afterwards. Both men had business in Crishowell, and as Rhys Walters
was now well enough to be left alone for a few hours, Williams had no
scruple in turning the key on his charge and starting with his patron
for the valley.

The hoar-frost hung on everything. Around them, the heavy air
enwrapped the landscape, making an opaque background to the branches
and twigs which stood as though cut out in white coral against
grey-painted canvas. Bumpett felt the cold a good deal and pressed
forward almost at a trot, looking all the more grotesque for the
company of the big, quiet man beside him. Some way out of the village
they parted, being unwilling to be seen much together.

When he went to see George, Bumpett generally got out of his cart as
soon as he had crossed the mountain pass, sending it round by a good
road which circled out towards Llangarth, and telling his boy to bring
it by that route to Crishowell; he thus avoided trying its springs in
the steep lanes, and was unobserved himself as he went down by
Williams' house to the village. At the carpenter's shop, where it went
to await him, he would pass an agreeable half-hour chatting with the
local spirits who congregated there of an afternoon.

He was the most completely popular man in the neighbourhood. For this
he was much indebted to the habits of his pig-driving days, when he
and his unruly flock had travelled the country on foot to the
different fairs. Then many a labourer's wife had lightened his
journeys by the pleasant offer of a bite and a sup, and held herself
amply rewarded by the odd bits of gossip and complimentary turns of
speech by which the wayfarer knew how to make himself welcome. Now
that he had become a man of money and standing, this graciousness of
demeanour had not left him; nay, it was rather set off by the flavour
of opulence, and gave meaner folk the comfortable assurance of being
hob and nob with the great ones of this world. Nevertheless, the name
of "The Pig-driver" stuck to him; as the Pig-driver they had known him
first, and the Pig-driver he would remain, were he to be made Mayor of
Abergavenny.

Rounding a corner, the old man came upon an elderly, hard-featured
woman who stood to rest and lean a basket which she carried against
the bank.

"Oh! Mr. Bumpett," she exclaimed as he approached, "oh! Mr. Bumpett."

"Come you here, woman," he said in a mysterious voice, taking her by
the elbow, "come down to the brookside till I speak a word wi' you."

"Oh! Mr. Bumpett," she went on, "so ye've heard, have ye?"

"Sh----sh!" cried the Pig-driver, hurrying her along, "keep you quiet,
I tell you, till we be away from the lane."

The Digedi brook ran along the hollow near, and at a sheltered place
by the brink he stopped. Both he and his companion were out of breath.
The woman sat down upon a rock, her hard face working.

"Indeed, I be miserable upon the face of the earth," she cried, "an I
can't think o' nothing but Master Rhys from the time I get out o' my
bed until the time I do get in again, and long after that too. An'
there's Mrs. Walters a-settin' same as if he were there and sayin' to
me, 'Never speak his name, Nannie, I have no son. Dead he have been to
the Lord these many years, and now, dead he is to me. His brother's
blood crieth to him from the ground.' I can't abide they prayers o'
hers."

"Will ye listen to me?" said Bumpett sharply. He gave as much notice
to her lamentations as he did to the babble of the brook.

"Ah, she's a hard one, for all her psalms and praises! Never a tear do
I see on her face, and there's me be like to break my heart when I so
much as go nigh the tollet in the yard and see the young turkey-cock
going by. Law! I do think o' the smacks poor Master Rhys did fetch his
grandfather, when he were a little bit of a boy, an' how the old bird
would run before him, same as if the black man o' Hell was after him!"

She covered her face with her shawl. The Pig-driver was exasperated.

"Will ye hold yer tongue?" he said, thumping his stick on the ground,
"or I won't tell ye one blazin' word of what I was to say. Here am I
strivin' to tell ye what ye don't know about Mister Walters, an' I
can't get my mind out along o' you, ye old fool! Do ye hear me, Nannie
Davis?"

At the sound of Rhys' name she looked up.

"If I tell ye something about him, will you give over?" asked the
Pig-driver, shaking her by the shoulder.

"Yes, surely, Mr. Bumpett," said Nannie, "I will. I be but a fool, an'
that I do know."

"He's safe," said Bumpett. "Do ye hear? He's safe. An' I know where he
is."

"And where is he?"

"Ah! that's telling. don't you ask, my woman, an' it'll be the better
for him."

Nannie had quite regained her composure, and an unspeakable load
rolled off her mind at her companion's words. Ever since the morning
when the mare had been found riderless, sniffing at the door of her
box at Masterhouse, and the news of the toll-keeper's death and Rhys'
flight had reached the mountain, waking and sleeping she had pictured
his arrest.

"So long as he bides quiet where he is, there's none can get a sight
o' him," said the old man, "and when we do see our way to get him off
an' over the water--to Ameriky, maybe--I and them I knows will do our
best. But he's been knocked about cruel, for, mind ye, they was
fightin' very wicked an' nasty, down by the toll."

"Is he bad?" asked Nannie anxiously.

"He was," replied Bumpett, "but he's mending."

"And be I never to know where he be?"

"You mind what I tell ye. But, if ye want to do the man a good turn,
ye may. Do ye know the Pedlar's Stone?"

Nannie shuddered. "There's every one knows that. But I durstn't go
nigh it, not I. Indeed, 'tis no good place! Saunders of Llan-y-bulch
was sayin' only last week----"

The Pig-driver cast a look of measureless scorn upon her.

"Well, ye needn't go nigh it," he interrupted. "Ye can bide twenty
yards on the other side."

"Lawk! I wouldn't go where I could see it!"

"Ye must just turn your back, then," said Bumpett crossly.

"But what be I to do?" inquired Nannie, who stood in considerable awe
of the Pig-driver.

"Ye might get a few of his clothes an' such like, or anything ye fancy
would come handy to him. Bring them down to the stone when it's dark,
an' I, or a man I'll send, will be there to get them from ye. Day
after to-morrow 'll do."

"I won't be so skeered if there's some I do know to be by," said she
reflectively.

"Can ye get they things without Mrs. Walters seein' ye?" inquired he.
"It would never do for her to be stickin' her holy nose into it."

Nannie laughed out. Her laugh was remarkable; it had a ring of
ribaldry unsuited to her plain bonnet and knitted shawl.

"No fear o' that. Mrs. Walters says to me, no more nor this mornin',
'Take you the keys, Nannie,' she says, 'an' put away all them clothes
o' his. Let me forget I bore a child that's to be a disgrace to my old
age.' 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good, ye see. But I must be
gettin' home now, Mr. Bumpett."

So they parted.

As George entered Crishowell by another way, and got over the last
stile dividing the fields from the village, the church bell began to
sound. The first stroke was finishing its vibration as he laid his
hand on the top rail, but he had gone a full furlong before he heard
the next. They were evidently tolling. A woman came out of her door
and listened to the bell.

"Who's to be buried?" inquired Williams, as he passed.

"'Tis Vaughan the gate-keeper," she answered, "him as was killed
Tuesday."

The young man proceeded until the road turned and brought him right in
front of the lych-gate of the church; it was open, and the Vicar of
Crishowell stood bareheaded among the graves. He went on by a path
skirting the wall, and slipped into the churchyard by another
entrance. A large yew-tree stood close to it, and under this he took
up his stand unperceived; the bell kept on sounding.

Crishowell church was a plain building, which possessed no
characteristic but that of solidity; bits had fallen out of it, and
been rebuilt at various epochs of its history, without creating much
incongruity or adding much glory to its appearance. The nave roof had
settled a little, and the walls were irregular in places, but over the
whole sat that somnolent dignity which clings to ancient stone. The
chancel windows were Norman, and very small; indeed, so near the
ground were they, that boys, sitting in the chancel pews, had often
been provoked to unseemly jests during service by the sight of
unchurch-going school-mates crowding to make grimaces at them from
outside. The porch was high, and surmounted by the belfry, and some
old wooden benches ran round its walls to accommodate the ringers. As
the sexton, who performed many other functions besides those of his
office, had just returned from the fields, Howlie Seaborne, his son,
had taken his place and was tolling till his father should have
changed his coat. He looked like a gnome as he stood in the shadow of
the porch with the rope in his hand. The sound of many feet was heard
coming up the lane, and Williams took off his hat.

The procession came in sight, black in front of the white hedges and
trees, moving slowly towards the lych-gate. First went the coffin,
carried under its dark pall, and heading a line of figures which
trailed behind it like some interminable insect. From miles round
people had come; Squire Fenton and Harry from Waterchurch, the
yeomanry officer who had been present at the riot, men from Llangarth,
gentlemen from distant parts of the country, all anxious to pay the
only respect they could to the undaunted old man whose duty had really
meant something to him. Immediately behind the dead walked a girl
muffled up in a black cloak. They were at the lych-gate. The bell
stopped.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live."

The words reached Williams where he stood under the yew-tree, and
something swelled up in his heart; abstract things struck him all at
once as real. Life was real--death very real--to die fighting like
Vaughan had died was real--certainly more real than stealing sheep. He
stood thinking, hardly definitely, but in that semi-consciousness of
thought which comes at times to most people, and from which they awake
knowing a little more than they knew before. Whether they make their
knowledge of use to them is another matter.

The Burial Service ran on to the end, and the people dispersed in twos
and threes. Some gentlemen, whose horses were waiting at the smith's
shop close by, mounted and rode away after a few civil words with the
Vicar; the labourers and their wives vanished quickly, the former
hurrying off to their interrupted work, and the latter clustering and
whispering among themselves. Soon the churchyard was empty, and
nothing was left to show what had taken place but the gaping grave and
the planks lying round it.

George remained a few minutes at his post under the tree before
emerging and going out by the same gate as the mourners, but, when he
did so, he saw that the girl had returned again and was sitting by the
mound of upturned earth. His impulse was to go back, respecting her
solitude, but Mary had heard his step and looked round at him. Their
eyes met. He had never seen the toll-keeper's daughter before, and her
beauty and the despair written on her face touched him deeply in the
stirred-up state of his mind. Remembering that he must shortly go back
to Rhys, the man by whose fault he believed her to be sitting where
she was, and share his roof with him for days to come, his soul
recoiled. And yet, the truth was worse than he knew.



CHAPTER X

FORGET-ME-NOTS

HEREFORD town is one of those slumbrous cities, guiltless of any bait
with which to lure the sight-seer, but possessing both a cathedral and
an individuality of its own. It is a town which seems to have acquired
no suburbs, to have grown up in its proper area out of the flat fields
which lie around. But on the night of which I am speaking an unwonted
stir was going on, a rumbling of vehicles through streets usually
silent, and a great noise of voices and hoofs in the different inn
yards. The Green Dragon, that stronghold of county respectability, was
crowded from garret to basement, as the lights in every window
proclaimed. Inside, chambermaids ran up and down-stairs, men-servants
shouted orders from landings, and prim ladies-maids went in and out of
bedrooms with the guarded demeanour of those who know, but may not
reveal, the mysteries which these contain. The eyes of citizens were
constantly gratified by the sight of chariots driven by massive
coachmen whose weight seemed likely to break down their vehicles in
front if unbalanced by rumbles behind. Into these last the smaller
youth of the town deemed it a pride and a pleasure to ascend, when
they could do so unnoticed, and to taste all the joys of so exalted a
state until the vulgar "Whip behind" of some envious friend made the
position untenable.

The cause of this uncommon activity in both town and urchins was that
the officers of the Hereford Yeomanry were giving a ball, and from the
remotest parts of the county people were flocking to it. The landlords
thought well of such events, for innkeeping, like hop-growing, is a
trade in which the speculator may compensate himself by one good
harvest for several lean years.

From the assembly rooms a flood of light streamed over the pavement,
and across it moved the uniformed figures of the hosts, resplendent in
blue and silver, and congregating near the door--some to watch with
solemn looks for consignments of their own relations, some, with
lighter aspect, for those of other people.

The ball had not actually begun, but in Herefordshire, where such
festivities were few, people liked to get as much of them as possible,
and carriages were already arriving to disgorge be-feathered old
ladies and be-wreathed young ones at the foot of the red-carpeted
steps. The band began to tune up, and a general feeling of expectation
pervaded the building. Harry Fenton was talking to his brother
Llewellyn, who had been dining with him, and who was, with apparent
difficulty, drawing on a pair of white kid gloves. More carriages
rolled up, the doorway was getting crowded, the bandmaster raised his
_bâton;_ then the band slid into a mazurka--much in vogue at the
time--and the colonel offered his arm to the county member's wife. The
floor filled rapidly.

Llewellyn Fenton was Harry's youngest brother and the dearest friend
he had in the world. Though he was only twenty-one, and consequently
four years Harry's junior, there had never been much real difference
between the two, the elder being younger than his age, and the younger
considerably older. Since their early boyhood they had held together,
Harry clinging rather to the harder nature of Llewellyn, and now that
they had grown up and gone their different ways, they took every
chance of meeting they could get. The Squire on the other side of the
ball-room caught sight of them standing together, and smiled as he saw
them exchange nods and go off to their respective partners; he liked
all his four boys, but Harry and Llewellyn were the pair which
appealed to him most.

The evening went on cheerfully, and dance succeeded dance. The
brothers had run up against each other again, and were watching a
quadrille from the door of the supper-room.

"Llewellyn," said Harry, taking hold of his arm, "who is that girl?
There, look. Dancing with Tom Bradford."

"I don't know," said his brother. "Let go, Harry."

"Good heavens! isn't she pretty?" he went on, unheeding, and gripping
Llewellyn.

"Well, yes," said the other, disengaging himself. "She is, there's no
denying that."

"Do you want to deny it?" asked Harry, with a contemptuous snort.

"N--no, I don't."

The girl in question was dancing in a set immediately in front of
them. She was a little over the middle height, though in these modern
days of tall women she would probably pass unnoticed on that score.
She seemed quite young, barely out of her teens, but her
self-possession was as complete as that quality can be when it is
mixed with self-consciousness--not the highest sort of
self-possession, but always something. One could not blame her for
being alive to her own good looks, they were so intensely obvious, and
her complexion, which struck one at once, was of that rose-and-white
sort which reminds the spectator of fruit--soft, and with a bloom on
it like the down of a butterfly's wing.

Seeing only the face one would guess it to be accompanied by rich
golden hair, but this girl's was of that shade which can only be
described as mouse-coloured, and it grew light and fluffy, rather low
on her forehead, its curious contrast with the warm complexion putting
her quite out of the common run of red-cheeked, yellow-locked county
beauties. Her neck was long and slim, and she carried herself
perfectly when moving, though there was a lack of repose about her
whole personality when she stood still. She was dressed charmingly in
some shiny, silky stuff with a pattern of blue forget-me-nots running
over it. On the front of her bodice she wore a small artificial bunch
of these flowers, and a wreath of the same in her hair.

Many people besides Harry were looking at her, and she was evidently
entirely aware of the fact.

For the rest of that dance he kept the eye of a lynx upon the
unconscious Tom Bradford, and when that youth had finally resigned his
partner to the chaperonage of a pleasant-looking spinster, he was off
like an arrow after him. Llewellyn looked on rather grimly; he had
some experience of his brother's flames.

The more precise customs of those days required that young men should
first be introduced to the chaperons of their would-be partners, and
Harry found himself bowing before the lady whom Tom Bradford named as
Miss Ridgeway. She in turn presented him to the girl beside her, who
was fluttering her fan and smiling.

"My niece, Miss Isoline Ridgeway," she said, throwing an approving
look on the open-faced young fellow.

By some miracle it appeared that Miss Isoline was not engaged for the
next dance, and as a portly Minor Canon appeared at this juncture and
led away her aunt to the refreshment table, the two were left
together. Harry's heart beat; now that he was safely introduced to the
object of his admiration he could not think what to say to her.
Besides, he was afraid that Llewellyn was looking.

"I was--I mean--I have been trying to get introduced to you for ever
so long," he stammered out at last, quite forgetting that he had only
caught sight of her about ten minutes before.

"Then I hope you are grateful to Mr. Bradford," she replied.

"Yes, I am," said Harry. "Tom is a very good fellow," he added, more
because the sound of his own voice was encouraging than for any other
reason.

Isoline glanced over her shoulder towards her late partner, as if she
would say that she did not think much of Mr. Bradford.

"He cannot dance," she remarked.

"I hope you will find me no worse," said loyal Harry.

"Oh no," she replied, with a little laugh, "I am sure I shall not."

"It is strange that I have never seen you before," he said, "for you
live in Hereford, don't you? I have often heard your aunt's name."

"I lost my parents some time ago, and I have lately come to live with
her. I am only just out of mourning." And she looked down at her
forget-me-not sprinkled dress.

He did not quite know what to say, but, as the next dance was
beginning, he offered her his arm with a little bow.

Isoline Ridgeway danced divinely, and Harry felt as though he were
flying into the seventh heaven--wherever that problematical spot may
be--flying and sailing with the mouse-coloured head near his shoulder.
The valse had been so lately introduced into England that, in the
country, people were only beginning to take it up, and very few could
dance it well, so these two, with their perfect accord and grace of
motion, were remarked by many.

"Who is that pretty girl dancing with my boy?" asked Harry's father of
a neighbour. "They seem to be enjoying themselves."

The old gentleman addressed adjusted his spectacles.

"That is Miss Ridgeway's niece," he replied.

"But, my dear sir, that conveys nothing to me," said the Squire.

"Old Ridgeway was a solicitor in some Midland town, I believe, and a
slippery scoundrel too. He settled here some time ago, but he has been
dead twenty years or more. His daughter, Miss Ridgeway, lives in the
same house still, and her sister was married to the present Vicar of
Crishowell, near Llangarth. That is all I can tell you about them."

"Indeed," said the Squire, "I did not know that, though I know Lewis
of Crishowell very well."

"She is a good creature, Miss Ridgeway, and does a great deal among
the poor. The niece seems more likely to do a great deal among the
rich, if one may judge by her looks. They are not quite the sort of
people one would have met here when I was young."

"You are right--quite right," said Mr. Fenton. And the two old
gentlemen sighed over the falling away of their times as their fathers
and grandfathers had done before them.

Meantime the valse had come to an end, and Isoline and Harry went
towards the coolness of the entrance. "Sitting out," for more than a
very few minutes, was not countenanced then as it is now, and they
stood together in the passage looking into the empty street.

"I shall be very sorry when to-night is over," said he presently.

"So shall I," she replied demurely. "I enjoy balls more than anything
in the world. I wonder when I shall go to another."

"Surely you will go to the Hunt Ball? It will be in less than a week."

"No, I am going away," said she, watching his face for the effect of
her words, and not disclosing the fact that neither she nor her aunt
had been invited.

"Going away!" echoed he, in dismay. "But where? Forgive me, but I
thought you said you had only just come to Hereford."

"I am going to stay with my uncle at Crishowell Vicarage while my aunt
goes away for some months; she has been ill, and the doctor ordered
it."

"Oh, at Crishowell," he said, much relieved. "That is not very far;
I--I go to Crishowell sometimes. I did not know that Mr. Lewis was
your uncle."

"He married my aunt's sister," said Isoline, "but she is dead. It will
be very dull there."

"If I have to go to Crishowell on any business--or anything, do you
think he will allow me to pay my respects to you--and to him, of
course?"

"He might," she answered, looking under her eyelashes. "At any rate, I
will ask him."

"Thank you, thank you," said Harry fervently.

Isoline was delighted. The prospect of five or six months in the
unvaried society of her uncle had not been inspiring; she only
remembered him as an unnecessarily elderly person who had once heard
her catechism in her youth and been dissatisfied with the recital. It
was hardly to be supposed that a young girl, full of spirits and eager
for life, could look forward to it, especially one who had grown up in
the atmosphere of small towns and knew nothing of country pleasures.
But the horizon brightened.

"I think I must go back to my aunt now," she said, with a little prim
air which became her charmingly.

"But you will give me one more dance?" pleaded Harry. "What a fool I
was to find you so late."

"I have only one more to give," she replied, "and that is the very
last of all."

"Keep it for me, pray, and promise you will stay till the end. I can
look after you and Miss Ridgeway, and put you into your carriage when
it is over."

"Oh, yes, I will stay, if my aunt does not mind," said Isoline, as
they went back to the ballroom.

The elder Miss Ridgeway was an eminently good-natured person, and the
refreshment administered by the Minor Canon had been sustaining, so
she professed herself ready to remain till the end of the ball, and
Harry, with deep gratitude, betook himself to his other partners till
the blissful moment should arrive when he might claim Isoline again.
He saw nothing more of Llewellyn, who had his own affairs and
amusements on hand, and, for once in his life, he was very glad. It is
to be feared that the girls with whom he danced found him dull
company, as most of the time he was turning over in his mind what
possible pretext he could invent for an early visit to Crishowell.

The last dance was Sir Roger de Coverley; a great many people had
resolved to see the entertainment out, and, as Harry stood opposite
Isoline in the ranks, he marked with pleasure that it promised to be a
long affair. He had just come from an interview with the bandmaster,
whom he had thoughtfully taken apart and supplied with a bottle of
champagne, and the purposeful manner in which the little round man was
taking his place among the musicians was reassuring.

Sir Roger is without doubt the most light-hearted and popular of
country dances, nevertheless it is one in which a man is like to see a
great deal more of every one else's partner than of his own. Harry's
time was taken up by bowings, scrapings, and crossings of hands with
the most homely daughter of the Minor Canon, while Isoline went
through the same evolutions with a sprightly gentleman, whose age in
no way hampered the intricate steps with which he ornamented the
occasion. It was unsatisfactory--highly so--like many things ardently
longed for and little enjoyed, and when the music stopped for an
instant before merging itself into "God save the Queen," and people
were bidding each other good-night in groups, the young man ruefully
led her back to her aunt, who was making for the place in which she
had left her cloak. He waited for the two women to come out of the
cloak-room, and then plunged into the street to find the modest fly
which had conveyed his goddess to the ball. The air was bitter, for
the winter sunrise was as yet far off. Coachmen were urging their
horses up to the door, and footmen touching their hats to their
respective masters and mistresses above them on the steps to signify
that their carriages were waiting in the little string that had formed
itself in the road. The fly was wedged in between an omnibus belonging
to one of the town hotels and a large barouche, so there was a few
minutes' delay, in which Harry found time to remind Isoline of her
promise about her uncle. Then he handed Miss Ridgeway respectfully in,
held her niece's fingers in his own for one moment, and the clumsy
vehicle rolled away with a great clatter, leaving him standing upon
the pavement. As he turned to go up the steps he noticed something
lying at his feet, and, stooping, picked up an artificial
forget-me-not.



CHAPTER XI

THE BRECON COACH

THE Green Dragon stood in High Street within sound of the Cathedral
bells, and was the point of migration to the worldly part of the
county, just as the Cathedral was the point of migration to the
spiritual. The Hereford and Brecon coach started from its door, and
one morning, a few days after the ball, a little crowd had collected
as usual to see it off. It was nine o'clock, and the day had not sent
out what little heat it possessed; the ostlers were shivering as they
stood at the horses' heads, and the guard blew on his fingers whenever
he had the courage to take them from his pockets. The coachman, great
man, had not as yet left the landlord's room, in which he was spending
his last minutes before starting, talking to the landlady by the fire,
and occasionally casting an eye through the glass door which opened
upon the main entrance where the passengers were assembling.

"Guard, guard," cried an old lady, standing near a page who led a
Blenheim spaniel, "will you kindly look among the boxes and see
whether a small dog's water-tin is there? It is marked 'Fido,' and has
'Miss Crouch, Belle Vue Villas, Laurel Grove, Gloucester,' printed
upon the bottom."

"It's all right, 'm," replied the guard immovably, "I saw to it
myself." The luggage had been put upon the coach a couple of hours
earlier before the horses were harnessed, and he and the ostlers
exchanged winks.

The page-boy sidled up to his mistress. "I've got it 'ere, mum--under
my arm, mum," he said, holding out the article.

The passengers smiled with meaning, and Isoline Ridgeway, who was
among them, giggled audibly.

"If your memory for the mail-bags is not better than your memory for
the luggage," remarked Fido's owner, "there are many who will have to
wait for their letters, my man."

The passengers smiled again, but this time not at the old lady.

Miss Ridgeway the elder had left the comfort of her snug Georgian
house at this unusually early hour to see her niece off by the Brecon
coach, which was to put her down at the toll-gate lately demolished by
Rebecca, near the foot of Crishowell Lane, at which place her uncle
was to meet her.

Isoline wore a fur-trimmed pelisse, and her head was enveloped in a
thick veil, which her aunt had insisted upon her wearing, both as a
protection against the east wind and any undesirable notice which her
face might attract. The two ladies stood in the shelter of the Green
Dragon doorway while the coachman, who had torn himself from the fire,
was gathering up the reins, and the passengers were taking their
seats. Miss Crouch, with Fido on her lap, was installed inside, and
the guard was holding the steps for Isoline to mount, when Harry
Fenton came rushing up wrapped in a long travelling-coat.

"Just in time!" he called out to the guard; "my luggage is on, I
hope?"

He turned to Isoline's aunt, hat in hand.

"As I am going down to Waterchurch to-day," he said, "I hope you will
allow me to look after Miss Ridgeway's comfort and be of any use I can
to her on the way."

"Thank you, Mr. Fenton," she replied, "I am pleased to think my niece
has the escort of some gentleman whom I know. It will relieve my mind
greatly."

Isoline said nothing, but she smiled brilliantly behind her veil; then
kissing her aunt, she got into her place, followed by Harry; the
coachman raised his chin at the ostlers, who whipped the rugs from the
horses, and they were off.

Is there anything in this steam-driven world, except perhaps trotting
to covert on a fresh February morning, which gives a more expectant
fillip to the spirits and a finer sense of exhilaration than starting
on a journey behind four good horses? The height at which one sits,
the rush of the air on one's face, the ring of the sixteen hoofs in
front, the rocking-horse canter of the off-leader ere he makes up his
lordly mind to put his heart into the job and settle to a steady trot,
the purr of the wheels on the road, the smell of the moist country as
the houses are left behind, and the brisk pace now that the first
half-mile has been done and the team is working well together--surely
the man whose blood does not rise at all these, must have the heart of
a mollusc and the imagination of a barn-door fowl.

Harry had travelled so often behind the blue roan and three bays that
he knew their paces, history, and temper nearly as well as the man who
drove them, and for some time his interest in them was so great as to
make him almost unconscious of Isoline's presence. As they bowled
along she sighed softly, drawing up her rug round her. If it had not
been for the society in which she found herself, she would willingly
have changed places with Miss Crouch inside. The country conveyed
nothing to her eye; it was cold, Harry's want of appreciation was
anything but flattering--and she was accustomed to think a good deal
about what was flattering and what was not; it was rather a favourite
word of hers. She had never looked at the horses, because it had not
occurred to her to do so; in her mind they were merely four animals
whose efforts were necessary to the coach's progress. How could one
wonder at her want of interest in ideas and things of which she had no
knowledge? To her town-bred soul, outdoor life was a dull panorama
seen at intervals through a plate-glass window. Nevertheless, had it
been otherwise, she would not have changed her point of view much,
being one of those women whose spirits rise at no exercise, whose
blood is stirred by no encounter; you might have run the Derby under
her nose without taking her mind from her next neighbour's bonnet.

Presently Harry looked round and saw her arranging the rug that had
fallen again.

"I beg your pardon," he cried, "what an oaf you must think me, Miss
Ridgeway! I promised to take care of you, and I don't even see that
you are comfortable."

"It does not matter at all," she said pleasantly, but with a little
shudder in case he should take her words too literally.

"But you are cold, I am sure you are," exclaimed he, beginning to pull
off his heavy coat. "You must have this, it will go right over your
dress--cloak--I don't know what it is called."

"No, no," she protested. "Please, pray, Mr. Fenton, do not be so
absurd. Look, I am all right. The rug only slipped off my knees."

He tucked it elaborately round her and sat down, resolving to devote
himself to her and to nothing else; and, as it was with a view to this
purpose that he had timed his journey home, no doubt he was right.

"Where do you expect to meet Mr. Lewis?" he inquired. "I suppose at
Llangarth?"

"I am to leave the coach at some toll-gate, I do not quite know where,
but the guard understands, I believe, and my uncle will be there. I
think it is only just being put up, for the Rebecca-ites destroyed
it."

"I have some reason to know that place," observed Harry, with a sigh;
"I would give a thousand pounds--if I had it--to catch the man who was
at the bottom of that night's work. I tried hard, but I failed."

"How interesting; do tell me all about it," said she. "You were there
with the military, were you not?"

"The yeomanry, yes. But we did little good."

"Were you in your regimentals? How I should like to have been there to
see the yeomanry!"

"You would not have liked to see poor Vaughan, the toll-man, killed,
though he was a fine sight standing up against the rioters."

"But why did he come out if there were so many against him? Surely he
would not have been killed if he had stayed inside until help came?"

"He was responsible for the gate," said Harry.

"And he would have been blamed, I suppose," said Isoline. "How
unjust!"

"No, he wouldn't have been blamed," said Fenton. He was too young to
reflect that people might belong to the same nation and yet speak
different languages.

"Poor old man, how very sad," said the girl. "Which of those dreadful
rioters killed him?"

"A man called Walters--Rhys Walters--a very large farmer."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Isoline; "then will he be hanged?"

"He will have to stand his trial for manslaughter--that is, when they
catch him, if they ever do, for he is a wonderful fellow. I thought at
one time I might have taken him myself, but he slipped through my
fingers, I can't imagine how to this day."

"And were you near when he killed the toll-keeper?"

"I was, but I did not actually see it done. One of our men and two
constables swore at the inquest that they saw Walter's arm fly up and
the man go down. It was so dark and everything was so mixed up that
one could hardly tell what was happening, but an inn-keeper named
Evans was close by, and he saw the blow struck. He was one of the men
caught, and he confessed everything."

She was really interested, and was listening with her lips parted.

"When I saw Walters making off I followed hard. I made up my mind I
would get hold of him if I could, but he was on a good mare, and he
took me over the worst places he could find; I very nearly came to
grief among the boulders at a brook, the light was bad and they were
so slippery, but I got through somehow, and I heard him in Crishowell
Lane not far ahead. When he got to the top of it, he made for the
Black Mountain as hard as he could, and I kept within sound of his
hoofs till we were about a quarter of a mile from his own farm; then I
heard him pull up into a walk. When I rode up I saw that the horse was
riderless, so I suppose he must have slipped off somewhere along the
foot of the mountain and left me to follow it. That was the second
time he had made a fool of me."

"Did you know him before?"

"I met him not far from that very place, as I was coming down to
Waterchurch from London the day after Christmas. I rode from Hereford
on, and lost my way in the fog by the mountain. He was groping about
too, and he pretended to go out of his road to show me mine--devil
that he is--but I know why he did it now."

"Why?"

"He rode with me so as to talk about the riot, for every one knew that
there would be one; so he put me on the wrong scent; he seemed to have
some secret information about it, and it tallied with other rumours we
had heard, so the police and the yeomanry were kept night after night
at the gate by the river at Llangarth. If it had not been for a boy
who saw the rioters making for the toll by Crishowell Lane, and who
ran all the way to the town with the information, they would have got
off scot-free. What would I not give to catch that man!"

"I am afraid you are very vindictive, Mr. Fenton."

"They are scouring the country steadily," continued he, unheeding,
"but they can find no trace of him. It is extraordinary."

But Isoline had grown tired of the subject now that the sensational
part of it was over, and she directed her companion's attention to
some passing object.

The sun had come out, and she was beginning to enjoy herself; it was
pleasant to be seen abroad too with such a smart-looking young fellow
in attendance.

They chatted and laughed as the hedges flew by, and when the first
stage was done and they pulled up before the creaking signboard of a
village inn to change horses, both regretted that a part of their
journey was over. Harry was too much engrossed to get down and watch
the new team being put in--a matter which the coachman, who knew him
well, did not fail to notice, and he and the guard exchanged comments.

"Hi, there!" cried a voice from the road, "have you got a place left
for one?" A sturdy young man in leather leggings was coming round a
corner, waving his stick.

Harry started up.

"Gad, Llewellyn, is that you?" he cried, looking down on the crown of
his brother's head.

"It is," replied Llewellyn, putting his foot on the axle and swinging
himself up. "Is there a vacant place anywhere, Harry?"

"Yes, a man has just left the one behind me. Miss Ridgeway, this is my
brother, Mr. Llewellyn Fenton. Miss Ridgeway is travelling to
Crishowell, and I am--I mean, I have--I was asked by her aunt to look
after her."

"Mornin', sir," said the guard, coming out of the inn and touching his
hat. "Any luggage? Two vacant places, sir."

"No, nothing; only myself."

"I didn't expect to see you, Loo. What have you been doing here?"
asked Harry.

"Looking after pigs," said Llewellyn, as he sat down.

Isoline opened her eyes; she thought that only people who wheeled
barrows with pitchforks stuck in them did that.

"He is my father's agent," explained Harry.

Llewellyn was rather amused. Harry had not told him that he was going
down to Waterchurch that day, so the meeting of the brothers was
purely accidental. It did not escape him that two was company and
three was none, for he marked Isoline's little air of complacency at
her entire absorption of her cavalier, and his having broken in upon
her raised a faint but pleasant malice in him. It could not exactly be
said that he disliked her, for he did not know her in the least,
though he had observed her a good deal at the ball, and, considering
that he had seen very little of the world, he was a youth wonderfully
free from prejudice. But, had he put his feelings into thoughts, he
would have known that he was irritated. Isoline glanced at him once or
twice, and made up her mind that she hated him.

"Were you buying pigs then?" asked Harry, as they were trotting along
the high-road again.

"Father wants a few young Berkshires, and I came to see some belonging
to a man out here. It sounds low, does it not, Miss Ridgeway?" said
his brother, looking at Isoline, and knowing by instinct that the
subject was uncongenial.

"Oh, no, not at all, I assure you," replied she, quite uncertain how
she ought to take his remark. That pigs were vulgar was well known,
nevertheless she could not help a vague suspicion that she was being
laughed at. But Llewellyn's face was inscrutable, and she could only
move uneasily on her seat and wish him miles away.

For the rest of the journey the two young men looked after her
carefully, Llewellyn vying with his brother in his attention to her
every wish; but a snake had entered into her Eden, a snake who was so
simple that she could not understand him, but who was apparently not
simple enough to misunderstand her.

Sometime later they clattered through Llangarth, stopping at the Bull
Inn, where Harry had been kept for so many hours on the night of the
riot, and went along the Brecon road parallel with the river. The
toll-gate by Crishowell had not yet been re-erected, and the bare
posts stuck dismally up at the wayside by the little slate-roofed
house. As it came in sight they observed a vehicle drawn up beside the
hedge, and evidently awaiting the advent of the coach.

"That must be my uncle's carriage," said Isoline, beginning to collect
her wraps.

They stopped at the toll, and the guard prepared to disentangle Miss
Ridgeway's possessions from the other luggage. Harry and Llewellyn
jumped down, and the former went towards the strange-looking
conveyance which was moored up under the lee of the hedge. He peered
into the weather-beaten hood which crowned it, expecting to find the
Vicar of Crishowell inside, but its only occupant was a huddled-up
figure fast asleep. He shook it smartly.

Howlie Seaborne opened his eyes without changing his position.

"Wake up, boy!" cried Fenton, leaning over the wheel and plastering
himself with a layer of mud by the act; "do you belong to Mr. Lewis?"

"Naw," said Howlie.

"Then has no one come to meet Miss Ridgeway?"

"Here oi be, but oi belong to moiself an' to no one else. Be her
come?"

"Your uncle is not here, but he has sent for you," said Harry, going
up to the coach from which Llewellyn was helping Isoline to descend.

Howlie gave the old white mare in front of him a slap with the whip,
and arrived in the middle of the road with a great creaking and
swaying.

"Oi can't take them boxes along," he remarked, pointing to Miss
Ridgeway's luggage which stood in the road.

"Never mind, you can send for them after," said Harry. "Guard, put
them in the toll-house if any one is there."

While this was being done, Isoline climbed up beside Howlie, and the
young men wished her good-bye.

"You will ask your uncle?" said Harry, looking earnestly into the
hood.

"Yes, yes," she said, waving her hand. "Good-bye, good-bye, Mr.
Fenton, and thank you for taking such care of me!"

Then the vehicle lumbered into Crishowell Lane with one wheel almost
up on the bank.

"Can you drive, boy?" she asked nervously.

"Yaas," replied Howlie; "can you?"



CHAPTER XII

GEORGE'S BUSINESS

IT was well into the middle of January, and a few days after Isoline's
arrival, before Rhys was sufficiently recovered from his injuries to
move about; luckily for him, no bones had been broken, and George's
simple nursing, supplemented by the Pig-driver's advice, had met every
need. The slight concussion and the exposure had brought on fever,
which left him so helpless and weak that he could not rise from his
bed without help, while the strange place he was forced to inhabit
held back his progress, for he could get no more fresh air than was
admitted by the openings in the wall. When he was able to walk again,
George would drag him up the ladder after night had fallen, and he
would pace unsteadily about the potato-patch, ready to disappear into
the cottage at the faintest sound of an approaching foot. But such a
thing was rarely heard near their God-forsaken habitation, and, when
it was, it belonged to no other than Bumpett. Had he searched the
kingdom, he could not have found a safer place in which to hide his
head, than the one chance had brought him to on the night of his
flight.

Convalescence, once begun, makes strides in a constitution such as
his. Every day added something to his strength, bringing at the same
time an impatience of captive life, untold longings for a new horizon;
by the time he was practically a sound man with the full use of his
limbs, he was half mad with the monotony of his days. Besides this,
Nannie, according to Bumpett's order, had brought most of his everyday
possessions to the Pedlar's Stone, and, once in his own clothes, an
intense desire for his past identity came upon him, embittered by the
knowledge that his choice lay between an absolute abandonment of it,
and prison and disgrace. All his life he had been accustomed to be
somebody, and he felt like a man in a dream as he looked round at the
sheepskins, the iron hooks, and implements of Williams' illicit trade.
Only a few miles divided him from Great Masterhouse; surely he had but
to step out of these unworthy surroundings and go back to his own!
Everything since his illness seemed unreal, his old self was the true
one, this a nightmare, a sham. Nevertheless, between him stood that
one night's deed like a sentry and barred the way.

There was not even the remotest prospect of escape, for Bumpett, who
made it his business to gather all the news he could about the search,
had strongly impressed on him the necessity of lying low. When it
should be given up as hopeless and vigilance relaxed, the time would
be come, he said, to make for Cardiff, and get out on the high seas by
hook or by crook. The knowledge of the fugitive's hiding-place would
remain entirely between the Pig-driver and George Williams, for the
old man was firm in his refusal to divulge it to Nannie, devoted as
she was, saying that what he had seen of women did not incline him to
trust them with his secrets. "They be a pore set," he observed,
"they've room for naught i' their heads but tongues."

So Rhys and George made up their minds to live together for some time
to come, though it was hardly a prospect that gave either much
satisfaction. That the one owed a debt of gratitude to the other did
not tend to make matters better, for being under an obligation to a
person with whom one is not in sympathy, can scarce be called a
pleasure, and Rhys was not at all in sympathy with George. Acutely
sensitive as to what people thought of him, whether he actually
respected their opinion or not, he soon saw that it was from no
personal admiration or regard that he had been so carefully tended--as
much would have been done for any human creature in distress. The
sheep-stealer too was at all times a taciturn man with deep prejudices
and strong loves and hates; simple and unpretentious to a degree
himself, he loathed all pretension in others, and felt it hard to bear
the airs of superiority and patronizing ways which were seldom absent
from Rhys' manner towards him. Coming from a runaway criminal to whom
he was extending shelter they were absurd; but George did not think of
that, for he had as little humour as Rhys, though its want arose from
vastly different causes. The lighter aspects of life had passed him
by, and he was hampered by the misfit of his double life to his
eminently single mind. And whenever he looked at Rhys, the face of the
girl in the churchyard rose before him.

It was the direst necessity which had induced George Williams to stray
so far across the line of honesty, and bitterly he regretted the step.
A couple of years before, he and his mother, a blind old woman, had
inhabited a little hovel near Presteign, which belonged to the
Pig-driver, for the old man owned many cottages in various parts of
the neighbourhood. As she could do nothing towards their livelihood,
the whole maintenance of the household fell upon the son, who worked
hard at such odd jobs as he could get, and earned a small sum weekly
by hedging and ditching. They lived very frugally, and with great
management made both ends meet, until, one winter, the widow fell ill
and took to her bed; then came the pinch. At the end of her illness
the young man found himself in debt with arrears of rent and no
prospect of paying; besides which, he was receiving messages from
Bumpett every week to the effect that, if money were not forthcoming,
they would be turned out of doors. Work was slack, and he was in
despair; finally he went off to Abergavenny to interview his landlord,
and to get, if possible, a little grace from the close-fisted old man.

It happened that, at that time, Bumpett was beginning to make a
regular business of sheep-stealing; he had started by receiving the
stolen goods from men whose private enterprise had led them to lay
hands on the animals, and he ended by taking the responsibility of the
trade on himself, and stipulating that the actual thieves should enter
his employment and supply no other person. It had paid him well.
George's need was his opportunity; he wanted another active, reliable
hand, and, knowing most things about most people connected with him,
he perceived that this steady and trustworthy young fellow was the man
for the place. He told him that he meant to offer him a chance on
condition that he pledged his word to secrecy, and, when this had been
done, he put before him a choice of two things; either he was to
become his workman at a small fixed wage, living rent-free in the
cottage which now sheltered Rhys, or he was to turn out of his present
quarters the next day with a debt which he could not pay off. If he
accepted the first alternative his debt was to be cancelled. This
contract was to hold good for three years, during which time he was to
serve Bumpett entirely, sworn faithfully to secrecy when the time
should have elapsed.

It was a hard struggle with fate for the poor boy, and one in which he
came off second-best; he took the Pig-driver's terms with a heavy
heart, and entered on his new occupation, going out for several nights
with an expert thief, both in the near and more remote parts of the
county, to see the way in which things were done. Afterwards he
removed with his mother to their new abode, where the poor woman,
being blind, dwelt till the day of her death without knowing how her
son was occupied. She lived in that end of the cottage which did not
communicate with the cellar, and George, who still kept his hedge and
ditching work, easily persuaded her that it was to this and to the
lower rent of their new home that they owed their comparative
prosperity. She had now been dead about ten months, and he was still
working out his time with his employer and longing for its end.

"What are you going to do?" asked Rhys one afternoon, as he saw George
take a pickaxe and shovel from a corner of the cottage. The outer door
was locked, and he had come up from below to escape the dullness of
his underground dwelling for a while.

"Dig a hole in the garden," replied the other, "I be goin' out
to-night, and maybe there'll be something to bury afore morning."

"I'll come with you," said Rhys.

"Well, I suppose you may as well begin some time, and, if you're
feeling right enough, I've nothing against it. It'll be a change for
you."

"I am sick and tired of this place," exclaimed his companion
ungraciously, for he was somewhat piqued by the indifferent acceptance
of his companion. He had condescended rather in offering his help.

"I'll lock the door on the outside," observed Williams, as he went
out, "so you needn't go below again."

Rhys sat down by the hearth and listened to the strokes of the pickaxe
among the gooseberry bushes outside. He took out his watch and counted
the hours till night should come and he should go for the first time
beyond the walls of the weary little garden which had become so
hateful to him. Seven hours; it was an age to wait. But it went by at
last.

In the dark of the moonless night the two men went out, taking with
them the few implements needful to their work--a piece of rope, a
small, very heavy hammer, and a long knife which George attached to a
leather belt round his middle. Rhys carried a dark lantern, which for
extra safety was muffled in a felt bag, and an old, tattered cloak. As
they stepped across the plank into the track up the hillside, the
smell of the chill night blew against his nostrils. The air was thick,
only faintly penetrated by stars, and bearing with it a chill of
approaching rain, but, to the captive, it was a taste of Paradise. He
drew a long breath and rubbed his feet against the turf for the pure
pleasure of feeling again its firm velvet, and there ran through his
being that sense of expansion, mental and physical, which comes to
many people in the wide stillness of the night world. Had he been a
woman, he would have wept; as it was he did not analyze his feelings,
but was merely conscious that he had been dead and that he lived
again.

As they passed the Pedlar's Stone they halted for a minute while
George showed him the rock a few yards off under which the meat could
be hidden until Bumpett should come to take it away. Rhys pushed his
arm into the hole beneath and felt the lining of hay which was put
there periodically for its better preservation. His hand was stung by
the nettles growing round and above it.

When they reached the Twmpa's foot they went westward and skirted the
base, keeping as close to it as possible, then turned into a creek
down which a rush of mountain-water was flowing between rocks.

Rhys understood nothing of his companion's plan and was not inclined
to question him, so he kept silence; though his interest was roused he
had sense enough to know that obedience would further their work, and
that trusting to Williams would be the best way of saving them both
from the chance of discovery. The sheep-stealer stopped where the
running water swirled into a pool and out again yet more violently
through a narrow place in the rocks, and directed him to set down the
lantern.

"We'll come back here when we get our beast," he said. "Listen, do you
hear anything?"

Across the noise of the torrent came the faint baa of a sheep.

"There's a flock not far off," said George.

"There used to be a hut up here," said Rhys, stretching out his arm
towards the slope above.

"Aye, an' likely there's a man in it too," replied the other. "I can't
see no light. Maybe he's sleeping. He'll have to hearken pretty smart
if he's to hear we."

They crossed the water and began quietly to descend the hillside. Some
way up they could see the dim forms of the sheep, above them again the
shepherd's hut, a faint excrescence on the sky-line. Williams uncoiled
the rope he carried and twisted it round his body; in one hand he held
the hammer.

"Now," he said to Rhys, "put the cloak over your back an' get on your
hands and knees. Keep anigh me, and when you see me throw the sheep,
down you wi' the cloak over his head to stop his noise and hold him
fast. I'll do the rest."

They crawled forward, one behind the other, stopping for several
minutes at a time, flattened against the earth when they saw any
animal look in their direction. The sheep were feeding unconsciously,
having finished the first long sleep with which the animal world
begins the night, and when they were close enough to see their white
bodies take definite shape in the dull starlight, Williams chose his
victim, a fine large wether on the outskirts of the flock. Rhys
pressed close behind him.

They were well within a couple of yards of their game when the animal
sniffed suspiciously and would have turned his head towards the danger
after the manner of horned creatures. But George's hand had gripped
him by the hind-leg and laid him with a turn of the wrist on the
hillside before he had fully realized that an enemy was upon him, and
he was struggling half suffocated by the heavy cloak which Walters
flung round his head. The two strong men held him down with all their
might till his efforts had grown less violent and Williams had unwound
the rope from his body and tied his legs. Then he took up the hammer
and, with all his force, dealt him one tremendous blow between the
horns. The sheep quivered and lay still.

"Thank God, that's done," he said, getting up from his knees.

They hoisted their prize on to George's back and went stealthily down
the hill to the stream. Here they laid it on a rock, and while Rhys
held its head over the water, his companion severed the large artery
in the throat. The lantern which they had turned on their work showed
the crimson stain, as it mixed itself with the torrent, to be borne
whirling down between the boulders and out of sight.

When the blood had ceased flowing, Williams took a wisp of hay and
stopped the wound, binding it round with a strand of rope; he washed
the red marks from his hands and sleeves and from the stones on which
they had been kneeling, making Rhys search each foot of ground with
the lantern for the least traces of their deed. Then he got the dead
beast upon his back again covered by the cloak, and they set their
faces towards the cottage.

Since they had started that night, the sheep-stealer had taken rather
a different place in his companion's mind. Accustomed to regard him as
a clod and no more, the calm skill he displayed in his occupation and
his great personal strength impressed Rhys, and, for the first time in
their acquaintance, he spoke an appreciative word.

