.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 54375
   :PG.Title: Red Spider, Volume 2 (of 2)
   :PG.Released: 2017-03-16
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Sabine Baring-Gould
   :DC.Title: Red Spider, Volume 2 (of 2)
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1887
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

===========================
RED SPIDER, VOLUME 2 (OF 2)
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      RED SPIDER

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      BY
      SABINE BARING-GOULD

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      THE AUTHOR OF 'JOHN HERRING' 'MEHALAH' &c.

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      IN TWO VOLUMES
      VOL. \II.

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      London
      CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
      1887

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      [*The right of translation is reserved*]

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   CONTENTS

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   OF

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   THE SECOND VOLUME.

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   CHAPTER

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XIX.  `A DEAD DOG`_
XX.  `A FIVE-POUND NOTE`_
XXI.  `REFUSED`_
XXII.  `THE HAYSEL`_
XXIII.  `A BRAWL`_
XXIV.  `THE HAND OF GLORY`_
XXV.  `THE HARE HUNT`_
XXVI.  `BITTER MEDICINE`_
XXVII.  `AFTER SWEETNESS`_
XXVIII.  `A FIRST STEP`_
XXIX.  `A BLOW`_
XXX.  `YES!`_
XXXI.  `THE NEW MISTRESS`_
XXXII.  `THE CHINA DOG`_
XXXIII.  `AMONG THE GORSE`_
XXXIV.  `THE VISITATION`_
XXXV.  `A WARNING`_
XXXVI.  `A SETTLEMENT`_
XXXVII.  `A BOWL OF BROTH`_
XXXVIII.  `THE LOOK-OUT STONE`_





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.. _`A DEAD DOG`:

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   RED SPIDER.

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   CHAPTER XIX.

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   A DEAD DOG.

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The second night of watch proved unavailing,
for the best of good reasons, that the watch
was not kept.  Oliver Luxmore sat up, but,
finding the night chilly outside the house,
attempted to keep watch with a pipe of
tobacco and a jug and glass of cider posset
within.  The consequence was that he went
to sleep over the fire.  During that same night
another of the lambs was worried.  Mischief
had also been done at Swaddledown, as the
family heard during the day.  There a ewe
had been killed, overrun, thrown into a grip
(dyke by hedge) whence it could not rise, and
where it had been torn, and had died.

'We must not ask your father to watch
again,' said Hillary, with the corners of his
mouth twitching.  'We believe what he says
now when he tells us he is very shortsighted.
I will come to-night and the night after, if
need be, till I earn my guinea.  The rascal
has been here twice and has escaped.  He
shall not succeed the third time.  I will take
a nap by day and be lively as an owl at
night.'

The maids at Chimsworthy joked the lad
about his visits to the cottage; he did not go
there after the dog, but after Kate.  A guinea!
What was a guinea to the heir of Chimsworthy?
A young man cares more for girls' hearts than
for money.  He did not contradict them, he
turned aside their banter with banter.  But
the lively conversation of Kate had lost its
charm for him.  He exchanged jests with her,
but took less pleasure than heretofore in doing
so.  That night and the next he spent at his
post watching for the lamb-killer.  Honor
gave him her company.  He was surprised at
himself for becoming serious, still more that
the conversation and society of the grave
Honor should afford him so much pleasure.
In her company everything assumed a new
aspect, was seen through coloured glass.

Honor herself was changed during these
still night watches.  A softness, inbred in her,
but to which she was unable to yield during
the day, manifested itself in her manner, her
speech, her appearance, a bloom as that on the
plum.  Her inner heart unfolded like a
night-flower, and poured forth fragrance.  Thoughts
that had long dwelt and worked in her mind,
but to which she had never given words,
found expression at last.  Her real mind, her
great, pure, deep soul, had been as a fountain
sealed to her father and sister Kate; they
could not have understood her thoughts; she
knew this without acknowledging it other than
by instinctive silence.  But now she had beside
her a companion, sympathetic, intelligent; and
the night that veiled their faces and the
working of their emotions allowed them to speak
with frankness.  Banter died away on Hillary's
lips, he respected her and her thoughts too
highly to treat either lightly.  Though he
could not fully understand her he could not
withhold his reverence.  He saw the nobility
of her character, her self-devotion made
beautiful by its unconsciousness, her directness of
purpose, her thoroughness, and her clear
simplicity running through her life like a sparkling
river.  Her nature was the reverse of his own.
He treated life as a holiday, and its duties as
annoyances; she looked to the duties as
constituting life, and to pleasures as accidents.
He became dissatisfied with himself without
feeling resentment towards Honor for inspiring
the feeling.  With all his frivolity and
self-conceit there was good stuff in Hillary.  It
was evidence of this that he now appreciated
Honor.  At night, under the dark heavens
strewn with stars, or with the moon rising as a
globe of gold over Dartmoor, these two young
people sat on the bench, with potato-sacks
over their shoulders sheltering them from the
dew, or at the hearth suffused by the glow of
the peat embers, and talked with muffled voices
as if in church.

The second, the third night, during which
Hillary watched, passed uneventfully.  Each
night, or morning rather, as Hillary left, the
pressure of his hand clasping that of Honor
became warmer.  After he was gone, the girl sat
musing for some minutes, listening to his dying
steps as he passed along the lane homewards.
Then she sighed, shook her head, as though to
shake off some dream that tole over her, and
went to bed.

Hillary's determined watching was not,
however, destined to remain fruitless.  Early
on the fourth night, after he had been at his
post an hour, the bleating and scampering
of the sheep showed that their enemy was at
hand.

In another moment both saw a dark animal
dash across the field in pursuit.  Hillary fired,
and the creature fell over.

'Bring a lantern, Honor,' he shouted.  'Let
us see whose dog it is.'

She ran indoors.  Her father and Kate had
been roused by the report.

When she returned with the lantern to
the field, 'You were right, Honor,' said
Hillary, 'this is Uncle Taverner's Rover.  Poor
fellow, we were friends once, when I was
allowed at Langford.  Now he and his
master have fallen to bad ways.  I have put
the seal on my misdoings, and Uncle Taverner
will never forgive me for having shot his
dog.'

'Well, perhaps you will recover your wits
now,' said Kate.

'Wits! why?'

'Wits—you have been dull enough lately.
Perhaps as the dog went sheep-killing, your
wits went wool-gathering.  They have been
dead, or not at home.'

'Go home, Larry,' said Honor; 'and take
our best thanks to warm you.'

Hillary, however, seemed ill-disposed to go.
He hung about the kitchen pretending that his
fingers wanted warming, or considering what
was to be done with the carcass of the dog.
What he really desired was a further chat with
Honor.  But Kate would not allow him to be
alone with her sister, though unsuspicious of
the state of his feelings, and indifferent to them
herself.  She was like a mosquito that buzzes
about a sleep-drunk man, threatening him,
rousing him, settling, and stabbing, and escaping
before his hand can chastise.  The more she
plied him with her jokes, the more dispirited
he became, and incapable of repartee.

'Well,' said he at length, 'I suppose it is
time for all to go to bed.  You have all seen
enough of the dead dog.'

'And we of the live lion,' said Kate.

He went hesitatingly to the door, then
came back, tied the dog's hind feet together,
and slung the body over his back on his gun.
Then he went back to the door.

Kate said something to Honor, gave Larry
a nod, and went away to bed.

Honor accompanied him to the door, to
fasten it after him.

'I wish Rover had not come for a couple
of hours,' he said, as he held out his hand.

'You have won your guinea, and must be
content,' she answered with a smile.

'Do you suppose I care for the guinea,
except that I may share it with you?' he asked.
'I'll tell you what we will do with it, break it
in half, and each keep a half.'

'Then it will be of no good to either,'
answered Honor.  'You told me yourself that
the money was a consideration to you, as you
were empty-pocketed.'

'I forgot all about the guinea after the first
night in the pleasure of being with you.  I
would give the guinea to be allowed to come
here again to-morrow night.  Confound old
Rover for being in such a hurry for his dose of
lead.'

'What is that about lead?' called Kate
from the steps of the stairs.  'I think, Larry,
the lead has got into your brains, and into your
feet.'

Honor shook her head, and tried to withdraw
her hand from that of the young man;
but he would not release it.  'No, Larry, no,
that cannot be.'

'May I not come again?'

'No, Larry, on no account,' she said gravely.

'But, Honor, if I come down the lane, and
you hear the owls call very loud under the
bank, you will open the door and slip out.
You will bring the potato-sacks, and let us
have a talk again on the bench with them
over our shoulders?'

'No, I will not—indeed I will not.  I pray
you, if you have any thought for me, do not
try this.  Good-night, Larry—you are a
brother to me.'

She wrenched her hand from his, and shut
the door.  He heard her bolt it.  Then he
went down the steps and walked away, ill
pleased.  But after he had gone some distance,
he turned, and saw the cottage door open, and
Honor standing in it, her dark figure against
the fire glow.  Had she relented and changed
her mind?  He came back.  Then the door
was shut and barred again.  He was offended,
and, to disguise his confusion, whistled a merry
air, and whistled it so loud as that Honor might
hear it and understand that her refusal gave
him no concern.

Hillary had not reached the end of the
lane before he stumbled against Charles.

'Hallo!' exclaimed the latter.  'What are
you doing here at this time o' night?  Got
your gun, eh?  And game too, eh?  Poaching
on Langford.  A common poacher.  I'll
report you.  Not hare-hunting yet?  Take care
how you do that.  I'll break your neck if you
come near Langford after that game.'

'What you have been doing is clear
enough,' said Hillary, stepping aside.  'You
have been at the "Ring of Bells," drinking.'

'What if I have?  No harm in that, if I
have money to pay my score.  Nothing against
that, have you?'

'Nothing at all; but I doubt your having
the money.  A week ago you were reduced to
a brass token.'

'You think yourself cock of the walk, do
you?' said Charles, insolently, 'because you
are heir to Chimsworthy?  What is Chimsworthy
to Coombe Park?  Come!  I bet now
you've naught but coppers in your pocket.
Hands in and see which can make the most
show.'

As he spoke, he thrust forth his palm, and
Hillary heard the chink of money, and the
sound of coins falling on the stones.

'If you had money at the fair-time,' said
Hillary, coldly, 'all I can say is that you
behaved infamously.'

'I had no money then.'

'How you have got it since, I do not know,'
said Hillary.

'That is no concern of yours, Master
Larry,' answered Charles, roughly.  'You will
live to see me Squire at Coombe Park; and
when I'm there, curse me if I don't offer you
the place of game-keeper to keep off rogues.
An old poacher is the best keeper.'

'You cur!' exclaimed Hillary, blazing up.
'This is my game.'  He swung the dead dog
about, and struck Charles on the cheek with
the carcass so violently as to knock him into
the hedge.  'This is my game.  Your master's
dog, which has been worrying and killing your
father's lambs whilst you have been boozing
in a tavern.'

'By George!' swore Charles, with difficulty
picking himself up.  'I'll break your cursed
neck, I will.'

But Larry had gone on his way by the
time Charles had regained equilibrium.

'This is the second time he's struck me
down,' said Charles, and next moment a great
stone passed Larry, then another struck the
dead dog on his back with sufficient force to
have stunned him had it struck his head.

He turned and shouted angrily, 'You
tipsy blackguard, heave another, and I'll shoot.
The gun is loaded.'

'And, by George!  I'll break your neck!'
yelled Charles after him.





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.. _`A FIVE-POUND NOTE`:

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   CHAPTER XX.


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   A FIVE-POUND NOTE.

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No sooner had Hillary got the guinea for shooting
the sheep-killer than he went to the cottage
and offered half to Honor Luxmore.  She
refused it, and would by no persuasion be
induced to accept it.

'No, Larry, no—a thousand times no.
You redeemed my cloak, and will not let me
pay you for that.  I will not touch a farthing
of this well-earned prize.'

Then Larry went to Tavistock and expended
part of the money in the purchase of a handsome
silk kerchief, white with sprigs of lilac,
and slips of moss-rose on it.  He returned in
the carrier's van instead of waiting for his
father, who remained to drink with other
farmers.  This entailed the walking up of the
hills.  When he got out for this object, he left
his parcel on the seat.  On his return he found
the women within sniggering.

'Don't y' be offended at us now,' said one.
'But it is just so.  Your parcel came open of
herself wi' the jolting of the Vivid, and us
couldn't help seeing what was inside.  Us can't
be expected to sit wi' our eyes shut.  'Taint
in reason nor in nature.  I must say this—'tis
a pretty kerchief, and Kate Luxmore will look
like a real leddy in it o' Sunday, to be sure.'

Then the rest of the women laughed.

Hillary coloured, and was annoyed.  The
parcel had not come open of itself.  The
women's inquisitive fingers had opened it, and
their curious eyes had examined the contents.
They had rushed to the conclusion that the
kerchief was intended for Kate—Larry was
much about with the maiden, they were always
teasing each other, laughing together, and
Hillary had been several evenings to the
carrier's cottage guarding the lambs and sheep.

The young man did not disabuse them of
their error.  He was vexed that they should
suppose him caught by the rattle Kate, instead
of by the reliable Honor; it showed him that
they supposed him less sensible than he was.
But he thought with satisfaction of the surprise
of the gossips on Sunday, when they saw the
kerchief about the neck of the elder sister,
instead of that of Kate.

In this expectation, however, he was
disappointed.  Next day, he went to the cottage at
an hour when he was sure to find Honor there
alone, and, with radiant face and sparkling eyes,
unfolded the paper, and offered his present to
the girl.

Honor was more startled than pleased—at
least, it seemed so—and at first absolutely
declined the kerchief.  'No, Larry, I thank
you for your kind thought, but I must not
accept it.  I am sorry that you have spent your
money—the kerchief is very pretty; but I
cannot wear it.'

'How wrong-headed and haughty you are,
Honor!  Why will you not take it?'  The
blood made his face dark, he was offended and
angry.  He had never made a girl a present
before, and this, his first, was rejected.  'It
gave me a vast deal of pleasure buying it.  I
turned over a score, and couldn't well choose
which would look best on your shoulders.  You
have given me good advice; and here is my
return, as an assurance that I will observe it.'

'I am not wrong-headed and haughty,
Larry,' answered Honor, gently.  'But
see! in spite of what I said, in spite of my
better judgment, rather than wound you,
I will take the handkerchief.  Indeed,
indeed, dear Larry, I am not unthankful and
ungracious, though I may seem so.  And now
I will only take it as a pledge that you have
laid my words to heart.  Let it mean that, and
that only.  But, Larry, the women in the van
saw it.  I cannot wear it just now, certainly
not on Sunday next.  You know yourself what
conclusions they would draw, and we must not
deceive them into taking us to be what we are
not, and never can be, to each other.'

'Why not, Honor?'

Instead of answering, she said with a smile,
'My brother, Larry, this I will undertake.
When I see that you have become a man of
deeds and not of words, then I will throw the
kerchief round my neck and wear it at church.
It shall be a token to you of my approval.
Will that content you?'

He tried his utmost to obtain a further
concession.  She was resolute.  She did not
wish to be ungracious, but she was determined
to give him no encouragement.  She had
thought out her position, and resolved on her
course.  She knew that her way was chalked for
her.  She must be mother to all her little sisters
and brothers, till they were grown up and had
dispersed.  There was no saying what her father
might do were she away.  He might marry
again, and a stepmother would ill-treat or
neglect the little ones.  If she were to marry,
it could be on one understanding only, that she
brought the family with her to the husband's
house—and to that no man would consent.  It
would be unfair to burden a young man thus.
Her father, moreover, was not a man to be left.
What Charles had become, without a firm
hand over him, that might Oliver Luxmore also
become, even if he did not marry.  His
dispositions were not bad, but his character was
infirm.  No! it was impossible for her to
contemplate marriage.  Kate might, but not
she.  The line of duty lay clear before her as
a white road in summer heat, and she had not
even the wish to desert it.  It was right for her
to nip Larry's growing liking for herself, at
once and in the bud.

After Larry had gone, she folded and put
away his present among her few valuables.
She valued it, as the first warm breath of spring
is valued.  She said nothing to Kate or the
others about it.  Her heart was lighter, and
she sang over her work.  The little offering
was a token that through the troubled sky the
sun was about to shine.

A day or two after, Charles lounged in,
and seated himself by the fire.  She was
pleased to see him.  He was at honest work
with Mr. Langford, earning an honest wage.
She said as much.  Charles laughed
contemptuously.  'Ninepence,' he said, 'ninepence
a day.  What is ninepence?'

'It is more than you had as a soldier.'

'But as a soldier I had the uniform and
the position.  Now I am a day-labourer—I, a
Luxmore, the young squire with ninepence and
lodging and meat.'

'Well, Charles, it is a beginning.'

'Beginning at ninepence.  As Mrs. Veale
says, "One can't stand upon coppers and keep
out of the dirt."  What is the meat and drink?
The cider cuts one's throat as it goes down,
and the food is insufficient and indigestible.
If I had not a friend to forage for me, I should
be badly off.'

'If you keep this place a twelvemonth, you
will get a better situation next year.'

'Keep at Langford a twelvemonth!'
exclaimed Charles.  'Not if I know it.  It won't
do.  Never mind why.  I say it won't do.'

Then he began working his heel in a hole
of the floor where the slate was broken.

'You know Mrs. Veale?' he asked, without
looking at his sister.

'Yes, Charles.  That is, I have seen her,
and have even spoken to her, but—know
her—that is more than I profess.  She is not a
person I am like to know.'

'You had better not,' said Charles.  'She
don't love you.  When I mention your name
her face turns green.  She'd ill-wish you if she
could.'

'I have never done her an injury,' said Honor.

'That may be.  Hate is like love, it
pitches at random, as Mrs. Veale says.  You
may laugh, Honor, but that same woman is
in love with me.'

'Nonsense!'  Honor did not laugh, she
was too shocked to laugh.

'What is there nonsensical in that?  I tell
you she is.  She cooks me better food than for
the rest of the men, and she favours me in
many ways.'

'She cannot be such a fool.'

'There is no folly in fancying me,' said
Charles, sharply.  'I have good looks, have
seen the world, and compare with the louts
here as wheat with rye.  Many a woman
has lost her heart to a younger man than
herself.'

'Charles, you must be plain and rough
with her if this be so—though I can scarce
believe it.'

'No one forces you to believe it.  But
don't you think I'm going to make Mrs. Veale
your sister-in-law.  I'm too wide-awake for
that.  She is ugly, and—she's a bad un.
Yes,' musingly, 'she is a bad un.'

Then he worked his heel more vigorously
in the hole.  'Take care what you are about,
Charles, you are breaking the slate, and
making what was bad, worse.'

'I wish I had Mrs. Veale's heart under that
there stone,' said Charles, viciously.  'I'd grind
my heel into it till I'd worked through it.
You don't know how uncomfortable she
makes me.'

'Well, keep her at arm's length.'

'I can't do it.  She won't let me.  She
runs after me as a cat after a milk-maid.'

'Surely, Charles, you can just put a stop to that.'

'I suppose I must.'

He continued, in spite of remonstrance,
grinding through the broken slate into the
earth.  His face was hot and red.  He put his
elbow up, and wiped his brow on his sleeve.

'It is cursed warm here,' he said at last.

'Then keep away from the fire.  I'm glad
you have come to see me, Charles; I always
wish you well.'

'Oh, for the matter of that I only came
here to be out of the way of Mrs. Veale.'

Then Honor laughed.  'Really, Charles,
this is childish.'

'It is not kind of you to laugh,' said he,
sulkily; 'you do not know what it is to have
your head turned, and to feel yourself pulled
about and drawn along against your will.  It
is like "oranges and lemons," as we played at
school, when you are on the weakest side.'

'Whither can Mrs. Veale draw you?  Not
to the altar rails, surely.'

'Oh no! not to the altar-rails.  Mrs. Veale
is a bad un.'

His manner puzzled Honor.  She was
convinced he was not telling her everything.

'What is it, Charles?' she said; 'you may
give me your confidence.  Tell me all that
troubles you.  What is behind?  I know you
are keeping back something from me.  If I
can advise and help you, I will do so.  I am
your nearest sister.'  Then she put her arms
round his neck and kissed him.

'Don't do that' said he, roughly.  'I hate
scenes, sisterly affection and motherly counsel,
and all that sort of batter-pudding without egg
and sugar.  I reckon I am outgrown that long
ago.  I have been a soldier and know the world.
If you think to pin me to your apron, as you
have pinned father, you are mightily mistaken.
No; I will tell you no more, only this—don't
be surprised if I leave Langford.  Ninepence
a day is not enough to hold me.'