"That was a wonderful fine bit of work," he remarked as they left the
mountain behind them, "few could match you at that, Williams!"

"'Tis a cursed business," said George between his teeth. "God's truth!
but I do hate it!"

"Then what makes you do it, man?" exclaimed Rhys.

"Ah, that's just it. I've sold myself to the devil, that's why."

Rhys laughed. "Where did you meet with him?" he asked lightly.

"At Abergavenny," replied George gravely. "And his name is James
Bumpett."



CHAPTER XIII

THE SEVEN SNOW-MEN

MARY'S child opened its eyes prematurely on this world, only to wail
itself out of it again in a couple of weeks. It was a miserable,
feeble little creature, but the mother clung to it, though it was the
son of her father's murderer, of the lover whose baseness towards
herself seemed to her nothing compared with his baseness in lifting
his hand against the grey head now lying by the wall in Crishowell
churchyard. This she told herself again and again as she lay tossing
in the weary days succeeding its birth. Though her love for the father
was dead, struck down by that foul blow, she had still some to give
the child; it was hers, she felt, hers alone. He had never seen it,
never would see it, and never would his face shadow its little life.

During her illness the Vicar had been to visit her, and had tried,
very gently, to bring home to her the greatness of her fault. She
listened to his words meekly and with respect, but he left the house
feeling that he had not made much impression. When he was gone she
thought over all he had said; to have explained to him what was in her
heart would have been impossible, for she could hardly explain it to
herself, but she knew that, though she recoiled from the man who had
once been everything to her, she could not go back upon the love. It
was a gift she had made fully, freely, rejoicing in the giving, and
she would not repent it. If the sun had gone down on her and left her
to grope through the black night, she would accept it as the price of
her short happiness; she felt this instinctively, dumbly. She was
proud, and, knowing that all the world would think itself at liberty
to cast stones at her, she was not going to invite it to do so, much
less to shrink from its uplifted hand. The thing was her affair, her
loss, and no one else's. Life would be hard, but she would meet it for
the child's sake; she would make him an honest man, and, perchance, if
she did her duty by him, he might one day stand between her and the
loneliness of existence. That was what one might call the middle
stratum of her soul; down below--far, far down--there was a tideless
sea of grief. Then the poor little infant died.

In a small place like Crishowell it is scant news that can remain
hidden; what is known to one is the property of the whole community,
and Mary's history was soon in every mouth. Horror and mystery were
sweet to the rural taste, which was beginning to feel dulled after
such a surfeit of events as the riot, the arrests, Vaughan's death,
and Rhys' disappearance. The tale of her double wrong gave it
something to think about again, and the talk reached the ears of
George Williams at last, though he mixed rarely with his fellow-men,
and consequently knew little of the topics of the village.

He had thought a great deal about the toll-keeper's daughter since the
day he had found her sitting in the churchyard, for, in that moment,
he seemed to have looked into her very heart. He knew now that he had
only seen half of it. He was anything but a vindictive man, but as he
walked out of the village one evening with his newly-gotten knowledge,
if he could have done what he liked, he would have gone straight home
and killed Rhys Walters, then and there, with his two hands. Seeing
the story laid out before his mind's eye, he wondered how he should
manage to exist under the same roof with him. His view was not
altogether a just one, for he could hardly have felt more strongly had
Walters deliberately murdered the father in order to ruin the daughter
unopposed, but he did not stop to think of that. He saw things in the
rough, and in the rough he dealt with them. He knew that Bumpett would
never consent to his turning him out, for the Pig-driver had got Rhys
into his power and meant to keep him there, as he had done with
himself. It was hard enough to find suitable men for his work--and men
who were dependent on him could tell no tales. The old man was
exaggerating every difficulty in the way of getting the fugitive out
of the country, so that he might retain him where he was and have him
at his service; Rhys also was becoming enamoured of the business,
which suited him exactly, and growing almost reconciled to his life,
now that he could spend his nights outside. Whether there was work on
foot or not, he left the cottage with the dark--often with the
dusk--remaining out until dawn, and spending most of his day in sleep.
Where he went George neither knew nor cared, but the day would come,
he thought, when Walters would get over-venturesome, and let himself
be seen. Though it would probably involve his own ruin, he prayed that
it might be soon. All he longed for was the end of his bondage to his
taskmaster, and of the hated company he was enduring.

The Pig-driver ran his trade on bold lines. It had to be largely done
to make it pay him, and he had taken two relations into partnership
who had butchers' shops in other towns. The farmers who grazed their
herds on the mountain-lands of Breconshire, and who suffered from this
organized system of marauding, had no idea, in these days of slow
communication and inefficient police, how to protect their interests.
On the side of the Black Mountain with which we are familiar, they
employed watchers for the flocks on dark winter nights, but hitherto
George's skill and luck had been greater than theirs, and he left no
traces of his deeds behind him. Once the dead animal had disappeared
beneath his floor, it emerged again in pieces, for all the cutting up
was done below, the skins dried before the fire, and each head with
the tell-tale mark on the skull buried in the garden. Only after a
fall of snow, when footmarks were ineffaceable, sheep-stealing was an
impossibility.

It had been coming down thickly, and after the fall the wind blew
billows of white into all the hedgerows, which were broken in great
gaps by the weight; everywhere they were being mended, and George was
employed at a place on the further side of the Wye to repair about
half-a-mile of damage.

He had finished early, and, after crossing the river, the fancy took
him to return along the shore and strike homewards into Crishowell
Lane by the toll-house, where Mary was still living with the new
toll-keeper's wife. The woman was a good soul, and had nursed her
through her trouble, and the girl was to remain with her father's
successors until it was settled where she should live, and how she
might support herself, and increase the small sum subscribed for her
by the public in memory of the dead man.

He went down towards the water and kept along the high bank beside it.
It was easy walking, for the wind had blown off the river where it
could gather no snow, and the path was almost dry; below him the dark,
swirling pools lay like blackened glass under the willows, whose
knotted stems overhung them. The fields on his right were three inches
deep in their dazzling cover. As his eye roamed over the expanse, some
objects in a hollow a short way ahead caught his attention, detaching
themselves as he drew near, and he saw that the boys of the
neighbouring cottages had been at work. Seven gigantic snow-men were
grouped together and stood round in a sort of burlesque Stonehenge,
their imbecile faces staring on the monotonous winter landscape. There
had been a slight fall since their erection, and though the grass
round had been scraped clean by their creators, it was covered with a
white powdering, few marks of their work being left. They seemed to
have risen from the ground of themselves, seven solitary,
self-contained, witless creatures. Not one of them boasted any
headgear, all the round bullet heads standing uncovered on the
pillar-like bodies; rough attempts at arms had been made, but these
had not been a success, for the fragments lay around their feet. Their
mouths grinned uniformly, indicated by long bits of stick embedded in
the lower part of their jaws, and black stones above did duty for
eyes. George contemplated the vacant crew with a smile. He was in no
special hurry, so he stood for some time looking at them.

Silence lay over everything, heavier than the sky, deeper than the
snow.

He turned his head towards the Wye, for from somewhere by the bank
came the sound of heavy breathing, as of a creature wrestling with a
load, pausing occasionally, but recommencing again after a moment's
rest. There was a movement among the small branches of an immense
willow whose arm stretched over a bit of deep water. The twigs were
thick, and the bank shelved out like a roof over the trunk, so, though
he could not see the man or beast, he gathered that whichever was
struggling there must be down below on a ledge running a few feet
above the river. He went cautiously towards the spot and looked over
the edge. A woman whom he recognized as Mary Vaughan was scrambling
along towards the limb of the great tree. Was he always to be an
unwilling spy upon her? he asked himself as he saw her.

He drew back and turned to go, when it struck him that he had better
not leave her alone, as her foothold on the rotten bank seemed rather
insecure, and he knew the pool below to be one of the deepest in the
Wye, so he split the difference by getting behind a holly-bush whose
evergreen boughs formed a thick screen in front of him, and through an
opening in which he could observe her movements. He could not imagine
what she was doing, and, until he saw her reach a place of safety, he
determined to stay near. Afterwards he would steal away unperceived.

Mary made her way towards the willow-branch, and, putting her foot
upon an excrescence of the bark, she climbed up and seated herself
upon it. George could see that her face was drawn and haggard, as the
face of one who has not slept for many nights; it was thin too, and
the fire of her beautiful eyes seemed drowned in unshed tears. She
drew herself along the thickness of the bough until she was two or
three yards from the shore and sat staring before her. A great pang of
pity shot through the heart of the man watching her, as it occurred to
him that her troubles might have turned her brain. He dared not stir
while she sat there so still, for fear of making himself heard, and he
held his breath in dread lest she might lose her balance, if startled,
and slip from her seat into the pool underneath. Presently she began
to fumble with something lying on the bough which he saw to be a piece
of rope.

He pressed a little nearer, peering under his hand through the
holly-leaves into the gloom of the willow. A large stone was resting
just where the branches divided into a fork beyond her, and one end of
the rope was tied tightly round it; her efforts to get it into its
present position had certainly caused the heavy breathing which had
attracted him as he stood by the snow-men. It seemed a miracle that
such a slight creature should have found strength to get the unwieldy
thing up from the water-side, along the slippery bank and out on to
the branch. George stood dumbly gazing at the unconscious woman, his
steady-going mind in a turmoil. That she was mad he did not doubt, and
that he must do something to get her away from her dangerous seat was
certain. While he was debating how he should manage it, she took the
slip-knot at the loose end of the rope, and, holding out her feet,
began to work it round her ankles. Then he understood that it was not
madness he was watching, but the last scene of a tragedy, which, if he
did not act at once, would be played before his eyes.

To shout out, forbidding her to do this thing, would, he knew, be
useless, for the rope was already round her feet, and she would merely
spring off into the water, before he could reach her. With such a
weight to drag her down, rescue would be almost impossible from the
depths which she had chosen for her grave, and might mean the loss of
two lives instead of one. He was not particularly afraid of death, but
he liked doing things thoroughly, and, as drowning himself would not
save her, he did not intend to take the risk if he could do without
it.

Instinct told him that, apart from all fear of prevention, people do
not take their lives in presence of the casual passer-by, and he knew
that in assuming that character lay his best chance. Mary had covered
her face with her hands as though she were praying, and he seized the
moment to get himself on to the path. Then he coughed as unconcernedly
as he could, and strolled by the tree swinging his bill-hook. She kept
as quiet as a bird sitting on a nest, looking at him with startled
eyes.

"Good-day to ye," he began, as he stopped on the bank above her.

Mary murmured something inaudible, and drew her feet as far as she
could under her skirt that he might not see the rope.

"That's a rotten bough you be settin' on," he continued; "come off, or
belike it'll break down."

"No, 'tis not," she replied, trembling in every limb; "you needn't
mind me. I'm safe enough."

For reply he laid hold of a projecting root, and swung himself down
upon the ledge.

"Look," said he, drawing her attention to a hollow in the limb, and
coming a little nearer at each word, "it's all sodden, I tell ye."

For fear of betraying her feet, she did not stir as he advanced; she
remembered him as the man in the churchyard, and she knew his name,
but his determined face awed her, and the shining bill-hook in his
hand made him look almost as if he were going to attack her.

When he had reached the bough he suddenly sprang upon it, and laid his
hand upon her arm. His grip was like iron. Mary screamed aloud; she
had not feared death, but she was terrified of George Williams.

He held her firmly as they sat; her strained nerves were beginning to
give way, and her determination to flutter to the ground like a piece
of paper hurled into the air. She looked round despairingly.

"Put your feet up on the bough, girl," he said sternly.

"I can't," she faltered.

They were sitting upon it side by side, more like a pair of children
on a gate, than a man and woman with the shadow of death between them.
He was holding her fast with his left hand, but he loosened his grip,
and put his arm firmly about her.

"Do as I bid ye," he said, very quietly. "Turn sideways with your back
to me and lean against me."

She obeyed.

"Now put your feet up on the bough. Gently, mind."

She drew them up with some difficulty till they rested upon it before
her; a piece of the rope lay across the wood near the fork.

"Sit still!" he cried, holding her in a vice.

The bill-hook whirled above them and came down in a clean cut upon the
branch; the two ends of the rope fell away, one on either side. George
gave the great stone a push with the point of the blade and it fell
from its place, splashing into the blackness below and sending up a
shower of icy drops. The circles widened and widened underneath till
they fell out of shape against the sides of the pool.

"Do ye see that?" he exclaimed, releasing her and looking at her with
stern eyes. "Mary Vaughan, that's where you would be now, but that I
had been set to take this way an' not the high-road."

She made no reply.

"Will you repent it?" he asked, "or be I to tell on you? They at the
toll-house are like enough to shut you up if I do--and 'twill be no
more nor their duty too."

Her overwrought mind was beginning to feel the influence of his quiet
strength of purpose and she resented it. A sullen expression crossed
her face.

"Do as you will," she answered. "What do I care? You've done me an ill
trick an' I hate you for it. Go, I tell you!"

She turned her head away. He sat quietly beside her, pity and wrath in
his heart.

"Will you let me be?" she said, after a pause, turning on him and
gathering excitement in her voice.

"I won't."

Then her lips shook and her breast heaved, and she burst into a
torrent of helpless tears.

"Poor lass, poor lass," exclaimed the young man; and, with an impulse
that had in it no shadow of his sex, he put his arm round her. She
clung to him, weeping violently. She would have done the same had he
been a stock or a stone. He tossed the bill-hook up on to the bank,
and stroked her hair clumsily with his large rough hand.

"Come away from here," he said, when the rush of her grief had
subsided, "this is a bad, lonesome place to be in, Mary. I'll lift you
down and we'll go up on the bank. If there's aught you want to say to
me, say it up there."

He helped her off the bough, and from the ledge up to the path. They
stood facing each other.

"And now what can I do?" he asked. "How am I to leave you alone? I
can't bide by you all day to see that you come to no harm."

She opened her lips to speak, but no sound came.

"Look," he went on, "will you hearken to one thing I've got to say and
not take it ill o' me?"

She raised her eyes to his.

"If you was gone--drowned and gone--who would mind that little one
you've brought into the world? Would you leave it alone, poor little
babe, to them as might misuse it?"

"But he's dead," she said simply, and the agony in her face made him
turn away his own. He met the placid gaze of the snow-men, whose
foolish eyes seemed intent upon them both.

"Was that why you was--why I found you there?" he asked in a low
voice.

"Yes," she said. "I've nothing now, you see. There's none to care."

For some time neither spoke.

"Mary," said Williams at last, his face still turned to the white
images in the hollow, "will ye take me for a friend? God knows I
bean't no manner o' use."



CHAPTER XIV

THE USES OF A CAST SHOE

MISS ISOLINE RIDGEWAY was standing before an object which usually took
up a good deal of her time and attention, namely, the looking-glass.
As it was placed at right angles to her bedroom window, there could be
seen beyond her left shoulder as she arranged her hair, the great yew
in the churchyard and a piece of the church-path framed in by the
sash. Behind it was a background of sky turning into a frosty gold.

Crishowell Vicarage was a small, old, whitewashed house which had once
been a farm-house, with gabled windows looking westward; between it
and the lane dividing it from the churchyard was a duck-pond that, in
wet seasons, overflowed into the Digedi brook, which ran round the
Vicar's orchard at the back.

Isoline had just come in, and her hat and walking-things lay upon the
bed where she had thrown them. As the room was low, and the early
winter sunset hardly penetrated into the house by reason of the rising
ground opposite on which the church stood, she had lit a candle, whose
spot of feeble light only served to accentuate the dark around her; a
rat was scraping in the wainscot, and she shuddered as she looked
towards the place from which the noise came. She yawned, and wondered
what she could do to amuse herself until supper-time, for it was only
half-past four, and the Vicar kept old-fashioned hours--breakfast at
nine, a substantial dinner at three, supper at eight, prayers at
eight-thirty, and bed at ten o'clock. Since she had arrived at
Crishowell the days seemed to have lengthened into weeks and the weeks
into months. The old man was all kindness, but there was no one of her
own age with whom she could associate, and the few visits she had made
at his suggestion to the poor folks living round them had resulted in
boredom to herself and constraint to them. She had a true, though
rather thin voice, and she would gladly have practised her singing had
there been some instrument on which to accompany herself, but
unfortunately there was nothing of the sort in the house. Time hung
heavy on her hands, for Mr. Lewis's library was mainly theological,
and contained nothing which could amuse a girl. It was dull indeed.

A knock at the door drew her attention from the glass. "Who is there?"
she called, as she laid down the comb.

"Oi," was the reply, which came from suspiciously near the keyhole.

"What do you want?" she asked impatiently, opening the door on Howlie
Seaborne.

"Yew're to come down," he announced baldly.

"I am not ready," said she, with a haughty look. "Who sent you up
here, I should like to know?"

"Parson says yew be to come down," he repeated.

"Howell!" she exclaimed sharply, using the name by which he was known
to his superiors, "how often have I told you that that is not the way
to speak of Mr. Lewis; I never heard of such impertinence!"

"An' if a bain't a parson, wot be he? Ye moight call 'im even worse
nor that too, oi suppose," replied Howlie with a snort.

Mr. Lewis's requirements were modest, so he kept only one indoor
servant, who cooked for him and waited on his simple necessities, but
since his niece had arrived at the Vicarage and there was consequently
more work, Howlie had been brought in to help domestic matters
forward. He carried coals, pumped water, cleaned knives, and, had it
been possible to teach him the rudiments of good manners, would have
been a really valuable member of the household.

But those who associated with him had either to take him as they found
him or to leave him altogether. Isoline would have preferred to do the
latter, for there was in her an antagonism to the boy which had begun
the moment she climbed into her uncle's crazy vehicle on the Brecon
road. She detested boys of every sort, and this one was decidedly the
most horrible specimen of that generation of vipers she had ever come
across.

Howlie Seaborne had never before been at close quarters with a young
lady, the nearest approach to the species having been those little
village girls whose hair he had pulled, and upon whom he had sprung
out from dark corners by way of showing his lofty contempt, ever since
he could remember. Miss Ridgeway interested him a great deal, and
after the few days of close observation which it had taken him to find
her a place in his experience, he persisted in regarding her with the
indulgence due to a purely comic character.

"There be a gentleman down below," he remarked, when he had finished
snorting.

"A gentleman? What gentleman?"

"Moy! Just about as smart as a lord. Oi know 'im too. 'Im as was
general o' the soldjers the noight they was foightin' Rebecca. Oi
moind 'im, for 'e shook me crewel 'ard by the shoulder." He rubbed the
ill-used part.

Isoline shut the door in his face with a bang. The sudden draught put
out the candle, and she was obliged to light it again to make the
additional survey of her face which the situation below-stairs
demanded. She took a hand-glass from the drawer, and assured herself
that every view of it was satisfactory; then she hurried down the
wooden staircase which creaked under her foot, and stood a moment with
beating heart to collect herself at the door of her uncle's study.

Mr. Lewis was standing by the round table in the middle of the room,
and before him, with his hand on the mantelpiece, was Harry Fenton.
The younger man had one foot on the fender, and from his boots went up
a lively steam which showed that he had ridden over some heavy bits of
ground; his spurs, too, were coated with mud, and he seemed to be
appreciating the blaze that leaped gallantly in the chimney. He wore a
long cloth coat, which made him look about twice his natural size.

"Mr. Fenton has come over from Waterchurch on business," said Mr.
Lewis, turning to her as she entered, "and I am sorry to say that his
horse has cast a shoe on the way, and it has delayed his arrival till
now. But I have persuaded him to stay here for the night, which is
very pleasant."

"It is most kind of you, sir," interrupted Harry.

"My dear boy," exclaimed the Vicar, "it is impossible to think of
taking the road again at such an hour, and with such a distance before
you as Waterchurch. I am sorry," he went on, taking up a knitted
comforter and beginning to put it round his neck, "that I have just
been urgently sent for by a parishioner, and shall have to leave you
for an hour, but my niece will see that all is made ready for you.
Isoline, my dear, I will trust to you to look after Mr. Fenton till I
come back."

Harry had started from his home that morning with a couple of
instruments in his pockets not generally carried about by riders. They
bulged rather inside his coat, and he took great care, as he mounted,
that Llewellyn, who was leaning against the stable-wall watching him
depart, should not see them; they were a smith's buffer and a
small-sized pair of pincers for drawing nails out of horses' shoes.

His father, with some other county men, was bestirring himself about
the putting-up of a stone at Crishowell to the toll-keeper, and had
remarked at breakfast that he wanted to consult Mr. Lewis about the
inscription. Harry pricked up his ears.

"I suppose I shall have to write another couple of sheets," growled
the Squire. "Really, with all the writing I have had to do of late, I
am beginning to curse the inventor of the alphabet."

"Can't I help you, sir?" inquired Llewellyn. "I have nothing
particular to do this morning."

"Nothing particular to do! What is the use of my keeping an agent, I
should like to know, who has 'nothing particular to do'? Eh, sir?"

Llewellyn held his peace.

"I can go to Crishowell, and give your message; I was thinking of
riding out that way in any case," said Harry boldly.

The Squire had forgotten the existence of Isoline Ridgeway a couple of
days after the ball, and he really wanted to get the business of the
gravestone settled. "Very well," he assented, rather mollified, most
of his wrath having evaporated upon his youngest son, "but you will
have to start soon if you mean to get home again before dark. The
roads are pretty bad in this thaw."

So Harry had departed, nothing loth, and Llewellyn again held his
peace, though he thought a good deal. He had not forgotten Isoline,
but he had sense enough to know how useless speech can be.

The roads were no better than the old Squire had supposed,
nevertheless Harry did not seem inclined to get over them very
quickly, for he did not once let his horse go out of a sober walk. He
had delayed his start till after mid-day in spite of his father's
advice, so by the time he reached a secluded bit of lane about
half-a-mile from Crishowell village, the afternoon light was wearing
itself out beyond the fields and coppices lying westward. Here he
dismounted, and leading the animal into a clump of bushes, he took the
buffer out of his pocket and began to cut the clinches out of the shoe
on the near fore. Then he wrenched it gradually off with the pincers.
When this was done, he drew the reins over his arm and tramped
sturdily through the mud, carrying it in his hand. In this plight he
arrived at the Vicar of Crishowell's door.

When the sound of her uncle's steps had died away down the flagged
path that led through the garden, and Isoline had ordered the spare
room to be made ready for the guest, she and Harry drew their chairs
up to the hearth.

"You see, I have come as I said I should," he remarked, contemplating
the pattern of the hearthrug; "are you glad to see me, Miss Ridgeway?"

"Oh, yes," she replied truthfully.

"Shall I tell you a secret?" said the young man, wearing an expression
of great guile. "When the shoe came off I was rather pleased, for I
ventured to hope that Mr. Lewis might let me stay to supper while it
was being put on. I never expected such luck as being asked to stay
the night."

"It would be dreadfully lonely to ride back to Waterchurch Court in
the dark. _I_ should not like it, I know; I suppose gentlemen do not
mind these things."

"I prefer sitting here with you, certainly," answered Harry, looking
into the coals.

"What do you see in the fire?" she asked presently. "Are you looking
for pictures in it? I often do."

"I think I see--you."

"That is not very flattering," said Isoline, seeing a compliment
floating on the horizon, a little compliment, no bigger than a man's
thought, but capable of being worked up into something. "Coals are
ugly things, I think, don't you?"

"No, I don't, or I should not have looked for you among them."

She sat quite still in her chair, hoping there was more to follow, but
she was disappointed.

"How do you amuse yourself here?" Harry inquired, after a pause.

"There is nothing to amuse me," she replied in her most sophisticated
manner. "This is a dull little place for any one who has seen anything
of society. It is dreadful never to be able to speak to a lady or
gentleman."

"But there's your uncle; my mother always says that Mr. Lewis is the
finest gentleman she knows."

This was a new idea, and the girl opened her eyes. "Oh, but he is only
an old man," she rejoined.

"What an age it seems since the ball," he said, sighing. "I wish there
was another coming."

"So do I."

"When you had gone I found something of yours--something that I shall
not give you back unless you insist upon it."

"Something of mine? I do not remember losing anything."

He took a small pocket-book from his coat, and turned over the leaves
until he came to a little crushed blue object lying between them.

"Do you know this?" he asked, holding out the book.

She took it with all the pleasure a woman feels in handling the
possessions of a man in whom she is interested.

"Ah, yes, that is mine," she exclaimed, flushing as she recognized the
flower.

"It was," said Harry, "but it is mine now."

"Well, really!"

"But may I keep it?"

She turned away her head. "You are very foolish, Mr. Fenton."

"I do not mind that."

Isoline took the forget-me-not up between her finger and thumb and
twirled it round; then she leaned forward, holding it out above the
flame, and looking over her shoulder at her companion.

"Shall I drop it into the fire?" she asked, with a half-smile.

The young man sprang up. "No! no!" he cried, "surely you won't do
that! Oh! how very unkind of you!"

She laughed outright. "Well, take it then," she said, tossing it to
him.

He replaced it hastily, and put the book back in the pocket of his
coat.

"You are afraid I shall change my mind," said Isoline.

"Yes, I am."

She looked at him very softly. "But I shall not," she said.

At this moment the door opened, and Howlie Seaborne came in carrying
an armful of wood which he cast unceremoniously into a corner; when he
had done this he addressed Harry. "Shall oi give yew one o' Parson's
noightshirts?" he inquired, stopping a few paces from him and shouting
as though a precipice lay between them.

"What?" said Harry, unable to assimilate his thoughts to the
suddenness of the question.

"Be oi to give yew one o' Parson's noightshirts? The cook do say
yew're to sleep here, an' yew haven't got one roidin' along o' yew,
have yew?"

"Oh, yes, do," replied the young man, smiling, "if Mr. Lewis does not
mind."

"Howell," said Isoline with a face of horror, "go away at once, and do
not come back unless you are sent for. He is a dreadful creature," she
said, as the door closed behind him. "I cannot think how my uncle can
employ such an odious boy."

"But he is very amusing."

"Oh, I do not think so."

"Surely I know him," continued Harry. "Isn't he the boy who ran to
Llangarth on the night of the riot and brought us the news at the Bull
Inn? Of course! He must have something in him or he would not have
done that. I must talk to him after."

"You had better not," said she. "He is sure to say something rude."

"I suppose no one has ever heard anything more about Walters," said
he; "I hear they have almost given up searching for him. What does
your uncle think about it, I wonder?"

"He says he must be half-way to Australia by this time."

"I am afraid he is right," said Harry, the wound Rhys had dealt his
vanity smarting, as it always did, at the sound of his name.

"I do believe, if you had three wishes given you, like the people in
story-books, one of them would be to catch that man."

"Certainly it would."

"Oh, but there is no use in wishing," said Isoline, shaking her head
and feeling quite original.

"Sometimes there is," said Harry, looking at her. "I wished at the
ball to be introduced to you, and I was, you see."

"Yes, but if you had wished and done nothing else, it would not have
happened," she observed, feeling more original still.

"That is quite true, but, in your case, I was able to do something; I
did everything I could in this one, and it was no use. Heavens! how I
galloped up those lanes--just a few fields off behind this house too."

The dark had closed in by this time and the dull flash of the Vicar's
lantern could be seen as he passed the window; he came into the study
and stood warming his cold hands at the blaze. Harry rose
deferentially.

"Do not move," said the old man, pushing him back into his seat. "In a
few minutes we will go into the other room and you shall explain your
father's business to me. It will not interest you, my dear, so you
will excuse us," he added, with a courtesy which was enhanced by his
grey hair.

When they had left her, Isoline remained with her toes upon the fender
in a brown study. She also was looking at pictures in the fire, but,
whereas Fenton saw people, she only saw things.

Harry never enjoyed a meal much more than the supper he partook of
that evening, though Isoline suffered many pangs as she cast her eyes
over the plain fare before them; it must look so mean, she reflected,
after the superior glories of the establishment presided over by Lady
Harriet Fenton. She saw with satisfaction, however, that the guest ate
heartily, and, with slight surprise, that he seemed to like her
uncle's company.

That the refinement of atmosphere surrounding one elderly person might
blind the eyes to a darned tablecloth was one of those things the
society to which she was fond of alluding had not taught her. That the
glamour of a lovely face might turn the attention away from it, she
had allowed herself to hope.

When the table was cleared and the large Prayer-book placed where the
mince and poached eggs had stood, the cook and Howlie Seaborne, who
was kept on till bed-time to look after Harry, came in and took their
seats in the background. Isoline glanced flippantly across the room at
the young man to see whether the homely ceremony would bring a smile
to his lips. He caught her look, but the grave simplicity on his face
made her avert her eyes and pretend that she had been examining the
clock which stood behind him.

As she lay in bed that night thinking over the unlooked-for event of
the afternoon, she admitted to herself that he was a much more
puzzling person than she had supposed. When he left next morning two
pairs of eyes followed him as he disappeared behind the church; one
pair belonged to Miss Ridgeway, who was smiling at him from a window,
and one to Howlie, who had, for the first time in his life, received a
real shock. The shock was a pleasant one, for it had been occasioned
by the silver half-crown which lay in his palm.

Llewellyn was the only person in the Waterchurch household who did not
accept the episode of the cast shoe without misgiving, for Harry's
non-appearance had produced no surprise, the roads being bad and the
Vicar of Crishowell hospitable. His vague dislike to Isoline Ridgeway
had lately grown more positive, for a little rift had sprung between
the two brothers since she had brought her disturbing presence across
their way, and the fact that it was there proved to the younger one
how great an influence he had over Harry's thoughts. She was the first
person who had ever thrust herself through the strong web of
friendship which had held them for so many years. They had not
exchanged a word about her since they had parted from her at the toll,
which was in itself significant, but they knew each other too well to
need words. There is no friend so close as the friend to whom one does
not tell everything.

Llewellyn had a cooler head than Harry and a finer insight into
people, and the want of breeding in Miss Ridgeway was as plain to him
as possible. If she had been vulgarly pretty, with a strident voice
and loud manner, he might even have disliked her less, but, as it was,
he knew that her soul was vulgar, not her exterior; unlike most
people, he could distinguish between the two. It was no jealousy of a
possible wife who would take the first place in his brother's mind
which possessed him, for he had always foreseen the day when Harry
would marry, and he himself have to take a modest place in the
background, and he meant to do it gracefully. But not for Isoline, nor
for one like her; that was beyond him. He cut savagely with the stick
he carried at the things in the hedge.

The two young men had avoided each other all day, talking with almost
boisterous cheerfulness when a third person was present, and finding
urgent occupation in different directions the moment they were left
alone. And now, as Llewellyn rounded a corner of the gardener's
cottage, they came face to face. An insane desire for action took him.

"For God's sake don't avoid me, Harry," he exclaimed, running his arm
through his brother's. Harry turned red.

"I'm not avoiding you, Loo, but I don't know what is the matter with
you to-day. Is there anything wrong?"

Llewellyn hated fencing.

"I wish you wouldn't go to Crishowell, Harry."

The elder flared up like a match held over a lamp-chimney.

"Why shouldn't I go, if I choose? What the devil has it got to do with
you? Am I to get permission before I take my father's messages?--'Yes,
sir, I will go if I can, but I must ask Llewellyn first.'--That would
be splendid, wouldn't it? Because I always forgot you were my younger
brother, you've forgotten it too. It's my fault, I know!"

Llewellyn dropped his arm as though the words had made it red-hot. His
pride in Harry's affection had always been so great that they were
like a blow, and he had not the faintest consciousness of superiority
to his brother to dull their effect.

"That's true," he said, with a quietness so false that it sobered
Harry, "but it need never trouble you again--it can't, for nothing
will ever be the same now."

And he opened the door of the kitchen-garden, and was through it and
was hurrying along between the box-borders before the other had
realized what had happened.

He stood for a moment looking after his brother, and then rushed to
the door, knowing that every instant that kept them apart would widen
the gulf that had opened between them. But it had slammed to, and, as
there was something wrong with the latch, it had the habit of sticking
tight and refusing to move when roughly handled. His pull had no more
effect upon it than if it had been locked, and he tore and shook at
the stubborn thing, feeling like a person in a nightmare whom
inanimate objects conspire together to undo. Seeing that his fight
with the latch was useless, he set off running round the garden wall
to the entrance at its opposite end; it was open when he reached it,
for Llewellyn had come through and was standing by a bed of Christmas
roses whose draggled petals had evidently not recovered from the
recent thaw.

"Loo! Loo! don't go!" he cried as he saw him turn away. "Oh,
Llewellyn! I didn't mean that, I didn't mean it!"

The younger brother's face was white, and he looked dumbly at the
other.

"What a cur I am!" cried Harry, seizing his hand. "Don't stare at me,
Llewellyn--say something, for Heaven's sake!"

"I should not have spoken," said Llewellyn hoarsely.

"Say anything you like--anything, only forgive me! forgive me!" cried
generous Harry.

Llewellyn's hand, which had lain passive in his brother's, began to
tighten. "Don't, Harry," he said. "It's all right. I will never say
anything about it again. I had no right to interfere."

"But that's worse. It is terrible to think we can't talk to each
other. Just say out what you think, Loo, and I'll listen; I haven't
been able to speak a word to you of late, but I wish we could have it
out now."

They were walking down the laurel shrubbery leading from the garden to
the home farm, Llewellyn's chief anxiety and the Squire's dearest toy.
The old wall which ran outside it smelt damp, a background of sodden
red to the rank, shining leaves. A cock robin, whose figure had filled
out considerably since the thaw, was sending forth his shrill, cold
voice in recognition of this crowning mercy. The breath of rotting
chrysanthemums came from the beds by the tool-house.

"How much do you really care for her?" asked Llewellyn after a pause.

"A lot!"

"But how much? More than Laura? More than Kitty Foster?"

"Oh, Laura! that was nothing. And Kitty Foster, that was different
too."

"But you were half mad about her once. Don't you remember when she
went away, what a state you were in and how you raged?"

"Ah, I was younger then," replied Harry, with all the wisdom of his
twenty-five years strong upon him.

"Is it because she is so pretty that you like Miss Ridgeway?" asked
Llewellyn.

"That and heaps of other things."

"Do you think she likes you?"

"Yes, I am nearly sure of it."

"Well, then, I'm not," said his brother shortly.

"But, my good man, how can you tell?" exclaimed Harry, rather nettled.

"She does not care for anything--at least, for nothing but herself."

Harry was on the verge of flying out again, but he remembered the
latch of the garden-door, and refrained.

"I know you are mistaken," he said, "you can't think how glad she was
to see me yesterday."

"I don't doubt that," replied the other dryly.

"But why do you doubt her liking me? I am not such a brute that no
girl could look at me; I dare say I am no beauty, but, after all, I am
neither lame nor a fright, nor hump-backed, nor crooked, nor
squint-eyed, am I?"

Llewellyn laughed outright. "Hardly. But she's a nobody, and you're
somebody, d'you see, Harry."

"I did not know you cared about those sort of things," remarked his
brother scornfully.

"I'm not sure that I should if she were the right kind of girl. But
I'm sure she isn't. She thinks it would be a fine thing to be Mrs.
Fenton, and I have no doubt she fancies you have lots of money,
because you look smart and all that--she doesn't understand how
hard-up we are. I could guess that she was thinking about it that day
on the coach."

Harry was rather impressed.

"Of course it's a grand thing for her having you dangling about; girls
like that sort of thing, I know. But I wouldn't if I were you."

"One can't look at any one else when she's there," sighed the other.

"Then don't go there. I wish you could keep away from that place for a
little bit, then you might forget her. And if you couldn't," added the
astute Llewellyn, "after all, she will be there for ever so long and
you will have plenty of chances of going to Hereford when she returns
to her aunt. Try, Harry."

The younger brother's influence had always been so strong that the
elder was never entirely free from it; he had looked at things for so
many years of boyhood through Llewellyn's eyes, that he had never
quite lost the habit, though the separation which manhood brought them
had weakened it a little.

"Well, I shan't have any pretext for going to Crishowell for some
time," he said slowly. "You've made me rather miserable."

Llewellyn said no more, but he felt that he had gained something.



CHAPTER XV

THE BEGINNING

GEORGE WILLIAMS' education had been a very elementary and spasmodic
thing. In days of comparative prosperity, when he was a small boy, he
had learned to read and write and add up a little, but his mother's
widowhood had sent him out to field-work at an age when the village
urchins of the present day are still wrestling with the fourth
"standard."

That most irksome of all tools, the pen, was lying before him on the
box which served as a table, and he stared sorrowfully at it and the
cheap ink-pot beside it; now and then he took himself sternly by the
front hair as though to compel his brain to come to the assistance of
his hand.

The cottage was very quiet, and the door stood open to let in what
remained of the afternoon light. Below Rhys, who had spent the whole
of the preceding night out of doors, was making up for lost sleep upon
his pile of sheepskins, for, since his recovery, Williams' bedding had
been restored to its rightful place. The brook gurgled outside. He
shoved the paper away impatiently and sat back in his chair. All his
efforts had only resulted in two words which faced him on the
otherwise blank sheet. He laid his unlighted pipe down on them, for he
heard Rhys' footsteps upon the ladder below the flooring, and he did
not want him to see what he had written. The two words were "Dere
Mary."

The composition of this letter had hung over him for some days, for,
besides his poor scholarship, he was one of those people whose powers
of expression are quite inadequate to their need of expressing. He
knew this very well, and it depressed him a good deal. He had made up
his mind to ask Mary Vaughan to be his wife.

It is doubtful whether five people out of every ten who contemplate
marrying do so from devotion pure and absolute, so in this George was
no worse than many of his neighbours. He certainly was not in love
with Mary, for he could hardly tell whether he would be glad or sorry
if she refused him, but he was inclined to think, sorry. His main
reason, which swallowed up any other, was pity--pity and the longing
to protect a stricken creature. The type of theorist perfect in all
points except discrimination in human nature would have smiled
deprecatingly and assured him that he was a fool, that what had
happened once must inevitably happen twice, and that he would be like
the man in Æsop's fable who had warmed a frozen viper on his hearth
and been bitten for his pains. But he knew better. That Mary was not a
light woman he could see easily--so easily indeed that he had never
given the matter the consideration of a moment. He merely knew it.
Also there lurked in him an odd feeling which one might almost call an
economical one; they had both made a terrible muddle of their lives
and gone the wrong ways to their own undoing, and if they could but
convert their two mistakes into one success, it would be a distinct
gain. He was a lonely man too, and the presence of a young and comely
woman in his home would be very pleasant to him. He wondered whether
she liked him much--he did not for an instant fancy that she loved
him, for he knew that her heart was dead inside her, and he was quite
unconscious that one thing that drew him to her was his complete
understanding of her. It is a kindness we do when we really understand
another human being--given a not ignoble one--and the doing of a
kindness produces affection more surely than the receiving of one. The
chief drawback to his plan was his bondage to the Pig-driver, for
until that was over he could not marry; but he was putting by little
sums earned with his hedging and ditching and other journeyman work,
and on these he hoped they might start their married life when he had
served his time with Bumpett. Could he make money enough to pay his
debts to his taskmaster he would break with him at once, knowing that
the old man in exposing his thefts would have to expose his own also.
But his earnings were so small that all these were only forlorn hopes.

Rhys came up through the trap-door under the sacks. As he appeared in
the doorway of the partition George saw that he had a stick in his
hand.

"You're not thinking to go out, surely?" he remarked.

"I am," was the short reply.

"But the light's not gone yet; you'll be collared one of these days,"
said Williams, more as a sop to his own conscience than from any
interest.

"If I don't care, you needn't."

"I don't--not a damn," replied Williams; "you can get clapped into
prison any day you like."

Walters left the house in so reckless a humour that he scarce bestowed
a precautionary glance on his surroundings when he crossed the plank,
and as the old cart-road led only to the most carefully avoided place
within, possibly, a hundred miles, he was the less inclined to thwart
his mood. Though the dusk had barely begun to confuse distant
outlines, he strolled carelessly up the hillside, his mind full of
irritated contempt for George. It was hard to him that a man of his
intelligence and standing should have to tolerate the society of a
clown, one whose sole merit of brute strength was unillumined by any
ray of good feeling or geniality. When he arrived at the bit of
scrubby ground by the Pedlar's Stone, he turned and looked down the
track he had ascended towards the valley.

On either side lay the slope, unbroken except by ragged bushes and
briers; out of one of these which clothed a bank stuck the Pedlar's
Stone. It looked sinister enough thrusting its black form through the
thorns. A little way beyond was the rock under which the Pig-driver
had made so snug a larder, and two or three slabs not unlike it were
scattered round. He sat down upon one of them; there were limits to
his imprudence, and he did not mean to venture farther away until the
light had completely gone. Night outside had of late become as
familiar to him as day, the sleeping world as important as the waking
one; he felt almost like a man endued with an extra sense, for that
half of life which for the healthy sleepers of the earth is simply cut
out, was a living reality to him. The gulf of oblivion which divides
one day from another for most people was ceasing to exist, and in its
place was a time with its own aspects and divisions, its own set of
active living creatures whose spheres of work belonged properly to the
darkness and stillness. He had a feeling of double life. Eastern
ascetics whose existences are spent in lonely places, in vigils, in
silence, in the fastnesses of strange hills, know this. To the Western
mind, so curiously incapable of understanding anything which does not
assail it through its body, and which has such a strange pride in its
own limitations, such things are folly. But the double life is there,
the pulsations of knowledge which can be dimly heard through that
receptiveness of mind born of long silence, and though Rhys knew it as
little as do most of his nation, he had a dim consciousness of change.
That the quietness of night soothed him was all he understood or ever
would understand; he longed for it to come as he sat looking over the
fading landscape. And it was coming--coming as surely as that other
influence of which he did not dream, but which even then stood behind
him.

A sound aroused him; he turned with dismay and saw that he was not
alone. He sprang up and found himself face to face with a woman. A
glance showed him that she was a stranger, and though he was dismayed
at the consequences of his rashness, it was reassuring to see from her
manner that she was entirely occupied with her own affairs.

"I beg your pardon," she began, "I am sorry to interrupt you, but I am
in trouble. I have wandered about for I cannot tell how long--hours, I
think--and I have lost myself. I am _so_ tired." There was almost a
sob in her voice as she sank upon the stone on which Rhys had been
sitting. "I beg of you, sir, to show me the way back to Crishowell."

She was stooping down and holding her ankle in her hand as though it
hurt her; her boots were thin and cut in places, and the mud had
almost turned them from their original black to brown. She was
evidently young, though her thick veil hid her features, and her
clothes were absurdly unsuited to her surroundings.

"Oh, my foot!" she exclaimed, "I have hurt my foot. Something ran into
it as I came through those bushes."

Rhys looked down.

"It is bleeding," he said, noticing a reddish spot which was soaking
through the mud. "Your boots are not strong enough for such places."

"I did not mean to come up here. I went for a walk from my uncle's
house in Crishowell. I only intended to go a little distance up the
hill, but I could not find my way back, and there was no one to direct
me after I had passed the village. Does nobody live about here?"

"Not near here, certainly," he replied.

"And how far do you think I am from Crishowell?"

"About three miles."

"Three miles!" exclaimed the girl, hardly restraining her tears. "How
can I ever get home? And with this foot, too."

"Perhaps a thorn has gone into it," he suggested. "If you will take
off your boot I'll look and see what is wrong."

She bent down and began to unfasten it. Rhys looked anxiously about
them and saw with satisfaction that the dusk had increased and would
soon have fallen completely. He knelt down in front of her, and she
straightened herself wearily, glad for her gloved fingers to escape
the mud. When he pulled off the boot she gave a little cry of pain,
and he looked up at her. She had put back her veil, and for the first
time he saw her face. A look of admiration came into his own. She read
the expression behind his eyes as she might have read the story in a
picture, and it affected her like a draught of wine. Her fatigue was
almost forgotten; she only felt that she was confronted by one of the
most attractive and uncommon-looking of men, and that he admired her.

"Can you see anything in my foot?" she inquired, lowering her eyes.

He examined it carefully.

"There's a very long thick thorn; it has run in nearly half-an-inch.
I'm likely to hurt you pulling it out, but out it must come."

"Very well," she said.

He took out his knife.

"Oh, what are you going to do?" she cried in alarm.

"There's a small pair of pincers in it. It will be best to use that."

Isoline shut her eyes and drew her breath quickly; as the thorn came
out she shuddered and put out her hand.

"I am afraid you must think me a great coward," she faltered. "You
would not behave like that, I am sure."

"I am not so delicate as you. You ought never to trust yourself in
these rough places alone."

"And now I have all these three miles to go alone in the dark, and I
am so afraid. I may meet cows or animals of some kind. Look how dark
it has become."

"If you will rest a little I will go with you part of the way. I can't
come as far as Crishowell, but I'll take you till we can see a
farm-house where they'll give you a lantern and a man to carry it
before you to the village."

"Oh, thank you. How very kind you are."

He laughed. "Am I?" he said. "'Tis a mighty disagreeable piece of
business for me, isn't it?"

There are many ways of conveying admiration, and Rhys' voice was
expressive.

Isoline was engaged with her boot, and he sat down beside her on the
rock. It was almost dark.

Like all who saw Rhys Walters for the first time she was considerably
puzzled to know who and what he might be, and his surroundings gave no
clue to his position. His clothes were good, being his own, for though
Bumpett had counselled him to borrow from George, he would never
condescend to wear anything belonging to him. He spoke well when he
gave himself the trouble, and Isoline, who was not as discriminating
as she might have been, admired his assurance.

Since the young man had been in hiding he had heard little of what was
going on in the neighbourhood, George being uncommunicative, and it
was only occasionally that he saw the Pig-driver. His beautiful
companion puzzled him as much as he puzzled her, for he knew that, had
he seen her face before, he could never have forgotten it.

His safety now lay in the possibility of her not describing him to any
one, and he would have to secure her promise of silence, a precarious
barrier indeed between him and detection. It had been the thousand
chances to one against his meeting any one at that hour and place, but
the one chance had turned up and confounded him. He was running
perilously near the rocks.

"I think I ought to be starting for home," said Isoline's voice at
his side after some time. "I am rested, and my foot is hardly painful
since you have taken the thorn out. You have been very kind to me,"
she added softly.

"Well, be grateful to me."

"Oh, I am indeed."

"Then stay a little longer to show it," he said boldly, "it's such a
treat to look at a face like yours."

"Why, you cannot see me in this darkness," replied Isoline, tossing
her head, but apparently regarding his remark as perfectly natural.

"But I know you are there, and when you are gone, who can tell when I
shall see you again? You don't know how terribly I'd like to."

There was real feeling in his voice.

She was rather taken aback. "Who are you?" she said suddenly.

"If you will tell me your name I will tell you mine."

"I am Miss Isoline Ridge way, and my uncle is Mr. Lewis, the Vicar of
Crishowell."

"I don't know him," said Rhys. "I am a stranger."

"You have not told me who you are," said the girl, after a silence in
which he was preparing his answer.

"I'm called Kent--Robert Kent," he replied, giving the name of a boy
who had been at school with him.

"That sounds very romantic," observed Isoline; "like an outlaw or a
murderer in a tale."

Rhys winced in the darkness.

"I must go now," she said, rising. "You will come with me?"

"That I will--as far as I can. Tell me, am I never to see you any
more?"

"I am sure I don't know," she replied, turning away.

"Would you ever care to set eyes on me again?" He took her hand, and
she did not draw it away from him.

"Yes, I think I should."

"Then promise never to tell any one I met you here."

"Oh, I will not say anything."

"It's a promise, then. Give me your two hands on it."

She held out the other, and he kissed them both.

"Will you come back here some day soon?" he asked, almost in a
whisper.