'Oh, Charles, I entreat you to stay.  You
have regular work there and regular pay.  As
for Mrs. Veale——'

'Curse Mrs. Veale!' interrupted Charles,
and with a stamp of his iron-shod heel he
broke the corners of the slate slab.  Then he
stood up.

'Look here, Honor.  I mustn't forget a
message.  Old Langford wants to see my father
mighty particular, and he is to come up to
the house to have a talk with him.  He told
me so himself, and indeed sent me here.
Father is to come up this evening, as he is not
at home now.  You will remember to send
him, Honor?'

'Yes,' she answered, bending her face over
her work, 'yes, I shall not forget, Charles.'

Her brother had not the faintest suspicion
that his master was a suitor for Honor's hand.
Mrs. Veale knew it, but she did not tell him.
She had reasons for not doing so.

'Ninepence per diem!' muttered the young
man, standing in the doorway.  'That makes
fourpence for ale, and fourpence for baccy, and
a penny for clothing.  T'aint reasonable.  I
won't stand it.  I reckon I'll be off.'

Then, after a moment of irresolution, he
came back into the middle of the room, and,
taking Honor's head between his hands, said in
an altered tone, as he kissed her, 'After all, you
are a good girl.  Don't be angry if I spoke
sharp.  I'm that ruffled I don't know what I
say, or what I do.  You mayn't be a proper
Luxmore in spirit—that is, not like father and
me—but you are hard-working, and so I forgive
you in a Christian spirit.  As Mrs. Veale
says, even the Chosen People must have
Gibeonites to hew wood and draw water for
them.  After I am gone, look under the china
dog on the mantel-shelf.'

Then he went hastily away.

Honor shuddered.  His breath smelt of brandy.

Half an hour later, Oliver Luxmore came
in.  Then Honor told him that Charles had
been to the house with a message for him from
Mr. Langford.  Oliver rubbed his head and
looked forlorn.  He knew as well as his
daughter what this meant.

'I suppose,' said he, in a timid, questioning
tone.  'I suppose, Honor, you have not thought
better of what we was discussing together?
No doubt Mr. Langford is impatient for his
answer.'

'No doubt,' answered the girl.

'You haven't reconsidered your difficulty in
the matter?  It seems to me—but then I am
nobody, though your father—it seems to me
that if there be no prior attachment, as folks
call it—and you assure me there is none—there
can't be great hardship in taking him.  Riches
and lands are not bad things; and, Honor, it
is worth considering that in this world we never
can have everything we desire.  Providence
always mixes the portions we are given to sup.'

'Yes, father, that is true.  I am content
with that put to my lips.  It is sweet, for I
have your love, and the love of all my brothers
and sisters.  Charles has been here, and he
kissed me as he never kissed me before.  That
makes nine lumps of sugar in my cup.  If
there be a little bitterness, what then?'

'Well, Honor, you must decide.  We cannot
drive you, and you count our wishes as
nought.'

He was seated, rubbing his hands, then his
hair, and turning his head from side to side in
a feeble, forlorn, irresolute manner.  Honor
was sorry for his disappointment, but not
inclined to yield.

'Father dear, consider.  If I did take
Mr. Langford, he would not receive you and
all the darlings into Lansford house as well—and
I will not be parted from you.  Who takes
me takes all the hive.  I am the queen-bee.'

'I will ask,' said the carrier, breathing
freer.  'I can but ask.  He can but refuse;
besides, it will look better, putting the refusal
on his hands.  It may be that he will not
object.  There be a lot o' rooms, for sure, at
Langford he makes no use of; and I dare say
he might accommodate us.  There be one, I
know, full o' apples, and another of onions, and
I dare say he keeps wool in a third.'

Honor, who was standing by the fire,
started, and said hastily, with shaking voice,
'You misunderstand me, father.  On no
account will I take him.  No—on no conditions
whatever.'  Her hand was on the mantelshelf,
and as it shook with her emotion she touched
and knocked over a china dog spotted red, a
rude chimney ornament.  A piece of folded
paper fell at her feet.  She stooped and picked
it up.  It was a five-pound note.

She looked at it at first without perceiving
what it was, as her mind was occupied.  But
presently she saw what it was that she held,
and then she looked at it with perplexity, and
after a moment with uneasiness, and changed
colour.

'Father!' she said, 'here is a five-pound
note of the Exeter and Plymouth Bank, left by
Charles.  What does it mean?  How can he
have got it?  Before he parted from me, he
said something about looking under the china
dog, but I gave no heed to his words; his
breath smelt of spirits, and I thought he spoke
away from his meaning.  His manner was odd.
Father! wherever can Charles have got the
money?  Oh, father!  I hope all is right.'

She put her hand to her heart; a qualm of
fear came over her.

'Right!  Of course it is right,' said the
carrier.  'Five pounds!  Why that will come
in handy.  It will go towards the cost of
the horse if you persist.  As for these lambs,
he ought to pay me for them, but I don't
like to press it, as I hear he won't allow
it was his dog killed them, and he swears
Hillary shot Rover out of spite, and lays the
lamb-killing on the dog unjustly.  Well,
Honor, I suppose you must have your own
way; but it is hard on Charles and me, who
work as slaves—we who by rights should be
squires.'





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.. _`REFUSED`:

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   CHAPTER XXI.


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   REFUSED!

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The carrier walked slowly and reluctantly to
Langford.  He was uncomfortable with the
answer he had to take to Taverner Langford.
Oliver was a kindly man, ready to oblige
any one, shrinking from nothing so sensitively
as from a rough word and an angry mood.
'It would have saved a lot of trouble,' said he
to himself, 'if Honor had given way.  I
shouldn't have been so out of countenance
now—and it does seem an ungrateful thing after
the loan of the horse.'

He found Langford in his parlour at his
desk.  The old man spun round on his seat.

'Ah, ha!' said he, 'come at my call,
father-in-law.  Well—when is the wedding to be?'

The carrier stood stupidly looking at him,
rubbing his hands together and shifting from
foot to foot.  'The wedding!'

'Yes, man, the wedding; when is it to be?'

'The wedding!' repeated Oliver, looking
through the window for help.  'I'm sure I
don't know.'

'You must find that out.  I'm impatient to
be married.  Ha, ha! what faces the Nanspians
will pull, father and son, when they see me
lead from church a blooming, blushing bride.'

'Well, now,' said the carrier, wiping the
perspiration from his brow, 'I'm sorry to have
to say it, but Honor don't see it in the proper
light.'

'What—refuses me?'

'Not exactly refuses, but begs off.'

'Begs off!' repeated Taverner, incredulously.
He could hardly have been more disconcerted
if he had heard that all his cattle
were dying and his stacks blazing.  'Begs off!'
he again exclaimed; 'then how about my
horse?'

The carrier scratched his head and sighed.

'Do you suppose that I gave you the
horse?' said Taverner.  'You can hardly
have been such a fool as that.  I am not one
to give a cow here, and a sheep there, and a
horse to a third, just because there are so many
needy persons wanting them.  You must return
me the horse and pay me ten shillings a week
for the hire during the time you have had him,
unless Honor becomes my wife.'

'I will pay you for the horse,' said
Luxmore, faintly.

'Whence will you get the money?  Do
you think I am a fool?' asked Langford,
angrily.  His pride was hurt.  His eyes flashed
and his skin became of a livid complexion.
He, the wealthiest man in Bratton Clovelly;
he, the representative of the most respectable
family there—one as old as the parish itself;
he, the parson's churchwarden, and the elder
of the Methodist chapel—he had been refused
by a poverty-stricken carrier's daughter.  The
insult was unendurable.  He stood up to leave
the room, but when he had his hand on the
latch he turned and came back.  In the first
access of wrath he had resolved to crush the
carrier.  He could do it.  He had but to take
back his horse, and the Vivid was reduced to a
stationary condition.  Luxmore might offer to
buy the horse, but he could not do it.  He
knew how poor he was.  Moreover, he could
cut his business away from him at any moment
by setting up the cripple as carrier.

But he thought better of it.  Of what avail
to him if Luxmore were ruined?  He desired
to revenge himself on the Nanspians.  The
carrier was too small game to be hunted down,
he was set on the humiliation of much bigger
men than he.  His envy and hatred of the
Nanspians had by no means abated, and the
killing of his dog Rover by young Hillary had
excited it to frenzy.  That his dog was a
sheep-killer would not excuse Larry's act.  He did
not allow that Rover was the culprit.  His
nephew had shot the dog out of malice, and
had feigned as an excuse that he had caught
the dog pursuing lambs.

The wealthy yeoman might certainly, without
difficulty, have found another girl less hard
to please than Honor.  All girls would not
have thought with her.  His money would have
weighed with them.  He could not understand
his refusal.  'What is the matter with the girl?'
he said surlily.  'I thought her too wise to be
in love.  She has not set her heart on any
boyish jackanapes, has she?'

'Honor?  Oh no!  Honor has no sweetheart,'
said the father.  'It certainly is not
that, Mr. Langford.'

'Then what is it?  What possible objection
can she make?  I'm not a beardless boy and
a rosy-faced beauty, that is true.'

'No, Mr. Langford, I am sure she has not
a word against your age and personal
appearance.  Indeed, a young girl generally prefers
as a husband one to whom she can look up, who
is her superior in every way.'

'I am that.  What is it, then?'

'Well, Mr. Langford,' said the carrier,
drawing the back of his hand across his lips,
'I think it is about this.  She don't like to
desert me and the children.  She promised her
mother to stand by us, and Honor is so
conscientious that what she has promised she will
stick to.'

'Oh,' said Taverner, somewhat mollified to
find that neither his age nor lack of beauty
was objected to, 'that is it, is it?'

'Yes, sir,' answered the carrier, sheepishly;
'you see there are six little uns; then comes
Kate, and then Charles, and then I.  That
makes nine of us Honor has to care for.  And,'
he said more eagerly, heaving a sigh of relief,
'you see, she didn't think it quite a fair thing to
saddle you with us all, with Pattie and Joe,
Willie, Martha, Charity, Temperance, Kate,
Charles, and myself.  It does make a lot when
you come to consider.'

It did certainly, as Taverner admitted.  He
had no intention whatever of incumbering
himself with Honor's relations, if he did marry
her.  He took a turn up and down the room,
with his heavy dark brows knit and his thin
lips screwed together.  Oliver watched his face,
and thought that it was a very ugly and
ill-tempered face.

'It does Honor some credit having such
delicacy of feeling,' suggested he.  'I very
much doubt how you could accommodate us all
in this house.'

'I do not see how I could possibly do it,'
said Taverner, sharply.

'And Honor couldn't think to tear herself
away from us.  I suppose you wouldn't
consider the possibility of coming to us?'

'No, I would not.'

Taverner Langford was perplexed.  He
entirely accepted Oliver's explanation.  It was
quite reasonable that Honor should refuse him
out of a high sense of duty; it was not conceivable
that she should decline alliance with him
on any other grounds.  Now, although Taverner
had not hitherto found time or courage to marry,
he was by no means insensible to female beauty.
He had long observed the stately, upright
daughter of the carrier, with her beautiful
abundant auburn hair and clear brown eyes.
He had observed her more than she supposed,
and he had seen how hard-working, self-devoted
she was, how economical, how clean in her own
person and in her house.  Such a woman as that
would be more agreeable in the house than
Mrs. Veale.  He would have to pay her no
wage for one thing, her pleasant face and voice
would be a relief after the sour visage and
grating tones of the housekeeper.  He knew
perfectly that Mrs. Veale had had designs on
him from the moment she had entered his house.
She had flattered, slaved; she had assumed
an amount of authority in the house hardly
consistent with her position.  Langford had not
resisted her encroachments; he allowed her to
cherish hopes of securing him in the end, as a
means of ensuring her fidelity to his interests.
He chuckled to himself at the thought of the
rage and disappointment that would consume
her when he announced that he was about to
be married.

He was a suspicious man, and he mistrusted
every woman, but he mistrusted Honor less
than any woman or man he knew.  He had
observed no other with half the attention he
had devoted to her, and he had never seen in
her the smallest tokens of frivolity and
indifference to duty.  If she was so scrupulous in
the discharge of her obligations to father and
sisters, how dependable she would be in her
own house, when working and saving for
husband and children of her own.

She was no idler, she was no talker, and
Taverner hated idleness and gossip.  Of what
other girl in Bratton Clovelly could as much be
said?  No, he would trust his house and
happiness to no other than Honor Luxmore.

Taverner dearly loved money, but he loved
mastery better.  A wife with a fortune of her
own would have felt some independence, but a
wife who brought him nothing would not be
disposed to assert herself.  She would look up
to him as the exclusive author of her happiness,
and never venture to contradict him, never
have a will of her own.

'If that be her only objection, it may be
circumvented,' said Langford, 'if not got over.
I thought, perhaps, she declined my hand from
some other cause.'

'What other cause could there be?' asked
Oliver.

'To be sure there is no other that should
govern a rational creature; but few women are
rational.  I have done something for you
already, for you have my horse.  I have done
a good deal for Charles also; I pay him ninepence
a day and give him his food.  It is quite
possible that I may do a vast deal for the rest
of you.  But of course that depends.  I'm not
likely to take you up and make much of you
unless you are connected with me by marriage.
You can judge for yourself.  Should I be
likely to leave you all unprovided for if Honor
were Mrs. Langford?  Of course I would not
allow it to be said that my wife's relations were
in need.'

These words of Taverner Langford made
Oliver's pulse beat fast.

'And then,' continued the yeoman, 'who
can say but that I might give you a hand to
help you into Coombe Park.'

Luxmore's eye kindled, and his cheeks
became dappled with fiery spots.  Here was a
prospect! but it was like the prospect of the
Promised Land to Moses on Pisgah if Honor
proved unyielding.

'You are the girl's father,' said Langford.
'Hoity-toity!  I have no patience with a man
who allows his daughter to give herself airs.
He knows what is best for her, and must
decide.  Make her give way.'

Oliver would have laughed aloud at the
idea of his forcing his daughter's will into
compliance with his own, had not the case been so
serious.

'Look here, Mr. Langford,' he said.  'I'll
do what I can.  I'll tell Honor the liberal offer
you have made; and I trust she'll see it aright
and be thankful.'  He stood up.  'Before I
go,' he said, producing the five-pound note, 'I'd
just like to reduce my debt to you for the
horse, if you please.'

'How much?' asked Taverner.

'Five pounds,' answered the carrier.  'If
I kept it by me I should spend it, so I thought
best to bring it straight to you.  You'll give
me a slip o' paper as a receipt.'

Langford took out his pocket-book, folded
the note, and put it in the pocket of the book;
then made a pencil entry.  I always,' said
he, 'enter every note I receive with its number.
Comes useful at times for reference.  To be
sure, you shall have a receipt.'





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.. _`THE HAYSEL`:

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   CHAPTER XXII.


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   THE HAYSEL.

.. vspace:: 2

Hillary became impatient.  He made no way
with Honor; if any change in his position had
taken place, he had gone back.  In spite of
her entreaty, he went to the cottage down the
lane hooting like an owl, but she did not
answer the call.  Then he plucked up courage
and went in on the chance of getting a word
with her alone, but he went in vain.  Oliver
Luxmore was glad to see him, chatted with
him, and offered him a place at their
supper-board, or a drink of cider.  He defended
himself against the sallies of Kate.  He spoke
now and then to Honor, and was answered in
friendly tone; but that was all.  If by chance
he met her during the day in the lane or on
the down, and she could not escape him, she
would not stay to talk, she pleaded work.
Hillary was disappointed, and, what was more,
offended.  His vanity was hurt, and vanity in
a young man is his most sensitive fibre.  No
other girl in the parish would treat his
advances as did Honor.  The other girls laid
themselves out to catch him, Honor shrank
from him.  He knew that she liked him, he
was angry because she did not love him.

Hillary's nature, though sound, was marred
by his bringing up.  He had been spoiled by
flattery and indulgence.  His father's boasting,
the great expectations held out to him, the
consciousness of vigour, health, and good looks,
combined to make Larry consider himself the
very finest young fellow, not in Bratton only,
but in all England.  Self-conceit is like
mercury, when it touches gold it renders it dull,
and a strong fire is needed to expel the alloy
and restore the gold to its proper brilliancy.

Mortified in his self-consequence, stung by
Honor's indifference, after a few attempts and
failures Hillary changed his tactics.  He
resolved to show Honor, if she did not meet him,
he could turn elsewhere.  Unfortunately, Kate
was at hand to serve his purpose.  Kate did
not particularly care for Larry.  She had a
fancy for Samuel Voaden, the farmer's son at
Swaddledown; but of this Honor neither knew
nor suspected anything.  Kate was pleased to
see Hillary whenever he came, as she was glad
to have a butt for her jokes, and with feminine
ingenuity used him to throw dust in the eyes
of her father, sister, and companions to obscure
their perception of her attachment for Sam
Voaden.

At first Hillary was in a bad temper, disinclined
for conversation, and unable to retaliate
upon Kate; but by degrees his old cheerfulness
returned, and he received and replied to
her banter with what readiness he possessed.

One day he came into the cottage with a
hay-fork over his shoulder.  'You maidens,'
he said, 'come along to the hay-field.  We
want help badly.  Bring the little ones and let
them romp and eat cake.  Whilst the sun
shines we must make hay.'

Honor, without a word, rose and folded
her work.

'If you can toss hay as you can toss chaff,'
said the young man addressing Kate, 'you will
be useful indeed.'

'Larry, it is reported that your uncle
Langford will not save hay till it has been
rained on well.  "If it be too good," he
argues, "the cows will eat too much of it."  Your
wit is ricked like Langford's hay; it is
weak and washed out.  A little goes a long
way with those who taste it.'

A happy and merry party in the hay field,
women and girls tossing the hay into cocks, and
the men with the waggon collecting it and
carrying it home.  The air was fragrant with
the scent.  In a corner under a hedge were a
barrel of cider, and blue and white musts,
and a basketful of saffron-cake.  Whoever was
thirsty went to the cider cask, whoever was
hungry helped himself to the plum loaf.  The
field rang with laughter, and occasional
screams, as a man twisted a cord of hay, cast
the loop round a girl's neck, drew her head
towards him and kissed her face.  That is
called 'the making of sweet hay.'

Honor worked steadily.  No one ventured
to make 'sweet hay' with her, and Kate was
too much on the alert, though one or two young
men slyly crept towards her with twisted bands.
The little ones were building themselves nests
of hay, and burying one another, and jumping
over haycocks, and chasing each other with
bands, to catch and kiss, in imitation of their
elders.  Hillary turned in his work and looked
at Honor and Kate, hoping that the former
would commend his diligence, and that the
latter would give him occasion for a joke.  But
Honor was too much engrossed in her raking,
and had too little idea of necessary work being
lauded as a virtue; and the latter was looking
at Samuel Voaden, who had come over from
Swaddledown to help his neighbour—the
haysel at home being over.

When the half-laden waggon drew up near
where Honor was raking, Hillary said to her in
a low tone, 'I have been working ever since
the dew was off the grass.'

'I suppose so, Larry,'

'I have been working very hard.'

'Of course you have, Larry.'

'And I am very hot.'

'I do not doubt it.'

'How cool you are, Honor!'

'I—cool!' she looked at him with
surprise.  'On the contrary, I am very warm.'  She
had no perception that he pleaded for
praise.

'Larry,' said Kate, 'you were right to
press us into service.  It will rain to-morrow.'

'How do you know that?'

'Because you are working to-day.'

Quick as thought, he threw some hay
strands round her head, and kissed both her
rosy cheeks.

Kate drew herself away, angry at his
impudence, especially angry at his kissing her
before Samuel Voaden.  She threw down her
pitchfork ('heable' in the local dialect), and
folding her arms, said with a frown and a pout,
'Do the rest yourself.  I will work for you no
more.'

'Oh, Kate, do not take offence.  I went
naturally where was the sweetest hay.'

In her anger she looked prettier than when
in good humour.  She glanced round out of the
corners of her eyes, and saw to her satisfaction
that Samuel was on the further side of the
waggon, unconscious of what had taken place.
Hillary was humble, he made ample apology,
and offered lavish flattery.  Kate maintained, or
affected to maintain, her anger for some time, and
forced Larry to redouble his efforts to regain
her favour.  Her fair hair, fine as silk just
wound from a cocoon, was ruffled over her
brow, and her brow was pearled with heat-drops.
She was a slender girl, with a long
neck and the prettiest shoulders in the world.
She wore a light gown, frilled about the throat
and bosom and sleeves, tucked up at the side,
showing a blue petticoat and white stockings.
She picked up the 'heable' with a sigh, and then
stood leaning on it, with the sleeves fallen back,
exposing her delicate arms as far as the rosy
elbows.