"Oh, I couldn't. And I should never find my way."

"You could if I told you how to. You could ask for the farm I am going
to take you to, and then 'twould be only a little bit further; and
none can see you these dark evenings."

"I must go," she said; "don't ask me such things."

The night was, by this time, lying on the hillsides like a black
cloth, and they crossed the rough turf, Isoline tripping and knocking
her unaccustomed feet against the stones. A thrill went through Rhys
as she took his arm at his suggestion; she could feel his heart
beating against her hand. It was very interesting, she thought, and
she hardly regretted having lost herself, though she had been
frightened enough at the time.

They walked along the high ground until the lighted windows of a farm
were visible on a slope below them, and then began to descend; at the
outer side of a wall they stopped. "I can't come any further," he
said, "but I'll help you over this. There's the house, straight in
front of us. Tell them you've missed your road, and ask them to send a
man with a light."

He took her by the waist, and lifted her on to the top of the wall,
then swung himself over and stood before her on the inside of the
enclosure. "If you come back," he said, "and keep straight on above
this along the hillside, you'll get to the place where I met you
to-night. Do you see?"

She made no answer. She would not slip down from her seat for fear of
falling into his arms.

"I shall wait there every evening at dusk," said Rhys, looking up at
her through the blackness.

"Let me go, please let me go!"

He put up his arms and lifted her down.

"Good-bye," she said.

"But you will think of it," he begged, detaining her.

She shook herself free and flitted like a shadow into the night. The
word "Perhaps" floated back to him through the dark.

He stood for some time looking at the twinkling light of the farm;
soon a large steady one emerged from it, moving forward slowly, and he
guessed that Isoline's lantern-bearer was piloting her home. The light
wound along, leaving a shine behind it, against which he could see the
dark outline of some moving thing, turned, wavered at the place where
he knew there was a gate, and finally disappeared. He climbed to the
high ground and set his face in the direction of the Pedlar's Stone.
Though pitch dark, it was still early, which made him anxious to get
back to the shelter of its ill-omened presence, for his feeling of
security had been shaken.

In spite of this he went along with the tread of a man who is light of
heart, his head full of the fascinating personality whose existence
had been unknown to him a few hours before, but whose appearing had
let loose a whole flock of new possibilities. He thought of her voice,
of her little slender feet, of the brilliant face that had dawned upon
him through the dusk with the turning back of her veil, of her pretty
gesture of terror as she saw him draw out his knife; he went over in
his mind each word she had said to him since the instant he had sprung
up from the rock and found her standing behind him. Even her very name
was a revelation of delicacy and ornament;
Isoline--Isoline--Isoline--he said it over to himself again and again;
it was to the Janes and Annes of his experience as a hothouse flower
is to cottage herbs, a nightingale's song to the homely chatter of
starlings, a floating breath from the refinements which exist apart
from the rough utilities of the world. He sighed impatiently as
another face thrust itself between him and his new ideal. To think
that he had ever supposed himself dominated by it! Mary's eyes had
once illumined him, Mary's personality held his senses and feelings,
but he laughed at himself for his blindness in having picked up a
wayside pebble and imagined it a jewel.

Rhys had a certain amount of imagination, and femininity in one shape
or another had been a necessity to him all his life; part of the
repulsion he had often felt for his mother was due to the systematic
way in which she had divested herself of every shred of feminine
attraction in domestic life. This had not come to her as the result of
Puritanic sympathies. Before religion had taken hold upon her the
romance of all womanhood, of love, of marriage, of motherhood, had
been an offence. She approved of people who led happy married lives,
but it was an approval of the conventionality of the relationship;
that the husband should remain the lover, the wife the mistress, was
an idea to be dismissed with scorn. Marriage was a duty, and woman's
personal attraction a quality to be reduced to the level of handsome
domestic furniture, a credit to the home which contained it. That a
married man and woman of more than a year's standing should be in love
with each other was more than an absurdity, it was almost an
indecency. Since he had been able to think at all, Rhys had dimly felt
this, for it is a frame of mind of whose existence in a woman no
masculine human being is ever quite unconscious. When he had grown old
enough to understand it, it had given him a violent push in the
opposite direction, and set his adolescent brain in a flame.

It was so dark when he reached the Pedlar's Stone that he had to grope
about among the bushes to find it, and he traced his way from it with
difficulty to the rock on which he and Isoline had sat. He would come
there the next evening and the evening after--every day until the
early rising moon should make it impossible. He began to reckon up the
calendar on his fingers, trying to make out how many light nights
there would be in the following month; February had begun, and the
days were lengthening slowly, but by the middle of March there would
be no more chances of meeting. Though she had only said "Perhaps," his
hopes were rampant, for he had not been accustomed to neglect where
women were concerned. He did not undervalue the risk he was running by
putting himself in the power of a girl's idle tongue, yet he never
hesitated; he was like the miner who will not be deterred from
lighting his pipe in the danger-laden atmosphere of the mine. He was a
cautious man in ordinary things; it had taken him some time to make up
his mind to join Rebecca, and, when he had done so, he had arranged an
elaborate scheme for his own security instead of trusting to luck with
his companions. But the life of successful hiding which he now lived
was making him reckless, and where a woman was in the question he had
always been ready to throw common-sense to the winds. He did not
trouble himself to think what the end of this unexpected interest
might be; in any case it would put a zest into the constrained life he
led just as sheep-stealing had done. Would she forget him or refuse to
return to the Pedlar's Stone? That was the only anxiety he had, but it
was a very half-hearted one, for he felt sure she would not. A future
of pleasant dallying lay indefinitely before him, he hoped, with the
prospect of a voyage, when the Pig-driver should assure him that all
was quiet, and a new life begun in a new country.

His regret for Mary had vanished utterly. As he had been to Crishowell
church once or twice, he knew Mr. Lewis perfectly by sight, and the
irony of things made him smile as he realized that, in his own former
respectable personality of Mr. Walters of Great Masterhouse, he could
never have hoped to speak to the Vicar's lovely niece. He was a
farmer, he reflected, she a lady, not knowing that no circumstances in
this world could have made Isoline Ridgeway a gentlewoman. It pleased
him to find that, as he had slipped from his original and obvious
surroundings, she had evidently taken him for a man of her own class.
His feeling of exhilaration made him wish for some one to whom he
might pour out the praises of Isoline; in presence of a companion the
thought of her would have loosened his tongue like wine mounting to
his brain. He longed to shout, to cry her beauty aloud, to flaunt it
and her condescension to him in the faces of other men, but there was
no one he could speak to except a dull yokel, to whom the very name of
love would convey nothing but the most ordinary instincts. It was
hard; but he felt that, in spite of all his misfortunes, he was in the
better case of the two. He could at least appreciate the high
pleasures open to humanity, for his soul was not bounded by the petty
fence of commonplace which enclosed George and shut out his view of
life's loftier things.

He comforted himself with that; yet, as he sat on the rock, his mind
filled with the radiance left by Isoline, the picture of the
sheep-stealer's unemotional face, set in the ugly framing of the
cottage walls, seemed to him like the shadow of some sordid implement
of labour against a moonlit landscape.

One must pay for everything in this world; even high-mindedness costs
its owner something.



CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH GEORGE PROVES TO BE BUT HUMAN

THE letter which had presented such difficulties to George was
finished at last, and while Rhys was sitting with Isoline upon the
rock, he was trudging down to Crishowell with it in his pocket. At the
village he captured a stray urchin to whom he confided it, promising
him a penny, which was to be paid on the following day at twelve
o'clock; the boy was to go to the blacksmith's shop, where his patron
would await the expected answer. He did not tell him to bring it to
the cottage, as, since Rhys' arrival, he had strongly discouraged all
visitors.


"Dere Mary," he had written, "I write these few lines hopeing you wil
not take it il 'tis trewly ment. Dere Mary, wil you have me? What is
dun is dun and can't be undun so take hart. I wil be a good husband
and love you well never doute it.
     "Yours trewly,
          "GEORGE WILLIAMS."


When the letter reached its destination, Mary was looking out of the
diamond-paned window of the toll-house, and as she opened the door to
the boy's knock, he thrust it into her hand, telling her he would come
for the answer in the morning. She took it in, and went up with it to
the little room where she slept, for there was no light in the
kitchen. Lighting a tallow dip which stood in a tin candlestick, she
sat down, spreading the paper out in front of her; a letter was such
an unusual thing in her experience that she opened it with a sort of
misgiving. She read it to the end hurriedly, as hurriedly as her
inefficiency and the cramped handwriting would permit, but it was so
exceedingly surprising that she could hardly take it in; it lay on the
table in the circle of yellow light, a dumb, yet disturbing thing,
knocking like an unbidden guest at the closed door of her heart. It
brought the strong face of the man with the bill-hook before her, an
intruder, almost a vision of fear.

She felt that it was incumbent upon her to feel something, but what
she could not tell, and she laughed as she folded the letter and
pushed it underneath the candlestick. When she went down again to the
kitchen where the new toll-keeper and his wife were sitting, they
looked at her with solemn curiosity, such as was due to the recipient
of a letter, but she made no allusion to it, and went up early to bed
after supper, leaving the two by the fire.

Before putting out the light, she read George's proposal over again,
and repeated it to herself as she lay in her attic with her eyes on
the patch of starlit sky which filled the window high up in the roof.
How often she had lain there, with her little child in her arms, and
watched the handle of the Plough describing its quarter-circle on the
heavens. She remembered that and buried her face in the pillow. She
wondered whether there was any one in the world so entirely alone as
herself, and though she thought with gratitude of the couple sleeping
peacefully in the room off the kitchen below, she knew very well that
she had no place in their lives. The world--that void peopled with
strangers--confronted her, and she had no more spirit left with which
to meet it, for her arms were empty of the burden that alone had given
her courage.

The excitement which comes upon nervous people at night in the
presence of difficulties took hold of her; one bugbear after another
pressed upon her brain, and though the attic was cold, she sat up as
the hours went by, feverish with contending thoughts, and saw the
whiteness of the letter lying on a chair under the window.

It would be a solution to many anxieties, though hardly the one she
would have chosen; but beggars cannot be choosers, and she allowed
herself to dwell upon the idea, with the result that as it grew more
familiar, it also grew less formidable. She did not want to marry--why
could he not give her his friendship only, with no thought of any
other relationship? She needed that, and since it had been offered,
the knowledge of it had been a greater support than she could have
supposed. On first reading the letter she had lost the sense of this,
but now it came back, and George's calm personality was a soothing
thing to think about. She shut her eyes, and brought back to her mind
that terrible hour by the river, and all he had done for her. He had
gone with her to the toll-house door that day, and left her taking
with him a promise that she would never attempt her own life again.

The restraint of the letter gave her confidence. She felt that, had he
made a declaration of love as well as an offer of marriage, she could
not have listened to it for a moment; she had had enough of love, were
it false love or true. If he married her he would be marrying her out
of pity, and she almost thought that she liked and trusted him enough
to accept the fact. Had he asked for love she could not have pretended
to give it him. But he had asked for nothing. It was like a business
proposal, so dispassionate was it. He had said, "I wil love you well
never doute it," but that gave promise of the loyal affection of a
tried companion, not the passion of a lover for the woman loved, and
it demanded nothing in return, not even gratitude, though she felt
that she could and would give him plenty of that. She would have a
home, and she did not doubt that it would be a better one than many a
woman got whose domestic relations were considered fortunate. The
quiet of the thought calmed her, and she fell asleep while she turned
over the restful possibility in her mind.

In the morning she rose early and went down to the kitchen to light
the fire, for she had lately made a practice of this, being glad to do
anything to help the toll-keeper's wife. As she laid the wood she
thought of the letter waiting to be answered. Morning had almost
brought the decision to say "No." Everything seemed less formidable in
the daylight, and sleep had steadied her nerves and cleared away the
spectres of the darkness; it was not until she had sat down in the
attic, pen in hand, to renounce the haven held open for her that she
wavered. While she hesitated the boy knocked at the door below, and
standing at the turning-point of her way, Mary's heart failed her.

She wanted time. In a few minutes she had got no nearer to her
decision, and the messenger waiting in the road began to kick the
doorstep impatiently. She tore the sheet of paper in half, and wrote
on the blank part of it.


"Dear George Williams, i dont know what to do i cant say yes nor no. i
know you are a good man and many thanks. forgive me i mean to do rite
i will send the anser to Crishowell on market day your obliged friend
          "MARY VAUGHAN."


She had received a little education, and had taught herself a good
deal during her intimacy with Rhys, spending many evenings in attempts
to improve in reading and writing. What puzzled her most in the
present case was how to address her suitor, and, more than all, how to
subscribe herself. She wondered, as she watched the boy's back
retreating towards Crishowell, whether she had done so rightly. He was
her friend, she told herself, and she was obliged indeed.

On market day George prepared to go down to the toll and hear his
fate. His objection to letting his messenger come to the cottage was
his reason for this, and not any excitement brought on by the
occasion. He was no hot-headed lad rushing off to his sweetheart; he
was a man with whom life had gone wrong, so wrong as to have given him
a very present determination to prevent another life from sliding down
the hill into that slough which had all but swallowed up his own. He
was struggling in it yet, and he could not hope to set his feet on
firm ground for some time to come. But when that day should arrive,
and he could begin to toil up the slope again, he meant to tow up an
extra burden with him. He felt himself strong and hard and patient,
and he liked to think that his strength and hardness and patience
might do for two.

In spite of the absence of romance in his wooing, he determined that
no outward sign of it should be missing from his errand--he felt it to
be due to Mary. The butterfly, whose wings had been scorched by the
fires of life, should be pursued with nets and lures as though it were
the most gaudy and unattainable of winged creatures. For this reason
his best suit of working-clothes (he possessed no Sunday ones) had
been carefully brushed over-night, and his boots cleaned. He ducked
his head into the water-bucket and scrubbed it with his coarse towel,
flattening and smoothing his hair before the scrap of looking-glass
till it shone. He shaved himself with great care, and trimmed the two
inches of whisker, which made lines in front of his ears, until they
became mere shadings, and then took from some hidden lair, in which he
kept such things, a purple neckcloth with white bird's-eye spots on
it. This he tied with infinite care. As he was dusting his hat he
looked up, to see Rhys standing in the doorway of the partition; he
had been so much occupied with his dressing that he had not heard him
come up the ladder. He turned very red. Walters was smiling
contemptuously. "You're very fine this morning," he said, with his eye
resting on a patch just below George's knee, "I suppose you're going
courting."

Williams took up the rabbit-headed stick, and for answer unlocked and
opened the door which had its key always turned as a protective
measure when there was the chance of Rhys coming up-stairs.

Before shutting it he dropped the key into his pocket.

"I'm taking this along with me," he remarked, "so you may just get
down below again." It was the first piece of active malice into which
the other had provoked him.

As he went towards the village he picked a bit of holly from a bush
and stuck it into his buttonhole. It added a good deal to his festal
air, and the bright sun exhilarated him after the cold water he had
applied to himself so copiously. The stolid gloom which seemed to
surround him on ordinary days had lifted, and any one meeting him that
morning and looking at him without pleasure would have been a dullard.
He had health, strength greater than that of most men, and he was only
twenty-eight years old. And he had a face that no living thing could
doubt.

He hit out cheerfully at the dry little oak-apples in the hedge, for
Rhys' sneer had run off him like water off the traditional duck's
back, and been swallowed in the thought of its perpetrator tied to the
underground room till his return. When generous people are goaded into
malice they get their money's worth out of the experience, and
Williams' little excursion into the devil's dominions had done him a
world of good. His prospects were no better than they had been on the
preceding night, and he was about to try and hang an additional weight
round his neck, but human nature and a spotted neckcloth will do
wonders for a man sometimes, and the sense of well-being pervaded
everything. Nevertheless, as he turned into the Brecon road, and met
the toll-people on their way to Llangarth market, his spirits waned a
little from pure fear of the matter in hand, and he stood before the
door waiting admittance, sincerely hoping that Mary might not see how
his hands shook.

Mary had determined on the answer she would give. Through all her
wrongs and troubles she had set up a certain standard of right for
herself, and she did not mean to sink below it; whatever her
shortcoming in other ways had been, she had injured none but herself,
and on none but herself should the reckoning fall. What preserved the
strong tower of self-respect in her was that fact, and were she to
lose sight of it, the whole edifice would crumble to the earth. In the
terrors of the night, indeed, she had wavered and almost resolved to
take the home offered without more ado, but with the new strength that
comes to young lives with sunrise, she had put the idea away from her.
No one else should pay, no one else should suffer, least of all George
Williams who was her friend. She was thinking of him when she heard
his knock, and opened the door to find him standing on the other side
of it.

He walked into the house without waiting to be invited, and shut the
door behind him. The blood tingled in his face, which was ruddy with
the morning air, and the holly in his coat made a bright spot of
colour in the room; his large frame seemed larger by contrast with the
furniture.

"Will you please to sit down?" said she, mechanically pushing forward
the wooden chair in which her father had been used to sit.

"Thank ye, no, I'd best stand," answered George.

So they faced each other, the man with his back to the window. Mary
had only seen him twice before, but a very definite idea of him had
remained in her mind, and as he stood there she felt as though she
were looking at a totally different person. He was younger, smarter,
and it made her hot to think that she had leaned against his shoulder
and wept her heart out in the circle of his arm. Then, he had been
simply a protector, but now he had turned into a powerful-looking
young man in a purple neckcloth. He had called himself her friend, but
he was a stranger and she had no right in his life--certainly no right
to spoil it with her ruined one. Her heart beat quick as she held the
back of the chair.

"I've come to get the answer," said Williams simply.

"I can't! I can't do it," replied the girl.

There was silence in the little room, and the two cheap clocks which
stood on the dresser ticked loudly, one half a second behind the
other. He drew an imaginary line on the floor with the ash-plant in
his hand.

"Well, I'm sorry," he said, looking down at the point of the stick.
She did not speak.

"I suppose you couldn't come to like me in time? Likely enough I
bean't the sort for a girl to fancy, but ye shan't rue it if ye take
me. Don't be afeard."

She looked up and saw behind the calm, heavy face into the upright
soul of the sheep-stealer, and the sight made her more determined.
"It's not that. But don't you ask me, George Williams--don't you, for
I can't."

"D'ye think I shouldn't like ye enough?" he asked, after a pause. "Is
it that that's the trouble?"

"Ye may like me a bit," she answered boldly, "but it's goodness wi'
you, not love."

"I like you well," he said, "don't disbelieve me. Mary, Mary, you're
not taking on about that--about Walters o' Masterhouse, curse him?"

"I can't but think of him. I hate him, but I think of him."

"You hate him, Mary?"

"I saw my father lyin' dead i' this room. Lyin' there on the bed. They
fetched it in. Oh, my God! my God!" She turned away from him. "Go!
Go!" she cried, facing round again, "and I'll think of your goodness,
that I will; but I can't take ye, George, so let me be."

"Mary," he persisted, "will you let me come back? Maybe, as time gets
on, you'd forget a bit."

He had come to her meaning to act the part of a lover conscientiously,
but he was finding little need for acting; no woman he had ever seen
appealed to him as this one did. He stood in the middle of the room
unwilling to go. She came up to him, and laying her fingers upon his
arm, urged him towards the door. When they reached the lintel, he took
hold of her hand. "Let me come again," he begged, "let me come back.
Do, Mary, do."

"No, no," she exclaimed, drawing it away, "'tis no manner o' use.
Good-bye; go now, good-bye."

George Williams was but human, and his heart was bounding within him.
"All right," he said, thickly, "I'll be off then. But oh, Mary, give
me one kiss before I go!" and, in his earnestness, he made as though
he would draw her towards him.

She sprang back, blushing scarlet to the roots of her hair. "Ah!" she
cried, "an' I thought you were different!"

Before he had realized what had happened she had shut the door, and he
heard the bolt shoot into its place. He stood in the road, mortified,
ashamed, furious with himself. But as he turned to make his way home
between the leafless hedges, he knew that he loved her.



CHAPTER XVII

THE SHEEP-STEALERS PART COMPANY

HE hurried along with the tread of a man who hopes to lose a
remembrance in the tumult of his going. He had failed in every way;
failed in respect to the creature whom he had resolved so fixedly to
protect, and beside whom every other worldly object had all at once
become unimportant. It seemed that he was always to show himself in a
different light to the one which illumined his heart. His evil luck
willed it so, apparently. He loved truth, and yet he lay bound in a
tangle of dishonesty; he loved independence, and he was in the hollow
of a rogue's hand; he loved to be at peace with all men, and his
companion's daily aim was to rouse his temper; and lastly, he loved
Mary Vaughan, and by his own folly he had caused her to shut her door
in his face.

He felt his incapacities keenly, and the brave holly-sprig in his
buttonhole was no longer an expression of his mood but a mockery of
it. In his self-abasement he did not suspect that she had been hard
upon him, nor could he know how the sudden revelation of his
masculinity had affected her as he came into the cottage. He had
expected to take up their relationship where he had left it on the
river-bank near the snow-men, not understanding that it was an
abnormal one, risen from abnormal circumstances and passing with them.

He went through Crishowell looking neither to the right nor left and
never slackening his pace, and he was remarked only by such idlers as
were gathered round the blacksmith's shop. At that hour of the
morning, the village people had other things to think of besides their
neighbours' affairs; that was a pleasure reserved for the later part
of the day. He rushed past the churchyard in which he had first seen
Mary sitting by her father's grave, and had watched the burial from
under the yew. As he crossed a field on the way upwards, he saw
Bumpett driving in his spring cart down the lane, his hat bobbing
above the hedge with the jolting of the wheels in ruts, and though he
heard the old man hailing him in his high-pitched voice, he pretended
to be unconscious of it, and went on as though pursued. Presently the
Pig-driver stood up in the cart and produced a sound which had in it
such a note of distress that George pulled up in spite of himself, and
turned his steps towards a low bit of hedge over which he might
converse with his employer. He was rather surprised to find an elderly
woman sitting beside Bumpett on the board which served as a
driving-seat. The Pig-driver crossed his hands one over the other in
spite of the reins in them and shrugged his shoulders slowly, smiling
with the aspect of one who has an ample leisure in which to let loose
his mind upon the world; the horse looked round with cocked ears to
see what was happening. George noticed that the woman seemed agitated.

"Now, look you, Nannie," began Bumpett cheerily, "I've a fine opinion
o' this young feller. S'pose we was to ax him what he thinks."

Williams' face darkened, for he was in no humour for trifling, and he
knew by long experience that the old man's expansiveness was to be met
with caution. His malice was the only gratuitous thing about him, and
he was liable to hand that round without stint at any moment.

"Don't you!" exclaimed Nannie, half under her breath, twitching at her
companion's elbow. "Go on!" she cried to the horse, prodding it with
the umbrella beside her; the beast made a step forward, but the
Pig-driver was holding the reins tightly and progress was impossible.

"It's no matter, none at all," said Nannie. "Lord love me, I was an
old foondy, brothering at you like that. Go you on, Mr. Bumpett,
'stead o' putting foolery o' that sort into the young man's head." And
she grasped his sleeve again.

The Pig-driver only smiled more expansively, until his eyes were as
pin-points in his face.

"How you do pug at me, Nannie, to be sure! Ah, women do take up
strange notions, George, they do indeed," he said wagging his head.

"I don't know nothin' about women. I must be movin' on," answered
Williams shortly.

"Well, well. Time's money wi' you," observed the Pig-driver, winking,
"and there's no lack of honest work for honest men. But bide you a
minute. Here's Mrs. Davies have got it that Rhys Walters is hidin'
away hereabouts. What do ye say? Hey? Did 'e ever hear the like o'
that now?"

"Don't mind him, young man," cried Nannie, leaning out of the cart and
fixing an agonized eye on George. "Lord! Mr. Bumpett, what a man you
be for your fun! 'Tis all a lie, I tell you. What do I know about Mr.
Walters? He's in Ameriky by this time, and like as not he's turned
into a naked savage wi' feathers hangin' down before and behind."

"Well now, George! Did 'e ever see the like o' that? Coming down the
road she says to me, 'I know 'e's here,' she says; 'where is he, Mr.
Bumpett?' Tell her what ye think, my lad; where be he? She won't
listen to me."

For reply Williams turned his back upon the pair, and continued his
way up the field. He heard the creak of the springs as the cart
started on again. Nannie was almost sobbing.

"You're a wicked man, Bumpett," she said, "and if I know anything of
the Lord, you'll smart for this some day."

Williams was panting by the time he had climbed up to his house, and
he flung the door to unlocked behind him, for he did not want Rhys'
society.

"It's open," he said, with a backward jerk of his head as the other
came up.

"Did she take you?" asked Walters, disregarding the remark. He leaned
against the wall, and the semi-darkness which reigned in the cottage
could hardly veil the insolence in his eyes.

The other took no notice, but began to untie his neckcloth.

"Ah, you're deaf and can't hear me. I suppose you've had a punch on
the head from her father. There are some men of sense in the world
yet."

George made no reply, but his face lowered.

"Perhaps she didn't like you either," continued Rhys, in whom the long
morning spent underground was rankling. "I'm sure I don't wonder. They
like a man that can give them some sort of a decent home, to say
nothing of the rest. However, there are always some thankful enough
for a man's name to hide behind. You might get one that was----"

"Hold your foul tongue!" broke in Williams.

Rhys laughed. "Ha! I was right, was I? I knew well enough you'd been
courting and it had come to no good. My God! Fancy a man like you
trying to take up with a woman! What did you say to her, Williams? How
did you begin?"

At this moment the sprig of holly fell out of George's coat. Rhys
stepped forward to pick it up, and the sheep-stealer put his foot upon
it, grazing Walters' finger with the nails in his boot.

"I mayn't touch it, I see. I suppose you'd like me to think she gave
it you."

George was shaking with rage. The mortification in his heart was hard
enough to endure without his companion's sneers, and the Pig-driver
had already exasperated him. He knew that Rhys was as a man drawing a
bow at a venture, but his shots were going perilously near to the
mark.

"I don't care what you think," he said. "Get down the ladder, you
fool!"

"Fool, am I? Fool? You can stop that. It's enough to have to live with
an oaf, let alone being called a fool by him."

"If it hadn't been for me you'd have been living somewhere pretty
different--or maybe you mightn't be living at all," said Williams.
Anger was beginning to lend him a tongue.

"So you're throwing that in my face! It's like you to do it. If it
wasn't for Bumpett you'd be ready to turn me out into the road to take
my chance. A man who's down in the world isn't fit company for you,
and yet it isn't long since I wouldn't have spoken to a fellow like
you, except to give orders."

"Get down-stairs," said George, controlling himself with difficulty. A
man who cannot keep his temper is at the mercy of every other person
who can. He knew that very well, but Rhys' persevering insults were
beginning to make his blood boil.

"I'm not a dog to go to my kennel for you."

"I've seen many a dog that's better than you're ever like to be. Go
down and leave me alone; I've other things to do than listen to your
tongue. God! To think o' you settin' up to be above another, dog or
no! I'm not thinking o' the old man in his grave down the hill
there--'twas in hot blood an' never meant--but there was worse nor
that, an' I know it."

Rhys' calmness was leaving him, and his nostrils dilated.

"What's to come to the girl you left? Tell me _that!_" cried the
other, his voice shaking.

There was a silence, in which they eyed each other like two wild
beasts.

"You'd better take her yourself," said Rhys at last with his lips
drawn back from his teeth; "perhaps she mightn't look higher than a
thief--now."

The words had hardly left his mouth before Williams hurled himself
across the room at him with a violence which sent him staggering
against the partition at his back. It gave a loud crack, and Walters
feared that the whole thing might give way and he might find himself
on the ground among the ruins with the sheep-stealer on the top of
him. George, whose methods of attack were primitive, had got him by
the collar, and was shaking him about in a way which brought his head
smartly in contact with the panels. At last his collar tore open, and,
in the moment's backward slip which this caused the enemy, he wriggled
sideways and got himself almost free; then he flung his arms round
Williams and tried hard to get his foot in behind his heel. Nothing
could be heard in the cottage but the hard-drawn breathing of the two
men as they swung and swayed about, their teeth shut tight and their
eyes fixed; the pent-up hatred of weeks was in them and welled up in
an ecstasy of physical expression.

George was conscious only of the craving to crush his opponent, to
break his ribs with the grip of his arms, to fling him like a rag into
a corner with the breath wrung out of his body, but Rhys fought for
one end alone, to get his man under him upon the floor, and to this
object his brain worked equally with his limbs. He had always been
jealous of the other's strength, and he longed and panted to see him
lying prostrate below him and to taunt him with his overthrow. They
were well matched, for though Williams' weight was in his favour, the
other was cooler-headed, and his suppleness in shifting his position
saved him from being overborne by it. His nightly ranging about the
hills had given him back much of the vigour he had lost during his
illness, and he was, as he had always been, like a piece of tempered
steel.

Their struggles drew them nearer to the unlatched door which a little
burst of wind had blown open; they felt the air on their foreheads,
and it refreshed Rhys, whose breath was beginning to fail in the
sheep-stealer's continued grasp. With an effort which nearly broke his
back and loins he freed one arm and hit him on the temple as hard as
he could, allowing for the impossibility of getting his fist far
enough back for a satisfactory blow. George tried to dodge it with his
head, failed, slipped up, and fell with a shock which shook the
building, striking the lintel with the back of his skull. He made one
convulsive effort to rise and fell back unconscious.

The young man stood looking at the great, still form with the blood
oozing from underneath its hair; then he turned cold with fear lest he
should have killed a man without meaning to for the second time in his
life. There was no room for triumph in his mind as he knelt down and
put his hand inside Williams' shirt.

But the heart was moving, and, much reassured, he fetched the square
of looking-glass which hung on the wall and held it over George's
lips. His breath made a distinct fog on it, and it was evident to Rhys
that he was only stunned by his fall against the woodwork of the door.
With the relief, all his animosity came back, and having ventured a
few steps out to take a precautionary look round, he began to drag
Williams rather roughly over the threshold. This was no easy task, and
it took him some time to get him round the end of the house and into
the garden behind it, where he laid him on his back under the thickest
gooseberry bush in a place which could not be seen from the
cart-track.

There he left him while he went in to fetch the bird's-eye neck-cloth;
he dipped it in the brook as he came out, and then laid one end under
the cut on the back of George's head and wound the other round his
temples. After this he smoothed away all signs of their difficult
progress round the cottage, covered over a few drops of blood on the
ground and went in, locking the door. The air and the cold would soon
revive George, and he would have to come round and beg for admittance.
Meanwhile Rhys went down the ladder, meaning to keep his eye at the
aperture in the wall, from which he could see his fallen enemy as he
lay by the bush. He was occupying the exact spot under which he
generally buried his sheep's heads; indeed, his own was supported by
the little mound which these frequent interments had raised, and Rhys
smiled as he noticed it. It pleased him to see so pregnant an
illustration of "the biter bit."

It did not take long for the air and the wet bandage to do their work,
and Williams, who had only, to use his own phrase, "been knocked
silly," soon stirred and sat up. The bleeding from the cut, which was
not a deep one, relieved his head a good deal, and he gathered himself
up quite unconscious of the fact that Walters' eyes were watching him
not three yards away from his feet. His first impulse as he rose was
to hurry down the ladder after his enemy and begin the fight afresh,
but he had enough sense to realize that, with a giddiness which made
walking rather difficult, he was not likely to gain by such an
attempt. He leaned against the end of the cottage with a sore heart.
In his eternal quarrel with life he never failed to get the worst of
it, and, though he had not the morbid temperament which broods over
these things, the grim undercurrent of dislike to his surroundings was
always there. He ground his teeth as he thought of Rhys Walters, of
Bumpett and his hateful trade, of his ill success with Mary and the
rebuke he had felt so much, of the vile round of law-breaking to which
he was bound for yet another year; it was a miserable prospect. What
if he were to break away from it? The thought was like a whiff from
Paradise.

He could not owe the Pig-driver very much now, and the rent of the
hovel he was occupying was barely worth consideration, for Bumpett
would have had some difficulty in finding any one who would live in
such a place. True, he had been forgiven his old debt, which amounted
to nearly four pounds--an enormous sum for him. In his two years'
service he must have wiped it out again and again, even taking his
weekly wage into account. But, if he were free, if he could get work
of any sort, he would pinch himself to the uttermost farthing till he
could pay it back in consideration of his broken contract. He had no
one now to think of but himself; if he starved he would starve alone.
Bumpett would, of course, be furious, but, as far as giving him up to
justice was concerned, his hands would be tied. No doubt he would do
his best to injure him in small ways, but that was a risk to be
accepted in common with other chances and changes of this transitory
life. What if he were to do this thing--now--this moment--as he was?
He drew a long breath.

A shooting pain coming from the cut on his head began to annoy him,
and he went down to the brook, noticing as he passed that the door of
the cottage was shut and suspecting that Rhys had locked it; he knelt
down and rinsed the neck-cloth, wringing out the blood-stains till it
was quite clean.

As he bent forward his head ached horribly. He washed his wound and
poured the chill water over his face, which refreshed him and took
away the feeling of giddiness, then he got up and stood looking at the
house.

A bill-hook he had left outside was lying by the wall, and he went and
picked it up; in spite of his having several small possessions inside
the cottage, not for anything in the world would he have entered it,
though a push or two from his shoulders would have made short work of
the door.

He hoped never in all his life to see Rhys Walters again. What would
become of him after he had gone, or how he would manage to live on
there undetected he could not imagine and did not care. He crossed the
brook and went up the hill, not wishing to go near Crishowell, and
when he had passed the Pedlar's Stone and got on to the foot of the
mountain, he turned westwards towards Great Masterhouse.



CHAPTER XVIII

MRS. WALTERS GOES TO CHAPEL

HE sat for some time on the hill-side turning things over in his mind
and trying to make up some plan of action; in his pocket was the sum
of eightpence-halfpenny, which would just keep him in food for the
next day or two. At present, the bare idea of eating made him feel
ill, for his head had begun to ache violently after the climb. He had
no hat, and he thought it would be best to rest during the day and
keep his unprotected skull out of the rays of the winter sun, which
were very bright. Towards evening he might find a place where he could
pass the night under shelter, and to-morrow he would go to every farm
for miles round--always excepting Great Masterhouse--and do what he
could to get work, no matter of what sort. He might just possibly find
something, and, if unsuccessful, he would betake himself to Talgarth,
a small town some distance off in a different part of the country, and
try his luck there; at any rate, he had done with sheep-stealing for
ever.

He found a spot under a hedge by a running stream where he sat and
waited until the shades grew long. Now and then he dipped his hand and
bathed his wounded head with the icy water; in this way the day wore
on until light began to fail, and he set off westward again. As he
passed a small farm some dogs ran out barking, and a tidy-looking
woman called them back, putting her head out of a barn-door which
abutted on the path.

"Thank ye, ma'am," said George, coming to a standstill and hesitating
whether to address her further and ask for work.

She settled the question herself.

"Who be you?" she asked abruptly.

"I'm looking for work," replied he.

"I said, '_Who be you?_'" she remarked, putting her arms akimbo.

"My name's George Williams."

"And what do you want, George Williams?"

"Work."

"What sort?"

"Any sort."

"That's bad, because I haven't got none for you."

"Good-day then, ma'am," he said as he turned away.

The woman came out of the barn and stood watching him; she had never
seen a tramp before who had any pretensions to good manners. He looked
round and saw her, and some impulse made him go back.

"Please would ye let me lie in that barn to-night, if I may be so bold
as to ask ye?"

She stared at him for a considerable time without reply. Her eyes were
like gimlets.

"Do you smoke?" she inquired at last.

"No."

"Turn out your pockets."

He did so, revealing the eightpence-halfpenny, an old knife, and a
piece of string.

"Very well" she said, "but see you take yourself off again to-morrow."

"I will, an' thank ye kindly."

She opened the door wide, and he saw that half of the building was
full of straw; several fowls were scratching about on the floor and
talking in subdued gutturals. The woman pointed to a corner.

"You can take a bit of the straw and lie there," she said, "but mind
the nests." And in the misty darkness Williams was aware of the round
yellow eyes of a sitting hen fixed watchfully upon him.

"I'll be mindful," he replied, wondering at his good fortune.

"You'd better stop now you're here; it's pretty nigh dark," she
observed as she shut the door and went out.

He assented gratefully, and, fetching an armful of straw, made himself
a bed. The hen's eyes followed his every movement with that look of
latent malice peculiar to her kind.

It was with a sense of comfort that he stretched his limbs out upon
the softness; his head ached and the darkness was very pleasant.
Presently the door beside him opened and the woman's hand appeared
with a large round of bread and a piece of cheese in it; she gave it
to him with an abrupt nod and departed, noisily slamming the latch. He
had no appetite, but he put the gifts by carefully with a view to the
morrow and was soon asleep.

He was up by daylight and off again on his search. He passed Great
Masterhouse, and, at mid-day, had been to every place where it was
possible that labour was employed. But there was no chance for him
anywhere, it seemed, and he was much disheartened as he sat down to
eat the bread and cheese he had been given; he determined to go
straight on to Talgarth.

In the afternoon he struck into a lane leading down to the valley and
on to his destination; he was getting rather weary, having been on his
legs since before sunrise, and he was sick at heart from perpetual
rebuffs and disappointments. He came all at once upon a hollow
circular place whose green turf surrounded a building which he took to
be a place of worship of some kind. It was not an attractive spot,
and, though the door was open, there appeared to be no one in the
neighbourhood. A wall, not two feet high, enclosed the chapel; he
strode over this, glad to think that there would be something to sit
upon inside after his long trudge. When he had entered he was a good
deal alarmed to find that there were one or two people occupying the
wooden pews, and that a man in black was seated upon a raised platform
with a book in front of him. He would have turned and fled, but the
eyes of the man were upon him, and, in face of this, he lost courage
and went in as quietly as he could, taking an obscure seat in a dark
place beside the door. A little window was just by his head, and he
could see, without standing up, that the congregation was beginning to
arrive in twos and threes. Nearly every one went over the wall as he
had done, men and women alike. The man in black returned to his
reading and he felt more comfortable.

As a sound of wheels approached he looked out and saw through the
distortion of the ancient window-panes that a gig containing two women
had drawn up upon the grass, and that a boy whom he had not noticed
had risen mysteriously from a bush and taken hold of the horse's head.
The two were dressed much alike in bonnets and shawls, but it was
evident that they were mistress and servant from the way in which the
driver threw down the reins and helped the other deferentially to the
ground. She also went forward and had a struggle with the rusty wicket
while her companion awaited the result; it was plain that the ordinary
method of approach over the wall was not good enough for the superior
personality whom she served. George was rather interested, and would
have been more so had he known that he was looking at Mrs. Walters and
her servant Nannie.

As the new-comers entered the chapel they passed within a few feet of
the young man in his corner, and he had a vague sense of having seen
the taller woman before, though he did not recognize the other as the
person who had been in Bumpett's cart on the previous day, her face
being turned from him. There was a perceptible movement of heads
towards Mrs. Walters as she went up to her place, and she took a
prominent seat with the dignified air of one who knew that no less was
expected of her. Nannie sat a little way behind that she might examine
the other chapel-goers without the rebuke of her mistress' eye; she
had come under protest, it being far more abhorrent to her to go to
chapel on a week-day than to stay away from it on a Sunday. But it was
a special occasion, for the man in black--none other than the preacher
who had originally "brought truth" to Mrs. Walters--was leaving the
neighbourhood on the following morning and did not expect to return to
his flock for some months; and her mistress' orders admitted of no
question.

In a short time the chapel had half filled, and the service began with
a reading from the Old Testament, and a dissertation of immense length
upon the chapter read. It seemed interminable to Williams, as he sat
quietly in his place, glad of the rest and giving but little attention
to what was going on. He was so much absorbed by his own difficulties
and humiliations that when the assembly, led by a strange voice which
seemed to come from somewhere behind the man in black, began to sing a
metrical psalm, his mind leaped back to his surroundings with a start.
When the singing was over, all fell reverently on their knees and
prayed, following the extemporary supplications of the preacher in
silence. George knelt too. He did not pray, but the change of attitude
was pleasant; he rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes, for
the voice made him drowsy, and, unheeded by any one, he slid out of
consciousness into sleep.

After the prayers came another reading of the Bible, but he slept on.
His head, bowed on his arms, had a devout look which made those who
could see him suppose him a fervent worshipper unable to bring himself
down from the exaltation of prayer; but the congregation was one
accustomed to unconventional things taking place in chapel and paid no
heed. Only a few, as they trooped from the building, cast curious
glances at him, wondering what sudden conversion or tardy repentance
was going on under the window.

Nannie Davies had bustled out among the first, and was calling loudly
from the very door of the sanctuary to the boy to put in the horse;
she had a strident voice, and crooked her forefinger as she beckoned
him from his lair in the bushes with a gesture only known to the lower
orders.

Mrs. Walters was the last to remain. The man in black came down from
his platform and stood talking to her for some time with his back to
the departing people. At last they shook hands, and the black silk
skirt was rustling towards the entrance when she caught sight of the
sleeping man.

She paused in front of him, but he did not move. The window above his
head shone straight in her eyes, making his figure seem dim; she did
not doubt any more than did the rest of the worshippers that he was
praying devoutly, and, as she had only just turned in his direction,
she had no idea how long he had remained in that attitude. She
suspected some spiritual conflict, and, like Saint Paul, would fain
proclaim the Gospel in season and out of season. She touched him on
the shoulder.

"You are very earnest in prayer, young man," she said solemnly. "May
the words of Grace we have heard sink into your heart."

An overpowering confusion covered George. "I wasn't praying, ma'am; I
was asleep," he stammered as he rose.

"Sleeping in this holy place? In the very sound of the Word? Shame on
you! Shame on you indeed!"

"I couldn't help it. I didn't mean----"

"Come with me outside," said Mrs. Walters. "Let us not forget that we
are standing in the tabernacle of the Lord."

She went out in front of him and he followed. Embarrassed as he was,
he could not help being impressed, and, like Nannie, he felt that he
had met with a person to be obeyed, though his idea was the result of
instinct and hers of experience.

As they stood in the afternoon light she looked rather severely at his
untidy dress; though he had put on the best clothes he possessed to go
and see Mary, he had since trudged in them for the greater part of two
days and slept in them on the preceding night. His unhandsome aspect
did not speak well for him.

"Do you not remember Eutychus, the youth who slept while Saint Paul
was preaching?" she continued. "He fell from the window where he sat,
and would have perished in his sins but for the apostle of the
Gentiles. The sin of irreverence is great. Remember you may perish in
it."

He stood silent. The people had all departed and the place was
deserted. Only Nannie waited by the horse's head, impatiently watching
her mistress.

"Why did you come here if you had no heart to pray?" inquired Mrs.
Walters.

"I was tired, ma'am--cruel done. The door was open and I thought I
could sit down quiet-like. I'd no notion there was preaching to be."

"Where have you come from? Where are you going to?"

"It's work I'm after. I've gone high and low, and up an' down, and I
can't get none. There's nothin' I'd turn from if I could get enough to
keep me from starving." His voice almost shook.

"What can you do?" she asked, being a practical woman.

"I can turn my hand to a power of things about a farm. And I'm a
proper fine hedge-and-ditcher," he added simply.

In every accident of daily life Mrs. Walters was inclined to see a
special working of Providence, and it was in her mind that this man,
so strangely encountered, might be a brand to be plucked from the
burning and reserved for her hand. She began to think deeply, and, as
Williams saw it, he fixed his eager eyes on her face. Help from this
stern woman seemed to be a futile hope, but he clung to it.

"Do you know how to grow vegetables?" she said at last.

"No, I don't. Nothin' but potatoes, more's the pity."

"But you might learn."

"I'd try hard, ma'am. Be sure o' that. But I can't tell how 'twould
do."

Mrs. Walters prided herself on her accurate reading of people, and, to
do her justice, she was generally aware of the sufficiently obvious.

"I think you are honest," she said, looking hard at him.

Poor George thought of many things and became crimson.

She noticed his extreme confusion.

"Perhaps you have not always been so," she observed.

"No, I've not," he replied, looking down at his boots.

"Man! man!" she cried suddenly, her eyes lighting up. "Repent, repent,
while yet you may! The day of grace has not gone by! Turn from your
sins! Abhor them! Flee from them! Put behind you the evil and strive
after a new life." She raised her hands as she spoke, and her voice
rang over to where Nannie stood by the cart.

This outburst of exhortation had the effect of making Williams very
shy. Intensely reserved himself, it was a real shock to him to see a
stranger so entirely carried away by feeling; he did not know where to
look, and could only stare at a little tuft of moss growing in the
wall of the chapel. His face appeared almost sullen. He could see that
her lips were moving, and that she passed her handkerchief once or
twice over her face. Presently her calm returned.

"Do you wish to lead an honest life?" she asked.

"I do indeed; Gospel truth I do."

"You are a strong man and ought to do a good day's work. Will you do
it, if I give it you?"

"None shall do a better than I."

"Then I will try you. You must come to me to-morrow at mid-day, and I
will speak to you. You do not know who I am, I suppose?" she inquired
as an after-thought.

"No, ma'am, I don't indeed."

"I am Mrs. Walters of Great Masterhouse," she replied with a certain
stiffness. Her position as a rich woman, the isolation she had made
for herself, and the interested looks which followed her whenever she
went abroad were not without their charm for her, for, like many who
take the effacing of themselves very seriously, she had a touch of
what might be called inverted vanity.

The familiarity of her face now explained itself to George, and he had
a strong feeling of repulsion at the thought of working among
everything which had belonged to Rhys. But a man struggling for his
daily bread can take no account of such imaginings, and he knew that
he ought to be sincerely thankful for what had happened.

She went down the path to her cart, cutting short his thanks, and he
turned to enter the chapel again. She looked round and called him.

"Why do you go back?" she inquired, with a faint hope that her words
had moved him to pray, possibly to give thanks for the prospects she
held out.

"I have left my bill-hook, ma'am. 'Tis lying on the ground in the
bottom o' the seat."

A slight expression of annoyance was on her face as the maid-servant
helped her up to her place and brushed her dress where the wheel had
rubbed it. Nannie was a clumsy driver, if a safe one, and she turned
the horse round in an immense circle on the short grass. As George
came out he saw the cart disappearing up the lane, the two women's
backs shaking as the wheels ran into sudden hollows, mistress' and
maid's alike.



CHAPTER XIX

THE MOTH AND THE CANDLE

THE Archæological Society which reckoned the border country by the
Black Mountain as its special hunting-ground met every winter or early
spring; it had two places of assemblage, and those it took in turn,
meeting one year at Llangarth, and the next at an insignificant
township about twenty miles off across the further bank of the Wye.

When the latter place was the base of operations for the enthusiasts,
it had been for ages the custom of Mr. Fenton and his wife to invite
the Vicar of Crishowell to Waterchurch, so that host and guest might
attend the meeting together. Both men were members of the association,
and the rendezvous was within comfortable driving distance. The
Squire, it is true, had only a lukewarm interest to give to
antiquities, but the Vicar, whose mind had a secret strain of romance,
had thrown himself heart and soul into the fascinating subject, and
contributed some of the most interesting papers the society possessed.

Lady Harriet Fenton and her husband were in what the servants called
"her ladyship's boodore," a cheerful apartment, where, as a matter of
fact, most of the business of the Waterchurch estate was done, and Mr.
Fenton stood on the hearthrug looking at his wife's back, talking, as
he talked nearly every day, of agricultural and money dilemmas and
their solutions. He spoke sensibly enough, but the solutions had a way
of being postponed until later, when he had gone off to look round the
stables and Lady Harriet could settle down to her usual morning's
work.