It was not possible for Kate to remain long
angry with Larry, he was so good-natured,
so full of fuss, so coaxing; he paid such pretty
compliments, his eyes were so roguish, his face
so handsome—besides, Samuel was on the
other side of the waggon, seeing, hearing
nothing.

The dimples formed in her cheeks, the
contraction of lips and brows gave way, the
angry sparkle disappeared from her blue eyes,
and then her clear laugh announced that
she was pacified.  Hillary, knowing he had
conquered, audacious in his pride of conquest,
put his arm round her waist, stooped, and
kissed the bare arm nearest him that rested
on the pitchfork, then he sprang aside as she
attempted to box his ears.

Honor was hard by and had seen both
kisses, and had heard every word that had
passed.  She continued her work as though
unconscious.  For a moment, a pang of
jealousy contracted her bosom, but she hastily
mastered it.  She knew that she could not,
must not regard Hillary in any other light than
as a brother, and yet she was unable to see her
sister supplanting her in his affections
without some natural qualms.  But Honor was
unselfish, and she hid her suffering.  Kate as
little suspected the state of her sister's heart
as Honor suspected Kate's liking for Sam
Voaden.  And now, all at once, an idea shot
through Honor's mind which crimsoned her
face.  How she had misread Hillary's manner
when they were together watching for the
lamb-killer!  She had fancied then that his
heart was drawing towards her, and the
thought had filled her with unutterable
happiness.  Now she saw his demeanour in another
aspect.  He really loved Kate, and his affection
for her was only a reflection of his love for the
younger sister.  He had sought to gain her
esteem, to forward his suit with Kate.  When
this thought occurred to Honor, she hid her
face, humbled and distressed at having been
deluded by self-conceit.  She made it clear to
herself now that Hillary had thought only of
Kate.  Her sister had said nothing to her
about Hillary—but was that wonderful, as
he had not declared himself?  A transient
gleam had lightened her soul.  It was over.
Work was Honor's lot in life, perhaps sorrow,
not love.

'The last load is carried, and in good order.
Where is the dance to be?' asked Samuel
Voaden, coming into sight as the waggon
moved on.

'In the barn,' answered Hillary.

'Kate,' said Hillary, 'give me the first dance.'

'And me the second,' pleaded Samuel.

When Combe wrote and Rowlandson illustrated
the 'Tour of Doctor Syntax,' a dance
was the necessary complement of a harvest
whether of corn or hay—especially of the
latter, as then the barn was empty.  The
Reverend Doctor Syntax thought it not derogatory
to his office to play the fiddle on such occasions.
Moreover, half a century ago, the village
fiddler was invited into any cottage, when, at
the sound of his instrument, lads and maidens
would assemble, dance for a couple of hours
and disperse before darkness settled in.  The
denunciation of dancing as a deadly sin by
the Methodists has caused it to fall into
desuetude.  Morality has not been bettered
thereby.  The young people who formerly met
by daylight on the cottage floor, now meet,
after chapel, in the dark, in hedge corners.

Hillary and Samuel had engaged Kate.
Neither had thought of Honor, though she
stood by, raking the fragrant hay.

'Up, up!' shouted both young men.
'Kate, you must ride on the last load.'

The waggon moved away, with Kate
mounted on the sweet contents, and with the
young men running at the side.  Honor remained
alone, looking after them, resting on
her rake, and, in spite of her efforts, the tears
filled her eyes.

But she did not give way to her emotion.

Honor called the children, when the last
load left the field, and led them home.  She
was hot and tired, and her heart ached, but she
was content with herself.  She had conquered
the rising movement of jealousy, and was ready
to accept Hillary as her sister's acknowledged
lover.

Kate followed her.  An hour later the
dance in the barn would begin.  The lads and
maidens went home to smarten up, and wash
off the dust and stain of labour, and the barn
had to be decorated with green branches, and
the candles lit.

Kate went upstairs at once to dress.  Honor
remained below to hear the children's prayers,
and get the youngest ready for bed.  Then she
went up to the room she shared with Kate,
carrying little Temperance in her arms.

'Oh, Honor, bundle them all in.  What a
time you have been!  We shall be late; and I
have promised to open the dance with Larry.'

'I am not going, Kate.'

'Not going!  Of course you are going.'

'No, I am not.  Father is not home, and
will want his supper.  Besides, I cannot leave
the house with all the little ones in it
unprotected.'

'There are no ogres hereabouts that eat
children,' said Kate, hastily.  'We can manage.
This is nonsense; you must come.'

'I do not care to, Kate.  Sit down in that
chair, and I will dress your hair.  It is tossed
like a haycock.'

Kate seated herself, and Honor combed and
brushed her sister's hair, then put a blue
riband through it; and took the kerchief from
her box, and drew it over Kate's shoulders,
and pinned it in place.

'Oh, Honor!  What a lovely silk kerchief!
Where did you get this?  How long have you
had it?  Why have you not shown it me
before?'

'It is for you, dearest Kate; I am glad you
like it.'

Kate stood up, looked at herself in the
glass, and then threw her arms round her
sister and kissed her.

'You are a darling,' exclaimed Kate.  'Always
thinking of others, never giving yourself
anything.  Let me remain at home—do you
go instead of me.'

Honor shook her head.  She was pleased to
see Kate's delight, but there was an
undercurrent of sadness in her soul.  She was
adorning her sister for Hillary.

Kate did not press Honor to go instead of
her, though she was sufficiently good-hearted
to have taken her sister's place without
becoming ill-tempered, had Honor accepted the
offer.

'Do I look very nice?' asked Kate, with
the irresistible dimples coming into her cheeks.
'I wonder what Larry will say when he sees
me with this blue ribbon, and this pretty kerchief.'

'And I—' said Honor slowly, not without
effort, 'I also wonder.'





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.. _`A BRAWL`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A BRAWL.

.. vspace:: 2

When Kate came to the barn, she found it
decorated with green boughs.  There were no
windows, only the great barn door,
consequently the sides were dark; but here four
lanterns had been hung, diffusing a dull yellow
light.  The threshing-floor was in the middle,
planked; on either side the barn was slated,
so that the dancing was to be in the middle.
Forms were placed on the slate flooring for
those who rested or looked on.  On a table
sat the fiddler with a jug of cider near him.

The season of the year was that of Barnaby
bright, when, as the old saw says, there is all
day and no night.  The sun did not set till past
eight, and then left the north-west full of silver
light.  The hedgerows, as Kate passed between
them, streamed forth the fragrance from the
honeysuckle which was wreathed about them
in masses of flower, apricot-yellow, and pink.
Where the incense of the eglantine ceased to
fill the air it was burdened with the sweetness
of white clover that flowered thickly over the
broad green patches of grass by the road-side.

Hillary was awaiting Kate to open the
dance with her.  He had gone to the gate to
meet her; he recognised his kerchief at once;
he was surprised and hurt.  Why was Honor
not there?  Kate came with her little brother
Joe holding her hand, Joe had begged
permission to attend the dance.  Why had Honor
made over Larry's present to her sister?  It
was a slight, an intentional slight.  Larry bit
his lips and frowned; his heart beat fast with
angry emotion.  He approached Kate with an
ungracious air, and led her to the dance
without a pleasant word.

Kate was unquestionably the prettiest girl
present.  She held her fair head erect, in
consciousness of superiority.  Her hair was
abundant, full of natural wave and curl, and the
sky-blue ribbon in it seemed to hold it together,
and to be the only restraining power that
prevented it breaking loose and enveloping her from
head to foot in the most beautiful gloss silk.
Her complexion was that of the wild rose,
heightened by her rapid walk and by excitement;
her eyes were blue as the forget-me-not.

The evening sun shone in at the barn door,
as yellow, but purer and brighter than the
lantern light.  Had there been a painter
present he would have seized the occasion to
paint the pretty scene—the old barn with oaken
timbers, its great double doors open, from
under a penthouse roof leaning forward to
cover the laden wains as they were being
unpacked of their corn-sheaves; the depths of the
barn dark as night, illumined feebly by the
pendent lanterns; and the midst, the threshing
floor, crowded with dancers, who flickered in
the saffron glow of the setting sun.

Kate noticed that Hillary, whilst he danced
with her, observed the kerchief intently.

'Is it not pretty?' she asked innocently.
'Honor gave it me.  She had kept it for me
in her box ever since the Revel, and not told
me that she had it; nor did I see her buy it
then.  Honor is so good, so kind.'

Hillary said nothing in reply, but his
humour was not improved.  His mind
wandered from his partner.

'When is Honor coming?' he asked abruptly.

'She is not coming at all.'

'Why not?'

'Father is not home, and will want his
supper when he does return.'

'Honor must do all the drudging whilst
others dance,' he said peevishly.

'I offered to stay and let her come, but she
would not hear of it.'

Hillary danced badly; he lost step.  He
excused himself; but Kate was dissatisfied with
her partner, he was dull, and she was displeased
to see that Sam Voaden was dancing and laughing
and enjoying himself with some one else.

'You are a clumsy partner,' she said, 'and
dance like old Diamond when backing against
a load going down hill.'

'Honor gave you that kerchief?  What did
she say when she gave it you?'

'Nothing.'

He said no more, and led her to a bench in
the side of the barn.

'What! tired already, Larry?  I am not.'

'I am,' he answered sulkily.

Directly, Sam Voaden came to her, and was
received with smiles.

'Larry Nanspian came left leg foremost out
of bed this morning,' she said.  'He is as out
of tune as Piper's fiddle.'

Kate was in great request that evening.
The lads pressed about her, proud to circle
round the floor with the graceful pretty girl;
but she gave the preference to Samuel Voaden.
Hillary asked her to dance with him in 'The
Triumph,' but she told him sharply she would
reserve her hand for him in the Dumps, and he
did not ask her again.

The girls present looked at Kate with envy.
They were unable to dispute her beauty; but
her charm of manner and lively wit made her
even more acceptable to the lads than her good
looks.  She was perfectly conscious of the
envy and admiration she excited, and as much
gratified with one as with the other.

Samuel Voaden was infatuated.  He pressed
his attentions, and Kate received them with
pleasure.  As she danced past Larry she cast
him glances of contemptuous pity.