The Squire was one of those happy and consistent people who have one
real vocation in life, and follow it with no deviations. He was a
figure-head. His fine features, height, and the gallant bearing he had
kept until well on into late middle age, singled him out from those
less ornamented by nature, and the excellent sense of his conversation
impressed all those with whom he was thrown. Devoted to field sports,
he was popular in the hunting-field; an excellent shot, an ideal
companion. Such was the universal verdict. And, in spite of the fact
that he was a figure-head, his wife had also found him an ideal
companion, or very nearly so, partly because he was less exacting than
persons of this profession generally are, and partly because she
herself had one of those natures to whom idleness means misery. He
talked and was pleasant, and she worked and was indispensable, and
between them they kept things going. If sometimes her shoulders ached
and she longed for a rest, she kept these things to herself, and no
one but Llewellyn suspected them; for her endurance was great, as
great as the loyalty which had held up the figure-head for twenty-five
odd years to the gaze of an admiring world. She managed all business
except the few little things that it amused him to undertake himself,
and he leaned upon her, liked her better than any one he knew, and
occasionally had fleeting suspicions that she was superior to most
women, though other matters generally intervened in his mind and
forbade him to follow out the idea.

Lady Harriet was the daughter of a well-known sporting peer, and it
was her horsemanship which had first attracted him, combined with the
knowledge that she had a little money. She had never possessed beauty
of any sort, being a woman of short and almost stumpy figure, with
strong hands and square shoulders; what had alone redeemed her from
absolute ugliness were her masses of dark hair and the sympathy of
expression in her eyes, which could be appealing, steadfast, humorous,
or soft. Years had intensified this grace in her; it was a lasting
one, and had endured while the thick hair had become silver-grey. She
had always been a keen lover of outdoor life and sports, and had
hunted regularly with her husband and sons, until the Squire's
straitened means had made it difficult to mount the whole family; then
she had quietly given her hunting up, saying that she was getting too
old for long days.

In the minds of her sons she was connected with everything they had
liked best in their childhood. Their father had not been disposed to
trouble himself with youngsters, so she had taken them bird's-nesting,
scrambling, fishing, and had taught them all as little boys to ride to
hounds. She had not gone much into society of late years, having no
daughters to take out, and not conceiving it to be her duty to form
one of a row of gossiping dowagers at county balls. In her secret
heart Llewellyn was the dearest to her of her four boys; he was the
youngest child, and there was a likeness in disposition between them
which, had they been of one sex, would have forced them apart, but
which, as they were mother and son, drew them together. Besides, as
his business kept him at home, he knew her far more intimately than
did his brothers, and with that greater impartiality which comes when
the boy grows into the man and meets his parents more on common
ground.

"Do you know that the Archæological Society meets next week, and that
we must ask Mr. Lewis to come over?" inquired Lady Harriet, looking
out of the window upon a border of snowdrops which were just coming
up.

"By Jove, yes; I had forgotten," exclaimed Mr. Fenton. "I suppose we
ought to ask the niece too."

"I did not know he had one."

"A very pretty one. I saw her dancing with Harry at the yeomanry ball.
I forget her name; somebody told me something about her, but I can't
remember that either."

His wife looked thoughtful. "We shall have to ask her at any rate,"
she said; "she can't be left out very well. I hope she is nice."

"You had better write at once, my dear," said the Squire, making for
the door. "I am going off to the stables."

So Lady Harriet wrote.

The letter, when it arrived at Crishowell, produced the most lively
effect upon Isoline. First a perfect agony of apprehension that her
uncle should refuse--a thing that he had no thought of doing--then, a
secret hope that Harry had been the originator of the plan, and had
persuaded his parents to send the invitation; and finally, a mental
trying-on of every frock in her wardrobe to decide the momentous
question of which should be chosen for the coming visit. This
imaginary review was followed by a real one, even more interesting.

She had not been altogether dull at Crishowell of late, for her
meeting with the person whom she thought of as Robert Kent had been
the first of several. The Vicar, who spent his afternoons in reading
while daylight lasted, only went out just before dusk, and as his
visits to distant cottages brought him home generally at a very late
hour, she had ample time to take off her outdoor clothes and install
herself by the fire before his return. For a few days after meeting
Rhys Walters she had hesitated whether to go in the direction of the
Pedlar's Stone again, but the prospect of being appreciated and the
want of something to do had been too much for her, and she set out one
evening for the farm which Rhys had indicated, and found her way there
by short cuts pointed out by those whom she met in the lanes. Taken
that way, the distance was not great, and when she set foot upon the
short turf of the plateau she was surprised at feeling so little
tired, and walked on westwards. The desertedness of the place awed her
a little, and once or twice she was on the verge of fleeing homewards,
but a figure loomed out of the dusk as she had hoped it might, and her
fears vanished under the protection of her new admirer.

Rhys was very respectful to her, a wholesome fear having filled his
mind that his rather bold remarks had prevented her from returning,
but he had haunted the place of their meeting patiently, and had
reaped the reward of it in seeing her timid approach through the
failing light. This had happened two or three times.

But it was not to be supposed that the excitement of these meetings
could be compared to the legitimate and settled glory of a visit to
Waterchurch Court. Isoline had no love of adventure for adventure's
sake, and the prospect of being able to show herself to Harry and
Harry's relations in her prettiest frocks entirely drove from her head
the semi-sentimental interest she was beginning to feel for Rhys. She
counted the days till they should start.

It was a blowy, showering afternoon on which uncle and niece jogged
along the road, the Vicar driving and Isoline tucked up beside him
under the ungainly hood, with her hands buried in her muff. Behind the
vehicle her box was roped on in some strange manner only known to
Howlie Seaborne, who had secured it there, and under their feet was
Mr. Lewis' modest carpet-bag.

"I hope Lady Fenton is not very stiff," remarked Isoline, when they
had turned their backs to the wet south wind, and it was again
possible to talk.

"She is Lady Harriet Fenton, not Lady Fenton, my dear."

"But what must I call her then?"

"Lady Harriet."

"That sounds very familiar," said the girl.

"It is the custom, nevertheless."

They were coming within sight of the house, which had the appearance
of a small town, for its outbuildings, as well as the mansion itself,
had a surprising amount of chimneys protruding from the trees and
giving a false idea of size. Glimpses of red brick were to be seen
through gaps in the shrubberies, making subdued patches of colour in a
rather solemn general aspect. Three tall fir-trees stood in front of
the façade, and on the roof was an old-fashioned arrangement of
wrought-iron, from which hung a large bell. A little shelter was over
its head like a canopy over the head of an idol. A bank sloped down to
the Wye, which ran in a shallow ford over the road, making a singular
foreground to the place.

As they drew up at the door Harry's figure appeared from round a
corner of the house, and a brilliant blush overspread Isoline's face
as she saw him; it was a good beginning to her visit. She wondered
whether he had been watching for their approach. He took them through
the hall, carrying the Vicar's bag himself, so much uplifted by their
arrival that he forgot to put it down, and ushered them into the
drawing-room with it still in his hand.

"My dear boy," exclaimed his father, when they were all seated, and
Isoline had taken off her wraps, "why not send that up-stairs? Mr.
Lewis may prefer a more convenient place than this to change his
clothes in."

Isoline sat looking out of the corners of her grey eyes at Lady
Harriet, and taking in every detail of her appearance; she had never
seen any one in the least like her, and she was almost shocked by her
simplicity of manner and generally untitled appearance; this
simplicity made her feel more shy than the stiffness she had
anticipated. She could not talk to Harry with much ease in the
presence of his parents, and they were so much engrossed in her uncle
that she had a good opportunity of examining her surroundings. The
drawing-room interested her very much. The ceiling was high, and the
furniture solid, like all the furniture of that date. Some heavy
gilt-framed fire-screens stood on either side of the fender, and over
the mantelpiece was a full-length portrait of the Squire's mother in
high-waisted muslin, her lovely face smiling down into the room in
which she had lived and moved thirty years ago, and which knew her no
more.

Afternoon tea had not been invented in those days, and people dined
earlier than they do now; so, as the travellers had arrived late, it
was almost time to dress for dinner when Isoline was shown up to her
bedroom. A housemaid was lighting some high candles on the
dressing-table as she entered, and the fire in the grate shone on the
panelled walls; at one end of the room was a large four-post bed hung
with dark chintz of a large pattern. Outside, a streak of wet, yellow
sky could be seen beyond the trees. It was a dismal place, she
thought, as she began to unpack her box and to lay out her dresses.

As she stood before the looking-glass ready for dinner she made a
radiant picture against the vague darkness which the sunken fire had
almost ceased to illumine. The wax candles on either side of her
reflection lit her up, a vision of youth framed in by the large oval
of the mirror. She had put on a low white muslin dress with
transparent folds surrounding the shoulders, in which she looked like
some beautiful woodland sprite rising from a film of thistledown. A
string of scarlet coral was round her neck, matching her red lips. She
looked at herself intently, and her eyes seemed to be dreaming a dream
of her own beauty. Presently she took a scarlet geranium, which stood
in a little glass on the table with a piece of maidenhair, and
fastened it on her bosom; then she turned away, looking back at
herself over her shoulder. Dinner would not be ready for twenty
minutes, and she wondered what she could do until it was time to go
down. It was so dark out of the radius of the candles, and the
lugubriousness of a piece of tapestry let into the panelling and
representing an armed warrior in the act of cutting off an enemy's
head made her shiver; she determined to have a roaring fire when
bed-time came. Then she thought she would go down to the drawing-room;
it would be lighter there, and she might amuse herself by looking at
the things in it until the rest of the world was dressed.

The strangeness of the house made her feel shy, and she went
down-stairs softly, meeting no one, and entered the drawing-room to
find Harry standing at the window whistling softly as he stared out
into the dark. Though the curtains were not drawn he could not have
got much profit from his observations, for all outside was an
indistinguishable mass of black. His face lit up as he turned and saw
her.

"I hoped you might be early," he said. "I dressed as quickly as I
could on the chance of your coming down soon."

"What made you think I should?" she asked, lowering her eyelids.

"You went up so long ago. You can't take more than an hour dressing,
surely?"

"Oh, but one can if one wants to look nice."

"You have done that to-night, at any rate," said he.

"You are very complimentary, Mr. Fenton."

"It's quite true," replied he, with fervour, cursing inwardly as he
heard a footstep nearing the door.

It was only a servant come to draw the curtains, and the two sat in
rather a conscious silence while the shutters were fastened up and the
heavy rings sent rattling along the curtain-poles.

"Are you coming to Crishowell again?" asked Isoline, when the servant
had gone.

"I should like to come every day if I could," he replied.

He was falling very deeply in love; never had she looked so beautiful
to him, and seeing her in his own familiar surroundings added to his
infatuation. To keep her there always would be to locate heaven.

"Why do you say 'if I could'? Cannot you do as you please?" she
inquired, with a pout.

"Of course I can," he said rather stiffly, thinking of Llewellyn. "Who
is to prevent me? I shall come next week."

She smiled archly. "On business for your father?" said she, playing
with the geranium in her bodice.

"No; on business of my own."

As Isoline sailed in to dinner on the arm of Mr. Fenton, she wished
heartily that her aunt in Hereford could have seen her, and she took
her place with a little air of deprecating languor; she was anxious to
impress the servants with the fact that she had been waited on all her
life, and that no genteel experience could be anything but stale.
Afterwards, when dinner was over and she retired with Lady Harriet to
the drawing-room, she felt herself for the first time unequal to the
occasion, though she chatted away, helped by the elder woman's efforts
to put her at her ease. But both stifled a sigh of relief when the men
came in.

It was a dull, solemn evening, she thought, though she enjoyed the
rapture with which Harry turned over the leaves of her music as she
sang. Her clear, thin voice sounded like a bird's when she trilled her
little operatic airs; it was true, too, which is more than can be said
for many one has to listen to in drawing-rooms.

She got into the impressive four-poster in her panelled room, sighing
to think that one of her evenings at Waterchurch was over, though, as
far as actual enjoyment went, it had not been remarkable. But we
follow ideas, not actualities--at least, those of us who have souls
above the common.

She soon fell asleep, tired by the excitement of seeing new faces, and
well satisfied with herself; but Harry sat up late in his room. It was
long past midnight when he went to bed, and, when he did, he could not
sleep for thinking of her.



CHAPTER XX

THE PEDLAR'S STONE

THE Vicarage at Crishowell looked duller than ever, Isoline thought,
as she and Mr. Lewis came round the corner of the church and faced its
homely front. Howlie was at the door grinning affably, in her eyes a
horrible travesty of the soft-mannered footman who had presided over
their departure at the other end of their drive. A duck was quacking
by the pond, and she would have liked to throw stones at the creature
for the odious familiarity of its greeting, had she only known how to
do so. She knew herself to be built for refinement, and, after two
days of a ladyship's society, it could hardly be expected of her to
slip glibly into lower surroundings. Her face grew haughty as she
perceived Howlie.

The visit to Waterchurch had, perhaps, lacked something of the
grandeur expected, and the discrepancy between her anticipations of
Lady Harriet and the real woman were a little upsetting; but there had
been compensations, for she suspected herself of having, in some ways,
impressed her hostess. A woman who went out in a homespun skirt and
thick boots could not fail to notice the difference between herself
and a young lady who wore beflounced dresses and kid shoes even in the
country.

She had now no doubt of Harry's feelings; he was deeply in love with
her, and she looked to his coming visit as to a red-letter day. He
would arrive next week "on his own business," as he had said, and his
business would be hers too. She was quite shrewd enough to foresee
opposition on the part of his family, but the game was worth the
candle, and would be hers in the end. It was stimulating to think of a
victory over Lady Harriet.

Howlie and the maid-servant carried her box to her room, the former
puffing loudly as he went up the staircase supporting the hinder end
of the load.

"Unlock it," said Isoline, as it was set down in its place, tossing
him her keys with the air of a duchess.

He looked as impudently at her as he dared, and picking up the bunch,
proceeded to make as much noise as he possibly could over the
operation.

"How dreadfully clumsy you are, Howell," she exclaimed, annoyed, very
naturally, by the superfluous rattling that was going on.

He only sniffed, a habit he had when he found reply unnecessary.

The rattling did not abate, till she darted across the room to snatch
the keys from him, the hauteur of her deportment flying to the winds.

"You stupid boy!" she exclaimed, "if you were at Waterchurch Court,
where I have been, you would not be tolerated for a single day! Her
ladyship would send you packing in a very short time!"

He fixed his gaze upon her critically, and observed that, in taking
off her hat, she had loosened some hairpins.

"Yewre 'air's coming down," he remarked placidly.

Her hand went up to it at once.

"Oi can settle that for yew," he continued, with pleasant good-nature,
"for oi learned to plat up the 'orses' tails proper when I was working
i' the yard at Jones'."

"You are impertinent as well as noisy," said Miss Ridgeway angrily;
"if you cannot unlock my box you had better go down-stairs. Why Mr.
Lewis keeps you here at all is a wonder to me, mannerless,
good-for-nothing boy that you are!"

He gathered himself up from the floor on which he was kneeling by the
box, and left the room. Isoline was still ruffled when she turned to
her dressing-table, but Howlie was smiling as he made his way to the
back premises. "Miss is crewell hoigh since she come back from
Fenton's," he remarked to the maid-servant as he entered the kitchen.
"She's a settin' her cap at the young general over there. Moy! but
he's a smart feller too," he added, thinking of the half-crown.

For a couple of days after her return the memory of Waterchurch buoyed
up Isoline through the flatness of life at the Vicarage, and she spent
many an hour anticipating Harry's coming and its almost certain
result. But, in spite of this, time was long, and the excitement in
her mind made her restless, too restless to sit quietly in the house;
she felt she must be out and moving about--a rather unusual thing with
her.

It was with a half-formed resolution that she put on her hat one
afternoon, the Pedlar's Stone in her mind. Harry was so much in her
thoughts that she was a little unwilling to replace his visionary
image by the reality of the person she was likely to find there, but,
in spite of this, her feet seemed to carry her imperceptibly towards
the way that had become so familiar. She found herself on the turf of
the plateau almost before she had decided whether it would be pleasant
to see Rhys or not.

She was pretty certain that he would be waiting there, for, though he
had made no actual declaration of love to her, she had seen plainly at
their last meeting that he was on the high-road to doing so. Comparing
him with Harry in her mind, she knew that he was the more attractive
of the two, partly because of the mystery surrounding him, and partly
because, as a man, he was a more imposing person. Harry was a boy. But
what Harry lacked in personal importance was made up to him a
thousandfold by his accessories; the actual man mattered little to
her. She had hardly discovered more about Rhys than he had told her on
the evening of their first meeting, for though she had tried to
question him about himself on subsequent occasions, she had got at
nothing new. To-night she resolved to find out something further.

Dusk had fallen when she reached the Pedlar's Stone; she knew nothing
of its history nor the reason of its existence, and her curiosity
about outdoor things was so small, that it had never occurred to her
to ask him about it. She stood beside it looking round at the
darkening landscape, never suspecting that, apart from the Pig-driver
and a few of his dependents, she was almost the only person in
Crishowell parish who would venture to do so. Had she known it, the
idea would hardly have troubled her, for though not physically brave,
she was too unimaginative to be upset by anything she could neither
see nor feel. She stepped up on to the bank in which it was embedded,
and looked through the straggling hazels for some sign of Rhys. Not a
live thing was to be seen. She shuddered a little at the awful
loneliness that hung around, and for a moment a kind of panic took
her. It was almost as though the atmosphere of horror raised round the
place by popular tradition had made itself tangible and leaped upon
her. She turned quickly to come down the bank, screaming at the sudden
apparition of Rhys' figure. He stood a few paces off, with his arms
folded, watching her.

"How you startled me!" she exclaimed, half angry; "where did you come
from?"

"I have followed you for some way," he replied, smiling as he took her
hand.

"I don't like that," she said pettishly; "it is horrid to think of
some one walking behind one when one does not suspect it."

"Are you angry with me?" asked Rhys. "Don't be unkind after I've
waited for you every evening for the last four days."

"But I told you I should be away from Crishowell. I only came back the
day before yesterday. I enjoyed myself very much too."

"I am glad of that," said Rhys, in a voice which gave the lie to his
words.

"I was staying at such a delightful place," she continued, pausing for
the expected question.

It came at once.

"Where was that?"

"A place called Waterchurch Court. Have you ever heard of it? It
belongs to Mr. Fenton, who is very rich."

Rhys repressed an exclamation. "I know about him. He has a son, hasn't
he?"

"Yes," replied Isoline, looking conscious.

"An' I'll be bound he paid you a sight of attention," cried Walters,
relapsing, as he sometimes did when excited, into the speech of his
forefathers.

"Let us go and sit down," said Isoline, "I am getting tired." She
moved towards the great stone on which they usually sat.

"You haven't answered me," he exclaimed, tormented by the thought of
Harry.

Isoline liked power. "Why should I?" she asked lightly.

"I'll tell you why," he cried, his breath coming short through his hot
lips; "because I love you, Isoline--I love you! I love you! I think of
nothing but you, day and night!"

She quickened her pace, her head turned away from him, yet her
expression was not exactly one of displeasure. But he could not see
that.

"Ah, you don't care, I suppose," he went on, catching her hand again,
"but you can't stop me, Isoline. Do you hear that? I love you! I
_will_ love you, whatever you may say. What do I care for anything in
this world but you? Here I've sat, night after night, crying out in my
heart for you, and longing all the days you have been away for a sight
of your face! Hate me if you like, I can't stop loving you."

"Let me alone, Mr. Kent," faltered the girl, somewhat taken off her
feet by his torrent of words. "Let me go, please; I cannot stay here
if you go on in that way."

"You _shall_ hear me!" cried Walters, planting himself before her.
"Why did you come here, making me forget everything, luck and trouble
alike? Isoline! Isoline!"

She was getting alarmed by his violence, and would have turned and
fled, but his arms were round her and he was covering her face, her
lips, her cheek, her hair, with furious kisses. She struggled angrily
for a moment, and finding resistance useless, dropped her head upon
his shoulder and began to cry. Rhys held her closer.

"Don't cry like that," he said, almost in a whisper, frightened in his
turn by the effect of his outburst.

"Let me go," she repeated. "I want to go home."

"Isoline, don't say that--don't go! Ah! how I love you! You must not
go. Speak to me--tell me you like me a little, only to keep me from
breaking my heart."

"Let me go," she repeated again.

He loosed his arms and she pushed him away. "How can you be so rough
and frighten me so?" she exclaimed, drying her eyes with her
handkerchief. "I will never come back here--never--never!"

Rhys was half-mad with excitement and despair at her words. He turned
away, striking his clenched hands together and walking to and fro like
a creature in a cage. She watched him over her handkerchief; emotion
was a thing new to her, and she did not like it.

"Do stop," she said petulantly, putting it back in her pocket. He
turned round and stood humbly before her.

"I have terrified you," he said. "I am a brute beast, not fit to speak
to you, not fit to love you."

Almost for the first time in his life he thought more of another than
of himself. She was silent, the resentment in her face giving way to
curiosity.

"Why do you behave like that?" she asked at last.

"Oh, Isoline, I am sorry. Only stay with me a little longer. I swear
to you that I will be quiet, and not frighten you any more. I couldn't
help it, dear; I love you so."

"I think you have behaved very badly," the girl said, pursing up her
lips and quite self-possessed again. "It is impossible for me to stay.
I am accustomed to gentlemen."

Rhys groaned.

"I hope you are ashamed," she said, with a fine ignorance of her own
share in the situation.

"I am, I am."

He stood silent while she smoothed her hair, which had become
disarranged.

"I suppose I may go a bit of the way with you," he hazarded, when she
had finished. "It's dark, and I must see you as far as the place above
the farm."

She did not move; she was looking at him with a faint curiosity.

"I will stay a short time if you give me your word that you will not
annoy me again," she said, a little surprised at his submission.

Certainly it was a strange state of mind for such a man as Rhys
Walters. But many things had cropped up in his heart, unsuspected even
by himself.

"I don't deserve it," he said.

"I do not wish to be too hard upon you," she replied, judicially, as
she seated herself in their usual place.

Rhys' depression was so great that Isoline soon began to get rather
tired of his company, for he seemed quite incapable of entertaining
her, and the little admiring speeches that had formerly fallen so
glibly from his tongue would not come, charmed she never so wisely.

In a short time she rose to go home, and he made no protest after he
had extorted a reluctant promise that she would return again. Her
reluctance did not go very deep.

"Why have you told me so little about yourself?" she asked, as they
went along the plateau. "I know your name, and I know that I must not
speak of you to any one; but that is not much."

He was not embarrassed by these questions, for he had long ago
foreseen them and prepared something to meet them with.

"What are you doing here?" continued she. "Does no one ever see you?"

"No one but you and one other. If I were seen I should have to leave
this place at once. I am a Government agent on private business for
the Crown."

He paused a moment, and Isoline's eyes opened wide in her interest.

"Yes," she said, "go on."

"I'm employed by Government to watch some people who are thought to be
doing wrong, and to do that, I have to keep myself out of sight."

"Who are they, and what are they doing?"

"I can't tell any one that, but it has to do with an estate."

The girl drank his words in. The little imagination she had was always
attracted by a mystery, and the very vagueness of his story only
served to impress her more.

"Then is Kent your real name?" she asked.

"No--no, it isn't. But I have had to take it for business purposes.
You haven't forgotten that you promised to tell no one you had seen
me. You will keep your word, Isoline?"

"Oh, certainly," she exclaimed fervently, "I should be afraid to say
anything after what you have told me. I might get into trouble,
mightn't I?" she added naïvely.

"And I might have to go to prison," he said, speaking the exact truth.
"You would be sorry for that, wouldn't you, Isoline?"

"Oh, really I should. How dreadful!" she exclaimed.

At this his heart thrilled; he had no idea how the words "Crown" and
"Government" had exalted him in her eyes. The pedestal upon which he
had raised her was so high that he never supposed she could see down
into the sordid world beneath her. Poor Rhys! the spiritual part of
him was small, a feeble spark hidden deep in the darkness of
selfishness, but Isoline had struck it with her little worthless hand,
and it had flickered up.

After leaving her he went back to the cottage in a state of rapture,
for she had promised to return. Like Harry at Waterchurch, he was
wakeful with thoughts of her, but, unlike him, he went out into the
night, and spent it rambling among the shoulders of the mountain.

It was dawning when he came home and locked himself in for the coming
day, and the place was so cheerless that he almost missed George. He
wondered what had become of him as he went down the ladder and threw
himself on his bed. The underground room was now half filled with
things which he had carried below after his companion had left him,
and the mattress and other possessions belonging to the sheep-stealer
furnished his prison, and made it a little more habitable. The
impossibility of having a fire tried him in the cold weather, for the
place was chilly with the damp of the surrounding earth, and he dared
not during the day kindle the smallest flame in the fire-place, for
fear that, by some fraction of a chance, some one might pass, and
observe the uncommon spectacle of smoke issuing from an empty house.

For some days after Williams had gone he had been in sore straits.
There were few provisions in the cottage, and when they were finished,
there was no means of getting more, as he dared not venture out.
Fortunately, it wanted but a few days of the Pig-driver's weekly
visit, and he eked out his food till the old man should arrive,
fighting his hunger as best he might, and blessing the clear mountain
water which ran at the door. As he heard the sound of Bumpett's
squeaky voice one morning in the room above, he felt like a
shipwrecked man who sees a sail. Had his visitor been an angel from
heaven, instead of an exceedingly wicked old man, he could not have
been more welcome.



CHAPTER XXI

THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR

WHEN the Pig-driver heard from Rhys that George had gone, apparently
for good and all, his rage was great; his tight little lips had only
one movement with which to express anything he felt, and they grew yet
tighter in a grin as he sat on a log in the underground room and heard
the story. His mouth had the appearance of being embedded in his round
face. He was angry with Walters for his part in ridding him of such a
servant as he could hardly hope to replace, but he did not venture to
give his anger the rein, being too much aware of the loneliness of
their position. He was a cautious man, and contented himself with
laughing immoderately as Rhys told him of his privations, and making
some very unseasonable jokes.

"How we do come down i' the world," he said sympathetically, taking
off his hat and turning it critically round in his hands. "Well, well,
to be sure, who would a' thought, when ye were such a fine figger of a
feller at Great Masterhouse, that ye'd come to this?" His eyes
twinkled as he spread out his fingers on his knees.

"Little did I think," he continued, "when I were settin' down to the
fire last night wi' my drop o' cider an' my bit o' cold goose, that
you was starvin' here like a beggar man, an' would be thankful to me
for any crust o' bread I could spare ye."

It was rather a surprise to Bumpett when he saw how willing Rhys
Walters was to remain in George's place, and to do George's work. He
proposed the scheme with considerable caution, expecting an indignant
refusal, but the other took it quietly enough, and agreed to serve him
as George had done, and to receive his daily food in return and the
use of the miserable roof under which they sat.

"Ye bean't thinking to leave the country then?" said the Pig-driver
with some curiosity.

"Not yet," said Rhys curtly, reddening as he spoke.

The old man looked shrewdly at him out of his pig-eyes.

"Ye've got some game o' your own, I'll be bound," he said, with one
foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. "Well, it's nowt to do wi' me,
though I am your master now," he added, as he disappeared safely
through the trap-door.

Rhys now cared neither how he existed nor what he did so long as he
could see Isoline Ridgeway, and time, for him, was measured merely by
the interval between one meeting and another. He snatched at Bumpett's
proposal, which would open the road to all he lived for and give him
an occupation he liked. He had grown perfectly reckless, looking no
farther than the actual present; his old identity, his old interests
and possessions were lost, and no new life, however prosperous, could
make up to him for a final parting with Isoline. He was like a man
upon whom the sun bursts from behind some dismal pack of clouds,
dazzling his eyes, heart, brain and imagination till he can no longer
clearly see the objects around. He was blinded, overpowered; his
self-important soul was humbled by the perfections with which he had
invested his queen.

His very face had altered since the days before the Rebecca riots, for
the clear tan of his skin was changed to a sort of pallor due to his
indoor life. His roamings in the dusk and during the dark hours of
night kept him in health, and his limbs had long ago recovered their
strength, but he no longer wore the expression of self-centred
carelessness which had characterized him a few months before. His keen
eyes had a look of pre-occupation, the look of a man whose soul
inhabits one place while his body lives in another. All his life his
adaptability had been so great that, from every new change and
experience, he had gathered some surface difference. Now, for the
first time, a thing had happened which had gone down deep and reached
the real man. It could not change him altogether, but it had raised
the best flower which had ever sprung up from the poor and untilled
ground of his nature.

James Bumpett was scarcely the man to let a debtor slip through his
fingers as George had done, and he cast about on every hand to find
out what had become of the truant. Williams, who was working among the
cabbage-beds of the garden at Great Masterhouse, glanced over the
fence one day to see the rubicund face and tall hat of the Pig-driver
on the other side of it. The two men looked at each other, and
Bumpett's mouth made itself into a slit; he was so small that he could
only just see over the high green boards.

"Well, to be sure!" he exclaimed, chuckling. "Well, well, I never
did!"

The other met his eyes with a sullen calmness. "I've left you," he
said.

"Name o' goodness! Have ye, now? Well, ye might say I suspected it."

The old man came nearer to the fence, and, taking hold of the pointed
boards of the top, drew himself up, till his hat had risen about a
foot over it. Dignity was one of the few things he did not understand.

"Mind yourself; there's nails," said George.

"I suppose," remarked Bumpett, "that ye thought ye'd seen the last o'
me."

Williams resumed his work, and went on turning over the earth which he
was preparing for vegetable seeds. He determined to take no more
notice of the Pig-driver, who had found in the fence a suitable cranny
in which to insert his foot, and showed no signs of departure. His
horse and cart were standing a little way off.

"There's a sight o' sludge in that garden," he remarked at last,
smiling agreeably.

Many excelled George in speech, but silence was rather a gift of his.
His spade went on vigorously. Bumpett began to hum as he looked at the
bare branches of the pear-tree trained against one end of the farm
wall.

"Don't you be afeard to speak up, George Williams," he said
reassuringly, when he had finished his tune.

It was a chilly morning, and the wind which swept over the plateau to
Great Masterhouse was beginning to touch up the old man's hands in a
disagreeable way; his knuckles looked blue as he grasped the fence.
The thud of the spade going into the earth was the only response.

"Ye'll have something to say when I take the law on ye for that
rent-money," he called out as he slipped down to the ground and
climbed into his cart.

Mrs. Walters soon discovered that, in doing well for Williams, she had
also done well for herself. Her new servant worked harder than any one
on the farm, and was so quiet and orderly that he gave trouble to
neither mistress nor men. Although she despised flowers for mere
ornament's sake, she had some practical knowledge of gardening as far
as the useful part of it went, and, her father having been a seedsman,
she was learned in planting and the treatment of parsley and carrots
and everything that contributed to the household table. Under her
management George worked in the garden; he mended gates and fences,
pumped water, and turned his hand to anything. She exacted from him a
promise to go to chapel every Sunday, and looked upon him with that
proprietary feeling that a man may have for a dog which he has
personally saved from drowning. Sometimes she spoke to him of his
soul, which abashed him terribly.

Although she wore a black silk dress on Sundays, as befitted a woman
of her means, she was up and out early on week-days, walking through
cow-house and poultry-yard, and appearing now and then in places in
which she was not expected, to the great confusion of the idle.

She was just to her men, and, according to her lights, just to her
maids. To the latter she was pitiless on the discovery that any one of
them had so much as the ghost of a love-affair. Such things were
intolerable to her, a shame and a hissing. For a money trouble she
would open her purse, having had experience of poverty in the days
before her parents grew prosperous; for a love trouble she had nothing
but a self-satisfied contempt, and, for a sister who had loved too
much--from whatever reason--she had a feeling which would have made
her draw in her skirts with a sneer, should she pass such an one in
the street. To her, the woman who had staked her all upon one man and
lost it was the same as another who made a profession of such lapses;
she had excellent theories of life, but she had seen nothing of it.
She was, however, true to them, true to herself and true in her
speech, though, in her mind, there was but one point of view to be
taken by all decent people, and that was her own. Her leniency to
Williams, who could look back on past dishonesty, was one of those
contradictions which come, now and then, even to the consistent, and,
for once in her life, she was ready to believe that a back-slider
might yet retrace his steps. Besides, George was a man, and she had
the idea, curiously common to good women, that, though a man's sins
might possibly be condoned, a woman's were unpardonable.

While George went on with his work so quietly, his mind was anything
but quiet. He knew his late master well enough to be sure that his
threat was no idle one, and that, if the money he had owed him for so
long was not produced, Bumpett would never rest until he had him
safely by the heels in jail. He had lately been assured in chapel that
the way of the transgressor was hard, but it struck him, as he delved
on, that the way of the transgressor trying to reform was even harder.

"Who was that climbing upon the fence?" called the voice of Mrs.
Walters.

He looked up to see her standing at an open window with an expression
of some displeasure upon her face.

"It was Mr. Bumpett, ma'am--the Pig-driver at Abergavenny."

"Why was he shouting in that way into my garden? I heard him say
something about 'the law.'"

"'Twas at me," replied Williams, feeling rather foolish.

He drove his spade into the earth with a blow, and went up to the
window, mopping his forehead.

"I'm sorry," he began, "but I'm afeard I'll have to go."

"To go? And why?"

"Ah, 'tis no choice o' mine."

"Where are you going, Williams?"

"'Tis very like to be to the jail. I owe Mr. Bumpett a sight o' money,
and I can't pay him, ma'am."

She looked at him in astonishment as he stood hanging his head.

"Come into the kitchen," she said, turning from the window.

It was perhaps the first time that any one had ever wished to confide
in Mrs. Walters, and, sorely as he longed to do so, it was impossible
for George to tell her the whole history of his trouble. But his
simplicity and evident belief in her sympathy touched her as they
might not have touched a more expansive heart, accustomed to the near
contact of other lives. She sat upright on the kitchen settle while he
poured out the tale of his debt; it was a common story, badly told,
and it had to end just where he would have liked to begin. He felt as
if the confession of his past doings would have taken pounds from that
weight of shame which he had carried about with him ever since his
acceptance of Bumpett's terms. His only comfort was in the fact that
his mother had never suspected the life to which he had pledged
himself for her sake. He had not known the sympathy of a woman since
her death.

He looked down at the earth on his boots as he spoke, for he had
forgotten, when he came in, to clean them on the heap of bracken by
the doorstep. He was afraid that Mrs. Walters was looking at it too.
But her eyes seemed fixed on something far off as she rose, slim and
straight, from the settle. What she saw was a man little younger than
the one before her, who had brought disgrace and shame upon her and
her house. She could not understand it at all. What earthly temptation
could there have been to have made him act as he had acted? Her mouth
tightened. How was it that this stranger, this rude labourer, should
trust her as her own son had never done? She stared out of the window
to where the Twmpa reared its great shoulder, unconscious that she was
looking at places nightly trodden by Rhys' feet, and, as her
bitterness against him increased, so did her sympathy for the other
deepen.

"I will pay Mr. Bumpett," she said suddenly, her back still turned
"and your debt will be to me."

The young man stammered some confused words; he would have liked to
say many things, but his tongue failed him in the emergency, as it
usually did. But he felt as if the gates of heaven were opening in his
face.

"Go on with your work, Williams," said Anne, turning round and waving
him out of the room. "I have no more time to talk to you just now."

When he had gone she left the kitchen and went up the wooden staircase
leading to the tower; the room that her husband had lived in was kept
locked, and had been used for some years as a kind of storehouse for
boxes. As she turned the key it screeched in the lock, and she
determined to tell Nannie to have the thing oiled; she had not crossed
the threshold since Rhys had left Great Masterhouse before the riot. A
couple of old bridles were hanging on nails against the wall, for he
had used the place to keep odd bits of harness in, and, in obedience
to her mistress's orders, Nannie had laid away his clothes in a
cupboard at the end of the room. Mrs. Walters paused in front of it;
standing in this spot which cried to her of an uncongenial past, she
had an impulse to open it and look at the familiar things. She had no
love for them and they could but bring back to her mind what it was
her daily endeavour to forget, but she was in that experimental humour
in which people long to assail their own feelings in the vain hope of
finding them a little more impervious than they supposed. So she
looked for the key only to see that it was gone, the old woman having
carefully carried it away when she had given the garments to Bumpett,
and passed on unknowing that the shelves were almost empty.

Some of Eli's possessions also remained, and she went over to the
mantel-piece to see the things she had come up to look at--two little
daguerreotypes belonging to her late husband, one of the child who was
dead, and one of the son who was living. They were framed in cheap
brass, beaten out thin and ornamented with a florid, embossed pattern,
and they had little rings behind them, to hang them to the wall.
Between them was a similar portrait of herself as a young woman.

She took them up, one in each hand, her lips pressed close together as
she carried them to the light. Rhys' bold face looked out at her, the
black shadows of the imperfect process giving it an unpleasant
harshness. He was standing, his hand on a chair, with the usual
looped-up curtain at his back; Eli had been very proud of the picture.
The other frame contained the figure of a boy of six. Mrs. Walters
could not look at it.

She replaced the two on the mantel-shelf and went out, locking the
door. The wound she had carried for years was no harder--not a whit.
She went into the parlour, a grim, uninviting room in which she sat
when she was at leisure, or when she received any one whose position
demanded more than the kitchen, and sitting down at the table, opened
a Bible. It was a large book, and she propped it against a Manual of
Practical Bee-keeping, turning to one of the chapters set apart by
custom as particularly suited to the bereaved. She forced herself to
read. It was the orthodox way with religious people of overcoming
trouble, and the sect to which she belonged applied the words of
Scripture to all circumstances and cases. But though she went through
the lines steadily, moving her lips, they gave her no sensation of any
kind, and seemed no more applicable to the tumult in her than if they
had come from the book of bee-keeping which supported them. She glued
her attention to the page, reading on and pausing after each verse.
Presently her lips ceased to move and were still. A large tear rolled
slowly out of each eye and ran down her cheek, falling on the red
cloth of the table. The muscles of her face were rigid, never moving;
one would not have supposed that she was crying, but for the drops.
She took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes, and the act had the
air of a concession awkwardly made; she shut the book and clasped her
hands together. Then she opened it again in the Old Testament, and,
beginning at one of the denunciatory psalms, read it through to the
end.



CHAPTER XXII

A BAD DEBT

THE Pig-driver climbed into his high cart like some obscure insect
legging its way up the face of a wall. He did not take the reins
himself, but let his boy continue driving, so that he might have more
leisure to think over the iniquities of George. He was so angry that
it cost him quite an effort not to turn the wheels of his chariot
towards Abergavenny, and begin at once to make out his bill against
him. As he was jolted along he began reckoning up the pounds,
shillings and pence on his fingers; but his transactions with other
people were so numerous and so odd that he could not make much way
through their complications without his accounts, and was forced to
wait until he got home in the evening, before he could disentangle
Williams' liabilities from the mass of notes among which they reposed.

Bumpett's accounts were like some human beings--only understood by
their creator. They were perfectly safe under every prying eye which
might light on them, and he could have left the keys of the box in
which they were kept at the mercy of any one, and known that their
perusal would leave the intruder no wiser than before. Not being a man
of letters, and being barely able to read, he had invented certain
signs which stood for words he had forgotten or never known how to
write. Of figures he had only a small idea, for though he had learnt
their character as far as the number five, his knowledge stopped
there, and the actual accounts of his shop were kept by a less
illiterate nephew, whose interests were bound up in his own, and whose
open and burly appearance suggested the best aspects of the trade.

The old man rushed to his box that evening as soon as he had entered
his house, and began to search among the chaos it contained for the
record of George's debt. As the papers had not any sort of
classification and were stuffed into the bottom, one on the top of
another, to make room for all sorts of incongruous articles which
shared their home, it took Bumpett some time to find what he wanted.
He turned them over and over, smoothing out the creases with his dirty
hand, and peering into the medley of hieroglyphics which had been
difficult enough to write, and which were now trebly difficult to
read. They were of all sorts, but represented chiefly what he
considered to be bad or doubtful debts.

"Owd 1 pownd bi Jamestench. he is in prisn. cums out Jooli. March
ateen forty 3."

"Owd ileven shilns ninpens bi jane bull for last 5 munth. can't get
it. shes ded. ateen forty 4."

"Owd from Gorgewillems. Rent. 3 pownd thirteen and fore. August forty
2."

This last document also bore George's sprawling signature, and at the
bottom was added, "Made turms with im. James Bumpett."

The treasure was found, and the Pig-driver crammed the other papers
back and shut down the lid. Then he took off his hat and put it on
again, a habit he had when under emotion; he was very happy. He went
below to a room at the back of the shop, and sat down with his nephew
to a comfortable meal, for they lived well. When they had finished he
took out the paper and, having raked a pair of rusty scissors from the
back of a drawer, he cut off the lower part of the page and dropped it
into the fire. It did not blaze but smouldered, the words "Made turms
with im" standing out in an orange glow on their blackened background.
He went to bed feeling ten years younger.

He was in his best spirits as he drove out of Abergavenny next morning
with the precious document in his hand, for the sight of it gave him
such pleasure that he did not like to put it in his pocket, but held
it clasped tightly until he came within sight of the grey roof of
Great Masterhouse.

He had never yet had any dealings with Mrs. Walters, but it was his
intention to ask to see her; he had heard that she was a person of
strict views, and he hoped to say a few words about George which he
had no doubt would make her turn him out of the place. The virulent
old man longed to see him begging from door to door. He meant to
approach her in the interests of abstract virtue, and to warn her
against employing a person whom he knew to be a thief and an
evil-doer, one who would corrupt his fellow-servants, and in all
probability go off some day of his own accord with as much of her
portable property as he could carry. He felt sure that a pious woman
such as she was would see the rightness of putting Williams to the
door. Though he knew very well that, for reasons of his own, he could
not prove his charges, he trusted that her severity would recognize
the need of ridding her house of doubtful characters. It was in this
hope that he drove into the back yard of the farm.

Anne Walters was sitting in the kitchen with some knitting in her
hand, superintending the work of a clumsy girl of fourteen who was
washing a whole regiment of delf mugs. They were a sight to breed envy
in a collector of modern days, with their patterns and devices of red
roses, doggerel verses, and figures of John Barleycorn, Toby Philpott,
and other jocund personalities, but she cared little for them, and
kept them hidden away in a cupboard where no eye but that of the
strolling spider could espy their quaint beauties. The money she had
promised to lend Williams had been given him on the previous evening,
and she had agreed to stop a portion of his weekly wages until the
debt should expire. She was sure that she had done right in helping
him, and it was a pleasant thought in her mind as Nannie's face peered
in at the kitchen door. Nannie always peered. Though she had been
twenty years and more at Great Masterhouse, she still kept the
demeanour of an intruder, and her weather-beaten face came stealthily
round the lintel as though its presence were an unlawful act.

"The Pig-driver's in the yard, ma'am, wanting to see you on business."

"The Pig-driver?"

Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows.

"Mr. Bumpett at Abergavenny. I hear him getting out of the cart."

The girl of fourteen stood open-mouthed; a visitor was a more amusing
thing than cleaning china, and the water ran unheeded off her fingers
on to the clean sand of the floor.

"Go you out o' this, girl," cried Nannie, pouncing upon her and
snatching up the basin, "don't you be gaping there an' the water
slitherin' down! Be off, an' take some o' they pots along wi' you, if
you don't want a tiert slap on your long ears."

The girl fled with as many of the jugs as she could carry.

Bumpett stood in the doorway trying to construct his expression into
one which might find favour with the opposite sex.

"Good-morning," said Mrs. Walters in her cold voice, pointing to a
chair.

There was a slight movement of garments in the passage which showed
that Nannie was listening outside. The Pig-driver sat down with his
hat on his knees; he had not supposed it would be so difficult to
start his subject, and he cleared his throat loudly by way of giving
himself confidence. His experience had led him to believe his address
irresistible, but he knew that people had to be "taken the right way."

"To be sure, this is a fine big place," he began, glancing round the
spacious kitchen, "a proud place. I'll lay ye couldn't have paid less
nor the size o' five pound ten for that dresser."

"I am not selling my furniture," said Mrs. Walters, inclining to think
that the business must be some intended purchase.

"Oh, no, no. Name o' goodness! I didn't mean that," rejoined he,
laughing with reassuring waggery. "A fine figger of a lady like you to
be sellin' up! A pretty pass that would be."

"May I ask what your business is?" said Anne, drawing herself up. "I
have a great deal to do this morning."

He brought his chair a little nearer.

"I've heard a sight o' beautiful words about you," he said, throwing
an admiring leer into his eye, "from this one an' that. 'Tis common
talk what a fine lady you be wi' your silk an' satins, an' your holy
doin's in chapel. Ah, a sad thing it was for the respected Mr. Walters
that's gone before to be leavin' ye alone. I'll be bound he hasn't
found an angel to match ye in the glorious place where he now is."

It flashed across Mrs. Walters that the Pig-driver must be mad, and
she rose from her chair.

"Sit ye down again, do now," he said. "I ax pardon if I be too feelin'
in my speech, but what can I do when I see such handsome looks an'
high ways before me? A man's heart will feel for ye, seein' ye so
unprotected. 'Beauty in distress,' ma'am, as Holy Writ has it." He
chuckled at his own aptness of quotation.

"I am not unprotected," said Anne Walters, who was growing very angry,
"and you will find it out if you will not come to business or leave
the house."

"No offence meant. No doubt eddicated manners seem queer to ye in a
plain man like me," he said lightly, drawing the back of his hand
across his nose.

"Kindly say what your business is, or go."

Bumpett had fallen into the common masculine error of treating all
women alike, and it began to strike him that he was on the wrong tack.
His companion was no less sensible to flattery than the rest of her
fellow-creatures, but flattery is a dish which should be dressed
differently for every person. He took a less gallant attitude.

"I've come to warn ye," he said, dropping his voice.

But she made no movement to regain her seat, for she was thoroughly
angry, and she looked down at the eccentric figure of the Pig-driver
with an expression of disgust. It was years since she had spoken to
any one, except her son and the preacher she followed, who could
pretend to an equal position with herself, and the impertinent
familiarities of the old man were not to be endured. She debated
whether she should send for a couple of her men and have him turned
out of the place.

"It's my duty, plain an' pure," he continued, nothing daunted by her
silence, "an' I've come from Abergavenny to tell ye what may give ye a
turn, an' show ye what ye've got about the place. There's a feller
name o' George Williams here, isn't there? Well, he's a limb an' no
mistake. A fine sort to be hangin' about a respectable house, he is!"

He paused for a reply, but Anne appeared entirely unmoved by his news
and he began to get exasperated. He thumped his stick on the floor.

"Ah, you women!" he cried, "ye're a queer lot! Ye won't believe a word
a decent man says, an' yet ye'll believe any scoundrel that comes
puggin' his forelock to yer face an' lying an' thievin' behind yer
back. Well, ye've got a rare one now. Ye don't know the life he's been
leadin'."

Mrs. Walters looked intently at him.

"I do," she said quietly, thinking of what George had admitted to her.

The Pig-driver's blatant demeanour collapsed like a pricked gas-bag;
the shreds of it hung round him and that was all. If Williams had been
fool enough to place his own safety in the hands of the woman
confronting him, then he, Bumpett, was a lost man. In all his
calculations he had never pictured any one who would, so to speak,
thrust his own head into the prison door, and he made an effort to
collect his wits and to find out how much she really knew.

"What were he tellin' ye about himself?" he asked, in a voice from
which truculence had suddenly vanished.

"That is my business and no one else's," replied Anne haughtily.

He ground his teeth together.