Hillary was angry with Honor, angry with
Kate, angry with himself.  The spoiled prince
was cast aside by two girls—a common carrier's
daughters.  He was as irritated against Kate
now as he was previously against Honor.
When he heard Kate laugh, he winced,
suspecting that she was joking about him.
His eyes followed the kerchief, and his heart
grew bitter within him.  He made no attempt
to be amusing.  He had nothing to say to
any one.  He let the dances go on without
seeking partners.  He stood lounging against
the barn door, with a sprig of honeysuckle in
his mouth, and his hands behind his back.

The sun was set, a cool grey light suffused
the meadow, the stackyard, the barn, the groups
who stood about, and the dancers within.

A dog ventured in at the door, and he
kicked it out.

The dog snarled and barked, and he nearly
quarrelled with young Voaden because the
latter objected to his dog being kicked.

Then, all at once, his mood changed.  It
occurred to him that very probably Honor
stayed away just for the purpose of showing
him she did not care for him.  If that were so,
he would let her know that he was not to be
put out of heart by her slights.  He would not
afford her the gratification of hearing through
her sister that he was dispirited and unhappy.
Then he dashed into the midst of the girls,
snatched a partner, and thenceforth danced
and laughed and was uproariously merry.

At ten o'clock the dancing was over.
Country folk kept early hours then; the
cider barrel was run out, the basket of cakes
emptied, and the tallow lights in the lanterns
burnt down to a flicker in a flood of melted
grease.

The young men prepared to escort their
partners home.

Hillary saw that Samuel was going with
Kate.  He was exasperated to the last degree.  He
did not care particularly for Kate, but he did
care that it should not be talked of in the village
that Sam Voaden had plucked her away from
under his very nose.  Gossip gave her to him
as a sweetheart, and gossip would make merry
over his discomfiture.  Besides, he wanted an
excuse for going to the cottage and having an
explanation with Honor about the kerchief.

As Voaden's dog passed in front of him at
a call from his master, Larry kicked it.

'Leave my dog alone, will you!' shouted
Samuel.  'That is the second time you have
kicked Punch.  The dog don't hurt you, why
should you hurt him?'

'I shall kick the brute if I choose,' said
Hillary.  'It has no right here in the barn.'

'What harm has Punch done?  And now,
what is against his leaving?'

'You had no right to bring the dog here.
It has been in the plantation after young
game.'

'Punch is wrong whether in the barn or
out of it.  The guinea you got for shooting
Rover has given you a set against dogs
seemingly,' said young Voaden.

'The dog took your lambs at Swaddledown,
and you were too much a lie-a-bed to stop it,'
sneered Hillary.

'Some folk,' answered Samuel, 'have
everything in such first-rate order at home
they can spare time to help their neighbours.'

'No more!' exclaimed Kate; 'you shall
not quarrel.'

Hillary looked round.  Near him were
two women who had been in the van when he
returned from Tavistock with the kerchief.
They, no doubt, recognised it over Kate's
shoulders.  They made sure it was his love-token
to her, and, wearing it, she was about to
affront him in their eyes.  His wounded vanity
made him blind to what he said or did.

'Here, Kate,' he said, thrusting himself
forward, 'I am going to take you home.  You
cannot go with Samuel.  His cursed Punch is
an ill-conditioned brute, and will kill your
chickens.'

'Nonsense,' laughed Kate, 'our chickens
are all under cover.'

'I'll fight you,' said Hillary, turning to
Samuel.  'Kate was engaged to me for the
Tank,[1] and you carried her off without asking
leave.  I will not be insulted by you on my
father's land, and under my own roof.  If you
are a man you will fight me.'

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[1] An old country dance.

.. vspace:: 2

'Nonsense, Larry,' answered Samuel, good-humouredly,
'I'll not quarrel with you.  It
takes two to make a quarrel, as it takes two
to kiss.'

'You are afraid, that is why.'

'I am not afraid of you, Larry,' said Samuel.
'You are as touchy this evening as if whipped
with nettles.'

'Come with me, Kate,' exclaimed Hillary.
'You have known me longer than Voaden.
If he chooses to take you, he must fight me
first.'

'I will not fight you, Larry,' answered
the young Swaddledown farmer; 'but I don't
object to a fling with you, if you will wrestle.'

'Very well; throw off your coat.'

The young men removed their jackets,
waistcoats, and the handkerchiefs from their
throats.  They were both fine fellows—well-built
and strong.  Those who had been dancing
surrounded them in a ring, men and maids.

'Cornish fashion, not Devon,' said Samuel.

'Ay, ay!' shouted the bystanders, 'Cornish
wrestle now.'

'Right—Cornish,' answered Hillary.

The difference between Devon and Cornish
wrestling consists in this, that in a Devon
wrestle kicking is admissible; but then, as a
protection to their shins, the antagonists have
their legs wreathed with haybands (*vulgo*
skillibegs).  As the legs were on this
occasion unprotected, Devon wrestling was
inadmissible.  Both fashions were in vogue near
the Tamar, and every young man would wrestle
one way or the other as decided beforehand.

The opponents fixed each other with their
eyes, and stood breathless, and every voice was
hushed.  Instantaneously, as moved by one
impulse, they sprang at each other, and were
writhing, tossing, coiling in each other's embrace.
Neither could make the other budge from his
ground, or throw him, exerting his utmost
strength and skill.  The haymakers stood
silent, looking on appreciatively—the girls a
little frightened, the men relishingly, relishing
it more than the dance.  Not one of the lads
at that moment had a thought to cast at his
partner.  Their hands twitched, their feet
moved, they bent, threw themselves back,
swung aside, responsive to the movements of
the wrestlers.

The antagonists gasped, snorted, as with
set teeth and closed lips they drew long
inspirations through their nostrils.  Their sweat
poured in streams from their brows.

Simultaneously, moved by one impulse,
they let go their hold, and stood quivering and
wiping their brows, with labouring breasts;
then, with a shout, closed again.

'Ho!' a general exclamation.  In the first
grapple Hillary had slipped, and gone down on
one knee.  Immediately Samuel let go.

'There!' said he, holding out his hand.
'We have had enough.  Strike palms, old boy.'

'No,' gasped Hillary, blazing with anger
and shame.  'I was not flung.  I slipped on
the dockleaf there.  I will not allow myself
beaten.  Come on again.'

'I will not do so,' answered Samuel.  'If
you have not had enough, I have.'

'You shall go on.  You are a coward to
sneak out now when an accident gave you
advantage.'

'Very well, then,' said Samuel; 'but you
have lost your temper, and I'll have no more
than this round with you.'

The young men were very equally matched.
They grappled once more, twisted, doubled,
gasped; the ground was torn up under their
feet.  As the feet twirled and flew, it was
hard to say how many were on the ground at
once, and whose they were.

Samuel suddenly caught his antagonist over
the arms, and pushed them to his side.

'He'll have Larry down! he will, by
George!' shouted several.  'Well done,
Samuel!  Go it, Samuel Voaden!'

'Ha!' shouted Sam, starting back.  'Who
goes against rules?  You kicked.'

'You lie!  I did not,'

'You did! you did, Larry,' shouted three
or four of the spectators.  It was true; in his
excitement Larry had forgotten that he and his
opponent were without skillibegs and wrestling
in Cornish fashion, and he had kicked; but in
good faith he had denied doing it, for he was
unconscious of his actions, so blinded and
bemuzzed was he with anger, disappointment,
and shame.

'I'll not wrestle any more,' said Samuel,
'if you don't wrestle fair.  No—I won't at all.
You are in a white fury.  So—if it's unfair in
you to kick, it is unfair in me to take
advantage of your temper.'

'It is not done.  One or other must go down.'

Then Kate pushed forward.  'Neither of
you shall attend me home,' she said; 'I am
going with little Joe only.'

Whether this would have ended the affray
is doubtful.  Another interruption was more
successful.  Suddenly a loud blast of a horn,
then a yelping as of dogs, then another blast—and
through the yard before the barn, breaking
the ring, sweeping between the combatants,
passed a strange figure—a man wearing a black
bull's hide, with long brown paper ears on his
head; the hide was fastened about his waist, and
the tail trailed behind.  He was followed by a
dozen boys barking, baying, yelping, and after
them hobbled Tom Crout blowing aorn.

'It's no good,' said the lame fellow, halting
in the broken ring; 'I can't follow the hare,
Mr. Larry Nanspian; the hunt is waiting for
you.  On wi' a green coat, and mount your
piebald, and take my horn.  I wish I could
follow; but it's un-possible.  Whew! you hare!
Heigh!  Piper, stay, will you, and start fair.'

'I'll have nothing to do with it,' said
Hillary, still panting.

'That is right, Larry,' said Kate in his ear,
'You oughtn't.  Honor said as much, and that
she hoped you would keep out of it.'

'Did she!' said Hillary, angrily; 'then I'll
go in for it.'

'Larry, old chap,' exclaimed Voaden, patting
him on the shoulder, 'I wasn't the better
man, nor was you.  You slipped on the
dockleaf, and that don't reckon as a fall.  We'll
have another bout some other day, if you wish
it.  Now let us have the lark of the Hare Hunt.'

Hillary considered a moment, and wiped
his face.  He had fallen in the general
estimation.  He had been sulky, he had provoked
Sam, and the wrestle had not turned to his
credit.  Here was a chance offered of taking
the lead once more.  If he did not act the
huntsman, Sam would.

'All right, Crout,' said he, 'give me the
horn; I'll have my horse round directly, and
the green coat on.'

'Do not, do not, Larry,' entreated Kate.

'Tell Honor I'm not pinned to her apron,'
answered the young man, and ran into the
house.





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.. _`THE HAND OF GLORY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE HAND OF GLORY.

.. vspace:: 2

The reader may have been puzzled by the
hints made by Larry to Honor, and by Charles
to Mrs. Veale, of a threatened hare hunt, and
he may have wondered why such a threat
should have disturbed Honor and angered the
housekeeper.  There are plenty of hares on
Broadbury Moor; there have been hare hunts
there as long as men could remember;
frequently, all through the winter.  An ordinary
hare hunt would not have stirred much feeling
in women's bosoms.  The menaced hare hunt
was something very different.  A stag and a
hare hunt are the rude means employed by a
village community for maintaining either its
standard of morals or expressing its
disapprobation of petticoat rule.  The stag hunt is
by no means an institution of the past, it
flourishes to the present day; and where the
magistrates have interfered, this interference has
stimulated it to larger proportions.  The hare
hunt, now extinct, was intended to ridicule the
man who submitted to a rough woman's tongue.