"If you have no more to say," she continued, after a pause in which
the sense of his own impotence nearly drove Bumpett mad, "you had
better go."

A wave of rage surged over him. He got up red in the face.

"I'll have him in jail yet!" he cried, flourishing his arm, "I will! I
tell 'ee he won't bide here much longer. Look at that!"

And he whipped the paper out of his pocket and slammed it down on the
table. Anne watched him with disdain.

"Look 'ee here! Look 'ee here! D'ye see _that?_ There's his own name
to it--three pound thirteen an' four. Ah, but I've showed mercy on
him, I have! An' me waitin' all this time for my money. D'ye see that
date?"

His thumb shook as he planted it on the grotesque writing.

"Why should he go to jail if he pays you?"

Bumpett's wrath turned into a fine irony.

"No, no, indeed," he replied, mouthing his words and twisting himself
round to look up in Mrs. Walters' face; "he! he! true; true words,
ma'am. Ah, I see ye have a wonderful knowledge o' business."

"I will call Williams," she said, "and tell him to pay you."

"Pay me, will he? Not him! He can't," shouted the old man in a kind of
ecstasy, as he almost capered by the table.

George came in from the yard at Mrs. Walters' summons; he stopped,
hesitating in the passage outside.

"Come in, Williams," she said, with so little trace of expression in
her voice that he almost feared the Pig-driver had overruled her good
feelings towards him. The old man looked the picture of excited and
triumphant malice.

"Mr. Bumpett has come to be paid," she said, as he entered.

"I have," exclaimed Bumpett, "an' high time I was, too. Now then, down
wi' your money, George Williams! A rich man like you shouldn't hang
back! Where is it, eh?"

He grinned at George as a cat might grin at the mouse between his
claws.

The young man put his hands in his trousers pocket and, for answer,
turned the whole amount out on the table; three gold pieces, thirteen
silver ones and a fourpenny-bit.

The Pig-driver's countenance presented such a blank wall of
astonishment that it was a pity no sufficiently disinterested
spectator was present to study it. His errand to Great Masterhouse was
proving so unlike anything he had expected that, for once in his life,
he felt himself undone. The weapon with which he had hoped to defeat
George had been wrested out of his grasp and turned against himself,
and he had no other at hand with which to replace it. He glared at the
pile of coin, wrath and cupidity fighting within him; the sight of the
money made him long to touch it, to handle it and appropriate it, and,
at the same time, he hated it because its unlooked-for appearance had
robbed him of his revenge. He looked from George to Mrs. Walters and
from them to the shining heap between them, and his grin fluctuated
and finally died out altogether.

Anne opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a sheet of paper
which was lying in it, and a pen and ink.

"Williams will want a receipt," she remarked, placing them before the
Pig-driver.

"I can't write," he said, looking at the pen with an expression of
malignity. "I'm no hand at it, I tell 'ee. I'll need to take it along
to Abergavenny to my nephew and get it made out."

"That does not matter," said she composedly, taking up the quill. "You
need only write your name. I know you can do that, for you have signed
the paper you showed me."

She sat down and, in the same precise hand in which she annotated her
Bible, wrote: "Received from George Williams in full payment of debt,
three pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence." Adding the date, she
pushed it towards Bumpett.

He would have liked to refuse, but he did not dare to do so; he could
not risk disobliging a person who, for all he knew, was aware of the
systematic law-breaking which was the source of his income.

She watched his unwilling pen forming the signature quite unconscious
of the hold she had over him.

"Will you please to keep that for me?" said George as she held out the
precious receipt.

She turned to Bumpett, putting the paper into her pocket. She belonged
to a sex whose natural impulse it is to hit a man when he is down.

"Are you satisfied now?" she inquired, "or have you anything else to
warn me about?"

George and the Pig-driver left the kitchen together. Once outside the
old man broke into a whirlwind of curses. Williams turned away.

"Come back," gasped Bumpett; "I know what ye've been doin', ye lyin'
dog that ye are! Ye've been tellin' that high-nosed, preachin' devil
yer sins, have 'ee? An' you swearin' on the Bible when I made terms
with 'ee, an' now maybe lettin' loose the whole country on me. Well,
ye'll likely swing yesself, ye fool; that's what ye'll get fer yer
pains--damn ye!"

"I've never spoke a word about you. I said no more to Mrs. Walters
than that I'd led a bad life--and so I have."

Bumpett stared.

"An' was that the meanin' o' what she said?"

"I suppose so," said Williams.

The Pig-driver climbed into his cart as he had done the day before; he
had never made such a bad business of anything.



BOOK II



CHAPTER XXIII

WHITE BLOSSOMS

IT was on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth,
that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the
field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The little puffs of wind which
occasionally lifted stray bits of her hair were scented with the scent
of may hedges; the whole world seemed to have broken out into white
blossom.

The tree above her head was such a mass of shivering, semi-transparent
petals against the blue of the sky, that the endless perspective of
bloom held reminiscences of a Japanese painting. At her feet the hill
sloped down to the brook and the Vicarage orchard. Below, in a
declivity of the field where a spring's course could be traced by the
deeper green of the grass to a circle of wet ground, a crop of
marsh-marigolds held their cups vigorously above the succulent stems,
and green, tea-tray leaves, coarse children of the brown,
earth-stained water. Looking beyond the church she could see the
indigo outline of the Brecon Hills.

Since the day on which she had left Waterchurch Court three months had
gone by, and Harry, on whose expected visit she built so much, had not
yet been to Crishowell. Not that this was due to neglect on his part,
for things had taken an ill turn, and Mr. Lewis, a few days after his
return home, had developed an attack of asthma, to which he was
subject, and been told by his doctor that only a complete and
immediate change would rid him of the enemy. So uncle and niece had
departed almost at a day's notice, returning in a month to find that
Harry had left home, and was expected back in a few weeks.

The disappointment had been keen, but a sustaining belief in her own
attractions had helped her through it, and an inward certainty that
when he returned he would not delay his coming. Sometimes, it is true,
a misgiving would creep into her mind, for she knew that he had gone
to London, and the "fine ladies" who, in her imagination, peopled the
greater part of the metropolis, might be casting their lures to
entangle the feet of so personable a young gentleman. But her fears
did not last long, and she argued sensibly enough that these houris
would be no new thing to him, and that experience of their devilries
had not deterred him from falling down before herself. Was he not
fresh from the wicked city when they had first met? She would not
disquiet herself, and she did not.

Seeing her so willing to return to the dullness of Crishowell, Mr.
Lewis had taken it as a good sign of contentment with her
surroundings, and he noted her growing inclination to outdoor exercise
with a pleased surprise; it seemed that, after all, her stay with him
was to be of some use in directing her mind towards healthy pleasures.
He was also a little relieved at finding her able and willing to
ramble about by herself, and apparently unresentful at being left so
much alone. His parish and his books, his archæology and his
correspondence kept him so busy, that a niece who expected much of him
would have been a serious inconvenience. He treated her with unvarying
kindness and courtesy, but he sighed sometimes as he searched vainly
for some trait which should remind him of her dead aunt, the wife he
had loved. He had always passed for a self-centred man to whom the
fellowship of his kind was trivial, but though his reading and his
duties now formed his world, there was a chasm in his life which had
opened years before he had come to Crishowell, and was gaping still.
As a mere tribute to convention, he would now and then delude himself
into the belief that he liked Isoline, but he knew in his heart of
hearts that it was only a delusion. He had not cared much for his
wife's family, and the girl was essentially her father's daughter.

One of the first things she had done on getting home was to go to the
Pedlar's Stone to meet Rhys Walters, and before her departure she had
managed to get to the solitary spot to bid him good-bye. He had taken
the news she brought hardly, crying out against all the possible
rivals that his jealous heart pictured as assailing her in the
semi-fashionable place to which her uncle was ordered. But there was
nothing for it but patience, and he got through the time as best he
could. The Pig-driver, who kept him supplied with food, was also ready
to supply him with Crishowell news, and through him he at last heard
of the Vicar's return. Though the days were lengthening, and risk of
discovery was greater in consequence, he was at the trysting-place
when she appeared. He looked worn and thin, and it was evident by the
lines in his face that he had suffered in her absence.

If one lover were away there was still the other left to keep her
amused, and it made her the more gracious to the one who remained. The
light evenings were no obstacle to the infatuated man, and he was at
the Pedlar's Stone daily almost before the sun had set, though he knew
that he was risking the little he had left to risk by his action. In
the night he constructed a sort of rampart of dead thorn-bushes,
disposing them so artfully around a little hollow in the vicinity of
the dreaded stone, that if by some strange chance any one should be
bold enough to pass by, he and Isoline would be unseen as they sat in
the declivity on the further side of it. He reached the place by the
most devious ways, taking cover wherever he could find it, sometimes
almost crawling along an ancient ditch which ran up the hill, and when
the beloved woman had left him, lying in the hollow till the descent
of darkness.

As she sat in its shadow, the girl herself looked like the spirit of
the blossoming tree. Her white dress was spread round her on the
grass, and her shady hat dangled by a white ribbon from her hand. Even
she was impressed by the beauty of the thing above her as she twirled
a tuft of flowers in her fingers, wondering whether artificial
cherry-blossoms were to be got, and resolving, if so, to trim her next
ball-dress with them. She stuck some in her hat and put it on her
head, then, remembering that there was no mirror at hand in which the
effect could be seen, laughed and tossed it down beside her. A great
buzzing fly went past with a hum of wings; but for that the whole
world was still; everything was radiating life, and only the yew-tree
in the churchyard beneath her laid a dark spot on the uninterrupted
flow of light. A man on horseback was turning away from her uncle's
door. He must have come up from the road by a footpath, for she had
not seen him arrive. Her heart jumped, for it was Harry--Harry riding
away, having evidently been told that Mr. Lewis was out. He passed by
the stile at the foot of the field, and suddenly looking up, saw her
white figure on the slope.

He sprang off, calling Howlie (who was by the duck-pond observing him)
to take his horse, and in a moment he had vaulted the stile and was
coming towards her.

She awaited him smiling, a lovely colour spread over her face.

"May I stay here?" he asked rather shyly, as he came up.

"Oh, certainly," she replied.

"I so nearly missed you," he exclaimed, as he threw himself upon the
grass beside her. "Your uncle was not in. Fancy, if I had not seen you
and had gone back again! Do you know I only got home two days ago, and
I have come the very first moment I could get away."

"Have you been in London, Mr. Fenton?"

"All the time," said he.

Isoline sighed. "I should so like to go to London. Were you very gay?"
she asked.

"Not so very," said Harry, laughing.

"Did you go to any balls?"

"I went to three."

"Oh, tell me. And what were the ladies like? Did they wear beautiful
dresses and grand diamonds?"

"Yes, I think they did. But I didn't notice much."

"But what were they like? Can you not remember _anything?_ If I went
to London I should not forget what I saw."

"But you are cleverer than I am."

"Oh, I don't think you are stupid at all," she said, looking coyly
down at her fingers. "I suppose gentlemen do not notice the same
things that we ladies do. I hoped that when I saw you again you would
be able to bring me all the new fashions."

"You knew I should come then? You did not think I should forget?"

She was silent, turning her head away.

"Isoline, are you glad to see me?"

"Perhaps," she said lightly, swinging her hat which she had picked up
from the grass. She was so sure of him that she felt she could afford
to dally with the situation.

Harry was young, and his face fell a little. "I don't believe you care
a bit," he said.

Again she did not answer.

He came nearer. "Isoline, will you marry me?" he asked very earnestly.

A perfect flood of triumph and excitement poured into her heart, but
she made no outward sign of it.

"Do you really mean it, Mr. Fenton?" she said softly.

"Of course I mean it, darling!" he exclaimed. "Do you know one thing
that took me to London? I went to get something for you, if you will
wear it. Look!" He drew a tiny case from his pocket and opened it.
Inside was a ring, a diamond heart surrounded by little pearls.

She clasped her hands together.

"How lovely! How lovely!" she exclaimed. "And is that for me?"

"Try it on," said Harry.

She held out her finger, and he slipped the jewel into its place.

"It fits perfectly!" she cried, enchanted, turning her hand round and
round, so that it should flash in the sun.

"Darling!" he exclaimed, throwing his arm round her.

"Oh, please don't! Some one might be looking. Every one can see you
from here."

"But, Isoline, do you love me?"

"Yes, I do indeed!"

"And you will be my wife? You haven't said it, you know, dear."

"I will," she said, still contemplating her left hand.

"Look at me, dear, tell me you mean what you say. Are you happy,
Isoline? I am."

She glanced up at him with her grey eyes full of sunshine.

"I am very happy," she murmured.

Then her look swam away into the far landscape and she sat rapt,
thinking of what was to come. The world she wanted was opening in
front of her; the man who held the key of it had put it into her hand
She wondered whether there might be lions on the threshold, and, if
so, how loudly they would roar. She thought that she would not mind
the roaring very much, if she could only slip by them successfully.

The future was whispering to Harry too.

"I wonder what your uncle will say," he remarked at last. "I meant to
have spoken to him when I arrived, but he had gone out, and so I came
up here to you. He can't refuse me, can he, Isoline?"

"Oh dear, no," she laughed, wondering at her lover's simplicity. "How
could he? Besides, I shall do as I like."

"You will never give me up, whatever may happen? Dear, dear Isoline,
you couldn't do such a thing, could you?"

"What will Mr. Fenton and Lady Harriet say?"

"I shall go and tell them what to say," said Harry valiantly.

"I do not think that your mother will be glad," said she, smiling
faintly.

She hardly knew whether this idea was agreeable to her or not. There
was a lurking antipathy in her to Lady Harriet, though she had
received nothing but civility at her hands; the strangely-different
point of view in small things which Harry's mother represented had put
her out. It had been uncomfortable, and she had not forgotten it. In
her mind the only recognized difference between well-regulated people
lay in their social positions. She rather resented the idea of a
titled mother-in-law whose simple behaviour suggested an
unconsciousness of her advantage.

Her imagination flew on to her wedding. It should not take place at
Crishowell, if she could help it. She thought of Hereford Cathedral,
and the string of carriages and family chariots waiting outside the
close for the company before whom she would be playing the leading
part. She pictured herself in white satin and lace being conducted up
the aisle, and standing with the eldest son of a county magnate before
the Bishop--for no doubt Mr. Fenton would wish the Bishop to marry his
son; and finally, being led out by her husband to a carriage with grey
horses. She would have the wedding-favours an exact facsimile of some
she had once seen, bouquets of orange-blossom which had unexpectedly
put forth silver leaves, and which reposed on white satin bows with
silver fringe. She was quite certain Lady Harriet had never looked so
well as she would on that supreme occasion. There was only one dark
blot in all her eminently satisfactory day-dream, and that was the
fact that Llewellyn would probably be best man. He was neither
creditable nor conciliatory.

She awoke from her reverie to find Harry's eyes fixed upon her with
such passionate love and admiration that she was rather startled. So
far she had considered him more as an adjunct than as any one
possessing a future of his own, and for a single moment the importance
of what she had done struck her.

"I wonder how I shall like you," she remarked suddenly, and without a
touch of the flippancy such words might suggest. It was probably the
one original thing she had said in her life.

Harry looked as if he had been slapped.

"Isoline! What do you mean?" he cried. "You do not want to draw back?"

"Oh no," said the girl quickly, "I only wondered if we should ever
quarrel."

"Never," he replied fervently; "I could never be angry with you, I am
sure."

So they sat and looked down upon the Vicarage till a black figure
crossed the churchyard.

"There is my uncle," said Isoline, taking up her hat. "We ought to go
down and tell him."

"Oh, not yet," pleaded Harry, "stay a little, dear; I shall always
love this place now."

He looked up into the branches.

"Is not the cherry-blossom pretty? Before you came, I was thinking how
nice it would be to have a ball-dress trimmed with it. Do you think it
would suit me?"

"You'll look lovely."

"And you will not forget my dresses as you forget the London
fashions?" She raised her eyes archly to his.

He seized her hand and kissed it, and she made no resistance, for the
grass was high and the action could not be seen.

It was long before he forgot the feel of the cool greenness, the touch
of soft fingers as he pressed them against his lips, and the dancing
of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Poor Harry, he was happy; the
heavens had stooped down to earth, and he had no misgivings. Such
difficulties as he foresaw were those that would melt away before the
fire of his constancy. How was it conceivable that any opposition
could stand against Isoline's beauty and sweetness? He thought of
Llewellyn's counsel and the day on which they had so nearly quarrelled
by the garden door; it was strange that he--so much cleverer than
himself--had taken such an extraordinary view of her character. The
recollection made him quite impatient, though he told himself in his
generous heart that there was no one like his brother, and that, come
what might, his marriage should never in any way shadow their
friendship.

Time, he was certain, and a closer experience of Isoline's society,
would convince him that he had been mistaken, and he knew Llewellyn
well enough to be sure that, when such a change should come to pass,
his acknowledgment of his error would be complete. It would all come
right, and, meanwhile, life was bathed in an untold glory.

Like all young, open natures who love truly, Harry was humble. His own
inferiority to the girl at his side was manifest to him as he looked
up at her through the grasses. His life had been, if anything, rather
more regular than that of the ordinary young man, for the extreme
genuineness of his nature had necessitated that some real feeling,
however transient, should direct his desires. Nevertheless,
temptations that assailed others had not stepped aside in his favour,
and it was a miracle to him that this creature, so delicate, so pure,
so refined, should be willing to walk out of the fairy radiance of her
maiden kingdom to join hands with him. The little demure air that
never left her, even when she had seemed most near to him, was a
charm. There was always a suggestion about her of not giving too much,
and he admired it as he might have admired the delicacy of scent in a
white flower.

He loved refinement, though he could not distinguish between the false
and the true, being younger in his mind than in his years; and it is
the irony of life that a knowledge of valuations comes to many--indeed
to most--when it is too late to be useful. He had reverence in him and
a high ideal of womanhood; though it was a crude one, it was the best
that his youth and unanalytic nature could frame. The dainty calm and
reserve with which Isoline had met his obvious love was as if the
white flower grew on a height to be scaled with patience, and bloomed
to be touched by one hand alone. He was not the first to mistake
coldness for purity.



CHAPTER XXIV

A CARD HOUSE

THE news of the engagement fell like a bombshell into the circle at
Waterchurch; to all but Llewellyn it came as an absolute surprise.
Harry's temporary attachment to any pretty girl who came in his way
was taken as such a matter of course by his parents, that the
attentions he had bestowed on Isoline during the few days she had
stayed with them were nothing out of the ordinary run of events.

Mr. Lewis had made his consent conditional, promising to give it when
he should hear of the Squire's approval, and withholding it entirely
till Harry should assure him of the sanction. Isoline, to whom her
uncle's decision suggested a flying in the face of Providence,
relapsed into soft obstinacy, submitting outwardly to what for the
moment seemed inevitable, and covering a persistence which would
recognize no scruple with a layer of docility. Her attitude was that
of a sand-bag towards a bullet--it offered no visible resistance. At
the same time it was impenetrable.

The Vicar had but little respect for the conventional view of
marriage. While he held it unwise for young people to plunge hand in
hand into the dismal bog of extreme poverty, only to waste their youth
and strength in the sordid flounderings which alone can keep their
heads above water, his ideas of the important things of life were at
variance with those of most people. He regarded the poverty which
necessitates some self-denial as a strengthener of the bonds which tie
those whose love is love indeed, and the outward circumstances which
(whatever they may say) are the things deemed most essential by the
majority, seemed to him to have a secondary place.

He was an intensely spiritual man. Abstract things were more real to
him than the things usually called tangible facts. Though he lived in
a retired spot and kept so much apart from the world, his earlier life
had lain in crowded places, and he had studied men and women very
profoundly. His mental search after truth had been keen, and he was
one who liked half-truths so little that it irked him to have to mix
with those whose current coin they were. He would almost have
preferred lies. That was one reason why solitude was dear to him.
There was only one person among his neighbours with whom he felt
himself in true accord, and that was Lady Harriet Fenton. She was a
woman whom no expediency and no custom could ever induce to deal in
false values.

The tying up for life of two people seemed immeasurably more awful to
the Vicar than it does to the world in general, for he reckoned with
things to whose existence little attention is paid. The power of two
characters to raise or lower each other, was in his eyes a more real
thing than the power of two purses to maintain the establishment that
their owners' friends expect of them. But while he held these
opinions, he had seen enough to show him that to hundreds of natures
the suitable establishment is all-satisfying, and will preserve them
in a lukewarm felicity until death parts them. He knew that strong
meat is not for babes. Isoline was a babe, but he was not so sure
about Harry. Mr. Fenton's difficulties were no secret to him, and he
was aware that, should the young man marry, he would have to content
himself with very little. Isoline, even when her husband should have
become head of the family, would scarcely be able to keep up the show
he suspected her of coveting. It was a point on which he resolved to
enlighten her.

Although he considered him far too young to think of marriage, he had
always liked Harry, for his simplicity and impetuous ways struck him
less as blunt intelligence than as late development, and he believed
that, were he to develop in the society of Isoline, he would develop
away from her; his character at twenty-five was yet in the making,
while hers, at nineteen, was set. All this was more to him than the
fact that his niece would, socially speaking, be marrying well.

As they sat at breakfast on the following morning with the windows
wide open to the orchard, he began upon the subject.

"Isoline, I feel that I ought to tell you a few things you may not
know. If Mr. Fenton gives his consent, and I consequently give mine, I
suppose you and Harry will expect to be married before very long. You
have always had most things that you want, being an only child; do you
think you will be quite happy with less? You may think perhaps that
Mr. Fenton is a rich man."

"I am not accepting Harry for his money," observed Isoline, with
dignity.

"That would be rather difficult, my dear, seeing that he has not got
any," said the Vicar, with some dryness.

She opened her eyes. "I hardly understand. What should I have to do
without?"

"Well, I fancy you spend a good deal upon your dresses for a young
girl. Not that I blame you, for you always look very nice, and you
have seventy pounds a year of your own to be pretty with. Of course,
when you are here you are my guest, and you are no expense, for what
does for me does for us both. I think your aunt in Hereford finds the
same--and rightly."

She nodded.

"It would be hard indeed if you had not a home while we are so well
able to afford you one," continued the Vicar, who had denied himself a
much-needed carpet for his study in order to add a few luxuries to her
bedroom.

"You are both most kind to me."

"But, my dear, it is only right. All the same I cannot help fearing
that you may miss it. You will not have so many new gowns and smart
hats."

Isoline said nothing, but she looked a little incredulous.

"Harry's father allows him two hundred a year. If he married he might
possibly increase it a little--a very little--but I know that is all
he could do. Harry has no profession. Personally, I think that a
mistake, for, in my opinion, every young man who has not learned to
work has missed something, but that is Mr. Fenton's affair, not mine.
Between you both, you would not have three hundred a year, and, even
if a little more were forthcoming, you would barely have three hundred
and fifty. That is very well when a man has something to work at."

"But why will not Mr. Fenton give Harry more?"

"He has not got it to give."

She looked dumbly at him, tears gathering in her eyes; her lips
quivered.

"My dear, my dear," said her uncle, "don't be so upset. I did not mean
to dishearten you, but it was right to tell you the truth. We have not
heard what the Squire has to say, and something might be found, no
doubt, for Harry to do."

He was quite glad to see her display some real feeling, and he came
round to her side and put his arm tenderly about her.

"Don't, my little girl, do not be so distressed," he said, pressing
his lined cheek against her soft one. "If Mr. Fenton says 'Yes,' and
Harry is a man--which I am sure he is--we shall find some way out of
the difficulty. It will be a capital thing for him to work a little,
for he will want money all his life, if he is to stand in his father's
place."

She wept on unrestrainedly, and her emotion touched him; it roused in
him a hope that he had judged her hardly. After all, he had possibly
often misunderstood her, and Harry's affection might yet bring out
things her education had stifled. Though the small interests of
provincial town life were bad training for a woman, they might not
have quite succeeded in spoiling her. But it was not for love that her
tears flowed, it was for a fallen card house.

He spoke very gravely and gently.

"You will have to do your best for him, as Lady Harriet has done for
his father," he continued, still encircling her with his arm. "You
will have a good model in your mother-in-law, Isoline."

A feeling of dislike went through her as she thought of Lady Harriet's
plain clothes and the way she had tramped through the mud of the
farmyard when she had shown her the Alderney cows; she seemed to have
supposed that it would amuse her to see these dull animals. And then,
her strong boots! It was horrible, unfeminine. She had certainly worn
a silk gown at dinner, with a piece of valuable lace on it, but it had
been the same one each night. And this was to be her pattern!

"I did not care very much for Lady Harriet," she faltered.

"You have not seen her very often," replied the Vicar; "she is one of
those women of whom one can say that the more one knows them, the more
one honours them."

"Why?" asked Isoline. "What does she do?"

"Mr. Fenton has lived very much up to his income, and they have to be
extremely careful. There is a great deal of business to be done, more
than he can manage, and she is invaluable in the help she gives him.
She spends nothing on herself; her whole heart is in the place. If it
were not for her, I don't know that it would be in the Squire's
possession now."

Isoline did not return her uncle's caress in any way, but she dried
her eyes, and went cheerlessly on with her breakfast. After it was
over she went out into the orchard, and strolled down to where it met
the brook. She stood for a few minutes looking disconsolately into the
water as it bubbled by; across it she could see up the sloping field
to the cherry-tree under which she had sat on the preceding day. How
happy she had been then!

She pitied herself sincerely. The light which had glimmered before her
during all her stay at Crishowell had proved to be no better than a
malignant Jack-o'-lantern luring her on to the unsolid ground. But the
fatal step had not been taken, though she had put out her foot; her
uncle had shown her to what she was on the verge of trusting herself.

She felt vaguely resentful against Harry. What business had he, she
asked herself, to entangle her in this way, knowing, as know he must,
that he had nothing to support her with decently? It was not fair. She
turned from the brookside and walked back towards the house. Howlie
Seaborne was coming towards her with a letter in his hand. He held it
out between thumb and forefinger.

Though she had never received a letter from Harry, she knew by
instinct where this one had come from, and took it carelessly,
conscious that the boy was staring critically at her with his
prominent eyes. She turned it over as though doubtful of its origin.

"It's from the young general," explained Howlie.

Her disapproving face made him cover his mouth quickly with his hand
as though the words had escaped from it unawares. It was an
indescribably vulgar action.

"Is there any answer?" she inquired.

"Don't knaw," said Howlie shortly.

"But did you ask?"

"Naw; an' oi can't stop 'im now, no more nor if he was a lump o' dirt
rowlin' down the hill."

"But who was he?" she asked, with a wild thought that Harry might have
brought the letter in person.

"A man with a squintin' oye."

She walked away from him, breaking the seal, and he returned to the
kitchen, his tongue in his cheek; he was a Herefordshire boy who had
only come to the place a few months before, but there was little he
did not know, and he was well aware that the messenger lived one mile
from Waterchurch Court.


"Darling," the letter began, "I cannot help writing to you so soon,
though I have not very much to tell. I have spoken to my father. I am
afraid we may have some difficulties, but I have not had the chance of
a serious talk with him yet, and I cannot quite tell you anything
definite. But, whatever happens, I will _never, never_ give you up,
and all will come right in the end, I know, if we are only true to
each other. I will trust you, darling, be sure, and you know that I am
always your devoted lover,
          "H. FENTON.

"P.S.--Oh, Isoline, how I love you! How I wish we were sitting under
the cherry-tree again!"


She could not help being pleased with the letter, it rang so true; and
for the moment, as Harry, honest and trusting, was brought more
vividly before her by his written words, she sighed to think of the
undeserved ill-turn her luck had played her. She was regretful as she
thought how much he loved her. What a smart air he had! What a
handsome, bright face! He seemed so proper a person--so like the
husband she had pictured as a suitable one for herself, that it was
almost a risk to sever herself from him. He was a man with whom any
girl might be proud to show herself, and he would, socially, give her
the place for which she felt fitted. The feeling was so strong that it
went near to overwhelming her more prudent considerations. Might it
not, after all, be better to throw in her lot with him? Though he
could not give her the riches she had dreamed of before her uncle had
shattered the dream, she would, as his wife, be somebody. But then,
she would have to economize, to deny herself--do all the horrible
things that Lady Harriet did, and there would be no going to London
and entering the brilliant vista of balls, operas, and dinner-parties
at which it had been her hope to shine.

She had imagined her carriage surrounded by a circle of admirers, as
were the carriages of the "fine ladies" she had read about, while she
lay back on her cushions and listened to the hum of compliment with
which the air would be filled. That would never be a reality if she
married a poor man. A mere chance had brought such possibilities
within her reach, but they had melted away--snares and
delusions--leaving only a vision of drudgery and homeliness behind.
Small wonder if she had wept.

She had barely enjoyed an hour's possession of the ring Harry brought
her, for it had lain in Mr. Lewis' desk since the evening before, when
her lover had broken the news to him and heard his verdict. The Vicar
would not allow his niece to wear it until Mr. Fenton's consent should
formally ratify the engagement, and he had insisted upon its being
returned. The young man had stoutly refused to take it back, and, by
way of settling the difficulty, it had been sealed up in a little box
and locked into the desk in which the parish money and one or two
valuables were kept. It had been a bitter disappointment, and it was
followed by a worse one.

She wondered what her aunt in Hereford would think of her engagement,
and believed that, were she beside her at present, she would exert
herself much to prevent its being broken, her ambitions being more
social than pecuniary. She was really very thankful that Miss Ridgeway
was not at Crishowell, for the course she meant to take would be made
far harder by the lady's presence.

She looked upon the doctor who had postponed her return for several
months as her own unconscious benefactor, and she cherished the hope
of inducing Mr. Lewis to be silent so that her aunt might never know
what had happened. She would consider Harry's proposal as a grand
chance, and would not understand at how far too high a price that
chance would have to be taken. There were troublous times in front of
her she could not but suspect; Mr. Fenton might consent, and Harry
would be by no means easy to deal with; but she had her uncle's word
that money obstacles would be great, and on these she would take her
stand with as much determination as she could show with propriety. It
would have to be gone through, and the notion made her shudder. The
gin of her own making might be closing round her, but, at all events,
she would have one frantic leap for freedom before the teeth shut.

The letter lay in her pocket, and she took it out and re-read it; its
black and white page spread on her knee looked to her like some
dangerous document binding her to the fate from which she so desired
to flee. "Whatever happens I will _never, never_ give you up," it
said. She went quickly down the orchard, and, standing by the brook,
tore it into small pieces, parting her fingers widely and letting the
fragments float outwards on the water. They were carried along,
disappearing one after another in the little rapids between the
stones. A wagtail, curtseying with its feet in the eddy, jumped up and
twittered away into the green of the undergrowth with a parti-coloured
flash of wings.

She saw the last scrap of the letter turning a bend of the bank and
sailing swiftly under the shadow of the footbridge, and then went back
to the house with a sigh of relief, unconscious that Howlie's eyes
were watching her attentively from the kitchen window.

The boy drew a long breath of astonishment, and opened his mouth as he
observed her action. He admired Harry greatly.



CHAPTER XXV

LLANGARTH FAIR

THE generosity of those who admired the toll-keeper's excellent exit
from this life had placed his daughter beyond the possibility of want.

Public admiration, which, in like instances, will often display itself
in ornamenting a memory that is already the most ornamental thing
possible, had been leavened by the common-sense of the Vicar. He
maintained that the plainest stone would be as efficient a background
to the proud record it bore as the most expensive article ever turned
out of a stone-cutter's yard. He also added that the sincerest homage
offered to the dead would, in this case, be the care of the living.

The gentlemen representing the district were impressed by the view he
took, as men often are by the words of those who speak little, and
though their wives, on hearing of the decision, sniffed and opined
that any expenditure on the hussy would be a throwing away of good
money, they decided to take his advice and to leave its carrying out
in his hands. They thus had the agreeable experience of feeling
broad-minded and saving themselves trouble in one and the same act;
the situation had novelty as well as convenience, and they folded
their hands upon their ample persons in easy after-dinner enjoyment of
the good deed. Lady Harriet's was the one dissenting voice in the
general female opinion. In this, as in most things, she was Mr. Lewis'
warmest supporter, adding a private mite out of her slim purse; the
peculiar horror of Mary's situation left no room in her mind for more
creditable feelings.

By the time Harry's love affair had come to a point, an arrangement
had been made on her behalf. Eager to work for her living, she
accepted the small provision made for her gratefully, while she
assured her benefactors of her wish to help herself as far as she
could for the future. She begged them to get her some decent work. The
little board before whom she was summoned was impressed by the
slender, firm creature, her gentle demeanour and sensible answers, as
she stood in front of them and made her request. Afterwards, one
member even tried to describe her to his wife, but the lady frowned
him down, pointing to the freckled miss who crowned their union, and
who now sat at her wool-work within earshot of the pair.

But, in spite of the sneers and charges of infatuation for a pretty
face brought against the gentlemen by their spouses, she obtained the
interest she needed, and a place was found for her in a little
greengrocer's shop at Llangarth. The owner, an old woman becoming
rapidly infirm, wanted a girl to act as servant and saleswoman,
offering a home and a small wage in return for the help. The Vicar,
who was particular on the point, hid no part of Mary's history from
her employer, but it was received without comment as too ordinary an
occurrence to need notice. So one afternoon she started for the town,
a bundle in her hand and her new life waiting a few miles in front.

She walked along, a kind of reluctance clinging round her footsteps.
The independent course she had asked for was near, but, now that she
had launched herself, she felt internally cold.

Her new employer was a stranger, and the friends she had just left
seemed to be receding very far away. She looked mentally back on them,
as a traveller ferrying across to an unfamiliar shore looks back at
the faces on the brink. She could see the roofs of Llangarth appearing
in the green and blue of the landscape, and the smoke curling among
the trees. She paused and laid down her bundle, leaning against a
gate. A path which was a short cut to the town from the uplands of
Crishowell, ran, a wavy line through the clover and daisies, towards
her halting-place; and, though a man's figure was coming along it, she
was so much pre-occupied that she did not notice his approach. It was
only when he stood not a yard from her that she moved aside to let him
pass. The man was George Williams.

Mary had thought many times of their parting, and, as the wound in her
mind began to ache less and her agonizing sensitiveness to abate, her
judgment grew straighter. She began to see that she had done George a
wrong, misjudging his impulses, and she sincerely wished her words
unsaid; but, being one of those souls to whom explanation is torture,
she had made no sign. Even now, though she longed to set it right, she
could find no voice for a moment. He passed her with an indistinct
word.

"George."

He stopped immediately.

"George, I treated you bad when I shut the door on you. I didn't
understand. It's hard to do right," said Mary simply.

"Then you bean't angry, Mary? Not now?"

"No, no."

Facing each other, there seemed nothing more to say. In their state of
life there are no small embroideries round the main subject.

"I'm going to Llangarth," said the girl, with a clumsy attempt at
ending the episode.

"So am I," said he.

Looking down, he noticed her bundle, which he had almost rolled into
the ditch as he opened the gate; the four corners were knotted in the
middle, and under the knot was stuck a bunch of flowers--wallflower,
ribes, and a couple of pheasant-eye narcissus.

"Have you left the toll?" he asked, taking it up from the clump of
nettles upon which it had fallen.

She nodded.

"I'll work for myself now."

A pang of apprehension went through him.

"Where are you going? You won't go further nor Llangarth, surely?"

"I'm to help Mrs. Powell. Her that keeps the shop by the market. The
Vicar of Crishowell knows her, and 'twas him got me the place. I'll do
my best," added Mary, holding out her hand for the bundle; "let me go
on, now."

"I'll go with you a bit," said George.

They took the road together, looking very much like a respectable
young peasant family starting on a holiday, but for the fact that the
man walked beside the woman, not in front of her, and that there was
no baby.

The ribes scented everything. Mary drew the nosegay from the bundle;
she liked to keep it in her hand, for the touch and smell of something
familiar was necessary to her as she stepped along towards her new
world. After the solitary position of the Dipping-Pool, and her
seclusion at the toll-house, Llangarth seemed nothing short of a
metropolis.

"I'll be coming into market, time an' again," began Williams, after a
few minutes. "Would I see you, do you think? I have to go into the
town for Mrs. Walters sometimes."

He spoke without a trace of anxiety, but he had been longing and
fearing to ask the question.

"For Mrs. Walters?"

"Yes," replied he, fixing his eyes on the road about a hundred yards
ahead. "I'm working for her now at Great Masterhouse."

Mary bit her lip. The news surprised her, and the sound of Rhys' name
affected her as the word "gallows" might affect a reprieved man.

"Of a Sunday," urged George, "I could step down to Llangarth and get a
sight of you."

She was silent.

"But, perhaps you wouldn't like it. I wish you wasn't so set against
me."

"I'm not set against you."

"But you don't like to see me."

"I do; but----"

"What's wrong wi' you, Mary? Speak out."

"I'm feared of you, George."

He swore under his breath.

"Promise you won't ever speak like you did at the toll," she faltered,
"not ever again."

Williams set his lips; his short space of prosperity had raised his
spirit, and he was no longer so much inclined to accept reverses as
natural events. For some time he had earned good wages, and he was
already beginning to lessen his debt to Mrs. Walters; in a short time
it would no longer exist. He was a different being from the
Pig-driver's sullen, dispirited servant. That hated bondage had
crushed all the instincts of young manhood, and made him into a kind
of machine for endurance. They now had freedom to rise in him, and he
longed for a little joy beyond the mere joy of his release. He could
not have framed it for himself, but he was craving for emotion, for
femininity, for love, for children, for all that might be centred in
the woman beside him. He picked up a stone and threw it smartly into
the boughs of an elm-tree. It was a rebellious action.

"I can't," he said shortly, "and I won't."

"Then I can't see you any more. You were to stand by me that day
when--after--at the river, but it's different now, it seems."

"'Tis different. It's one thing or the other now. Oh! Mary, an' I
would be good to you."

For reply she quickened her pace.

George struck at the bushes with the stick he carried. In spite of the
good fortune of their meeting, in spite of the words that had set all
right between them, they had slipped back into the old place. The sky
had cleared indeed, but the clouds were rolling up again.

They arrived at the outskirts of Llangarth without exchanging another
word or looking at each other; the girl kept her head turned away,
with that uncomfortable sensation that we all know when we do not wish
to meet the eye of our neighbour, and feel, consequently, as if we had
only one side to our faces. When a steep street branched down to the
market, she put out her hand timidly for the bundle, but he took no
notice of it, and where the pavement narrowed, he fell behind, so that
he might look at her unabashed as she went on before him holding the
cottage bouquet close.

The town was unusually full, it being the day of a half-yearly fair,
and Mary became almost bewildered by the stream of passers. Soon it
grew clear that she had missed her way, and that the line she was
following would eventually bring her out near the river, some way from
her destination. George, who did not know the exact place for which
she was making, kept behind; she tried to retrieve her mistake by a
short cut, and, turning a corner, found herself in the very middle of
the fair.

The place was a moving mass of humanity; country boys with their
awkward gait elbowing about among the trimmer townspeople, girls in
their best head-gear, lingering in groups in the attractive vicinity
of a double row of booths bisecting the crowd. A merry-go-round, whose
shrill pipes and flags assailed both ear and eye, creaked on its
ceaseless round of measured giddiness, and behind it a drum, high on a
platform, was being beaten with a certain violent decorum, which
announced that the action was no outcome of the performer's spirit,
but part of a recognized scheme.

Far away from it a rival was found in a Cheap Jack, who proclaimed the
merits of bootlaces, tin-whistles, coloured ribbons, and a stack of
inferior umbrellas propped against the rush-bottomed chair which
formed alike his rostrum and his stronghold. His assistant stood
before him, keeping back the dense ring which threatened to submerge
him, and using one of the umbrellas for the purpose.

The purely agricultural part of the fair had its stand on a piece of
high ground, where some fat beasts with indifferent faces occupied a
line of pens. In front of them James Bumpett sat in his cart surveying
the exhibition. Farm-horses were being trotted up and down before
possible buyers, the pig-jumps with which some of the young ones
varied their paces driving the unwary back among their neighbours.
Here and there a knot of drunken men rolled through the crowd, their
passage marked by oaths emanating both from themselves and from those
who were inconvenienced by them.

Mary started at finding herself on the verge of such a tumult, and
turned back to George.

"This isn't the road I thought," she said, "I suppose I must have
taken the wrong corner somewhere. I can't mind the name of the street,
but it's nigh the market."

"Then we can get across to it this way," answered Williams, beginning
to make a passage through the crowd. "Keep you close to me."

He shouldered a path through the human waves. It was a big fair, and
the inhabitants of other towns had patronized it largely; one or two
lounging youths with their hats on one side looked impertinently at
Mary, who was made more conspicuous by the flowers she carried. She
shrank closer to her companion; he drew her hand under his arm and
they went forward.

They passed the pens where the live stock were delighting the gaze of
the initiated, and found themselves outside a kind of curtained
platform, at either end of which was a large placard. To judge by
these, all the most celebrated persons the earth contained were to be
found behind the curtain, and would, when the showman had collected
enough from the bystanders, be revealed to the public eye. The crowd
was so thick in this place that George and Mary found it almost
impossible to move, though they had no particular wish to see the Fat
Woman, the Wild Indian, the Emperor of China, and all the other
inspiring personalities who apparently dwelt in godly unity in the
tent at the back of the stage. There was a great collecting of coppers
going on, and the showman's hat having reached the fulness he
expected, he sprang upon the platform and announced that the show was
about to begin.

"An' about toime too," observed the voice of Howlie Seaborne, who was
in the foremost row of spectators; "oi thought them coppers would be
moiking a fresh 'ole in the crown."

For three months Howlie had kept Harry's gift intact; he had laid it
carefully by, resisting any temptation to spend even a fraction, so
that, when Llangarth Fair should come round, his cup of pleasure
should be brimming. He had already laid a shilling out on a knife
which he admired, but, in the main, he had gone down the row of booths
casting withering looks on such wares as displeased him, occasionally
taking up some article, and, after a careful examination, laying it
down again with quiet contempt.

Sweets were simply beneath his notice, and he passed the places in
which they were displayed more insolently than any others. To him, the
merry-go-round was foolishness, and those who trusted their persons
astride of puce-coloured dragons and grass-green horses, fools; but
the mysteries behind the curtain appealed to his curiosity. He now
stood in the most desirable position amongst the audience waiting for
the show to begin; on his right was a stout, high-nosed farmer's wife
in a black silk bonnet.

After a short disappearance the showman came forward carrying a stick
with which he tapped the curtain. It flew up disclosing a stupendous
lady in purple velveteen, with a wreath of scarlet wax camellias on
her head. She was seated at a table.

"Seenyora Louisa, a native of Italy! The stoutest female living!"
bawled the showman. The lady blew a promiscuous kiss. "She will now
sing an Italian song!"

At this the lady rose and took a step forward, the stage shaking under
her tread. She cleared her throat and began in a shrill treble, so
disproportionate to her size that the effect was more startling than
if she had roared aloud, as, indeed, one almost expected her to do.
The song was evidently a translation.

    "I am far from my country alone,
     And my friends and my parents so true.
     From the land of my birth I have flown,
     And the faces around me are new!

     I weep and I sigh all the day,
     And dream of fair Italy's shore;
     How can I be lightsome and gay,
     When perchance I shall see it no more?"

"Well, I never!" exclaimed the woman in the black silk bonnet, "pore
thing! I always did say as I hated them furrin' countries, but I
suppose them as is born in them is used to them."

    "Waft me, ye winds, to my home,
     Where my light skiff bounds on the wave;
     My heart is too weary to roam,
     And its rest is the wanderer's grave!"

Here the exile turned her eyes upwards and sat thunderously down, a
pocket-handkerchief at her face.

"'Tis a bad case, pore lady," said the farmer's wife again.

"_That_ ain't no loidy," remarked Howlie shortly.

"Hold yer tongue, ye varmint," said the farmer's wife.

For once in his life Howlie was nonplussed; chance had thrown him
against one of the few people fitted to deal with him.

He would have liked to make some suitable reply, but the eyes of his
neighbour were fixed upon the stage from which Signora Louisa's chair
was being removed. The curtain dropped.

When it rose again the audience drew a long breath. A pasteboard rock,
much the size of the Signora, filled the place where she had sat, and
to it, by a rope, was attached a middle-aged woman, whose considerable
good looks had departed, leaving a cloud of rouge behind. Her position
seemed to have produced no sort of effect upon her, for her face was
as placid as if she were at her own fireside. She looked not unlike a
dog tied up outside a public-house and waiting for its master. She was
enveloped in blue muslin, which stopped midway between knee and ankle,
and left her arms and shoulders bare.

"'Ere we 'ave the drama of St. George and the Dragon," announced the
showman. "The Princess, forsook by all, waits 'er doom."

"The hussy!" exclaimed the farmer's wife, turning severely on Howlie.
"Go you home, boy, 'tis no place for decent folks. Princess, indeed!
I'd Princess her."

Howlie smiled and looked tolerantly at his enemy, but made no effort
to move; had he wished to, he could hardly have done so, the crowd was
so thick. Awful puffings and roarings proclaimed the approach of the
Dragon, and the farmer's wife began to get nervous.

Anything was to be expected from such a godless exhibition, and, in
spite of a high nose and a strict moral attitude, her heart began to
quake. As in the case of most women, fear made her angry. She took
Howlie fiercely by the arm.

"D'ye hear me, boy?" she cried.

"Oi feel yew, anyhow," said he.

The Dragon had now passed the wings of the stage, and his dire
appearance was producing a great effect. The owner of the black silk
bonnet turned and found herself confronted by George and Mary, who
were wedged up in the row immediately behind her.

"Help me out o' this, young man," she said authoritatively, but with a
suspicious quaver in her voice. "I don't think much of that sort o'
show, an' I don't think much of you, neither, letting your missus
stand looking at loose sights."

Mary turned crimson.

"'Tis hard to get free of this maze o' folk," answered Williams.

"I'm going to try it, howsomenever," continued the farmer's wife, "and
you might lend me a hand if you be going too. My screwmatics is that
bad that I can't shove about me as I'd like to." She looked resolutely
round upon the crowd.

"I'll do what I can," said George, beginning to push his way to a
freer space.

The whole concourse having its senses completely centred upon the
Dragon it made but little resistance, and as long as its eyes might
remain fixed on him, it hardly cared what became of the rest of its
body. George's efforts were supplemented by those of the sturdy woman
behind him, and they soon arrived at the outskirts of the fair.

"Thank ye," she said, as she mopped her shining forehead; "just you
take that young missus o' yours home. She's dead tired, I can see
that, pore lass."

And she left them.

George walked with his companion to the door of her new home and
parted from her. He asked her again to let him go to see her now and
then. She hesitated, and finally said yes.



CHAPTER XXVI

HOWLIE AND LLEWELLYN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

HOWLIE SEABORNE, who liked to get his money's worth out of things, was
anxious to see the performance through. He did not pay his neighbour
of the black silk bonnet so much as the tribute of a glance as she
pushed her way out behind the ex-sheep-stealer.

He had still a respectable amount of coppers in his pocket, and while
this held out, he had no thoughts of going home.

The spectacle was assuming a very spirited character, for the blue
muslin victim was beginning to realize her situation and the Dragon to
writhe horribly. Popular interest was consequently rising to
high-water-mark. Behind the stage St. George had mounted a
spare-looking pony and was drawing a pasteboard sword. Bloodshed, in
the spectators' opinion, was the only thing left to be desired.

Just behind Howlie stood two men who had been busy in the same part of
the fair as Bumpett, and were now stopping for a minute to cast amused
eyes on the realistic splendours of St. George. Squire Fenton and
Llewellyn had finished their business and were on their way to the
Bell Inn, where they had left their gig, but the hisses of the reptile
gaping on the stage made them pause to see the end of the drama. Both
recognized Howlie, for he had become something of a celebrity since
the Rebecca riot, and they had also seen him at Crishowell Vicarage.