The stag hunt takes place either on the
wedding-night of a man who has married a
girl of light character, or when a wife is
suspected of having played her husband false.
The hare hunt more properly satirised the
relations between Taverner Langford and
Mrs. Veale.  In not a few cases, especially with a
stag hunt, there is gross injustice done.  It
cannot be otherwise: the Vehm-Gericht is
self-constituted, sits in the tavern, and passes its
sentence without summons and hearing of the
accused.  There is no defence and no appeal
from the court.  The infliction of the sentence
confers an indelible stain, and generally drives
those who have been thus branded out of
the neighbourhood.  Petty spite and private
grudges are sometimes so revenged; and a
marriage in a well-conducted family, which
has held itself above the rest in a parish,
is made an occasion for one of these outrages,
whereby the envy of the unsuccessful
and disreputable finds a vent.

There probably would have been no hare
hunt near Langford had not the quarrel
between Langford and Nanspian agitated the
whole parish, and given occasion for a frolic
which would not have been adventured had
the brothers-in-law been combined.

'Well, Mr. Charles,' said Mrs. Veale, 'what
have you done with the five-pound note I let
you have?  Is it all spent?'

'I gave it to my father and sister,' answered
Charles.  'I've occasioned them some expense,
and I thought I'd make it up to them whilst I
could.'

'That was mighty liberal of you,' sneered
Mrs. Veale.

'I am liberal, pretty free-handed with my
money.  It comes of my blood.'

'Ah!' said the housekeeper, 'and I reckon
now you'll be wanting more.'

'I could do with more,' replied young
Luxmore, 'but I will not trouble you.'

'Oh! it's no trouble,' said Mrs. Veale, 'I
know very well that lending to you is safe as
putting into the Bank of England.  You must
have your own some day, and when you're
squire you won't see me want.'

'Rely on me, I will deal most generously
with you.  I shall not forget your kindness,
Mrs. Veale.'

'But,' said the woman slyly, eyeing him, 'I
can't find you as much as you require.  You
can't spin more out of me than my own weight,
as the silkworm said.  I've put aside my little
savings.  But as you see, the master don't pay
freely.  He gives you only ninepence, and
me——' she shrugged her shoulders.

'If I were in your place,' she went on,
after a pause, 'I should be tempted to borrow
a hundred or so, and go to Physick the lawyer
with it, and say, help me to Coombe Park, and
when I've that, I'll give you a hundred more.'

'Who'd lend me the money?  You have
not so much.'

'No, I have not so much.'

'What other person would trust me?'

'The money might be had.'

'Others don't see my prospects as you do.'

'I'd be inclined to borrow wi'out asking,'
said the housekeeper cautiously.  She was as
one feeling her way; she kept her eyes on
Charles as she talked.  Charles started.  He
knew her meaning.

'How dare you suggest such a thing!' he
said in a low tone, looking at her uneasily.
'Curse you!  Don't wink at me with your
white lashes that way, you make me uneasy.'

'I only suggested it,' said Mrs. Veale,
turning her head aside.  'I reckon no harm
would be done.  The master don't know how
much he has in his box.  We had it out t'other
day between us, and counted.  There be over
a thousand pounds there.  Do y' think he
counts it every week?  Not he.  Who'd
know?  The money would be put back, and
wi' interest, six, seven, ten per cent., if you
liked, when you'd got Coombe Park.'

'Have done,' said Luxmore with nervous
irritation; 'I'm no thief, and never could
become one.'

'Who asked you to be one?  Not I.  I
said as how you might become his banker for
a hundred pounds.  The bank gives but three
per cent., and you would give nine.  Who'd
be the loser?  Not master.  He'd gain nine
pounds without knowing it—and wouldn't he
crow!'

Charles Luxmore caught his hat and stood up.

'Where be you going to?' asked Mrs. Veale.

'I cannot stand this,' he said in an agitated
voice.  'You torment me.  You put notions
into me that won't let me sleep, that make me
miserable.  I shall go.'

'Whither?  To the Ring o' Bells.  There
be no one there to-night, all be away to
Chimsworthy at the Haysel.  You sit down again,
and I will give you some cherry cordial.'

He obeyed sulkily.

'You can't go to dance at Chimsworthy,
because you be here at Langford, and there's
no dancing and merry-making here.  But wait
till you're at Coombe Park, and then you'll have
junketings and harvest-homes and dances when
you will.  That'll be a rare life.'

He said nothing, but thrust his hands into
his pockets, and looked moodily before him.

'Shall I tell you now who'll find you the
money?'

He did not speak.

'Wellon will.'

'What?' he looked up in surprise.

'Ay! old Wellon as was gibbeted, he will.'

Charles laughed contemptuously.  'You
are talking folly.  I always thought you mad.'

'Did you ever hear of the Hand of Glory?'

'No, never.'

'I wonder what became of Wellon's hand—the
hand that throttled Mary Rundle, and
stuck the knife into the heart of Jane, and
brought down their aunt wi' a blow of the fist.
That hand was a mighty hand.'

'Wellon was hung in chains, and fell to dust.'

'But not the hand.  Such a hand as that
was too precious.  Did you never hear it was
cut off, and the body swung for years without it?'

'No, I did not.'

'It was so.'

'What good was it to anyone?'

'It was worth pounds and pounds.'

'As a curiosity?'

'No, as a Hand of Glory.  It were washed
in mother's milk to a child base-born, and
smoked in the reek of gallows-wood, and then
laid with tamarisk from the sea, and vervain,
and rue, and bog-bean.'

'Well, what then?'

'Why, then, sure it's a Hand of Glory.'  She
paused, then struck her hand across her
forehead, 'and grass off the graves of them as it
killed—I forgot to say that was added.'

'What can such a hand do?'

'Everything.  If I had it here and set it up
on the mantelshelf, and set a light to the
fingers, all would flame blue, and then every
soul in the house would sleep except us two,
and we might ransack the whole place and
none would stir or hinder or see.  And if we
let the hand flame on, they would lie asleep till
we were far away beyond their reach.'

'If you had this Hand of Glory, I wouldn't
help you to use it,' said Charles, writhing on
his seat.

'That is not all,' Mrs. Veale went on,
standing by a little tea-table with her hand on
it, the other against her side.  'That hand has
wonderful powers of itself.  It is as a thing
alive, though dead and dry as leather.  If you
say certain words it begins to run about on its
fingers like a rat.  Maybe you're sitting over
the fire of nights, and hear something stirring,
and see a brown thing scuttling over the floor
and you think it is a rat.  It is not.  It is the
dead man's hand.  Perhaps you hear a
scratching on the wall, and look round, and
see a great black spider—a monstrous spider
going about, running over and over the
wainscot, and touching and twitching at the bell
wires.  It is not a spider, it is the murderer's
hand.  It hasn't eyes, it goes by the feel, till it
comes to gold, and then, at the touch the dark
skin becomes light and shines as the tail of a
glowworm, and it picks and gathers by its
own light.  I reckon, if that hand o' Wellon's
were in the oven behind the parlour-grate, it
would make such a light that you'd see what
was on every guinea, whether the man and
horse or the spade, and you could read every
note as well as if you had the daylight.  Then the
ring-finger and the little finger close over what
money the hand has been bidden fetch, and it
runs away on the thumb and other two—and
then, if you will, it's spiderlike with a bag
behind.'

'I don't believe a word of it,' said Charles,
but his words were more confident than his tone.

'You see,' Mrs. Veale went on, 'there is
this about it, you tell the hand to go and fetch
the money, but you don't say whither it is to
go, and you do not know.  You get the money
and can swear you have robbed no one.  I
reckon, mostly the money is found by the hand
in old cairns and ruins.  I've been told there's
a table of gold in Broadbury Castle that only
comes to the top on Midsummer night for an
hour, and then sinks again.  Folks far away
see a great light on Broadbury, and say we be
swaling (burning gorse) up here; but it is no
such thing; it is the gold table coming up, and
shining like fire, and the clouds above
reflecting its light.'

'Pity the hand don't break off bits of the
gold table,' said Charles sarcastically; but his
face was mottled with fear; Mrs. Veale's stories
frightened him.

'Yes, 'tis a pity,' she said.  'Maybe it will
some day.'

'Pray what do you say to the hand to
make it run your errands?'

'Ah!' she continued, without answering
his question.  'There be other things the
Hand of Glory can do.  It will go if you send it
to some person—bolts and locks will not keep
it out, and it will catch the end of the
bedclothes, and scramble up, and pass itself over
the eyes of the sleeper, and make him sleep
like a dead man, and it will dive under the
clothes and lay its fingers on the heart; then
there will come aches and spasms there, or it
will creep down the thighs and pinch and pat,
and that brings rheumatic pains.  I've heard
of one hand thus sent as went down under the
bedclothes to the bottom of the sleeper's foot,
and there it closed up all the fingers but one,
and with that it bored and bored, working
itself about like a gimblet, and then gangrene
set in, and the man touched thus was dead in
three days.'

'It is a mighty fortunate thing you've not
the hand of old Wellon,' growled Charles.

'I have got it,' answered Mrs. Veale.

Charles looked at her with staring eyes.

'You shall see it,' she said.

'I do not want to.  I will not!' he
exclaimed, shuddering.

'Wellon's hand will fetch you a hundred
pounds, and we will not ask whence it comes,'
said Mrs. Veale.

'I will not have it, I will not touch it!'  He
spoke in a hoarse, horrified whisper.

'You shall come with me, and I will show
you where I keep it, and perhaps you will find
the hand closed; and when I say, Hand of
Glory! open!  Hand of Glory! give up! then
you will see the fingers unclose, and the
glittering gold coins will be in the brown palm.'

'I will not touch them.'

'No harm in your looking at them.  Come with me.'

She stood before him with her firm mouth
set, and her blinking eyes on him.  He tried
to resist.  He settled himself more comfortably
into his seat.  But his efforts to oppose her will
were in vain.  He uttered a curse, drew his
hands out of his pocket, put his hat on his head.

'Go on,' he said surlily; 'but I tell y' I
won't go without the lantern.  Where is it?'

'In Wellon's Cairn.'

'I will not go,' said Charles, drawing back,
and all colour leaving his cheek.

'Then I'll send the hand after you.  Come.'

'I'll take the lantern.'

'As you like, but hide the light till we
get to the hill.  There it don't matter if folks
see a flame dancing about the mound.  They
will keep their distance—Come on, after me.'