The hoofs of the Saint's steed were to be heard clattering on the
slanting board up which he had to ride to the platform, for the
spare-looking pony was new to the work and seemed disinclined to go
on. He had been borrowed to replace another animal which was sick and
could not appear in the scene, and his rider, who, in a rough way, was
something of a horseman, had to use a good deal of persuasion. At
last, after some difficulty, he rode triumphantly forward to where the
Dragon breathed forth fire and slaughter.

The Dragon, like many of us, was made of different stuff inside from
what one might have supposed. His interior was nothing less than two
small boys, one of whom formed his head and fore-parts, while the
other represented his tail; they were enclosed in padded straw covered
with sacking roughly painted to represent scales, and the front boy
had a little store of squibs and crackers which he fired out of the
monster's mouth as he went along.

After being persuaded to get upon the stage, the pony moved forward a
few steps, while his rider waved his sword, challenging the reptile
loudly and advancing past the Princess to meet him. As soon as they
came close together a perfect volcano of squibs flew out in the
astonished beast's face, and he reared up so suddenly that the Saint,
who was lunging at his foe, almost lost his balance. The sword stuck
in a crevice of the Dragon's hide, and, though the blade was
pasteboard, the stuff, being rotten, was ripped open, and a great
patch of straw bulged out. Mr. Fenton and Llewellyn laughed, but the
audience, which had little sense of incongruity, was as serious as
ever. The Dragon, pleased to his inmost parts by his success, blew out
another shower. One red spark settled on the straw, then another, and
another. There was a crackle, an exclamation; the pony turned and
jumped off the low platform into the middle of the people, depositing
its rider at their feet, and the terrible scream of childish agony
rose from the two poor little prisoners in their shroud of living
flame.

Women shrieked, the men made inarticulate noises and stared open-eyed.
One or two moved in the irresolution of stupidity. The Squire caught
at his son's arm, unconsciously revealing that dependence of which he
had never been suspected. But there was none to read the sign.

Before any one could make up his mind what to do, Llewellyn Fenton had
bounded on to the platform and was stooping over the blazing mass that
writhed upon the boards, tearing with his strong hands a great opening
in the fore-part of the Dragon. The smoke was blinding, and the oil
and paint which coated the sacking gave substance to the flames. He
had got fast hold of one of the boys and was dragging him free;
through the reek he could see that his face was uninjured. But the
fire was spreading its venomous tongues down towards the tail which
contained another human life. One cannot do two things at once. He
looked round in desperation and saw Howlie's rabbit face at his side.

"Tear it open!" he cried. "Tear it open!"

A fresh burst of flame was blowing in his eyes.

The boy he had rescued was on his feet, but the fire had caught his
shirt and he was trying to break away in the madness of his terror.

By this time Mr. Fenton had come close to the stage; he pulled off the
thick coat he wore and tossed it up to Llewellyn. The young man
smothered the child in its close folds, throwing him down and rolling
him over as though he were fighting with a wild beast.

The boy who played the other half of the Dragon was almost safe,
thanks to Howlie's efforts. He had broken out of his prison uninjured
and was free, all but one leg which was held fast.

In order that the monster might lash its tail properly there was a
curious arrangement of steel wire at the point at which it began to
narrow, and in this the victim's foot had caught. The fire was
approaching it and his cries increased; his struggles were pitiful to
see. As Llewellyn had prevailed and was supporting one boy, more
frightened than hurt, the crowd's horrified attention was now fixed on
the other. It did not notice Howlie Seaborne, whose arms were plunged
up to the elbows in the Dragon's carcase. In each hand he grasped a
piece of the steel-trap which he was forcing doggedly apart. His face
was growing grey and his eyes stared; for almost the first time in his
life his mouth was shut. This was because he was grinding his teeth
together.

The thing which takes so many words to say had happened all in a
moment, and St. George had barely had time to extricate himself from
his stirrup and to run behind the scenes. He now returned with a
bucket of water, which he held upside down over the burning tail just
as Howlie had bent the wires enough to set the prisoner free. The
water hissed and the steam rose in a column.

A few people from the crowd had come up and pressed in a little circle
round the two children; the blue muslin lady was weeping
tempestuously. The showman, in his costume of St. George, began, with
Mr. Fenton, to examine the burnt foot. The boy was crying with pain,
but the injuries did not seem extensive.

"Well done, boy!" said Llewellyn, as he came up to Howlie, very white
and smelling dreadfully of smoke.

The words raised a ghost of the vertical smile, but it faded so
strangely that he looked down lower than the rabbit face. "My God!" he
cried, as he saw the arms and hands.

The circle of onlookers turned round, and Mr. Fenton made an
exclamation.

"Is it very bad?" he asked with some futility.

"Moight be worse, a' suppose," replied Howlie, as he fainted into
Llewellyn's arms.

The little group was becoming the centre of a dense mass.

People who stood in their places while they might have been of some
use, now thrust their bodies between the fresh air and those who
needed it, after the manner of crowds.

It was very evident that, of the two sufferers, Howlie was the worst;
pain was bringing him again to consciousness, and he lay back against
Mr. Fenton's shoulder, his face looking strangely unfamiliar; nothing
seemed to remain the same but a certain stubbornness. Llewellyn was on
his way to fetch his father's gig, and, as he went, he pulled off the
fragments of the dogskin driving-gloves which he had, by good fortune,
been wearing when the accident occurred. A man was dispatched to the
nearest doctor's house. The Squire adjured the bystanders to summon
the police, a request of which they naturally took no count, being
disinclined to have themselves dispersed. Two or three talked about
the Infirmary.

Howlie's eyes sought the Squire's.

"What is it, my boy?" said he.

"Toike me 'ome to Parson's," said Howlie faintly.

"Ah, the Infirmary; that be the place for he," chimed in a man who had
lately refused to go there himself when a drunken fight had laid his
head open.

The eyes kept their direction and the lips moved.

On his way back Llewellyn overtook the doctor, and the two drove up
together.

Howlie's hands and arms were temporarily dressed; the left one was in
such a state that the doctor feared it would be permanently useless;
he hoped, he said, to save the use of the other. He was young and shy,
and he timidly suggested that the people were pressing too near. The
sufferer had fainted again.

The showman and Llewellyn simply threw one or two off the platform.
The act was sudden and had a good effect.

Soon the world came back to Howlie--a world of agony. Llewellyn bent
down to him in answer to an unspoken prayer. "Parson's, Parson's,"
murmured the boy.

"What is it? What does he want, father?" asked Llewellyn, pity in
every line of his strong face.

"Poor little fellow, he wants to go back to Crishowell instead of to
the Infirmary."

The dumb look grew more intense.

Mr. Fenton seemed irresolute.

"Parson's, sir, Parson's." Tears which the pain had not brought were
starting from Howlie's eyes.

"What will Lewis say? Llewellyn, do you hear?" said the Squire.

There was a pause. The blue muslin princess, who had left the
platform, was being consoled by Signora Louisa inside the tent; their
high-pitched chatter flowed like a thin stream behind the canvas.

"Eh, Llewellyn? Can't you answer?" said Mr. Fenton testily.

"Take him, father."

"But Lewis?"

"I'll go bail for him," replied his son.

"But who's to look after him? Who's to sit up with him? He'll want
that, doctor, won't he?"

"He will," said the doctor gravely.

Howlie's eyes spoke again.

"I shall," said Llewellyn. "Father, you can spare me."

"Yes, yes. It isn't that. But where are you to live, I should like to
know? Lewis' house must be full."

"Anywhere. The stable," replied his son, with decision.

"Nonsense, boy."

"You had better get him away," hazarded the doctor; "the sooner he's
in bed the better."

With infinite gentleness, Llewellyn lifted Howlie and carried him to
the gig.

"You must drive, father," he remarked.

A gig is not a comfortable vehicle in which to carry an injured
person, and Llewellyn, who had no support for his back, had great
difficulty in keeping his charge from being shaken as they drove over
the cobbled streets. Howlie lay still, but he moaned faintly now and
then, and it was evident that he suffered much. Llewellyn's arms
ached, one side of his face was smeared with black, and his throat was
sore from the smoke; a round blister just inside his wrist which he
had not noticed before began to make itself felt, and the boy's weight
seemed to rest exactly upon the spot. He made landmarks as they went,
and mentally checked off each as it passed. "The crooked elm," "the
turning to Brecon," "the bridge," "the laburnum tree," and so on. His
father talked continually about the folly of his staying at Crishowell
to nurse Howlie, but he trusted to silence, that mighty weapon which
so few of us are strong enough to wield. His mind was made up, and he
knew that the Vicar would uphold him.

"It's very tiresome of you, Llewellyn, going against me in this way.
What am I to do, I should like to know? I haven't any one to see to
the little things I chance to forget. Harry's at home, certainly, but
what use is he?"

"Harry's no fool," replied his son, moved to speech by this.

"I'm not so sure, with this senseless business about Miss Ridgeway.
It's all nonsense, I know," said the Squire, who was apt to treat
things he disliked as if they had not occurred, "but he came bothering
me about it a couple of days ago. I told him I hadn't time to talk to
him, and I haven't said a word to your mother yet. I suppose _you_
know all about it?"

"I thought it might happen," admitted Llewellyn.

"Then you should have told me," said Mr. Fenton, with that
forgetfulness of the unwritten code of youth which comes to so many
when they have left it behind. "You and Harry give me more trouble in
a year than Tom and Bob have in all their lives."

For a man of recognized good character the Squire told a wonderful
number of untruths.

His son smiled, but not obviously.

"Surely this niece can look after him," he continued, looking down at
Howlie.

Llewellyn shook his head; his trust in Isoline was small. He had sat
up many nights with sick cows and horses and he knew what it was like.

"And why not, pray?"

"Oh, she's not strong enough. She's very young, father."

"And what are you, eh?"

"Well, I'm a man, at least," said Llewellyn.

"A man!" Mr. Fenton snorted sarcastically. There was room for sarcasm,
certainly, only he saw it in the wrong place.

They had passed the church and were driving up to the Vicarage gate.
Mr. Lewis was standing with Isoline in the garden, while a man put up
some bee-hives on a wooden trestle. That suggestiveness which
surrounds a wounded figure drew his eyes to the limp-looking bundle
Llewellyn held so carefully. He came forward quickly and opened the
gate.

"There has been an accident," said Mr. Fenton. "It's your boy--the boy
that works here."

"He's badly burnt," explained Llewellyn.

Isoline had gone into the house when she had seen who the arrivals
were.

"Howell, my poor lad!" exclaimed the Vicar, coming up close to the
cart. "Is he conscious?"

Howlie's voice muttered something indistinguishable.

"I don't know what you'll say, Lewis. He _would_ come here. Llewellyn
is responsible," said the Squire.

"Of course we will take him. How are we to get him down, Llewellyn?"

"He's rather heavy," said the young man, whose arms were stiff, "but
if you would hold him while I get out, father, I might lift him."

The workman left his bee-hives, and between them they carried the
sufferer in. Isoline, out of sight, watched them from over the
staircase with horror in her face. Physical pain was a thing she could
understand.

After some discussion, it was settled that Llewellyn should stay and
take charge of Howlie; he would take no denial, and Mr. Fenton had to
give in. The boy was to have a bed in a large spare room behind the
kitchen, and Llewellyn a mattress on the floor near him. Mr. Lewis
made no remonstrance when he saw how his eyes followed the young man.

"I'll take care of him entirely," said Llewellyn; "you need have no
trouble, sir. I've looked after sick things often enough. You won't
mind letting me stay a day or two?"

"I should even like it," replied the Vicar, laying his hand on his
shoulder.

The cook was making things ready to get Howlie to bed, and Mr. Fenton
was anxious to start for home; it was long past noon, and he had to
send his son's things over from Waterchurch. The doctor, who was
coming out to Crishowell, was to call late in the afternoon.

Isoline kept herself carefully out of the way; a meeting with Mr.
Fenton would be extremely awkward, and she had no desire to see
Llewellyn at any time. Her uncle felt sorry for her, though he
mentally applauded her good sense in remaining up-stairs, and he
slipped away for a moment to tell her what had happened.

She was sitting by the window of her room as he entered, looking
rather worried; anything was unwelcome which recalled to her the
entanglement of which she longed so heartily to be free. The gig stood
outside at the end of the garden; it was by no means new, and though
the Squire looked carefully after everything connected with the
stable, it was a shabby article. Her glance wandered over it with
distaste.

She was startled by his entrance, half fearing that he had come to
summon her to an interview with Mr. Fenton. She wanted time to think.
She had not made up her mind whether she would see Harry again, or
write to him, or whether she would ask her uncle to tell him of her
decision. The latter course would be the pleasantest of the three, but
there were difficulties even there.

The way Mr. Lewis had taken the matter had complicated it. He had
seemed unable to imagine that an accurate knowledge of Harry's
prospects could make any difference to her feelings, and if her lover
should wring a consent from his father, there would be nothing she
could do short of breaking with him on her own initiative. She would
be able to give no reason but the real one, and that she hardly liked
to do. She dared not say, "I thought you were rich, but I find you are
poor, so I will not marry you."

Her uncle might certainly make the objection for her with some
propriety, but how was she to ask him to do so? Though she had no love
for him, a certain respect had crept into her secret soul which made
her hesitate to lay it bare before his eyes; he took too much for
granted. She knew that her deliverance lay in the Squire's probable
disapproval, and that disapproval would make a suitable meekness
becoming in herself. Meanwhile she would neither see Harry nor any one
belonging to him. But it was all harassing enough. Her heart jumped as
the Vicar came in.

"You may be wondering what has happened, Isoline. Poor Howell has had
a dreadful accident. It seems there was a play going on at Llangarth
Fair, and something caught fire; Llewellyn Fenton and he put it out
together, and saved the lives of two children. Howell's hands and arms
are badly burnt, brave boy that he is."

"Fancy Howell doing that! I should never have believed it of him,"
exclaimed the girl, whose estimate of human nature was entirely
feminine. To dislike a person was to prove him incapable of a high
action.

"Mr. Fenton will be gone in a few minutes. It is wise of you, my dear,
to stay in your room. You are a good girl."

She did not reply, but looked out of the window. The Vicar felt rather
chilled.

"You are all right up here?" he asked awkwardly.

"Yes, thank you."

He went out. At the foot of the stairs stood the Squire, hat in hand.

"I'm off, Lewis; it's getting late," he said.

"You don't want any talk with me?" asked the Vicar, rather surprised.

"I do, I do--but I will write," said Mr. Fenton, as he opened the
front door hurriedly.



CHAPTER XXVII

FOUR OPINIONS

THOUGH Mr. Fenton had told the Vicar of Crishowell that he would write
to him, he was in no hurry to do so. Harry's love affair was a
nuisance, and he put off the consideration of it for a week, merely
looking askance upon his son when he came across him. To his wife he
observed that Harry was making an ass of himself, and it was not till
she insisted on his telling her everything he knew that the matter was
discussed.

Lady Harriet was dismayed; she had hitherto understood her eldest son
so well that his evident admiration of Miss Ridgeway had not disturbed
her, for she classed her with the thousand and one other goddesses who
had shed their glamour upon him at various times during the last ten
years. They made a long procession, beginning with the little girls he
had admired in his early school days. His safeguard, so far, had been
that no one had taken him seriously.

But now he had apparently proposed to and been accepted by a young
woman who knew extremely well what she was about, and one, moreover,
whom his mother, with all her good sense and tolerance, had not been
able to like. Putting aside the fact that she was anything but a good
match for Harry, she knew that the whole atmosphere of Isoline's world
was a lower one than that in which he lived. He was a man who, with
the right woman, might develop much, and, with the wrong one,
deteriorate as much. He was generous, loyal to a fault, and eminently
lovable. He was so affectionate that disenchantment by the woman he
loved would make him suffer acutely, and he had not hardness of
character enough to be able to make himself a life apart from that of
his daily companions. Sorrow warps natures that have no pivot other
than their own feelings; the centre is within themselves and all the
weight comes upon it. And what sorrow is there more grinding than the
knowledge that what we loved was a mean thing, what we admired, an
unworthy one, what we dreamed about, a poor and squalid shadow?

There are small disenchantments in all married lives, but those who
have learned to look at the whole and not at its part know their true
value. The proverb says, "Straws show which way the wind blows," and,
like many proverbs, it is a half-truth. Some are merely rough receipts
for wisdom, made to save fools the trouble of thinking for themselves.
Though small acts undeniably give clues to many things in men and
women's natures, men and women cannot be judged on their evidence
alone. So much goes to determine a deed beside the actual character
behind it. When a man behaves unexpectedly, we call him inconsistent,
because every influence which has converged on his act does not happen
to tally with our private, preconceived idea of himself. But it is not
so much his inconsistency as our own ignorance of things which none
know clearly but the Almighty. It is the essence, the atmosphere which
a character radiates, the effect it produces in those who come in
close enough contact to be influenced by it, whereby a soul can be
judged.

But even had he not been so much in love, Harry was far too elementary
to judge Isoline rightly or wrongly; it had never occurred to him to
look down very deep into the well where Truth sits, and, had he done
so, he would have understood little he saw. He would be elementary to
the end of his days, and the elements were all good. Whether they
would remain so with Isoline as an interpreter of life, his mother
doubted.

The Squire, when he had brought himself to face the matter, raged
immoderately, and his rage had the common effect of driving his son
farther than ever along the way in which he did not want him to go.
They had a difficult interview, from which the young man emerged with
the stormy assurance ringing in his ears that he would get nothing
more than his ordinary allowance, and that, were he to marry without
his father's consent, even that would be reduced. He had spoken of
getting work to do, and been answered by a sneer which certainly came
ill from a man who had refused to give his son a profession. They
parted wrathfully.

From the smoking-room in which they had met (it was after dinner) Mr.
Fenton went up to bed. Their talk had been late and continued long,
and the house was still as he ascended the staircase with his lighted
candle; the storm in him was subsiding into a mist of irritation
through which flying glimpses of other interests began to appear. By
the time he had reached his wife's bedroom door his thoughts were
circling round a speech he had mapped out in the afternoon and meant
to deliver at a coming tenants' dinner.

The Squire could never be driven far from his personal interests, a
peculiarity which was at once his strong point and his weak one.
People who make houses for themselves and live in them perpetually are
among the happiest of mortals; the only drawback to their plan is,
that, when they are obliged to come out, they find they have lost
their eye for the country and all sense of proportion in the landscape
which they are accustomed to see only from the window. Oh, that sense
of proportion! If we had it completely what things might we not do? To
what heights of worth and wisdom might we not attain? The man who
could get a bird's-eye view of his own conduct would have no further
excuse for missing perfection.

Lady Harriet's door was ajar and she pushed it further open as she
heard his step; she knew what had been going on, and was waiting. He
had not meant to plunge himself again in the obnoxious subject, and a
look of impatience crossed his face. She stood on the threshold, brush
in hand, her silver hair falling long and thick about her plain
figure; the glow of the fire behind her in the room threw up its
brilliance. He entered, and they stood together on the hearth. He
began to lash himself up into wrath again.

"Well?" began his wife anxiously.

"Your son is a perfect fool!" burst out Mr. Fenton, who, when
displeased with his boys, was accustomed to refer to them as
exclusively Lady Harriet's property.

She plied her brush, waiting.

"I did not mince matters, you may be sure. I told him my opinion of
him and his nonsense, and with a few facts to back it. He won't get
one extra sixpence from me--where is it to come from, I should like to
know? You know that as well as I do. Young idiot! I said, 'Look here,
boy, mind me. You make a fool of yourself about this girl and marry
her without my consent, and I'll draw a cheque every New Year's Day
for fifty pounds. That's all you'll get from me!'"

He paused.

"And what did Harry say?" inquired Lady Harriet.

"Say? What should he say? Some rubbish about getting work. Work
indeed! I should like to see Harry work. I laughed at that. 'My dear
young man,' I said, 'you aren't fit to work; you've been an idler all
your life. What you boys are coming to, _I_ don't know.'"

"I sometimes think," said his wife reflectively, "that perhaps you
made a mistake when you would not let him go into the army, Edward."

"Pshaw! What nonsense! Really, one might think you were on his side."

"I dislike Miss Ridgeway, and should dislike beyond all to see him
married to her. Have you written to Mr. Lewis?"

"Why should I write to Lewis?"

"You said you meant to," replied she.

"How can I write? I can't say to Lewis, 'Your niece is not good
enough,' can I?"

"There is nothing of that sort necessary. The money question alone is
sufficient. Why not write to-morrow, Edward? We ought to do
something."

"I must go to Presteign to-morrow. I shall have no time for letters. I
think it would be the best plan if you went over to Crishowell in the
phaëton, for then you could see Lewis yourself. Yes, that will do very
well."

And Mr. Fenton took up his candle and went into his dressing-room.

While her husband was on his way to Presteign next day Lady Harriet
ordered the phaëton. In more prosperous days this vehicle had run
behind a pair of well-matched fourteen-hand grey ponies, but these had
been swept away along with many other things on the tide of economy,
and a strong, elderly cob, accustomed to odd jobs, replaced them. The
old servant who sat behind was thinking much of these departed glories
as they trotted along, and wondered, noticing the care on his
mistress' face, whether she was remembering them too. But it was the
future that weighed on her rather than the past.

She did not look forward to her errand, and the feeling that it was
not hers by right made it all the more disagreeable. She stayed
herself up by thinking that with no one could she enter on a difficult
subject so well as with the Vicar.

Her sincere hope was that she would not be called upon to see Isoline.
Though she was so completely out of sympathy with her, she had that
pity for the struggles, the hopes, the blank, black despairs of youth,
the desperate straits of those who stand _in front_ of the defences of
experience, that she dreaded the trouble she was bringing her. Poor
though these defences are, the young have to do without them. We are
apt to forget that. But she might have spared herself.

Llewellyn was still at Crishowell. Howlie was making steps towards
recovery, but he had suffered cruelly and was very weak, and though
the doctor thought better of his injuries than he had done at first,
hoping to save the use of both his hands, it was a slow business. His
dependence on Llewellyn was absolute, and the old woman who came in
daily from the village to keep the sick boy's room in order being
useless for any other purpose, the Vicar wondered what he should have
done without him.

Isoline had been down once or twice to see Howlie, but her visits had
scarcely been profitable. As he began to get some relief from pain his
usual nature also began to re-assert itself, and the expression which
flitted on his face as he stared at her--which he always did--gave her
a sensation of not being appreciated. It was during one of these
visits that the wheels of Lady Harriet's phaëton were heard stopping
at the gate, and Llewellyn, who had gone to look out, put his head in
at the door.

The slim, white figure sitting very upright by the bed turned in
inquiry.

"It is my mother," said Llewellyn. "You would like to see her, Howlie,
wouldn't you? She is sure to come down."

He disappeared in the direction of Lady Harriet's voice.

Isoline made good her escape and slipped out through the kitchen and
up into her room, her face flushing.

She knew very well that her uncle had been expecting a letter from Mr.
Fenton daily, and would not let his visitor go without reference to
it; he had been rather annoyed by the silence. She would not be
dragged into it if she could help it, and, as she was unable to act
until the Squire's decision had been heard, there was no object in
facing a needless trial. She snatched up her hat and ran down-stairs,
across the orchard, down by the brookside and over the bridge. On it
she paused a moment, then, reflecting that she was barely out of
earshot, turned up into the fields through which Harry had chased
Rebecca.

Lady Harriet had quick feelings, and they were always stirred by acts
such as the one which had cost poor Howlie so much. She sat with him
for some time, leaving behind her, when she went, a basket of things
the like of which he had never tasted. He made an attempt to put up
his hand to his forelock, which resulted in a twinge of pain.

The Vicar was waiting for her outside, and they strolled into the
garden.

"Perhaps you have something to say to me, Lady Harriet," he remarked.

"Yes," she replied. "My husband had business to-day, and he and I--he
couldn't come himself. Mr. Lewis, I hope you will not be annoyed at my
news, but this marriage is impossible. You know, I am sure, that we
are anything but well off, and he says he cannot afford to do anything
for Harry."

"I know, I know," said the Vicar.

"I am very sorry," she went on, "sorry if I am hurting you, my friend,
sorry for my boy, for he seems bent upon it, and sorry for your niece
too."

"Do not think of me," said he, "and do not suppose that I cannot
understand Mr. Fenton's feelings. You have every right to expect Harry
to make a much better marriage; and, even were it not so, I cannot
quite feel that they are suited. I sometimes doubt if they would be
happy."

"Will she be very much distressed?" inquired Lady Harriet. "I know her
so little. But one hates to give pain to people, especially young
people who hope so much from life."

"I hardly know her better than you do, that is the truth."

"She seems a very unlikely niece for you to have," said his companion,
after a pause.

Mr. Lewis smiled. "I very often do not understand her," he said, with
a sigh.

"Do you think I ought to see her?" hazarded she, throwing herself upon
the point she dreaded; "it seems so unkind not to say a word to her.
What shall I do?"

She stopped short in their walk.

The Vicar did not know what to say. He had been unable to get any
response to his own sympathy when Isoline had wept at breakfast, but
he thought that perhaps another woman might help her when he could
not. Then he remembered that she had said she did not care for Lady
Harriet. He was puzzled.

"I will find her," he said, "but if she feels she cannot speak about
it, you will understand, will you not?"

"Poor child, of course. If you knew how I hate this, Mr. Lewis!"

He went into the house and she returned to Howlie's room. Isoline was
not to be found anywhere. He went all over the Vicarage, into the
orchard, down to the brook, and, finally, gave up the search.

"I do not know where Isoline is," said he, as he stood by Howlie's
bedside. "I have looked everywhere."

The window fronted towards the water and the fields; the sill was low
and Howlie could see over it into the green beyond.

"Oi seed 'er 'alf-an-hour ago," said he, "slinkin' out an' up into
they meadows. Goin' fast she was too, for 'er."

"Are you sure it was Miss Ridgeway?" inquired the Vicar.

"S'pose oi am. There ain't many round 'ere 'as theire noses in the air
loike miss."

Llewellyn bit his lip.

"She has evidently gone off for a long walk," explained Mr. Lewis,
rather embarrassed. "She has taken to it so much since she has been
here, and I have encouraged it."

"It is such a great thing when girls like it," responded Lady Harriet,
anxious to say something pleasant; "I have always thought they are
kept too much in the house."

She was so much relieved that she could have given thanks to Heaven
aloud.

"It's a funny thing miss didn't want to see the loidy," observed
Howlie to Llewellyn after the phaëton had rolled away. Since his
illness he had become very much at home with the young man.

"Does she like visitors?" inquired Llewellyn, with a view of drawing
him out.

"She don't like yew," said Howlie.

"How do you know?"

Howlie looked infinitely subtle, as subtle as a person with a rabbit
mouth can look--but took no notice of the question.

"She loikes the young general, though."

"Who?" asked his companion, with much interest.

"Yewre brother. 'Im as is with the soljers an' comes 'ere now an'
again. Oi saw them coming down the fields the other day. They'd been
sitting up by the cherry-tree. 'E was lookin' at 'er soime as father
looks at a jug o' beer after e's dug six foot of a groive."

"You talk too much, boy," observed Llewellyn, with an attempt at
dignity.

"Oi don't, mostly. But oi 'aven't no objection to talkin' to yew,"
said Howlie reassuringly.

"Miss is a rare one," he began again, "can't moike nothin' out of 'er.
One day she'll be off walkin' an' not get 'ome till dark an' long
after. 'Nother day, if Parson do call 'er to come out i' the orchard,
she'll go steppin' loike a turkey i' the long grass. 'Froid of 'er
dress, looks loike, an' yet oi've seed 'er come back with 'er
petticoats scram-full o' broiers an' mud."

"Well, she knows her own business best and it's none of ours," said
Llewellyn, inwardly curious and outwardly correct.

"Yewre roight there. She knows 'er own moind, she does. Moy! she was
pleased when she went wi' Parson to Waterchurch, an' yew should a'
seen 'er when she come back, too. Nothin' weren't good enough for 'er.
Ye'd a' thought the 'ouse was a work'ouse, an' me an' cook an' Parson
was the paupers in it, she was that 'oigh wi' us."

Llewellyn turned his back. He did not want to laugh, yet his mouth
widened in spite of him.

"Now, stop talking," he said, "you've had enough excitement to-day and
you'll get tired."

"She's after the young general," added Howlie coarsely.

But his information was not up to date.



CHAPTER XXVIII

A MARTYR

ISOLINE was panting when she arrived at the top of the field behind
Crishowell Vicarage. She sat for a time to rest, looking down at the
cherry-tree whose blossoms were beginning to strew the grass beneath
it. It was a still day and she could hear her uncle's voice calling
her name from the orchard. She rose and flitted along the hedge like a
wild bird. Before her, the Twmpa's shoulder rose out of the green
plateau, restful and solid. Even to her unresponsive mind it suggested
peace and a contrast to the worries on which she had just turned her
back. The whole afternoon was before her; she needed no excuse for
absenting herself. Had the Vicar not applauded her for remaining
unseen when Mr. Fenton had appeared the week before? Lady Harriet
would start for home fairly early if she wished to get to Waterchurch
by a reasonable hour, and she knew that her uncle had visits that
would take him out as soon as the guest had left. The day was her own
and the Pedlar's Stone was over there in its place a couple of miles
away; as the sun declined the little hollow below the sheltering
brushwood would have its waiting, watching occupant. It was Wednesday,
too, which, inasmuch as it was one of Mr. Lewis' visiting days in the
direction of the Wye, she often spent at the trysting-place. She was
harassed, and she felt that Rhys would put her troubles temporarily
out of her head.

She lingered on the plateau, scanning the long expanse of green for
sign of a human figure, and, seeing none, pressed forward, and turned
down into the ill-famed bit of ground. She passed the stone and
approached the little hollow from a different direction, stepping so
softly on the short turf that Rhys did not hear her footstep. She
stood looking down. His back was turned to her as he sat, and he was
gazing intently at something in his hand. While she looked he carried
it to his lips again and again. As he did so she made a slight
movement.

He sprang up, and seeing her, dropped his treasure, and came up the
side of the hollow to meet her. She recognized a little daguerreotype
of herself that she had once given him.

"Is that the way you treat my picture, Mr. Kent?" she exclaimed, the
little playful gaiety which so attracted him returning to her with his
presence.

"Don't say, 'Mr. Kent.' Why will you never call me by my name?" said
Rhys.

"I do not know it, you see."

"I mean my Christian name, Rh----Robert."

She looked at him smiling, without answering; he gazed back at her,
feasting his eyes.

"Well, what have you to say?" said she at last.

"I love you," said he.

"But you have told me that many, many times before," she observed.

"I am never tired of telling you, Isoline."

"Perhaps I am tired of hearing it."

"But you can't really hate it, or you would not come," he replied
without tact.

"Do not be too sure. You cannot even guess what made me come to-day."

"Tell me."

It always pleased Isoline to see how completely she could work upon
Rhys; the very name of another man on her lips was poison to him. Also
she was really perturbed herself and felt that sympathy would be
supporting.

"I have been very much disturbed," she began; "a gentleman has asked
me to marry him."

Rhys felt as if some one had taken up an arrow and shot it straight
into his heart. The stab was almost physical.

"Who is it?" he asked thickly.

"Do not look so wild. It is young Mr. Fenton of Waterchurch Court."

His lips were trying to frame a question, but he had not the courage
to utter it. She smiled.

"I do not mean to marry him."

For answer he caught her hand and covered it with kisses.

"Please stop!" she cried, "or I cannot tell you anything. Do be
reasonable, Mr. Kent!"

"You will not marry him! You cannot! Oh, Isoline, promise me! promise
me! Do not take away your hand. I will not let you go till you say you
do not care for him."

"Have I not told you that I mean to refuse him?"

"What? You have not done it yet?" cried Rhys, "and you said he had
asked you! What have you done? What have you done?"

Isoline was a little ruffled; there was so much she wished to tell him
and so much that she dared not tell him, that she was finding it
difficult to steer between the two.

"He asked my uncle," she said hastily.

"What did he say to him?"

"Oh, my uncle wishes me to do as I like, and, of course, I could not
think of it. He is so poor that he never should have dreamed of such a
thing."

"Poor devil, I suppose he could not help it," said Rhys, feeling
almost kindly towards Harry now that he knew there was no danger.

It is difficult to imagine what Walters proposed to himself in the
future, or how far he looked beyond the actual present. His higher
imagination once awakened, he attributed to Isoline every high
quality, and, like Harry, he mistook her inability to respond to
emotion for an intense purity of mind. So did he worship her, so far
did he deem her above him in every virtue, that she was as safe with
him in this lonely place as if she had been in the sitting-room of her
uncle's house. What could be the end he scarcely allowed himself to
think. Even were he at home, reinstated, he could not suppose that she
would stoop down to him, and as he was a penniless outcast, with no
prospect of anything but exile at best, his position was hopeless.
Every day that he stayed where he was he risked the little that was
left him, but he barely thought of that; he only knew that separation
from her would mean shipwreck.

In spite of the airs of sophistication she gave herself, Isoline was
very innocent of the forces that actually sway mankind. Shrewdness she
had, and a very distinct determination to further her own interests,
but her knowledge was what might be called a drawing-room knowledge;
it had no cognizance of the larger things of life. Her dreams began
and ended with visions of new dresses, good position, power in small
ways, admiration--still of a drawing-room sort--and little likes and
dislikes. Of large hates and loves and hopes, abstract principles, of
the only things to be dignified by the name of real life, she had no
idea. Natures like hers are more safely guarded from the greater
temptations than are the salt of the earth, for these may fall and
rise again higher, but, for such as Isoline, there is neither rising
nor falling.

It was seldom that her life had presented such a difficulty to her as
it did now. She was certain that Harry would make a determined effort
to see her, and she would give a great deal to be spared the ordeal.
She had eluded his father and to-day she had eluded his mother, but
she thought, rightly enough, that it would be a much more difficult
thing to elude him. Had her aunt been in Hereford she would have
begged to be allowed to return to her, but Miss Ridgeway's health had
not improved, and, a few days before, she had received the news that
her stay abroad would be indefinite.

There was one friend in the city from whom she might ask the favour of
a refuge, and she had made up her mind, as she pursued her way to the
meeting-place, to suggest the plan to her uncle, and, with his
permission, leave Crishowell for a time. If this could be settled she
would depart as soon as her friend could take her.

Harry's proximity had once made the place endurable, but now that it
had become an actual disadvantage, she was only too ready to go. She
would be glad to get back for a little to the diversions and society
of a town. There would be no mysterious admirer to amuse her, but in
all probability she would see Rhys again on her return, and even if
she did not--well, it would not make so very much difference. She was
beginning to be a little embarrassed by his demonstrative devotion,
and his clothes had looked so shabby of late, that the possibilities
with which she had endowed him at first were fading into the
commonplace. Hereford would be a relief. She was a good deal
disenchanted with things generally.

They parted that evening only a few paces from the stone. The days
were long and light now, and he could not go with her more than a few
yards from its neighbourhood as he had been wont to do in early
spring. It was only as they said good-bye that she told him of her
possible departure.

Poor Rhys, it was a blow; but the thought that it was struck to escape
Harry's importunities softened it a great deal. Her absence would not
be a long one, she assured him, so he let her go with a sigh and went
back to his hiding-place in the hollow.

Isoline hurried along homewards. She was longing to see her uncle, and
to hear what Lady Harriet had said, for she knew very well that it was
not alone the wish to see Howlie which had brought her. She was
anxious to get his consent to her departure as soon as possible and
write to her Hereford friend, for the moment she should receive that
lady's invitation she would start. It was unfortunate that she could
not get it for a few days to come, for Harry would be sure to make
trouble before she could set off. Everything was most trying.

She walked into the Vicarage to find Mr. Lewis in his study.

"You have had a long walk," he said, looking at her over the top of
his book.

"Yes," she replied, "I have been up near the foot of the mountain."

"I called for you once or twice; Lady Harriet Fenton was here, and she
asked to see you, but you had gone."

"Oh, did you, uncle?"

"Poor child," said the old man, taking off his glasses and laying down
his book, "it has been very hard for you, I know."

"Did she say anything about me, uncle?"

"She did. I am afraid, my little girl, I have not very pleasant news
for you. Mr. Fenton is not going to make any provision for Harry which
would enable him to marry. In fact, he cannot afford to do it. And
such being the case, he will not give his consent."

She looked out of the window at the fading light.

"Then I suppose there is nothing to be done," she said, taking up her
hat, which she had laid upon a chair as she came in.

He had not expected such entire and unprotesting submission, and he
was rather surprised; he watched her as she went to the door, rather
expecting to see her composure give some sign of wavering. She paused,
her fingers on the handle.

"Uncle," she began, "I wish I could go away from here for a little."

"It would not be a bad plan," said he, after a moment's thought, "but
what can we do? Your aunt is away, you see, and there seems no
prospect of her coming back."

"There is Mrs. Johnson. Could I not go to her? There was an idea of my
staying there before it was arranged that I should come here. She has
often invited me. You know her, uncle. Could you not ask her to take
me for a short time? I want to get away, indeed I do."

The Vicar thought that he detected emotion in her voice.

"Isoline, are you very unhappy about this? You say so little, my dear.
I am so sorry for you, and I wish I could help you."

"I can bear anything if I can only get away," said the girl.

"Well, I will write," said he, "I believe you are acting wisely."

"And ask her to let me come as soon as possible. I feel--I think--the
change will be good. And I do not want to see any one, or to talk
about what has happened. I need not, uncle, need I? Mr. Harry Fenton
will not come here, will he?" Her voice trembled a little.

"Come here, child," said he, holding out his hand, "and do not be
afraid to speak out. You are going away to avoid seeing Harry again,
are you not?"

A direct question demands a direct answer, and she hardly felt
prepared to give one; she did not know to what it might commit her.
She hesitated.

"I had rather not see him," she said at last, slipping her hand out of
the Vicar's; "must I do it?"

"Well, I think so, if he wishes it," he said slowly; "you are
certainly doing sensibly in taking Mr. Fenton's refusal of consent as
final, for, in marrying, you would be condemning yourself to a life of
poverty which you are not fitted to endure. But, though you now wish
to free yourself, remember that you accepted Harry. If he wants to
hear your decision from your own lips, I think he has a right to do
so."

"But why should he?" she asked plaintively, "surely he can believe you
when you tell him, uncle?"

"Surely, my dear, if you ever loved him at all, you will understand
how he feels."

"I think it will be very inconsiderate of him if he comes here and
makes a fuss when he knows it is impossible."

"People are sometimes inconsiderate when they are in trouble--young
people especially."

"Then they ought not to be so," replied Isoline, with decision.

She was accustomed to carry about little moral precepts to protect her
from difficulties, as other people carried umbrellas to protect them
from the rain. When the difficulties came down undeserved upon her
head, she would take one out and unfurl it, so to speak.

Mr. Lewis smiled faintly; he had some perception of ironies.

"Do you not think that _you_ are being a little inconsiderate? You may
be in trouble, but somehow I do not fancy your trouble is so great as
Harry's."

His voice had meaning in the last part of his sentence.

A look of dislike shot at him which was hidden by the dusk pervading
the room.

"Then I must see him?" she said.

"You can do as you like," said the Vicar, returning to his book, "but
I think you ought to."

As the door closed behind her he reflected that he had never before
come so near to understanding his niece.

Isoline ran up to her room, controlling herself with difficulty as she
went; when she reached the door she darted in and locked it.

"Every one is against me--every one!" she sobbed as she sat down upon
the bed.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE HALF LOAF

HARRY was in a terrible state. Nevertheless, though he kept carefully
out of his father's way, he poured out the tumult of his heart to his
mother, for she had told him of her visit to Crishowell, encouraging
him to talk, and thinking it better that he should have some sort of
safety-valve. And talk he did.

Late that night he was pacing about in her dressing-room, that
dressing-room which was so often the goal of those who sought to ease
their souls. The Squire fumed there, Harry brought various sporting
interests for discussion, and Llewellyn would steal up from the
smoking-room to thrash out farm perplexities. Bob and Tom, with their
regiments in India, found their minds turning sometimes to that
particular spot. The carpet was worn and threadbare, worn with the
coming and going of many feet.

To give up Isoline simply never entered Harry's head, and, had he been
inclined to do so, the opposition he met with would have sufficed to
keep his constancy alight. Again and again did he assure Lady Harriet
that he would never, never change, breaking between his assurances
into rhapsodies over the beauties and graces of his beloved. He heard
from her that she had not seen Isoline at the Vicarage, and that
though Mr. Lewis had held by the Squire's decision, he had said
nothing about his niece's feelings. He was not disquieted on that
score, for he did not dream that she would not reflect his own
fidelity like a mirror. How could she, having made him such a gift,
take it back at the first breath of adversity? To think of such a
thing was to insult her.

For himself he had no misgivings. It was hard, but what others had
done he could do; he could wait, and he would. As soon as he had been
to Crishowell--and he meant to go there next day--he would be off to
London, where he might cast about for work and take his place among
the bread-winners of the world. These intentions in a youth educated
to no special calling hardly seemed so absurd then as they would now,
for there were more snug places into which an impecunious young
gentleman could be hoisted in those days, and he had many influential
friends.

Lady Harriet did not try to turn him from any of these resolutions,
and she kissed him with special tenderness as they said good-night,
but her heart sank in her, for she saw that he stood between the devil
and the deep sea. There was that in his face which told her that he
was harder held this time than he had been by any of his former
devotions. To lose his love would go ill with him no doubt, but to win
her might even go worse. She went to bed weary in mind and body and
with no zest for the morning; the household seemed out of joint, and
she missed Llewellyn.

Harry reached Crishowell Vicarage next day to find Howlie sitting in
an easy-chair at the foot of the garden. He had been allowed to go out
for the first time, and was installed near the fence, where he could
see the passers-by and talk to strolling acquaintances. His face lit
up with interest as he recognized the approaching rider.

"Oi can't 'old the 'orse for yew this toime," he said, raising his
bandaged arms as his friend dismounted.

He had never wavered in his allegiance to Harry; though Llewellyn had
tended him, fed him, and stayed him up in his hours of suffering,
though he depended upon him, trusted him, and had remarked to the cook
that he was a "rare good one," it was "the young general" who had his
admiration and whose image had never been eclipsed by the younger
brother's more solid qualities.

"S'pose yew be come to see miss?" he observed, when the inquiries
about the burnt hands were over.

Harry did not answer.

"Where is Mr. Llewellyn?" he asked.

"Gone out. 'E says 'e's goin' 'ome to-morrow."

"You will be sorry, I expect," said Harry.

"Oi believe yew. Oi loike 'im an' 'e loikes me an' Parson, though 'e
don't think much o' miss. Be yew come to see 'er?"

"Is she at home?" asked the young man, ignoring the other's
persistence.

"Settin' up in 'er room."

At this moment Harry looked up and saw the face of Isoline for an
instant at the window; it disappeared immediately, but not before the
two pairs of eyes had met.

Vexation stood in the feminine pair as its owner drew back her head;
she had been tempted to look out by the sound of the voices below, and
in that instant her unwelcome lover had seen her. She had spent a
great deal of time up-stairs that day, her ears strained for any sound
of an arrival. She wore her walking-boots and her hat lay within
reach, so that she might run out as she had done before. It was not
perhaps the most ennobling way of meeting a difficulty, but it had the
merit of being extremely safe.

For very shame she could not escape now. She grew quite hot, anger
with herself for her carelessness, with circumstances, with her uncle,
all welled up in her, and gave her some of the feelings that a rat
must have when there is nothing but the bare corner behind him and a
dog in front.

Harry went up to the house and found the Vicar in the orchard.

"I expected you," said the old man as the young one began rapidly to
explain his presence.

"Mr. Lewis, let me see Isoline."

The Vicar took him by the arm. "You had much better not, believe me,"
he said; "it will do no good, Harry, and it will give you both pain."

"If you think I will ever consent to give her up, you mistake me. You
believe you are doing right, I know, but it is no use, sir. I love her
and she loves me, and we will never let anything divide us."

The Vicar looked into the honest, excited face, a face full of trust
without misgiving or concealment.

"I must see her, sir, indeed I must," Harry continued. "If you were I,
you would say the same."

"If I were you," said the Vicar, "I should do exactly as you are
doing. I haven't always been an old man, and I sometimes fear I have
never been a wise one. You can see her, Harry, but if you would only
accept this quietly you would spare yourself. She will tell you what I
am telling you now; she is an obedient girl, and she knows what your
father and I think."

The colour died out of Harry's face.

"You mean that she will give me up?" he exclaimed.

"She has told me that she will not engage herself without my consent."

A cold, intangible fear, like a breath from the inevitable, hovered
round Harry for a moment, but he would not realize the shock it gave
him.

"She thinks herself that you had better not meet," added the Vicar,
averting his look and fixing it on a bough where the last blossoms
lingered in a ragged brown cluster; the bloom was almost over, and
every puff of wind scattered the grass with withering petals.

"But I can't go without a word. Oh, let me see her! Beg her to speak
to me, Mr. Lewis. I saw her at the window as I came in. It is only for
a moment--it is so little to ask."

"Well, if you must, I will tell her. Oh, Harry, Harry, but you have
made a mistake!" exclaimed the Vicar, unable to repress himself
entirely as he turned away.

"I suppose Mr. Fenton wants to see me," said Miss Ridgeway as she came
down, her face set, in obedience to the summons.

"He does, and you must see him," he replied, with decision. "Go into
my study and I will send him there."

She went in, her nostrils quivering; the unfairness of the world had
never been so plain to her.

"Dearest," cried Harry, when he had shut the door behind him, "it
isn't true, is it? You can't mean to break with me altogether?"

He came closer to her, and took her two hands; they were quite cold.

"Your father has refused his consent," she said, with a little drawing
back of her head, "and so has my uncle."

He let the hands fall.

"And so it is all over?" he said almost breathlessly.

"It is not my fault. What can I do?"

She had entered the room feeling that it would be a simple matter to
cut the cord without remorse, for it seemed to her that Harry had
cheated her, and her sense of justice smarted. She had shrunk from
seeing him, but being forced to do so, she would have small
compunction. Now it surprised her to find that her resolution was
hardly what it had been before she saw him, they had not met since the
day she had accepted him, and his actual presence began to affect her
a little. Things are so easy when we rehearse them with only ourselves
for audience, but they have a hideous knack of complicating themselves
when the curtain is up and the play begins. Isoline realized with a
pang that she liked him very much--more than she had remembered, in
fact.

"And so you do not care for me after all," he said, looking at her
with eyes in which tears had gathered in spite of his efforts to keep
them back.

"It is not that," faltered she.

"What is it then? Can't you wait for me? Can't you trust me? It will
all come right in the end if we only have patience," said the man, who
was surely one of the least appropriate apostles of patience in the
kingdom. "I can work. I shall have to go to London and see what I can
get to do. I would do _anything_ for you, Isoline, darling. It would
not matter if we began in a humble way, would it, once we had
something settled to go upon? We should be much, much happier than
many who are rich."

It was hardly the picture to move her.

"But your father will not help you."

"No, he won't. I should have to depend entirely upon my work. If I
marry without his consent, he says he will give me fifty pounds a
year--not even what I have now. But, once I am married and working for
myself, I hardly think he will keep to that. It's a risk, I know. But
I would run any risk, dear. Perhaps it isn't fair to ask you to do it,
though," he added, with a sigh. "Isoline, you can never love me as I
love you."

"It is unkind of you to speak like that," said she, with an attractive
little note of dignity; "if you are in trouble, so am I."

He took her hand again with an exclamation of self-reproach; one of
her most useful weapons was her aptitude for making other people feel
themselves in the wrong.

"Dearest, I forget everything but my own unhappiness," he said
penitently.

"It is really dreadful," exclaimed Isoline. "How happy I was the day
that you came here, and now it is all spoilt!"

"But it can never be spoilt as long as we love each other," cried he.
"Isoline, darling, only be true to me, and some day we shall be
together."

"I can't promise anything. How can I when my uncle forbids it?"

Poor Harry, beating against the door that never resisted, yet never
opened, felt helpless. But he gathered himself together.

"Then let us do without promising," he urged, "only tell me this. If
anything should happen to make it possible--if I get on--will you let
me come back? I shall never lose hope if you do not forget me, and I
can feel there is a chance still."

It is easy enough to promise to remember any one, and this arrangement
struck her as very suitable; it was, in other words, almost what she
would have proposed herself, for she liked Harry. She assented
readily.

When they parted he went out to the Vicar, who was still in the
orchard.

"Good-bye," he said, holding out his hand, "I am glad I saw her after
all. I am much happier now."

And he left the old man wondering at the hopefulness on his face.

Presently Isoline stepped out, cool and dainty, into the greenness of
the orchard.

"I have told him that I cannot bind myself without your consent,
uncle," she said in her clear voice. And the Vicar wondered more.

As for Harry, he turned his head towards Waterchurch with a not
unhappy heart. Certainly his interview had not been all that he had
hoped, but he was brave, and a settled purpose upholds a man much.
And, as we all know, half a loaf is better than no bread.



CHAPTER XXX

NANNIE SEES HER DUTY

ALTHOUGH the Pig-driver, as he sat in his cart at Llangarth Fair, was
mainly concerned with the prospective beef, mutton, and pork collected
before him, he found time to notice other things. One of these was
George Williams, steering his way through the crowd with Mary
Vaughan's arm in his.

He looked after them as they passed, all unconscious of his eyes, and,
when they were lost in the mass of human beings and had disappeared
from the range of his vision, he still remained in so pre-occupied a
state that his bargains were in danger of suffering.

It was evident that his former dependent "had a young woman"; a
result, no doubt, of his prosperity at Great Masterhouse; perhaps he
would soon be setting up a home of his own, perhaps he was even buying
things at the fair for his wedding.

For years James Bumpett had known no shame, but the nearest approach
to it assailed him as he saw Williams, well-dressed, happy, and
evidently with his private affairs on hand, a living witness to the
limits of his own power.

The thought hit him in a spot in which most of us are vulnerable.
People who love power may be sublime, to others as well as to
themselves, so long as they are able to get it; when they are not,
they become ridiculous, principally to others. His business done, he
drove away, plunged in his own thoughts. How he wished that the
high-and-mighty mistress of Great Masterhouse had been in the fair to
see her favourite servant walking about with the girl who had led her
only son astray. Not that the Pig-driver thought much of such
deviations from the straight path as Rhys had made, but he knew that
Mrs. Walters did. The idea of her at a fair was so impossible that he
smiled at his own futility; but she should know of it, and the next
time he met Nannie Davis he would take care that she heard of George's
doings.

Nannie did not like Williams, her admiration being given to more
lively characters. Her own youth had been cheerful, to say the least
of it, and she despised those who lost their opportunities in that
way. His gravity and quietness annoyed her, and the high place he had
taken in Mrs. Walters' estimation made her jealous. Her personal
devotion was not given so much to her mistress as to the family she
had served so long, but she could not away with the notion of any one
else being important to it.

This did not escape Bumpett; he had known Nannie all her life, and
they had always been on friendly terms; besides which, their common
knowledge of Rhys' presence in the country had brought them a good
deal together.

But chance happened to keep them apart at this moment, and the
neighbourhood of the farm had become so abhorrent to him ever since
his errand there, that he hesitated to go near the place. Rhys was the
only person to whom he had related the affair; he hated even to think
of it, and when he at last met the old woman casually in Crishowell
village, the news he longed to impart had been burning within him for
three weeks.

To do him justice, the Pig-driver's methods in the matter were not
coarse. He did not suggest that Nannie should tell Mrs. Walters
straight out, but he worked so adroitly upon her feeling that he left
her well assured of success. It was clear by her face that she was
aching and longing to have a fling at Williams, that upstart, that
interloper, and--worst of all sinners to the uneducated mind--that man
who kept himself to himself.

The two women stood by the duck-pond. The birds were collected round
the brink, waddling and gobbling in the soft bits of mud, and Mrs.
Walters was pointing out those she had selected for killing. A large
white drake straddled cumbrously about among the members of his
family. Inside Nannie's apron, which she had gathered with one hand
into a kind of sack, a fat one, predestined to death, quacked and
complained in a voice so lamentable that the mistress had to shout her
directions in order to make the servant understand.

"Can't 'ear ye!" bawled Nannie, "so long as this 'ere thief do go on
as he do!"

"Take up the brown one there--no, no--that one by the stone!" cried
Anne, pointing to a young mallard who stood motionless, his dully
critical eye staring, unconscious of wrath to come, upon his
companions.

The old woman stooped and made a dive with her hand towards the
mallard, and the duck in her apron lifted up its voice and floundered
with all its strength.

"Drat ye!" exclaimed Nannie, giving it a vicious pinch and missing her
prey, which, with a calm look, sailed into the water, wagging its
tail.

"Tut, tut," said Mrs. Walters, coming nearer, "give the bird to me and
you go and try to drive the mallard back on to the grass. I must have
him."

Nannie's eye fell on an old wooden box lying open near, and thrusting
the duck into it, she turned it over with her foot. The air rang with
its outcries. Then she picked up a branch and advanced along the brink
to the spot nearest to her quarry. He took little apparent interest
until she came level with him, when, with a twirl of his leg, he put
an extra yard or so between them.

"Shoo! shoo!" cried Mrs. Walters from the shore.

"That ain't no good, mum!" exclaimed Nannie, pushing back her
sunbonnet with a large gesture; "if ye'd let fly at 'im wi' that gob
o' mud beside ye 'e might take more notice o' ye."

Anne picked up a clod and threw it into the pond. The duck merely
turned upside down and became a simple cone in the water with three
small feathers in the apex. The attitude had a suggestion of insult.

Nannie beat the branch up and down on the surface of the pond,
muttering words under her breath which, had they reached her mistress,
would have done her no good. The effect it had was that of disquieting
the others, and they began to steal away across the grass in a solemn
string, protest in every line of their feathers and every movement of
their ungainly feet. The mallard looked after them for a moment and
began to swim round and round the pool.

"I have no more time to waste," said Anne Walters impatiently; "you
had better call Williams; I see him in the garden."

George was very cheerful; he was whistling at his work, and he had a
pleasant sense of things being all right. The clouds rode along over
his head, white masses of packed snow, cut sharp against the blue, and
steering their course through the endless ether like great galleons
advancing, unconquered and unconquerable. A lark was losing itself in
a tremor of melody, a little vanishing spot. It struck him that the
world was good.

He had seen Mary once or twice since the fair, and, though his heart
burned within him at keeping silence from the words he might not
speak, he felt he was gaining ground; at least, he had got her respect
again, and he had seen, entering the shop a few days since, a look of
unmistakable pleasure in her face as she greeted him. Yes, things were
looking up, and the garden, into which he had put so many hours of
steady work, was beginning to repay him.

George was in his element in a garden, though he was himself
unconscious of the fact. He had an intense sympathy with growth and
life, vegetable and animal, and a large sense of protectorship. As he
paused a moment, looking critically at a lush corner where the
scarlet-runners had engulfed the fence, he might have stood for the
modern version of the original Adam, the natural culmination of the
Spirit of Life, moving, not on the waters, but on the fields. All he
wanted was Eve; Eve, who, at that moment, was standing in a similar
environment, behind the little stack of green vegetables piled on the
counter before her. Her surroundings were a little more complicated,
that was all, but when were a woman's otherwise?

Williams left the garden at Nannie's call, and she watched him with a
sour face as Mrs. Walters directed him to catch the mallard.

"I'll get 'im easy enough," said he; "there's no use in driving 'im.
Them ducks always follow their own kind. Go we a bit out o' the way,
an' I'll be bound he'll be on dry land afore we've got far."

They retreated from the pond, and the bird ceased his gyrations, only
fixing a wary eye on their departing figures. After consideration, he
made for the spot where the rest had landed, and set out on their
track, the violence of his efforts causing him to roll from side to
side like a ship in a storm. When he was well out on his course, the
old woman pounced upon him and bore him struggling to the box.

"Williams is a sensible man," observed Anne, as she looked after
George's disappearing back. "I did well when I took him. There is a
Providence over all our acts, little as we think it sometimes."

Nannie looked sarcastic.

"Under God, I may have done a good work," continued her mistress, who
was unused to having her words disregarded. The leavening of self in
them took nothing from their sincerity.

"That's as may be," replied Nannie, with her nose in the air.

Mrs. Walters looked at her as one might look at a child who has pitted
its opinion against that of an elder.

"Williams is leading a new life. He has put the old man from him."

"Yes, he! he! And he've taken a young woman in 'is place," leered
Nannie, whose flippancy occasionally got the better of her awe of
Anne.

"What do you mean?" inquired her companion.

"Ye can't see everything that happens in the world from Masterhouse,"
she replied enigmatically.

"I don't know what you mean by talking like that," said Anne, drawing
herself up.

"There's some that's mighty different to what they look. I could tell
a thing or two about that Williams if I liked. Not that it's for _me_
to speak," said the old woman.

Anne was not without curiosity.

"What do you know against him?" she asked, after a pause.

"He's a soft one, is Williams; but I know 'im. It's 'yes, mum' here
and 'yes, mum' there up this way, but down at Llangarth 'tis another
story. Rollin' about at fairs with a hussy that's no better than she
should be. I can't do wi' they mealy-mouthed chaps; they've always got
the devil's tail tucked away somewhere in their breeches."

Mrs. Walter's face darkened. Nannie went on, encouraged.

"As proud as Punch he was, too. An' she goin' about without shame,
holding his arm like the gentry."

"Who told you this?"

It was on the tip of Nannie's tongue to say, "The Pig-driver," but she
suddenly bethought her of the one occasion on which he had come to the
farm. She had hovered about at the kitchen-door that day and had heard
the scene enacted inside it. She knew very well that her mistress had
but scant respect for James Bumpett.

Anne repeated her question.

"Oh, I heard in Crishowell about his goings-on. Fine talk he's made
there, an' no mistake."

"You are much too fond of gossip," said Mrs. Walters judicially.

"'Tis no gossip. 'Tis my plain duty, an' no more. If folks down
Crishowell way be sayin' what a mawk you be to have picked up such a
bad bit o' stuff, I'll let ye know it, an' no more than Christian too.
Not that I wasn't ashamed to hear them speakin' such low words about
ye, knowin' that 'twas a holy act ye thought to do. But we're all
deceived sometimes."

And Nannie stooped, sighing, to take up the imprisoned ducks.

Anne stood contemplating the mixture of fiction and truth served up to
her. She wished to dismiss it all with contempt, but the thought of
her acts being criticized was too much for her. Criticism spelt
outrage to her temperament.

She turned away towards the house, internally fevered. The ducks
squalled in Nannie's grasp as they were carried to the outhouse which
was to be their condemned cell. Their jailer hurried along; she had no
idea of leaving her work half done.

"Where be I to put them?" she cried above the din.

Mrs. Walters pointed to a door without stopping. The old woman flung
it open and deposited her burden. As she shut them up, Anne turned
round.

"Come in," she said stiffly. "I must know who it is that has spoken
about Williams."

"Crishowell folk, mum."

"How many people?"

"A sight o' them."

Nannie's evasions began to rouse her suspicions. "I suppose Bumpett
told you," she said, turning suddenly on her servant.

Nannie's jaw dropped.

"Answer me!" cried Mrs. Walters, with rising voice; "was it Bumpett?"

"Well, now I think on it, 'e _was_ one o' them."

"I thought so," said Anne, smiling grimly.

"And who is this--this loose woman you were speaking of? You haven't
told me that."

"Lawk! mum, I wouldn't so much as name her afore ye," replied Nannie,
drawing down her mouth.

"Let me have no more nonsense," exclaimed Mrs. Walters, with
justifiable warmth; "if you did not mean to speak out, you had no
business to say anything at all. I am waiting to hear."

Nannie shuffled from one foot to the other.

"Well, 'tis Mary Vaughan, the toll-keeper's wench."

Anne stood staring at her. "I do not believe it," she exclaimed,
turning her back. "If it were true, it would be a direct disrespect to
me."

From her point of view this was a charge hardly to be faced.

"It's Gospel, for all that," said the old woman.

Mrs. Walters' eyes rested searchingly on her companion; the look was
returned, and held all the difference between the two women's
characters.

"I shall ask him myself," she said; "I shall soon find out if it is
true."

Having sent off her shaft, Nannie held her peace, and followed her
mistress indoors, a little nervous, but auguring well from the cloud
on Anne's brow; a cloud accumulating, pregnant with storm.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE WAY TO PARADISE

MARY sat behind her counter sewing, for customers were not frequent,
and she had plenty of time on her hands. June was well advanced, and
the fact was proclaimed by a long spray of dog-roses which stood in a
glass beside her. The bloom of the month had not passed her by, and
her whole being was making good its losses with the elasticity of
youth. Not that she did not carry in her face the same traces of
sorrow she also bore in her heart; but as beauty, mental or physical,
cannot be made perfect without suffering, it was a fairer woman sat
under the light of the window among the fruits of gracious earth than
the one who had parted from Rhys Walters at the Dipping-Pool for the
last time, six months before. Time is a great healer, but his rival,
Work, runs him hard, and though the former's chance had yet to come
with Mary, the latter had begun his ministration.

Now and then she would break into a snatch of song, and although it
would end, for the most part, in a sigh and a long silence, it
indicated a state of things impossible a little while ago. She lived
very much alone, and but for the old woman who owned the shop and the
occasional looker-in, who came to make purchases, she spoke to no one.
Only when George Williams contrived to get into the town, and
presented himself with a certain determined shyness at the door, did
she have any touch with the human beings who surrounded her.

And once, when, in the quiet of the evening, she had been induced to
stroll out with him, they had crossed the Wye and wandered a mile or
two between the dimness of the hedges, a faint yellow sky overhead and
the white crescent of a young moon rising above the limitless
translucence of the ether. She had not known at the time how much she
was enjoying herself.

She thought of it again as her needle stitched on and on and the feet
of the passers-by rang on the pavement. The shop was so low that, when
a cart drove along in the middle of the road, there was nothing but a
vision of wheels. One was just stopping outside, and, as a pair of
singularly crooked legs was to be seen climbing down, she laid her
work by, and rose as the door opened to admit a person whom she had
often seen, oftener heard of, and never spoken to.

The Pig-driver entered the shop with the air of a man who brings good
tidings, so cheerful was his demeanour, so satisfactory his smile, so
full of a precise and proven benevolence. A chair stood by the
counter, and he drew it yet closer and sat down with a studied care,
which suggested that he meant to make immense purchases at illimitable
leisure. Before speaking, he eyed her carefully from top to toe.

"What can I serve you with?" inquired Mary civilly.

"He! he!" chuckled Bumpett, "I bean't come to buy; no, no, not to
buy."

He laid his stick along the counter, and spreading his elbows out over
it, leered up into her face.

"I be come to see you, you an' no one else. Ah! I'm an old stump, I
am, but I do like the sight of a pretty face."

She looked annoyed.

"No offence, my dear, no offence."

"What is your business?" she asked, drawing a little back from the
counter.

"It isn't business, my dear, it's pleasure this time. I've come
because it does me a sight of good to get a look at you, he! he! Name
o' goodness! A wonderful thing it is to think what a deal o' mischief
a smart-like wench can do. Ye've done for that fellow up at
Masterhouse, an' no mistake. It's all up wi' him now."

She stared at him and laid hold of the wooden counter with her hand.

"Ye needn't look," said Bumpett, "'tis true. I had it from Mrs. Davis,
straight. There won't be no more o' he up at the farm, I'll warrant."

"But what has it to do with me?" exclaimed Mary, unable to connect the
Pig-driver's meanings, but scenting trouble vaguely. "I don't know
what you're driving at, Mr. Bumpett."

"Ye don't know nothin' about it, eh? My! you're a bold one, you are,
for all ye look as meek as skim-milk. I suppose you'll tell me ye
don't know George Williams next. That'll be no use though, because I
see'd ye wi' him at Llangarth Fair hangin' on to his arm like a
ladyship. But ye've done him no good wi' your sheep's eyes."

"I don't believe you--I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ah, don't ye? Well then, I'll tell ye."

He smacked his lips, for the moment he longed for had arrived.

"You sit down, girl. 'Tis a long tale. Ye won't, won't ye? Ah! I hope
ye've got a good pair o' legs under ye then, for ye'll have to stand
some time. He's an ungrateful dog is Williams, behaving shameful to
me, that was like a father to 'im; me that put the bread into 'is
mouth when 'e was starving. Then 'e got took on at Masterhouse;
nothin' was too good for 'im then, I believe. I warned 'er--went out
o' my way by a mile an' more, I did. Ye needn't look at me like that,
ye mawk-mouthed piece o' spite; ye've done my job for me, and I'm come
to thank ye. Now, mind ye this. When Mrs. Walters got wind that 'e was
keepin' company wi' a slut like you, there weren't no more ado, I can
tell ye. She says, 'Damn ye!' she says, 'ye'll clear yerself out o'
this or ye'll be done wi' that trollop down i' the town.' That's a
sweet bit o' news to ye, I'll be bound."

"And is he gone?" asked Mary, her face white.

"Gone! I suppose he is, indeed. She had 'im out that blessed evenin'.
She's one o' the holy sort, an' trust them to stand no jolly doin's."

Tears started to Mary's eyes. She could not but believe the old man's
words, and it was terrible to think that she, of all people, had been
the cause of fresh misfortune to George. She had known him first--a
poor man, so poor that he had a hard struggle to live, and then she
had seen the difference in him when luck had come his way. He had told
her many of his troubles, and, when she had allowed interest to creep
in, sympathy and friendship had followed.

The day seemed to have grown darker, the light to have faded. She felt
herself a blight, a malignant influence which had come into this man's
hard life and made it harder. She would have given anything to hide
her distress from Bumpett, but she could not, and he sat gloating in
his chair over the effect he had made.

"You're a bad man," she said, when she had managed to control herself
a little, "I've heard it said of you, and God knows it's true."

The Pig-driver's reply was cut short by the opening of the shop door
and the entrance of a customer. She dried her eyes quickly, and he,
finding that he could no longer monopolize his victim, departed, and
went away a satisfied and contented man, feeling well towards this
life. A little boy begged of him in the street and he gave him a
halfpenny.

The old woman for whom Mary worked did not generally descend from her
room overhead till late in the afternoon. The girl had charge of
everything during the greater part of the day, but, at five o'clock,
her mistress would come down and take her place behind the counter,
leaving her free to do as she pleased and go where she would. She was
never asked to give any account of her doings, and was only expected
to be back at nine o'clock to put away things in the shop and to close
up the house. Sometimes she would stay on in her place, taking out her
book, for she still tried to teach herself, and sometimes, since
summer had begun, go out into the scented evening, communing with her
own soul and drawing peace from the peace around.

To-night, though she had little heart to leave the house with, she
found her mind unable to fix itself on the letters of the simple pages
she was spelling out. It flew off continually to George--George
unemployed, George despondent, George disgraced because he had not
consented to forego the infinitesimal part she had been willing to
give him in her life.

It was striking six by the town clock as she went out. The street was
a quiet one and there were few people in it, but as her hand left the
latch she saw Williams coming towards her. She went hurriedly on to
meet him.

"Come," she exclaimed, without other greeting, "I want to see you."

She put her hand on his sleeve and almost turned him round. George
turned with her and they went forward, hardly thinking where they were
going, he because he was with her and would have gone with her to
perdition, and she because she had no other thought than the one which
had been in her all day.

"Oh, George, why have you left your place?" she cried.

"How do you know I've left it?" said he, almost roughly.

"I heard to-day. Mr. Bumpett the Pig-driver was here. 'Twas him I got
it from."

"What was he doing?"

"He was in the shop."

"Buying?"

"No. He came to tell me you was leaving Masterhouse. He told me why,
too."

An exclamation broke from the man.

"Oh, I know. I know all about it," said the girl, her voice trembling.
"Do go back now, George, do. For all the good you've done me, I've
given you nought but harm. Let me be an' go back to the farm, and I'll
never see you nor speak to you, if they'll take you back. It will make
me happy, oh! so happy, George. Do you hear what I say?"

"I hear."

"To-morrow, George. Go to-morrow. She may fill up your place if you
wait. Will you go early?"

"I bean't going. I'm off to Hereford to-morrow; I've come down to say
good-bye to 'e, Mary."

"Oh! George Williams, will nothing turn you?" she entreated.

"Nothin'," said the young man.

Looking at him she saw it was useless to try to move him. His face was
hard, as she had first known it. There was a barred cell in Williams'
heart, and when he had entered into it, no one could draw him out, not
even the woman he loved.

"If you be going to Hereford, you'll be gone from me, the same as if
you was at Great Masterhouse. It will be all one," said Mary
presently.

Not knowing how to explain himself, he did not reply. If he stayed on
in his place it would mean a denial of the faith that was in him, a
disloyalty to her. He did not so much as consider it, and it annoyed
him that she should do so.

They had turned into a deep lane leading up to the higher ground. From
a clump of thorn-trees further on the cuckoo was calling. When the
lane ended, the two stopped and looked at Llangarth beneath their
feet.

Mary's heart was full; the world was too complicated for her, man too
hard, and George was going. She had ruined him, not willingly, but
none the less effectually. She glanced up at him and saw his look
fixed on her. His eyes were soft in his hard face, and in them lay the
weary knowledge of how far outside Paradise he stood. She made a step
towards him, catching her breath.

"George!" she cried, "oh, but I've been bad to you!"

     *   *   *   *   *   *

It was some time after that they came down the lane again together,
her hand, like a little child's, lying in his. The late sunset had
faded, and its remains were just dying along the edge of the world.
They said little, the man of few words and the woman of wounded heart.
It was the silence of knowledge, profound, irrevocable, lying miles
and miles from the door of their lips; of trust, of sorrow, of coming
joy. For her the joy was but faintly showing itself through the veil,
for him it stood in the path.

If his Eve had caused him to be expelled from Paradise by one door,
she had let him in again at another.



CHAPTER XXXII

A DARK LANTERN

ALTHOUGH Isoline had now nothing left to fear from the importunities
of her lover and was beginning to see a good broad streak of daylight
through the entanglements which beset her path, the reply that her
uncle's letter brought from Mrs. Johnson in Hereford was a decided
relief. She was to come as soon as she liked and to be prepared for a
long stay. The widow had an only daughter, just returned for good from
the respectable shelter of a Bath seminary, and she looked upon
Isoline's proposal as a piece of real good fortune. She was averse to
effort of most kinds, and had been a little fluttered at the prospect
of her dove's return and the exertions into which it might lead her. A
companion who would amuse and occupy the young lady was so good an
extinguisher to the flame of her dilemma that she threw a perfect
flood of cordiality into her answer, and begged the coming guest to
consider herself bound for six weeks at the very least. She thought
Isoline a most desirable intimate for her Emily, having been struck by
the decorous elegance of her manners and the tone of delicate
orthodoxy which surrounded her.

Miss Ridgeway turned her back upon Crishowell with many feelings of
pleasure. There was not one thing in all the place which she really
regretted leaving, and even Rhys Walters, who cost her what more
nearly approached a regret than anything else, went comfortably out of
her head; on her return, happily a good way off, he might again serve
to lend a little zest to an otherwise depressing life. That was his
use in her mind.

In Hereford her time and attention were soon taken up by more
important things, musical evenings, shoppings, and various little
social assemblies at which she became the centre of much admiration to
the young gentlemen of Hereford society. Indeed, one admirer, a pale
youth connected with a local bank, sent her a copy of verses,
beginning--

    "Stoop, cruel fair, my gaping wounds to heal,
     Thou goddess graceful, beauteous and genteel,"

in which he described his feelings in a very lamentable manner. This
effusion found a resting-place in her album and aroused some envy in
the heart of Miss Emily, to whom the author was an object of interest.
But, in spite of such small episodes, the two girls got on very well
together, and Mrs. Johnson was happy in the arrangement she had made
and the enjoyment of a placid and well-nourished leisure.

July went by, August, September, and still Isoline stayed on. The year
rolled up to its zenith and declined in a glory of ripened apples and
glowing leaves. As October followed, the naked fields about Hereford
began to suggest to sporting men the coming hunting season, and the
bare boughs of November stirred Harry's heart with the same idea as he
saw them in the London parks.

He had succeeded in finding a secretaryship, unimportant in itself,
but filling him with the hope of greater things, and he had worked
hard. As the smell of the moist earth pervaded the late autumn
mornings, he could not help, as he crossed St. James' Park on his way
to his business, longing for much which he had lost. Doing without
pleasures which have, so far, been necessities has a certain interest
of novelty for a time, but it is an interest which soon palls. It had
palled on him. His courage remained and his love for Isoline, but that
was all.

With the other man whose destiny had tangled itself round her feet the
time had gone even more heavily. Sick at heart with her long absence
and the desolate feeling that she had gone beyond his reach, Rhys had
dragged himself through the months; having nothing to look forward to
from day to day, he had been ready at times to rush out into the full
sunshine and give himself up. But, just as he had lost all hope, a
letter had come from Isoline, directed to him under the name by which
she knew him, and sent to the Pig-driver, in compliance with an
earnest request he had made before they parted. That had buoyed him up
for some time, and he drew courage from the thought of her return,
which she wrote of as not being far distant.

But when November passed and there came no sign, the blackness closed
down again on him. The cold was terrible too, and the nights were
bitter. He would come in half-frozen at dawn and bury himself among
the sheepskins to endure the weary hours as best he could between
sleep and misery.

He cared nothing now for life, and there were times when he made plans
of escape; risk would be welcome, a thousand times welcome, for his
whole existence was little but a living death. To be out once more in
the light, at no matter what cost, to feel the glory of freedom, of
taking his life in his hand, the idea made his blood tingle. Had there
been proof of his devotion wanted, no greater could have been given
than he gave; for, above all his pinings, all his dreams of release,
the image of Isoline rose and he thrust them down.

Even Bumpett was now anxious to get him out of the country and would
have facilitated his escape in any way; as a servant he was becoming
useless, for he spent the nights in rambling about with no thoughts of
doing anything but cooling his aching heart with the space and the
darkness and getting relief after the imprisonment of daylight. The
two had had high words, for the old man, resenting the notion of
supporting a dependent who did nothing in return, had threatened to
cut off his supplies and to starve him out if he did not leave the
cottage of his own accord. But Walters had promised him that his own
expulsion would mean immediate exposure, and the Pig-driver had
gnashed his teeth over the obvious truth that the man who does not
value his life has an advantage over the man who does.

Rhys would talk to himself as he sat, his head in his hands, in the
cellar among the remnants of George's belongings; the dusk in which he
dwelt had given his eyes a strange, dull look, and his shoulders
stooped from long hours of sitting idle. Bumpett had, at one time,
smuggled a book and a few papers in his cart and left them with him;
but he had no heart to read, and would only sit and brood, unable to
concentrate his thoughts. The whole man had slackened, mind and body;
all that was still strong within him was the resolution not to give
way until he had seen one face again. It was his fixed idea.

It was decided that Isoline was to go back to Crishowell for
Christmas, and she was spending the last few days of her stay in
Hereford regretfully. She had been very happy and she did not look
forward to a return to the country, especially as she would miss all
kinds of seasonable gaiety by so doing.

The two girls were talking as they sat in the lamplight one evening.
Dinner was over and Miss Emily was at work upon her embroidery, a
chaste piece of design in which a parrot with bead eyes perched
stolidly upon a bouquet of yellow roses. Mrs. Johnson, who had a cold,
lay upon the sofa, her head enveloped in a woollen shawl; the local
newspaper was in her hand, and from it she occasionally read extracts,
not so much for the sake of informing her companions as because she
liked to make her comments aloud.

"It is really a pity that you will miss the quadrille party next
week," said Emily, looking up from her parrot; "what poor Mr.
Pottinger will do I cannot think. I am sure he will be vastly annoyed.
He will write no more poetry when you are gone."

"Yes, and I did so want to wear my green-and-white muslin too."

"Green and white, forsaken quite," quoted Emily. "Only it will be Mr.
Pottinger who is forsaken, not you."

"La! Emily, do not be so absurd. There are plenty of other young
ladies coming for Christmas who can console him."

"Ah, but there is no one like you, Isoline," said the admiring Emily.
She was plain herself.

"What nonsense," rejoined her companion, well satisfied.

"Emily, my love," broke in Mrs. Johnson, "it is really impossible to
see so far from the light. Pray come and take the paper and read aloud
a little, as you are near the lamp."

Emily put her embroidery away with a sigh. She preferred infinitely to
gossip with Isoline.

"What shall I read, ma'am?" she inquired, as she sat down again with
the journal in her hand.

"Anything, child," said her mother.

"'There is a strong apprehension,'" she began, "'of great distress
being prevalent during the coming winter; it is to be feared----'"

"No, not that," interrupted Mrs. Johnson, drawing her woollen shawl
more closely round her, "read something else."

"'The Probability of a European War,'" continued her daughter, reading
the headings.

"No, no," said the lady, who was disinclined to grapple with large
subjects, "read the local news. On the second page, my dear."

Miss Emily ran her eye over the columns. "'Banquet given to the Mayor.
A successful entertainment was held in honour of our respected Mayor,
Mr. William Smeebody, at the Crown and Gander, on Saturday the 4th
instant. The table positively groaned under the triumphs of culinary
skill which it displayed, and many brilliant and felicitous speeches
followed the repast. But it should not be supposed that the pleasures
of the table and the pleasures of the intellect were the only
advantages offered to the company. Many of the fair sex were present,
including his Worship's lady, whose elegant accomplishments have made
her so bright a star in our social firmament.'"

Mrs. Johnson breathed as hard as her cold would permit.

"Really!" she exclaimed, "there is no end to the odious publicity
which is being brought into domestic life! I am sure if the newspapers
had ventured to speak of _me_ in such terms, Mr. Johnson would have
disliked it intensely--elegant accomplishments, indeed!"

"'Death of the Reverend Mr. Slaughter,'" continued Emily. "'It is with
profound grief that we have to record the tragic incident which took
place yesterday. The Reverend Mr. Slaughter was seized with a fit
while officiating last evening in Hebron Chapel and expired in the
arms of the verger.'"

"Dear! dear!" said the voice from the sofa, "and I was thinking of
attending divine worship there too! I had my bonnet half on, you
remember, Emily, and I said, 'I shall go to Hebron Chapel,' and then
cook came up to speak to me in the middle, so I was too late and had
to go later to St. James' instead. How one misses one's opportunities
in this world! Dear! dear! dear!"

"Here is something to interest _you_, Isoline," said Miss Emily, "for
I remember you said that your friend, Mr. Fenton, was concerned about
it."

"'Some little stir has been occasioned at Llangarth and in the
neighbourhood by a statement made by a labouring man. It will not be
forgotten that one of the worst of the Rebecca riots took place last
January upon the Brecon road near Crishowell, and that the now
notorious Rhys Walters took the life of the toll-keeper in the
struggle. His subsequent disappearance upon the Black Mountain was, at
the time of the disturbance, a nine-days wonder, and no trace of him
has been found since that date, now almost a year ago. The labourer in
question states that he was returning one night last week to a farm
called the Red Field, where he is employed, about half-past twelve. He
had been at Abergavenny, on the other side of the Pass, and business
had kept him there until a late hour. He carried with him a dark
lantern which he had been lent in the town. Being footsore, he sat
down to rest upon a piece of rock just under the shoulder of the
Twmpa. He had put down the slide of his lantern some time before, for,
the path over the turf being good, he felt more able to guide his
general direction by the mass of the hill against the sky than by its
light, especially as there was a faint starlight. He had sat about ten
minutes when he heard a footstep approaching. He called out, but
received no answer, and the footstep immediately ceased. He then drew
up the slide and saw, not ten yards from him, a figure which he
believes to be that of Rhys Walters. The man was looking straight at
him, and the labourer, upon whom he produced the effect of an
apparition, was so much startled that he dropped the light. It is
needless to say that, when he recovered it, the fugitive (if indeed it
were he) had disappeared. Questioned closely by the magistrate about
his general appearance, he described the person he had seen as a tall
man with a long, pale face and piercing eyes. He noticed that he had
rather high, square shoulders and eyebrows which came down very low
towards the nose. He seemed about thirty years of age. If the labourer
speaks accurately, it seems very much as if he were right in his
surmises, for the above is a remarkably good description of Rhys
Walters. It is even possible that he has been in hiding somewhere in
the neighbourhood of the mountain for the last eleven months, though
it seems an inconceivable feat for a man to have performed. If this be
actually the case, one thing is certain, namely, that he has been
assisted in his concealment by some person or persons unknown.'"

"What dreadful things there are in the paper to-night, Emily,"
observed Mrs. Johnson. "It is quite alarming to think of such a man
being at large--so near, too. Look at Miss Ridgeway. One might think
she had seen a ghost!"

Isoline sat like an image, staring before her. Emily's reading was
weaving a distinct picture, a picture which grew more familiar at
every word. She felt as though the world were giving way beneath her
and she herself being whirled along into a chaos where order was dead
and criminals were allowed to go free about the earth to delude
respectable young ladies, without the very stones crying out against
it. What had Providence been doing? The truth was there in its
baldness. She had been associating--she, Isoline--with a murderer; she
might even have been killed herself. The tears rushed hot into her
eyes. These were the sort of things that might happen to other
people--rough people--but not to her, surely not to her! She sat
stunned, her eyes fixed and brimming. The most shocking part of the
whole thing was the coarseness of its reality.

"Oh, what is the matter, Isoline?" cried Miss Emily in tactless
dismay. "Mama, she is crying!"

Mrs. Johnson rose from her sofa. She was a kind soul.

"My dear Miss Ridgeway, you are too sensitive," she said, "though I do
not wonder you are horrified at such a tale,--so near your home, too.
Really, what the law and the police are coming to, I do not know!"

Like many ladies, Mrs. Johnson spent much time in lamenting the
inefficiency of these bodies. "Go up to bed, my dear, and I will send
you a posset. I am taking one myself for my cold. I fear you are
terribly upset, but Emily can sleep with you if you are nervous."

"No, no, thank you," said Isoline, making a great effort at
self-control. "I am quite well now. I am not afraid, thank you, ma'am,
but I was upset at thinking--at thinking----"

"My dear, I can well sympathize," said Mrs. Johnson, "it is enough to
upset any one. Go up to bed. You will get to sleep and forget it."

For one thing Isoline was devoutly thankful, and that was that Emily
had apparently not guessed her secret. Soon after her arrival, she had
told her the story of her mysterious admirer, and Emily, though
professing herself rather shocked, had been immensely interested; it
was part of her creed that Isoline could do no wrong. She was romantic
too, and she had more imagination than her friend, and the idea of it
appealed to her. Should she happen upon the truth, the other girl felt
as if she could never face her again, and she was now really glad to
be going back to her uncle immediately, away from the strain of living
in perpetual fear of discovery. She had described Rhys so often that
Emily's want of perception appeared wonderful. But light might break
in on her any day, and, if it did, her own prayer was that she might
be absent. The two parted a couple of days later with secret relief on
her side, and on Emily's genuine tears.

She left the coach as she had done before, at the foot of Crishowell
Lane, and, this time, found Mr. Lewis waiting to meet her and drive
her to the Vicarage. As she entered the door, Howlie put a letter into
her hand, which had come, he said, just after her uncle's departure,
and she took it up-stairs to read.

It was from Harry Fenton, and announced the news that a cousin, long
lost sight of, and supposed by the family to be dead, had at last
justified their belief by expiring in a distant colony, and, in so
doing, had left him a sum representing two thousand a year.



CHAPTER XXXIII

A BIRD IN THE HAND

HARRY'S employment was not so congenial as to keep him one day at work
after the news of his legacy had reached him, and, as soon as it was
possible, he started for home.

He was now his own master, and Isoline, that star for which he had
sighed through so many weary months, was within his reach; it was a
glorious thought. He could hardly resist throwing his hat into the air
as he drove along the road between Hereford and Waterchurch again, and
saw all the familiar objects he had passed with her when they had
travelled along it together in the early days of their acquaintance.

There would be no need for shilly-shallying now, no waiting on luck,
on circumstances, on the tardy decisions of other people, for the
trumps were in his hand and he had only to declare them and lead the
game as he liked. Two thousand a year was a fortune to make him
perfectly independent of anything his father might say or do, for were
he to cut him out of the place itself, his future would still be
assured, and he did not suppose that the Squire would take such a
desperate line as that. Where would be the sense of leaving the
poverty-stricken estate away from the only one of his sons who had the
money to change its fortunes?

His departure for London had not upset Mr. Fenton very greatly, but
the news that he had found work and was actually doing it came as a
surprise. He had sat him down complacently in the belief that his
prodigal son would soon return, wiser and sadder, to throw himself
into the arms of a forgiving parent--for he meant to be forgiving. He
was very fond of his children, and, though he stormed about the folly
and ingratitude of this one's behaviour, he looked forward to the day
when he should receive him back, and, having magnanimously dismissed
the subject of his infatuation in a few sentences, should welcome him
again to reason and acquiescence in the saner judgment of older and
more sober heads. It never struck him that there could be any other
ending to the episode.

But as time passed and the letters which came to Lady Harriet gave no
sign of change, he began to fear that the drudgery which he had
promised himself would soon quench the young man's thirst for work was
doing no such thing. He could not understand it, for he had never
supposed that Harry, careless, scatter-brained Harry, with his youth
and light heart, had got it in him to show so much steadiness of
purpose.

To his wife the truth was plain. Harry was growing up. It had taken
him some time to begin the process, but the late development had set
in at last, and been helped forward, as it so often is, by the
influence of a woman. There was nothing to be done, she felt; time
might bring things right, and she tried to persuade her husband that
expressed opposition could do no good and might do a great deal of
harm.

"It is all very well for you to talk," the Squire said; "I am not
contemplating a visit of remonstrance to him, though, to hear you, one
would imagine I was going to rush up to London and take him by the
throat. I shall do nothing about it; I shall simply ignore the whole
thing."

Tact was not Harry's strong point. He had made up his mind that there
should be no delay, and that a day should not elapse ere he delivered
his ultimatum. Acting upon this resolve, he precipitated himself upon
his father before he had been twenty-four hours in the house.

The result was direful. The Squire's policy of mingled indifference
and magnanimity which he had been hugging against his son's return
changed to gall and wormwood when confronted by the calm request that
was made. The young man had not quite robbed his manner of the
reflection of what lay behind it, and the knowledge that he was master
of the situation peeped out under the formality he had spread smoothly
on the top. He did not mean to be discourteous, but the last few
months had made him feel twice the man he used to be, and he could not
entirely suppress the consciousness.

"Consent?" roared Mr. Fenton, furious at being brought up against
actualities which he laid decently away, "consent? I tell you the
whole thing is a cock-and-bull story! Don't come here, sir, wasting my
precious time over such stuff!"

Harry's answer had at least the merit of simplicity. He went straight
out to the stable, took a horse, and set off to Crishowell. Before he
reached the village he met Isoline, who was taking an afternoon walk.
She sedulously avoided the direction of the mountain now.

It was cold, and she was muffled up in a fur tippet. Her eyes were
sparkling. A rose-coloured scarf that she had wound round her neck
fluttered behind her.

"You see, Isoline, now everything has come right," he said as he let
her hand go; "it is well that you trusted me, isn't it, darling?"

Her smile, as she looked at him, was answer enough. She was very
happy.

They turned into a by-road and he drew the bridle over his arm,
walking beside her.

There was a shade of embarrassment in his mind; he knew that his
chance of seeing and speaking to her was not likely to occur again,
and he had so much to say. There were a thousand things he had settled
as he came along, and which he must discuss with her. He had rushed
over to Crishowell, not only as a sort of protest against his father's
attitude, but because he knew that he would not be allowed to see
Isoline were the Vicar to be prepared for his coming. He wanted to
tell her more about his legacy too, though, to his unsuspicious heart,
money seemed a sordid thing to talk about to her. And there was
something of vital importance, something which he meant to propose. He
feared to begin. It was simply providential that he had met her.

"I suppose," he began, "that they would not let you see me if I were
to come to the house. I have so much to say. Isoline, I want to ask
you something. Could you make a sacrifice, do you think? Dearest, I
don't know where to start. I must tell you heaps of things, horrid
things, some of them."

She looked up quickly.

"My father is in a dreadful rage. I asked him again to-day, just now,
to give in. He will not."

"Yes, but you need not mind him now," broke in the girl.

"No, that's it. That is what made him so furious."

"But you are not thinking of giving me up?" she said suddenly. "Oh,
Harry! you never mean that!"

"Give you up? Now, when, at last, I can do as I please? Not likely.
Isoline, I believe you are joking."

"I never joke," said she, with much truth.

"What I am going to ask you to do is this," he said gravely, stopping
in the road and looking older than she had ever seen him look before;
"I want to make these separations impossible. I want you to come away
with me, once and for all."

"What? Now!" she cried, bewildered, stepping a pace or two back.

"Not now, but soon. In a few days--a week, perhaps."

She looked at him blankly.

"Oh, I cannot!" she exclaimed, "it would never do."

"But why, dear? It has been done before now."

"What would they say?"

"That would not matter. You would be my own wife and no one could say
or do anything."

She made no reply and they walked on; her face was downcast. She
clasped her hands more tightly in her muff and shivered.

"It would take a little time," he went on; "I should have to get a
special licence and go to London first. But in a week everything could
be ready. We can be married in Hereford and then go straight away.
Isoline, will you?"

She was silent.

"Won't you speak, dearest?" said he at last. "Think; all our troubles
would be over and we need never part any more."

"They will be terribly angry," said Isoline, lifting her eyes
suddenly.

"No one matters. At least, no one except my mother," he added, with a
half-sigh, "and I know she will forgive me in a little, when she knows
you better. You cannot think how good she is, Isoline."

Her face hardened.

"We need not see them, I suppose," she said.

"We can go straight abroad, if you like."

"I should like London best," said the girl.

"We need not come back a moment before we wish to. I am quite
independent, you see. I have not got much ready money at this moment,
but any one will advance it until I am actually receiving my legacy.
Want of money need not trouble us again."

"You have two thousand a year, have you not, Harry?"

"Two thousand, one hundred and eleven pounds. There are some shillings
and pence, too, I believe. I went into it all with the lawyer."

"How fortunately it has happened," said Isoline fervently, her eyes
looking onward to the wintry horizon.

He was thinking the same thing. All at once, out of the silence that
fell between them, there swam up before him the solemnity of what he
meant to undertake. It was for all his life, probably, and for hers
too. A vague foreshadowing of the buffets of the world, of time, of
chance, of fate, played across his mind. He turned to her, a wave of
tenderness in his heart, and looked down into her perplexed face.

"If you will do this thing," he said, "I will try always to make up to
you for what I have asked."

She looked straight in front of her.

"But I have not decided," she said, almost petulantly; "how can I all
at once?"

"This is likely to be my last and only chance of talking to you," he
pleaded; "if we settle anything we must do it to-day. You could not
see me if I came; that is the difficulty."

She shook her head. "Not if your father makes all this fuss."

"And writing would not be safe. So you see we must think it out now.
Heaven knows when we may meet again."

"Do you think they will _never_ give in, Harry?"

"Never's a long day. But it might take time. It might be a year, it
might be much more. It does not matter for me, but your uncle will
hold to it as long as my father does. Oh, darling! I hate this
miserable waiting. Who knows what may happen in a year?"

"That is all true, Harry. Oh! what _can_ I do?" she cried. "It is so
difficult! If I only had a little time!"

"Take till to-morrow, Isoline."

"To-morrow? And how can I see you to-morrow?"

"You must send to me."

She laughed shortly.

"What messenger have I? Howlie is always busy. Besides, he might do
something dreadful."

"Well, I must think of some other way," said he, "and you must think
too, Isoline. Between us, we shall light on something. What if you
made me some sign?"

"Wait--I have it!" he cried. "Will you go out to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes."

"Any time?"

"Any time within reason."

"Then go for your walk in the morning before twelve o'clock. Do you
know the gate at the foot of the lane? The first one as you turn
towards Brecon. I passed it just before I met you."

"I do not remember it."

"Then go and look at it after I have gone," said Harry. "There is a
bush beside it--only one--and you will see a last year's nest in the
branches. If you will come away with me, put a stone into it. I will
ride by in the afternoon, and, if it is there, I shall know you have
said yes."

"But can I reach the nest?"

"If you stand on one of the rails of the gate you can. It is not out
of reach, for I wondered, as I passed, how it was that the boys had
not pulled it down."

He searched her face earnestly for some clue to what she would do.

"What an odd idea," she said at last

"But will you do that? It is the only way I can think of, and I must
know to-morrow. There is so much to arrange, dear."

"Very well," said Isoline, "if I mean 'yes,' I will put in the stone.
But suppose it should rain."

"You must come all the same."

She pouted. Her mind was making itself up, and the surer her decision
became, the more she was inclined to play with him.

"What will you do if you find there is no stone there?" she asked.

But he had gone further in life than when they had parted, and his
lingering boyhood was slipping from him.

"Do you understand how serious this is?" he said rather sternly.
"Don't trifle, Isoline. It is 'yes' or 'no,' and it is for you to
decide it."

She wondered, for a moment, whether she really liked him as much as
she had supposed.

"I am not angry," he said, holding out his hand and fearing he had
been harsh, "but I am so anxious, darling."

She hesitated a moment before taking hers out of her muff.

"It had better be this day week," he said, "if you can be ready."

"This day week? But I have no new dresses, or anything."

"You can get them after," said Harry.

"So I could; when we go to London. We shall go to London, shall we
not?"

"I think it would be the best thing to do."

"Perhaps you _will_ find the stone in the nest," she said, smiling.

He pressed the fingers he held.

"You must slip away early in the morning. It would not do for us to go
on the coach, and I cannot let you go alone, so I will get a carriage
and have relays of post-horses. We must be in Hereford before midday,
and I shall be waiting for you while it is still dark."

"And where must I meet you?" she inquired; "I hope I shall not have to
go far alone."

"I cannot wait very near to Crishowell because the carriage might be
seen, and when you are missed, as I suppose you will be in an hour or
so, they would suspect where you had gone. The longer start we have of
any one who may follow, the better."

"Do you think they will come after us, Harry?"

"They might. But I hope by the time they see us, that it will be too
late to take you away. You are not afraid, are you, dear?"

"No, I shall not be then. I need not mind any one when I am Mrs.
Fenton."

"We must meet on the other side of the village, for that will be a
little bit further on our journey. Be in time, Isoline, because the
longer I wait, the more chance there is of being seen. The second
milestone out of Llangarth would do; you would not have a mile to walk
then."

"Suppose any one should see me."

"If you are there at six o'clock, it will be quite dark; even if any
one passed you would not be seen. The earlier we can get off the
better."

"But suppose they had a light," said she, thinking of the man who had
seen Rhys.

"Who carries a light so near sunrise?" exclaimed Harry. "No one."

"It is horrible having to go alone. I do not like it at all," said
Isoline.

"I will go as far to meet you as I dare. Don't fail me, dear,--but I
know you won't."

"You really talk of it as though it were settled," said she. Though
she spoke in this way, she knew in her inmost heart that her mind was
made up, but not for the world would she have admitted it to her
lover, even when the admission was to save her a tiresome walk on the
morrow. She liked to exact the last farthing that she considered due
to herself. She did not look happy as she retraced her steps, and,
though it might be said that her troubles were righting themselves,
she was not so, entirely. She was giving up what had been one of her
dearest dreams.

There would be no wedding--at least none in the sense in which it
appealed to her--no toilette, no bridesmaids envious of her
importance, no favours, no grey horses, none of the flourish and
circumstance with which she had pictured herself entering married
life. She could not have foreseen herself dispensing with it, but
then, neither could she have foreseen the malign chance which had
revealed Rhys Walters to the man with the dark lantern. The horror of
that discovery was never long out of her mind.

It was clear from what the newspapers had said that he was in
communication with some one, and, while she and Harry delayed their
marriage, every day brought its fresh possibility that Walters might
hear a rumour of her engagement. Little as she knew of the deep places
of human souls, she had seen, when they parted, that he was desperate,
and a sort of dread had come to her of the power she had let loose;
since the revelation of his name and character he had become a
nightmare. She repented bitterly of her vanity, or, at least, of the
toils into which her vanity had led her.

At night she would wake and imagine him lying in wait behind some tree
to murder her, like the determined and forsaken heroes of romances she
had read. Such things had happened before. Once she was married and
clear of Crishowell she would be safe; but she was to pay for the
hours in which she had sunned herself in his admiration with the glory
that should have been hers as a bride.

Next morning while Harry, at Waterchurch, was loitering about, chained
to the vicinity of the stable-clock, she was walking briskly along the
road with a stone in her muff.



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PURSUERS

IT was a quiet week which followed at Waterchurch, and when Harry set
off to London on business which he refused to talk about, and which he
vaguely referred to as connected with his lawyer, Mr. Fenton bade him
good-bye amiably enough. His son had neither contradicted him nor
re-opened the subject of his marriage, and the Squire, with whom put
off was done with, regained his composure and returned to his own
affairs. He told his wife nothing, for he had lost his temper and did
not wish her to find it out.

Harry had said he would be absent "two or three days," so when a week
had gone and he neither wrote nor returned, his father began to wonder
what he was doing. He sought Lady Harriet.

"What's Harry about in London?" he inquired. "He seems in no hurry to
come back."

"I thought he would have been home before now. I hope there are no
complications about his money," she replied.

Mr. Fenton fidgeted about.

"I wish there were no complications about anything else," said he,
stopping in front of her. "I wasn't such a fool as he is at his age."

"What has he been doing?" she asked, a twinge of misgiving flying
through her mind.

"What has he been doing? Really, Harriet, you are not brilliant! Here
have we been at our wits' end because of that girl of Lewis', and you
ask me, what has he been doing? Heavens!"

"But there is nothing new, is there? Nothing we don't know?"

"He came to me about it again."

She raised her eyes quickly to his in a question, and he looked out of
the window.

"I told him I wouldn't hear of it."

"And then?"

"He went off. I didn't see him till dinner that night."

"But where did he go?"

"Go? How should I know where he went? I know where he _will_ go, and
that's to the deuce," said the Squire, beginning to march about the
room. "The question isn't where he went, but where he is now. That is
the point of it, and I am surprised that you, Harriet, don't see it. I
shouldn't wonder if he were sitting there with his arm round the
girl's waist at this moment."

"At Crishowell? I know Mr. Lewis would never allow that."

"Allow it? Who'd ask him to allow it, I should like to know? They
needn't be under Lewis' nose. He's there, you take my word for it." At
every sentence the Squire's voice rose. "I'm not going to stand such a
thing any more. It's time somebody did something. What's the use of
our sitting here with our hands before us like so many fools, eh?"

"What shall you do? You see, now he is his own master," said Lady
Harriet, sighing.

"His own master? I'll show him whether he is his own master or not!
You know as well as I do that there is no entail on Waterchurch. I'll
just bring that to his notice. 'My good boy,' I'll say, 'you bring
this upstart of a girl here and you'll see whether there's an entail
or not!' That'll bring him round."

"I'm afraid that's not a very good plan, Edward. That would be worse
than useless."

"Pshaw! I tell you I'll soon find out whether it's useless!"

Mr. Fenton sat down to a writing-table and began scribbling excitedly.
When he had sealed up his note he rang the bell.

"Is there any one in the stable?" he inquired, rather unnecessarily,
seeing that it was just half-past eight in the morning. The Fentons
were early people and breakfasted at eight, even in winter. Lady
Harriet never sat long at the table after meals were over, and they
had just left the dining-room.

Before the man could answer, a steady, approaching trot was plain in
the avenue, and, a moment later, there was a grinding of wheels upon
the gravel.

"What an extraordinary hour for any one to come," exclaimed Lady
Harriet.

As she spoke, the long face of the Vicar of Crishowell's old mare was
visible through the window. She was blowing, and though only her head
could be seen, it was apparent, from the way it rocked backwards and
forwards, that she was cruelly distressed.

The butler went out and returned.

"Mr. Lewis, sir. He says he must see you particular. He wished to be
shown into the study, sir."

"Is Harry here?" asked the Vicar, as his friend entered.

"No," said Mr. Fenton. "God bless me, Lewis, you look quite white."

"My niece is missing," exclaimed the Vicar, his lips shaking; "I have
come to tell you. They have gone off--Heaven forgive them for what
they have done! We must go after them. I came here with a faint hope
of finding Harry, but I must be off again."

The Squire took him by the arm as he was making for the door, and
pulled him into a chair. He sank into it, covering his eyes.

"What must you think of me, you and Lady Harriet? Fenton, I never
foresaw it, blind fool that I was! She was so quiet, I never dreamed
that the whole thing was not over, so far as she was concerned; she
did not even seem to care."

The Squire was bewildered.

"She complained of headache last night and told the maid not to call
her in the morning. The girl forgot and tried to open the door. It was
locked, so she got frightened and came for me, and we found the room
empty. The bed had not been slept in, though one could see that she
had been lying on it; she must have lain down in her clothes for fear
of not awaking in time. Her handbag was gone, and her brushes and
things--that is what made me suspect. I sent a boy down to a cottage
on the road to Llangarth to ask if anything had been seen, and the man
had heard a carriage pass a little before six and seen the lights of a
postchaise. He heard it pass again on its way back not long after."

"How do you know it was Harry?" asked Mr. Fenton.

"I can only guess; but who else could it be? I must be off at once. I
am going to Llangarth, for I shall get some clue at the toll this end
of the town. They would be obliged to pass through it."

"I will go too," said the Squire, his hand on the bell. "You can't get
on with the same horse, Lewis. We must put in one of mine."

"Quarter to nine," said the Vicar, pulling out his watch. "It was
nearly eight when I left. Two hours ago I knew nothing."

As the two sat side by side they did not exchange a word. The horse
was a good trotter, and the Squire, who drove, put him to his utmost
pace.

The Vicar looked blankly out on the hedges and fields which
approached, passed, and dropped behind, bitterness round his closed
lips. The few illusions he had ever had about his niece were fallen
from him, and he understood her thoroughly. It was sordid money that
had made her do this thing, that had decoyed her out into the darkness
of the winter morning, and not the man who was waiting for her. If
love had undone Isoline as it had undone Mary, he felt he could have
recoiled from her less, though the outside world would have deemed it
a worse calamity. It would have struck him to the earth indeed, but it
could hardly have sickened him as this had done. He would have given
all he possessed to prevent any one belonging to himself from dealing
such a blow to those he loved. There was no pretence, no veil, however
thin, no excuse. It was money, money, money. She had encouraged Harry
when she thought him rich, dropped him angrily, resentfully, as one
drops a kitten that has scratched one, when she knew he was poor, and
sprung at him again the moment his fortunes mended. And he was the son
of the best friends he had. He had left Waterchurch without seeing
Lady Harriet, for he had felt unable to face her.

They pulled up at the toll on the near side of Llangarth, where the
gatekeeper gave them what information he had. The carriage had gone
through Crishowell very early, before it was light, and had repassed
on its return journey about a quarter-past six--maybe twenty past, or
thereabouts--he could not tell exactly. There was a lady in a black
veil. He knew that, because he had turned the lantern on the inside of
the carriage, and the gentleman who paid the toll was young--fair, he
thought--but he couldn't say; he didn't know them, not he, for he was
new to the place, but the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. He could
give no further clue. But it was enough.

They drove on to the Bull Inn, which was the only posting-house in the
town, and Mr. Fenton sprang out and went in to find the landlord.

"Ain't a pair left in the place," said an ostler, who emerged from the
stable. "The 'ole lot's out."

He began mechanically to take the Squire's horse out of the shafts.

The landlord's tale was the same. There was a postchaise, but nothing
to put into it; they might get something at the next posting-house in
Welchurch, seven miles on.

"What is that over there?" inquired the Vicar, pointing to a brown
muzzle which was pushed out of a box at the end of the court.

"That's my old horse, sir, that I drive myself."

"Let me have that in my shafts," said the Squire, "and I'll make it
good to you."

In a few minutes they were on their way again with their faces to
Hereford, and the landlord's horse, who had good blood in his veins,
had put his head into the collar. The reason that they had been
unsuccessful in getting what they wanted was simple enough; every pair
was out on the road for Harry.

The long tedium of the miles seemed interminable till they reached
Welchurch, and the white faces of the milestones as they went past
were the only things either man had the heart to notice. They were
rewarded at last by the sight of the inn and by finding on inquiry
that there was a light chaise and a pair of horses to be got. They
took their seats grimly and set off on the next stage at a gallop.

It was twenty minutes past eleven when they drew up at the Green
Dragon in Hereford, and the Squire and the Vicar got out, stiff after
thirty miles of sitting cramped in their seats. They did not expect
Harry to leave his carriage at so prominent a place as the chief hotel
in Hereford, should he mean to stay in the town, but they looked round
the courtyard for the possible sign of an arrival. The place was quiet
and vacant as they asked hurriedly for news, and, finding none,
started for a humbler inn hard by at which they hoped they might come
upon some trace of the couple. Sure enough, as they entered its
precincts, they saw a carriage, splashed with mud and standing empty;
beside it was a pair of unharnessed horses being groomed by two
stable-helpers.

"Where has that carriage come from?" inquired Mr. Fenton of one.

The lad stopped hissing through his teeth and stood with the brush
midway between himself and his horse.

"Can't say, I'm sure. I don't know nothin' about it."

"But how long has it been in, boy?"

"About half-an-hour or more. That's 'im over there in the stable."

The two men looked round, almost expecting to see Harry, and met the
postillion's red countenance and hilarious glance which beamed at them
from a doorway; evidently he had had refreshment after his exertions,
and, from the satisfaction on his face, it seemed unlikely that he had
paid for it himself. He came forward rather unsteadily.

"Have you come from Llangarth?" cried Mr. Fenton, pointing over his
shoulder at the muddy vehicle.

The man smiled and laid his finger along the side of his nose; whoever
was responsible for his entertainment had not done the thing by
halves. Then he stood a moment, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in
the armholes of his open jacket, eyeing the gentlemen with vacillating
complaisance.

"That 'ud be lettin' the cat out of 'er bagsh," he replied slowly,
turning away with what he supposed to be dignity.

Mr. Fenton sprang after him, raising his cane, but the Vicar
interposed. "That will do no good; there is a much better way than
that," he said, as he took a couple of half-crowns out of his pocket.
"Look here, my man, which church did you drive them to?"

"Don't know the name of it," replied the postillion, with a guileful
look. "Unless you're come to m--marry 'em?" he added, suddenly
realizing Mr. Lewis' clerical dress.

The Vicar hated a lie of any kind, and hesitated, but his companion
had no such scruples.

"We shall be late if you don't tell us," he broke in, "and they will
not be married to-day. It's getting on for twelve."

The man stood scratching his head; his mind was turned upside down in
a chaos of beer, and there was nothing to suggest that the two
gentlemen who had walked into the yard had been travelling post haste.

At this moment the Vicar slipped the two half-crowns into his hand.
The recipient shook his head as he pocketed them.

"That 'ud _never_ do," he observed, in an access of tipsy morality.
And, beckoning mysteriously, he led the way into the street.

"Thatsh shurch," he said, laying a careful hold upon Mr. Fenton's coat
collar, and pointing to a spire which rose, not a hundred yards away,
from a railed graveyard.

The two men hurried on, for they had no wish to be heralded down the
street by the staggering figure. They arrived at the gate just as
Isoline and Harry were emerging from the porch.

The level of the street was below that of the building, and a flight
of steps ran up to the door. Bride and bridegroom stood at the top,
arm in arm. On Harry's face, caught full by the light, was the trace
of strong feeling and an infinite tenderness for the woman at his
side; it was humble too, for he felt he had not deserved so much. He
turned to her, and, in so doing, perceived his father and the Vicar
looking up at them from the pavement below. Isoline saw them too, and
launched a glance of triumph at them; the hour she had waited for had
come, and her only regret lay in the fact that Lady Harriet was not
present also. She carried a little silk bag that hung by ribbons to
her arm, and she twirled it light-heartedly as she looked down at the
two grey-headed men.

The man and wife descended the narrow steps, Harry drawing back to let
her pass on in front. She sailed forward and paused at the bottom
within a few paces of her uncle and her father-in-law, hesitating
whether to speak to them or not; the former's expression was a study
in mortification and pain, of which she took no notice. Catching the
Squire's eye, she made a little curtsey that she hoped might express
some of the dignity in which she henceforth intended, as Mrs. Fenton,
to wrap herself. But there was something in her which made it a
failure.

Harry went straight up to his father, feeling that he could confront
any one or anything with calmness in the glad knowledge of what had
just occurred, but the Squire waved him off. He met Mr. Lewis' face of
reproach.

"I will take care of her, be assured, sir," he said. Then, finding
that the Vicar made no reply, he turned and followed his wife, who was
walking slowly up the street. The two men went into the church to look
at the register.

It was midday when the newly-married pair reached the inn where they
had left their postchaise, for the wedding had taken place a little
later in the morning than they intended. On driving to the church they
had found two other people waiting to be married, and, as the first
arrivals, the clergyman had taken them before Harry and Isoline. She
had looked at the woman who stood before the altar with some interest,
for she was beautiful with a beauty unusual in country girls of her
class, and her face showed that she felt every word of the service;
the man was a young labourer of the massive type, who wore a purple
neckcloth with a bird's-eye spot.

When their own marriage was over and the other one going on, the first
couple had gone into the graveyard for a short time and sat down
together on a bench; it seemed as if they wished to realize quietly
what had happened to them. When they came out they walked past the
inn, and the two brides came face to face. Isoline stood by the door
while Harry spoke to the landlord, and there was admiration in Mary's
eyes as she looked at the pretty lady in the feathered hat and the fur
through which her cheek bloomed like a blush rose. The little cloud on
Mrs. Fenton's brow had lifted, and as she saw it she half smiled. Had
she known the history of the girl she smiled at she would have drawn
aside her skirt so that she might not so much as touch her with the
hem of her garment.

Mr. Fenton and the Vicar retraced their journey the same afternoon and
parted, sadly enough, in Llangarth. The Squire took the chaise and
post-horses on to Waterchurch, and the other, whose vehicle had been
left at the Bull Inn, agreed to drive his friend's horse back to
Crishowell and to give it a night's rest before sending it home next
day.

He drove through the streets, tired in every limb and sore at heart.
He felt worn out and disgusted with everything, and physically very
weary; he had not remembered so vividly that he was seventy odd years
old for a long time.

He went so slowly and was so much lost in his own thoughts that the
horse had been brought to a standstill almost before he noticed a
thin, shabby woman who had run from the door of a house, and was, with
unexpected energy, taking hold of the bridle.

"Stop!" she cried, raising her hand.

The Vicar pulled up, leaning out from under the hood, and she came up
close and laid hold of the dashboard, as though to prevent him
forcibly from continuing his way.

"There's a man dying," said the woman, panting a little, "an' he wants
you. You'll have to be quick, sir; he's mortal bad. Up there."

Mr. Lewis looked at the house she pointed at, a tumble-down building
which faced the road.

"It's Hosea Evans," she went on; "he's come out o' jail a fortnight."

"The landlord of the Dipping-Pool? It's the Methodist parson he wants,
not me."

"Not him. He's been a-calling out for you all the morning. I was just
off to Crishowell when I see'd you go by the door. He's pretty nigh
done, an' he's crying out for you. There's somethin' on his mind, an'
he says he can't tell no one else."

Mr. Lewis turned the horse's head, his own troubles retreating, as
they were apt to do, before those of other people. Following his
guide, he entered a small, dirty room. It was getting dusk outside,
which made the miserable place dark enough to prevent his seeing
anything but the one ghastly face in the corner lit up by a candle
which stood on a chair by the bed. There was the movement of a dim
form in the room, and the doctor who attended the very poor in the
town rose from the place where he had been sitting. The woman
approached the dying man and whispered close to his ear; a wan ray of
relief touched his face, and he moved his hands.

"He is very near his end," said the doctor. "It is typhoid. These
jails are not all that they should be, I am afraid. He has been a bad
character too, poor wretch."

The Vicar went up to Hosea, and the shabby woman moved the candle away
so that he might sit on the chair beside him.

"I can't see," said Evans thickly.

"I am here," said Mr. Lewis, laying his hand on the wrist from which
the pulse was fast ebbing; "what can I do for you, my brother? Shall I
pray?"

Hosea moved his head feebly.

"No, no; I want to speak a bit, but I can't, I'm that done."

The doctor poured some liquid into a cup and held it to his lips.

"Try to swallow," he said, "it will help you."

The innkeeper made an effort and swallowed a little.

"Come near," he whispered, and the Vicar leaned down. "I killed
Vaughan," he said, "not Rhys Walters."

Mr. Lewis was so much astonished that he did not know what to say, and
merely looked into the man's face to see whether or not he was in full
possession of his senses.

"Then that is what has been troubling you?" he said at last.

Hosea made a sign of assent. "Me it was," he continued feebly, "me,
an' not him. We both struck at him together, an' my stick came down on
his head and laid him his length. His no more than shaved his
shoulder."

"Are you certain that what you say is true?" asked the Vicar, who was
suspecting the dying man of an hallucination, but who began to see
sense in the circumstantiality of his words. "If you killed him, why
did Walters fly so suddenly without another blow?"

"He was blinded. A stone took him in the face as he let out, an' he
never knew 'twarn't himself as did for him. So he went off
smart-like----"

The effort to speak plainly was almost too much for Evans. He lay
looking at the Vicar with eyes that seemed to be focussed on something
very far beyond the room.

"And is that everything you want to tell me?" asked Mr. Lewis, bending
down in answer to a faint gesture.

The dying man signed for the cup in the doctor's hand, and, when a few
more drops had been poured down his throat, he spoke again.

"There's the money too."

"What money, my man?"

"My money. I've a mortal lot--the box below the bed. It's for her, an'
you'll tell her it warn't him, not Rhys Walters. It's to keep her.
'Tis all I can do now."

"But who do you mean, Evans? Try to tell me."

"Mary--Mary Vaughan. She was a good lass, an' 'twas me killed him."

His voice paused, but his lips moved, and the Vicar could just
distinguish the word "box."

"Shall I draw it out from under the bed?"

Hosea smiled faintly.

They pulled out a thick, black wooden box about a foot square, and
placed it on the mattress beside him; his eyes lit up as he saw it,
and his fingers worked. He had been called a "near" man in his time,
and the Vicar remembered that, as landlord of the Dipping-Pool, he had
always had credit for being well off, in spite of the poor place he
inhabited. When the lid was opened there proved to be nothing inside
it but a stuff bag. The sight of it seemed to give Evans strength.
"All notes," he said, "a hundred pound an' over. Count them."

Mr. Lewis began to do so, Hosea's sunken eyes following every movement
of his lips. There was in bank notes one hundred and five pounds, and
in coin fifteen shillings and tenpence.

"Now write," said the innkeeper, "quick."

It was not easy to find pen, ink and paper, and the woman was obliged
to go out and borrow what was necessary from a more advanced
neighbour; but when this had been done, the Vicar wrote out the simple
sum of Hosea's wishes. It was plain enough; everything he owned was to
go to Mary Vaughan unreservedly. He was past writing, but he insisted
on the pen being given him, and, with the doctor supporting him in his
arms, he made a mark where Mr. Lewis had written his name. The two men
witnessed it and added their own signatures.

"You are happier now that we have done that, are you not?" said Mr.
Lewis. "You can trust me to see Mary Vaughan at once, and I will take
care that what you want is carried out. It is right that you should do
all you can for her. There is nothing else?"

"No," said Hosea, though his eyes belied his words. "I've been a bad
man," he whispered, after a silence. "I suppose you can't do nothin'
for me?"

"I can pray," said the other, as he went down on his knees by the bed.

He began the commendatory prayer for the dying, and as his voice ran
steadily on, the room grew very still. Only the cries and footsteps in
the street outside broke the quiet. The doctor was kneeling too. The
window-pane showed like a thing far away in a dream, a little blue
square in the close-crowding walls that pressed upon Hosea's dying
eyes. The candle guttered and went out, and the Vicar finished his
prayer in the dark.

When the last word was said, the doctor approached and struck a light.
There was nothing left of the innkeeper but the poor, earthly husk
that had clothed his imperfect soul, lying on the bed.



CHAPTER XXXV

NEW YEAR'S EVE

THE Pig-driver had been absent from his usual haunts for more than ten
days, business having taken him on a stealthy tour of inspection to
the connecting links of his trade; it was a duty which called to him
at the end of each year, and he had returned this time lighter of
heart than ever, for his affairs were flourishing, and the books so
carefully kept by his nephew told a promising tale.

It was New Year's Eve; a year and more since Rhys' and Harry's lives
had crossed under the shadow of the Black Mountain in that unconscious
rivalry which their destinies had forced upon them; a year since Mary
had looked her last upon her lover's face as he rode away from the
Dipping-Pool. In the great shuffle which a year will sometimes bring
to groups of people whose lives concentrate in the same circle,
Bumpett was the unchanged one, as he shambled into Crishowell to hear
what local news had cropped up since his departure.

As he went along between the houses a burst of singing, which came
like a gust of wind from a cottage a little way in front, caught his
attention and made him smile. He smiled because he intended to spend
the night in the village and because he knew very well that no
conviviality was considered complete without his presence, more
especially on an occasion so important as the seeing-out of the Old
Year. He moistened his lips with his tongue and hurried forward, a
pleasant anticipation on his face; it was little more than eight
o'clock, and there was a deal in the way of joviality possible before
midnight.

He paused outside the house, like the discreet man he was, to see if
he could identify any of the voices before committing himself to their
society. A new song was beginning, and he recognized it as one called
"Mary Morris" which had come from the mining districts, and which was
very popular in the neighbourhood. It was sung by a single voice, and
set forth the rather irregular loves of the mining character who was
its hero. At the last line of each verse the company joined in with an
ardour and a breadth of vowel which bid fair to rouse the village.

There was a large stone outside the door, the remains of an old
horse-block, and on this the Pig-driver sat down to listen.

The singer made one or two false starts, and finding himself
invariably landed in a higher key than he had bargained for, seemed
inclined to desist but for the encouragements of his audience, which,
at last, launched him safely upon the surging wave of the tune.

         "O! Mary Ma-awris!
          Why was you leave me?
     You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!
          You have gone and left me,
          All alone so cruel,
     Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!"

"Since yew an' oi was pa-a-art!" roared the chorus.

         "O! Mary Ma-awris!
          I was love your sister,
     I was love your sister most so well nor you!
          And my heart was broken
          Like a crochan chinay;[1]
     Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!
          Never can put him to-o-o!"

Here the audience began to stamp to the tune, and the singer raised
his voice yet a little higher.

         "O! Mary Ma-awris!
          I'm living at Penpulchwyth;
     When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;
          Though I be married
          To another 'ooman,
     Come in straight, O Mary, an' never mind for she!
          Never moind for she-e-e!

          O! Mary Ma-awris!
          We will be so happy,
     We will be so happy, like a king and queen;
          I will mind the farm, and
          You shall mind the babies,
     And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!
          As never before was see-e-en!"

Almost as the last long-drawn syllable died away, the door opened and
a man came out, who, not noticing Bumpett till he all but fell over
him, jumped back with an exclamation. The Pig-driver was taken with a
fit of laughter.

"Who be you?" inquired the man, when he had collected his wits.

"'Tis just me, Bumpett o' Abergavenny, listenin' to the music. Didn't
expect to find me, did ye? What sort of a feller is that singin'? I
can't mind his voice."

"Williams o' Tan-y-bulch. He's a fine talker too; tells ye as many
lies an' bad words in an hour as I could in a week."

"And who else?"

"Stevens an' Griffiths an' Prosser an' William Pritchard an' old Job
Hondy. There's only a few more because of the drinking up at Price's."

Price was the carpenter, and his house was the usual meeting-place of
the Pig-driver's set.

"I'm going up there myself," continued the man. "The jug's getting
pretty nigh empty here, an' I don't see my way to giving 'em no more.
I'll start fair over there, ye see."

"Then it's you that's payin' for their treat?"

"Yes, yes, 'tis my party. There's just enough left i' the jug to keep
them quiet till I've had my turn over at Price's afore they all be
after me. I'll be gone then, afore they do come."

"But you don't own this house," said Bumpett, rather mystified; "I've
never seen you before."

"An' you don't see me now," rejoined the other, with an airy glance
into the darkness, "nor _they_ won't see me neither after I've had my
drink."

"Well, you _have_ a right notion o' things--I can see that, anyhow,"
said the Pig-driver, beginning to like his acquaintance. "I'll step
down wi' you to Price's."

"Best not," said his companion dubiously.

"Oh, but that I will," replied Bumpett, winding his arm confidingly
through that of the stranger. The other proceeded rather unwillingly,
but the old man would take no denial.

"But that's Pritchard's house," he began again, jerking his thumb
towards the place they had come from; "how be you come to pay for the
drink in it?"

"I haven't paid yet," replied the other cheerfully.

"Any news flyin' about the town?" inquired Bumpett, after one or two
vain attempts at forcing his companion's confidence. "It's goin' ten
days since I was hereabouts, and I haven't had a word wi' no one."

"It depends what you call news," said the stranger. "For my part,
there's little can flummox me. Have e' heard of the young Squire down
Waterchurch way runnin' off to Hereford last week? Took the Parson of
Crishowell's niece along wi' him, an' was married safe an' sound like
a man. The old Squire was after him, an' Parson Lewis, an' though they
battered shameful at the church door--so they say--'twarn't no use.
The lock was turned till they was tied tight. Not that that flummoxes
me though; why I tell 'e----"

"Well, well, that's all news to me," exclaimed the Pig-driver, with
whom admiration was beginning to oust every other sentiment. "I must
get down to Price's afore any o' them's gone, an' hear the rights o'
that."

"The rights? Bean't I tellin' 'e the rights? What more do ye want nor
what I've told ye?"

"No offence," said the Pig-driver hurriedly.

"Ye don't seem to know much about nothin'," continued his friend,
unmollified. "Now, for me, there's not a thing done within twenty mile
but I know it all pat afore ye can so much as put your thumb to your
nose. Why, the breath wasn't out of Evans o' the Dipping-Pool's body,
an' I knew where his money was to land. That's me all over."

Bumpett dropped his arm with a jerk.

"Did 'e say Evans? Hosea Evans?"

"I did; an' I'll say it again if ye've any fancy for jumpin' like
that. He's as dead as a nail. Died just after he come out of jail, an'
left every damn penny o' two hundred pound to the toll-keeper's wench
that used to keep company wi' Rhys Walters."

This time the Pig-driver was not to be borne down by any superfluous
knowledge on the part of his companion.

"She's lucky," he observed shortly.

"And so's the chap that's married her. His name's Williams, and he
used to live in a queer enough place up by the mountain, and do a turn
at hedgin' now an' again. Not much hedgin' now, I suppose. Livin' like
a lord, more likely."

Bumpett's tongue grew dry, and he grinned mechanically; his lips
stretched and went back like pieces of elastic, and his friend, who
was waiting for some tribute to his superior information, could hear
odd sounds going on inside his mouth.

"Ah, you didn't know that!" he exclaimed, "and I'll wager ye didn't
know 'twas him killed Vaughan an' not Rhys Walters. He came out with
it all on his death-bed to the Parson o' Crishowell."

"Go on wi' ye!" broke out the Pig-driver.

"That's all very fine," replied the stranger in a tone of offence,
"but just you go off to the police at Llangarth and see! Lewis an' the
doctor an' a woman was witness to it, an' it's written down in the
Law, I tell 'e. Like enough the Queen has it all at her fingers' ends
by now."

It was half-an-hour later when Bumpett slipped unnoticed out of
Price's door into the darkness. He had left his new acquaintance in an
advanced state of intoxication among the revellers, where his varying
moods of confidence and pugnacity were beginning to make him something
of a nuisance. But the stranger had spoken truth and the old man had
heard the same from the lips of his friends.

It was not only rage at the thought of George's good luck, though,
that was boiling in him, which drove him along at such a pace, it was
the far more disturbing knowledge of Rhys Walters' innocence. He
resolved to go to the cottage without an hour's delay, and by threats
or bribes to compel him to leave the country. He would, if all else
failed, tell him that his hiding-place was known to the police and
press on him any assistance to escape that his money or ingenuity
could command.

He had been living in daily dread of his unprofitable servant's
indiscretion, and since the experience of the man with the dark
lantern had appeared in the local newspaper, he would have given much
to know him clear of England. And now, if Walters' own folly should
bring him to discovery, and he should learn that he was innocent of
Vaughan's death, the consequences might be dreadful. He would have to
suffer for his share in the Rebecca riot, but having done so he might
one day return to his own, damaged, perhaps, but with the stain of
blood-guiltiness off his hands, and live on the very scene of
his--Bumpett's--activities, a constant embarrassment and menace. It
was not likely that he would denounce malpractices in which he had
been involved, for the same drag would act on him as on the
Pig-driver's other subordinates, namely, their liability to suffer
side by side with their master. Sheep-stealing, though no longer a
capital offence, was punished heavily, and sane men do not usually
open the prison doors for themselves. But, of late, there had been
that about Rhys which forbade him to judge him as he would have judged
another man. He felt that it was desperately urgent.

When he was clear of the village and beginning to ascend towards the
mountain he found it no easy matter to get forward; there was not a
star in the sky, and a damp mist, which, though he knew it not, was
enwrapping the higher country towards which he pressed, became thicker
at every step. The lane leading to the old cart track was scarcely
less deserted than itself, and his feet struck against heaps of loose
stones which the autumn rains had rolled here and there into shelving
heaps. He put his hand up to his face and cursed to meet the wet on
it. It was one of those nights so frequent in winter, a repetition of
the one through which Rhys had once felt his way to the Dipping-Pool.

By the time he reached the cottage the enveloping fog was so thick
that he would not venture to trust himself upon the plank crossing the
water, but waded through, though the cold touch on his ankles made him
gasp. He groped round the end of the house till he found himself among
the gooseberry bushes of the garden. It was impossible to see
anything, and he could only guess at their position as he stumbled
along, pricking himself against the stems. When he came to one growing
by the wall he pushed it aside, guided by a faint light which came out
of the hole in the masonry behind it. From the little shine he
gathered that Rhys had not gone out and was in the cellar below. He
put his mouth to the aperture and called down it.

After two or three vain attempts to make himself heard, the Pig-driver
could distinguish steps moving in the cellar.

"'Tis me--Bumpett!" he cried. "Go you round to the door and let me
in."

As he stood waiting for Walters to turn the key, he told himself that
he would not depart again without the young man's consent to leave;
but he wondered how he should manage the matter, for there seemed to
be nothing in the world by which he could keep a hold over him. It
must be done somehow, that was all he knew.

It was quite dark in the upper part of the house as he entered and
followed Walters down the ladder. There was a light standing on a
piece of furniture, and Bumpett sat down by it on a broken chair and
looked up at his companion. He had seen him continually at short
intervals during the last six months, and the alteration in him had
not hitherto struck him as it would have struck a stranger. But, all
at once, in the wretched light, as the two confronted each other, the
Pig-driver saw through the veil of custom which had blinded him to the
ghastliness of the change in Rhys. A feeling akin to horror took him
by the throat as he sat and looked into the haggard face with the
black shadows thrown upwards by the candle lying upon it. Not that it
was pity or concern that moved him--he cared little enough for
anything that affected the man before him--but even he, coarse,
sordid, callous as he was, could feel that Rhys Walters had gone
beyond the reach of fear or hope, joy or malice, and that the grey
waters of despair divided him from the power of aught else but some
one influence which was working within him. Nothing could help or harm
him any more. The soul that looked out of his sunken eyes was one
pertaining no longer to the ordinary world of human beings with its
hates and loves, its ambitions and griefs; it was something which had
gone far off into a dominion of one idea.

"What do you want?" asked Walters, laying his hand on the improvised
table and bringing his face into the circle of light.

The shades cast round his jaw and cheek-bones made them stand out with
even greater prominence, and the hair, hanging unkempt on either side
of his brow, framed it in with dull black. He seemed to Bumpett
gigantically tall.

"Look you," began the Pig-driver, folding his hands over his stick,
"there's no more use in dangling on here, an' ye must just pearten up,
Walters. It's time ye was out o' this. I've got a cousin down Cardiff
way, and if I could get ye off to him, he'd give ye a hand wi' some o'
they ship captains. Ye'd be out o' harm's reach then, an' a good job
too."

For answer Rhys looked at him with a smile, not as though he were
smiling at him, but at something which he saw in his mind.

"No," he said, shaking his head; "no, no."

"Nonsense," rejoined Bumpett smartly. "I'm not trifling now, and out
o' this ye'll have to go, my lad."

"Not I," said Rhys, his eyes hardening.

"I tell 'e, go ye shall!" cried the old man. "'Tis my place, not
yours, an' not another bite nor sup can ye get when I stop sendin' the
food that keeps ye. I can turn ye out, an' I will too."

"You daren't do that," said the other, looking sideways at him;
"there's no manner of use trying to frighten me. Put me out of this
house, and it's you that'll have to be on your way to Cardiff, not me.
And you'll be too late."

"I'm speakin' for yer good," began the Pig-driver again, seeing that
threats could produce no effect. "Mind me, ye don't hear nothing hid
away in this black hole, but it's different wi' me. I get all the talk
o' the country-side, an' I know the police has got their noses turned
this way ever since ye let the fellar wi' the dark lantern get sight
o' ye on the mountain. It was all written i' the newspapers, so I did
hear. Old Job Hondy in Crishowell was tellin' me, for he got a loan of
the paper from Parson Lewis."

A ray of interest lit up Rhys' face.

"And I'll tell Hondy to ask for a sight of it again," continued
Bumpett, seeing that he had caught the other's attention, "an' bring
it up to show ye; leastways, if it's not lost wi' all the moyther he's
had i' the house wi' that young miss o' his."

"What do you say?" exclaimed Walters, coming closer to Bumpett.

"I said I'd get the newspaper an' show ye what ye've done wi' yer
tomfooleries."

"What did you say about Mr. Lewis?" cried Rhys, taking hold of the
Pig-driver.

"I said he was likely moythered wi' that young niece of his and her
doin's."

"But she is in Hereford," broke out the young man.

"In Hereford? Not she. She's off to London wi' young Squire Fenton.
Run out one mornin' when the old boy was between the blankets an' up
to Hereford an' got married to him. He's been left a fine fortune. She
didn't forget that, I'll be bound, no, no indeed."

Bumpett had hardly time to end his sentence before Rhys sprang at him
like a wild cat and gripped him by the collar.

"Liar!" he shouted, "liar! liar!"

At every word he shook the old man as though he would jerk the life
out of him.

The Pig-driver, though naturally cautious, was not altogether a
coward, and rage and bewilderment are sharp spurs. He struck out as
fiercely as he could; words were impossible, for he had not the breath
with which to utter them. When Walters threw him back into the chair
from which he had dragged him, he was livid and lay against the back
of it with hardly strength left in him to speak.

"That's not true!" shouted Rhys, standing over him. "It's a lie! Speak
up, or I'll twist your neck like a jackdaw's!"

His face was twitching all over and his hands clasped and unclasped
themselves.

The Pig-driver opened his mouth.

"The truth!" cried Rhys, "do you hear? The truth, or out of this you
don't go a living man!"

"I've told ye the truth," snarled Bumpett. "'Twas no more nor last
week, an' every one knows it now."

"It can't be, it can't be."

"But I tell ye it is," cried Bumpett, turning the knife in the wound.
"She's a tiert lass, she is, not one o' the sort that gives a bean for
a pea."

There was the silence of a moment, and there broke from Rhys a cry so
bitter, so despairing, that it seemed as though the heart from whose
depths it came had broken. Then he sank down by the table, and, laying
his head on his arms, sobbed like a little child, with his face hidden
on the sleeve of his shabby coat.

It was not until the Pig-driver had been long gone that he raised
himself. The light had sputtered out beside him, and he got up and
groped his way to the ladder. He climbed to the room above, crossed
the threshold into the night, and set his face to the hills.

-----

[1] A broken jug.



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE NEW YEAR

AT Great Masterhouse the mist clung round the doors and crept like a
breathing thing against the windows, as though it would envelope and
cut it off from the rest of the living world. Inside the house there
was that sense of subdued movement which is caused by the presence of
many people all bent upon the same purpose, and the kitchen was
half-filled with men and women ranged on benches and chairs round the
walls and near the table. The light illumined their faces and threw
their shadows in varying degrees of grotesqueness against the
whitewash which formed the background.

Beside the hearth, a little apart from the rest, sat Mrs. Walters in
the straight chair which she usually occupied, the upright pose of her
figure bearing a silent rebuke to some of those who had fallen into
glaringly human attitudes. Opposite to her was Nannie Davis. Between
them the great fire burned and glowed in the chimney under the high
mantel with its rows of brass candlesticks, which stood "with their
best side towards London," as the old woman said.

The man in black who had preached in the little chapel when George had
been discovered asleep there by Anne was standing by the kitchen
table. His hand rested on an open Bible and he was reading from it in
a loud monotonous voice. In stature he was small and mean, but he
threw out his syllables with the assurance of one accustomed to sway
his audience.

To-night he was lodged at Great Masterhouse, for the farm was his
head-quarters whenever his tour of preaching brought him to the Black
Mountain district. He had seldom visited the house without holding a
service in it at least once during his stay, and now, on the last
night of the old year, he had settled with Anne that a meeting should
take place near midnight, so that he and his hearers should have the
chance of beginning the new one in prayer and supplication. It was a
thing which had never been done before, and he hoped that some who
might otherwise have failed to be present would be drawn to it by
curiosity and the novelty of the experience.

But, in spite of this, the room contained hardly more than thirty
people, as the thickness of the fog had made it very difficult for
those at a distance to push their way through the heavy darkness. As a
result it followed that the whole congregation was made up of really
earnest persons, and the preacher found himself so much in accord with
it that he was stirred to the depths by the moral support he felt in
the very air around. He threw his keen glance over the figures before
him, over the rough coats, heavy boots, and the hands clasped together
or resting open in the lassitude of physical weariness. To him they
were the little remnant saved from the burning, out of the many who
dwelt in bondage round them. He was a narrow man, zealous, untiring,
faithful in the least as in the greatest, sparing neither himself nor
others. He had walked many miles that day and he was to set out before
sunrise on the following morning for a far-off place, holding a
meeting half-way to his destination and preaching again in the barn
which would also be his shelter at night. It was no wonder if his
influence was great, for he possessed that which could drive his own
soul and body forward through physical as through mental struggle,
through hunger and cold, through fatigue and pain. He had the courage
of a lion and it shone out of the eyes in his small, fierce face. It
was the mighty heart in the little body, the little man and the big
odds, the thing which, through all time, will hold and keep and
fascinate humanity while there is an ounce of blood or nerve left in
it.

The hands of the large, eight-day clock which stood with its back to
the wall were on their way from eleven to midnight, holding on their
course with a measured tick that had neither haste nor delay. It was
the only sound which seemed to have courage to defy the preacher's
voice, and it appeared to impress him in some way, for he glanced
towards it now and again during his reading and the prayers he
offered. Anne sat stiff and still in her place, and Nannie, who was
weary with the day's work and the unwonted vigil, began to nod. He
prayed on and on.

It was a quarter to twelve when he rose from his knees to begin his
sermon, and those whose flesh was weaker than their spirit and whose
heads had begun to droop roused themselves as he stood up.

He took his theme from the parable of the rich man who pulled down his
barns and built greater, saying to his soul, "Eat, drink, thou hast
much goods laid up for many years," and whose soul was required of him
that night. As he dwelt on the folly of looking forward, the danger of
spiritual delay, and the remorseless flight of the time which should
be spent in preparing for eternity, every face was turned towards him,
and even Nannie felt her attention compelled by his words and by the
force which poured from his vehement spirit. The eagerness of his
expression was almost grotesque as he leaned forward calling upon his
hearers to forsake their sins and to repent while there was yet time,
while the day of Grace yet lasted.

"You are on the verge of another year," he began when he had read out
the parable, "and your feet are drawing nigh to the shores of
eternity. Are you ready--you, and you, and you--to face that change
that waits you? Can you meet the Messenger who may be in the middle of
your road as you return to your homes this very night? There can be no
looking back, no halting when the summons comes, as come it will, no
changing of a past that is the test by which you will stand or fall.
Every day that you live is an account sealed, a leaf turned over for
ever, a thing no one can take back. What is your account in the past?"

He stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief.
The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the
hour. The preacher looked towards it.

"And, as you sit here," he cried, "the Old Year is dragging out its
last moments and the New Year is coming up--even now we can hear its
footsteps drawing closer and closer----"

He paused, holding up his hand as though to convey to his hearers'
minds the picture that he saw in his own. And, in the pause, it began
to be actually plain to their bodily senses.

There was a dead silence and they sat holding their breath, rooted in
their places, for the sound of an approaching tread was surely coming
up the passage.

The tension in the room was almost a tangible thing; men sat with
eyeballs fixed, and women grasped each other. On it came, nearer,
nearer, till it stopped at the door. The latch turned, and on the
threshold stood Rhys Walters.

He did not come further, he only remained standing where he was,
looking at the familiar place and the people gathered in it. His
clothes were stained and torn, his hair was wet with mist, and the
angles of his thin shoulders were sharp beneath his coat. He looked at
Anne, rigid and spellbound upon the hearth, and a strange fear stirred
within her. Each in the room stared at him, dumb, and all were
conscious of something that had set its seal upon him and divided him
from themselves.

Nannie's cry, as she ran to him, broke the bond of silence which held
them, and they rose, pressing towards the figure at the door. Before
she could reach him through the crowded medley of chairs and human
beings he had gone and his steps were echoing again down the flags of
the passage.

Anne was behind her as she stood at the outer door straining her eyes
into the night and the thickness. The preacher, who had caught up a
lantern from a nail in the passage on which it hung, was holding it
up, and a bar of light stretched out and died in the fog; the men and
women came round, whispering and peering.

Mrs. Walters went out into the courtyard calling Rhys' name, and
Nannie, down whose cheeks tears were running, began to implore the
bystanders to go out and find the man who had been, but a minute
before, in their midst. There was no sign nor sound, and through the
still air came only the monotone of a distant stream in the mountain,
heavy with recent rain.

Anne turned mutely to the preacher; her lips were closed and she put
out her hand towards him; she looked strange and shaken.

"I will go," he said. "Men, will you come with me?"

About a dozen responded. The people belonging to Great Masterhouse
began to hunt in every outhouse and stable for more lanterns, and,
when they had found what they wanted, they filed out of the yard with
the little man in front of them.

Anne and Nannie stood together watching the lights disperse on the
plateau. One was weeping; the other stood with her stony face to the
night.

     *   *   *   *   *   *

The dawn was near when Rhys toiled up a steep spur that jutted out
from the mass of the mountain. Though morning was at hand the fog
reigned below and only the levels above him were emerging from the
pall which had covered them for days. The summit of the Twmpa would
soon be lifting itself in the chill of daybreak.

All night he had wandered, wandered. Once or twice he had seen the
flicker of lights in the hands of the searchers and, with an
unexplained instinct, had avoided them. He could not tell where he was
going, but he groped along. Twice he had sunk down exhausted and lain
in the bitter cold upon the hillside; once sleep had overtaken him and
he had spent a couple of hours on the earth, to awake numb and chilled
to the bone. But the force of his consuming spirit had driven him on,
and he now stood on a height and saw faintly the heavy waves of mist
that lay below him over the hidden world like the Valley of the
Shadow.

His feet were on the utmost edge of a great chasm, but the driving
vapour which curled round them up to his knees hid from him the depths
that were down, sheer down, within a dozen inches of where he was
standing. Had any one been beneath him on the hills, and able to see
up through the density and the dark hour, they would have beheld the
solitary figure, erect, still, looking out over the space. There was
nothing before him but thick, stifling atmosphere. But he was
unconscious of that.

For some time he stood, neither moving nor turning, facing eastwards.
As daybreak began to grow, he lifted his head, and, throwing out his
arms towards the coming light, he took one step forward.

And so, in the dawning, passed the soul of Rhys Walters, beyond the
judgment or the mercy of man, into the unfaltering hand of the Eternal
Justice. In this sorry world it is one who can get justice for the
hundreds who get mercy--the mercy which, we are told, "blesseth him
that gives and him that takes."

But Justice carries no perquisites.

THE END



RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY.



Transcriber's Note

This transcription is based on two sets of images posted by the
Internet Archive of the 1902 edition published by Heinemann. The
first, digitized from a copy made available by the University of
California, is available at:

     archive.org/details/sheepstealers00jacoiala

The second, digitized by Google from a copy made available by Stanford
University, is available at:

     archive.org/details/sheepstealers01jacogoog

In addition, when there were further questions about the text, the
1902 American edition published by G. P. Putnam's Sons was consulted.
Images of this edition are available through the HathiTrust Digital
Library at:

     catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008665608

The following changes were made to the printed text:

-- p. 68: When it was held upside-down--Deleted the hyphen in
"upside-down" for consistency.

-- p. 69: "Was it drink?' he asked after a pause.--Changed single
closing quotation mark after "drink?" to a double closing quotation
mark.

-- p. 78: "Will ye listen to me?" said Bumpettt sharply.--Changed
"Bumpettt" to "Bumpett".

-- p. 130: for he had always forseen the day--Changed "forseen" to
"foreseen" for consistency.

-- p. 146: even high mindedness costs its owner something.--Inserted a
hyphen between "high" and "mindedness" in keeping with the American
edition.

-- p. 156: how the sudden revelation of his masculinity had effected
her--Changed "effected" to "affected" in keeping with the American
edition.

-- p. 221: for the extreme geniuneness of his nature--Changed
"geniuneness" to "genuineness".

-- p. 234: A pang of apprehension went through him--Added a period at
the end of the sentence.

-- p. 236: He swore under his breath."--Deleted the closing quotation
mark at the end of the sentence.

-- p. 261: observed Howlie to Llewllyn--Changed "Llewllyn" to
"Llewellyn".

-- p. 288: there wern't no more ado--Changed "wern't" to "weren't".

-- p. 289: when she had managed to control herself a liitle--Changed
"liitle" to "little".

-- p. 313: I shouldn't wonder if he were siting there--Changed
"siting" to "sitting".

-- p. 314: "What an extraordinary hour for any one to come," exclamed
Lady Harriet.--Changed "exclamed" to "exclaimed".






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