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.. _`THE HARE HUNT`:

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   CHAPTER XXV.


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   THE HARE HUNT.

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Directly Mrs. Veale, followed by Charles, came
outside the house the former turned and said,
with a chuckle, 'You want a lantern, do y', a
summer night such as this?'

The sky was full of twilight, every thorn
tree and holly bush was visible on the hedges,
every pebble in the yard.

'I'm not going to Wellon's Cairn without,'
said Luxmore, sulkily.  'I don't want to go at
all; and I won't go *there* without light.'

'Very well.  I will wait at the gate for you.'

He went into the stable, where was a horn-sided
tin lantern, and took it down from its
crook, then went back into the kitchen and
lighted the candle at the fire.

'I've a mind not to go,' he muttered.
'What does the woman want with me, pulling
me, driving me, this way and that?  If I'd
been told I was to be subjected to this sort of
persecution, I wouldn't have come here.  It's
not to be endured for ninepence.  Ninepence!
It would be bad at eighteen pence.  I wish I
was in Afghanistan.  Cawbul, Ghuznee,
Candahar don't astonish her.  She ain't open-mouthed
at them, but sets my hair on end with her
Hand of Glory, and talks of how money is to
be got.  I know what she is after; she wants
me to run away with her and the cash box.  I
won't do it—not with her, for certain; not with
the cash box if I can help it.  I don't believe
a word about a Hand of Glory.  I'm curious
to know how she'll get out of it, now she's
promised to show it me.'

He started, and swore.

'Gorr!' he said; 'it's only a rat behind the
wainscot; I thought it was the hand creeping
after me.  I suppose I must go.  For certain,
Mrs. Veale is a bad un.  But; what is that?
The shadow of my own hand on the wall,
naught else.'

He threw over him a cloak he wore in wet
weather, and hid the lantern under it.

'For sure,' he said, 'folks would think it
queer if they saw me going out such a summer
night as this with a lantern; but I won't go to
Wellon's Cairn without, that is certain.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Veale; 'so you have
come at last!'

'Yes, I have come.  Where is the master?
I've not seen him about.'

'He never said nothing to no one, and went
off to Holsworthy to-day.'

'When will he be back?'

'Not to-morrow; there's a fair there; the
day after, perhaps.'

A heavy black cloud hung in the sky,
stretching apparently above Broadbury.
Below it the silvery light flowed from behind the
horizon.  To the east, although it was night,
the range of Dartmoor was visible, bathed in
the soft reflection from the north-western sky.
The tumulus upon which Wellon had been
executed was not far out on the heath.
Mrs. Veale led the way with firm tread; Charles
followed with growing reluctance.  A great
white owl whisked by.  The glowworms were
shining mysteriously under tufts of grass.  As
they pushed through the heather they disturbed
large moths.  A rabbit dashed past.

'Hush!' whispered Charles.  'I'm sure I
heard a horn.'

'Ah!' answered Mrs. Veale, 'Squire Arscott
rides the downs at night, they say, and
has this hundred years.'

'I don't care to go any further,' said the
young man.

'You shall come on.  I am going to show
you the Hand of Glory.'

He was powerless to resist.  As his father
had fallen under the authority of Honor, so
the strong over-mastering will of this woman
domineered Charles, and made him do what
she would.  He felt his subjection, his
powerlessness.  He saw the precipice to which she
was leading him, and knew that he could not
escape.

'I wish I had never come to Langford,'
he muttered to himself.  'It's Honor's doing.
If I go wrong, she is to blame.  She sent me
here, and all for ninepence.'  Then, stepping
forward beside the housekeeper, 'I say,
Mrs. Veale, how do you manage to stow anything
away in a mound?'

'Easy, if the mound be not solid,' she
replied.  'There is a sort of stone coffin in the
middle, made of pieces of granite set on end,
and others laid on top.  When the treasure-seekers
dug into the hill, they came as far as
one of the stones, and they stove it in, but
found nothing, or, if they found aught, they
carried it away.  Then, I reckon, they put the
stone back, or the earth fell down and covered
all up, and the heather bushes grew over it all.
But I looked one day about there for a place
where I could hide things.  I thought as the
master had his secret place, I'd have mine too;
and I knew no place could be safer than where
old Wellon hung, as folk don't like to come
too near it—leastways in the dark.  Well,
then, I found a little hole, as might have been
made by a rabbit, and I cleared it out; and
there I found the gap and the stone coffin.  I
crept in, it were not over big, but wi' a light I
could see about.  I thought at first I'd come
on Wellon's bones, but no bones were there,
nothing at all but a rabbit nest, and some
white snail shells.  After that I made up the
entrance again, just as it was, and no one
would know it was there.  But I can find it;
there is a bunch of heath by it, and some
rushes, and how rushes came to grow there
beats me.'

'So you keep Wellon's hand in there, do you?'

'Yes, I do.'

'How did you manage to get it?'

'I will not tell you.'

'I do not believe you have it; I don't
believe but what you told me a parcel of lies
about the Hand of Glory.  I've been to
Afghanistan, and Cabul, and the Bombay
Presidency, and never heard of such a thing.  It is
not in reason.  If a dead hand can move, why
has not my finger that was cut off in battle
come back to me?'

'Shall I send the Hand after it?'

The suggestion made Charles uneasy.  He
looked about him, as afraid to see the black
hand running on the grass, leaping the tufts of
furze, carrying his dead finger, to drop it at his
feet.

'What are you muttering?' asked he, sharply.

'I'm only repeating, Hand of Glory!
Hand of Light!  Fetch, fetch!  Run and
bring——'

'I'll strike you down if you go on with
your devilry, you hag,' said Charles, angrily.

'We are at the place.'

They entered the cutting made by the
treasure-seekers, the gap in which Honor had
often sat in the sun, unconscious of the stone
kistvaen hidden behind her, indifferent to the
terrors of the haunted hill, whilst the sun
blazed on it.

'The night is much darker than it was,'
said Charles uneasily, as he looked about him.

It was as he said.  The black mass of cloud
had spread and covered the sky, cutting off the
light except from the horizon.

'I don't like the looks of the cloud,' said
Charles.  'There will be rain before long, and
there's thunder aloft for certain.'

'What is that to you?  Are you afraid of
a shower?  You have your cloak.  Bring out
the lantern.  It matters not who sees the light
now.  If anyone does see it, he'll say it's a
corpse-candle on its travels.'

'What is a corpse-candle?'

'Don't you know?'  She gave a short, dry
laugh.  'It's a light that travels by night along
a road, and comes to the door of the house
out of which a corpse will be brought in a day
or two.'

'Does no one carry the candle?'

'It travels by itself.'  Then she said, 'Give
me the light.'

'I will not let it out of my hand,' answered
Charles, looking about him timorously.  'I
don't think anyone will see the light, down in
this hole.'

'Hold the lantern where I show you—there.'

He did as required.  It gave a poor, sickly
light, but sufficient to show where the woman
wanted to work.  She began to scratch away
the earth with her hands, and Charles,
watching her, thought she worked as a rabbit or
hare might with its front paws.  Presently she
said:

'There is the hole, look in.'

He saw a dark opening, but had no desire
to peer into it.  Indeed, he drew back.

'How can I see, if you take away the
lantern?' asked Mrs. Veale.  'Put your arm in
and you will find the hand.'

He drew still further away.  'I will not.
I have seen enough.  I know of this hiding-place.
That suffices.  I will go home.'

The horror came over him lest she should
force him to put his hand into the stone coffin,
and that there, in the blackness and mystery
of the Interior, the dead hand of the murderer
would make a leap and clasp his.

'I have had enough of this,' he said, and a
shiver ran through him, 'I will go home.
Curse me!  I'm not going to be mixed up
with all this devilry and witchery if I can
help it.'

'Perhaps the hand is gone,' said Mrs. Veale.

'Oh!  I hope so.'

'I sent it after your finger.'

'Indeed, may it be long on its travels.'  He
was reassured.  It was not pleasant to
think of so close proximity to the murderer's
embalmed, still active hand.  He suspected
that Mrs. Veale was attempting to wriggle out
of her undertaking.  'Indeed—I thought I
was to see the hand, and now the hand is not
here.'

'I cannot say.  Anyhow, the money is here.'

'What money?'

'That for which you asked.'

'I asked for none.'

'You desired a hundred pounds for the
purpose of getting back Coombe Park.  Put in
your hand and take it.'

'I will not.'

His courage was returning, as he thought
he saw evasion of her promise in the woman.

'For the matter of that, if this Hand of
Glory can fetch money, it might as well fetch
more than that.'

'How much?'

'A hundred is not over much.  Two
hundred—a thousand.'

'Say a thousand.'

'So I do.'

'Put in your hand.  It is there.'

'Hark!'

'Put in your hand.'

'I will not.'

'Then you fool! you coward!  I must take
it for you!' she hissed in her husky voice.  She
stooped, and thrust both her hands and arms
deep into the kistvaen.

'Hush!' whispered Charles, as he laid his
hand on her shoulder, and covered the light
with a flap of his mantle.  She remained still
for a minute with her arms buried in the crave.
There was certainly a sound, a tramp of many
feet, and the fall of horses' hoofs, heard, then
not heard, as they went over road or turf.

'There,' whispered Mrs. Veale, and drew a
box from the hole and placed it on Charles's
lap.  As she did so, the mantleflap fell from
the lantern, and the light shone over the box.
Charles at once recognised Taverner Langford's
cash box, with the letter padlock.

'Ebal,' whispered Mrs. Veale.  'A thousand
pounds are yours.'

At that instant, loud and startling, close to
the cairn sounded the blast of a horn, instantly
responded to by the baying and yelping of
dogs, by shouts, and screams, and cheers, and
a tramp of rushing feet, and a crack of whips.

The suddenness of the uproar, its unexpectedness,
its weirdness, coming on Charles's overwrought
nerves, at the same moment that he
saw himself unwillingly involved in a robbery,
completely overcame him; he uttered a cry of
horror, sprang to his feet, upset the money
box, and leaped out of the cutting, swinging
the lantern, with his wide mantle flapping
about him.  His foot tripped and he fell; he
picked himself up and bounded into the road
against a horse with rider, who was in the act
of blowing a horn.

Charles was too frightened and bewildered
to remember anything about the hare hunt.
He did not know where he was, what he was
doing, against whom he had flung himself.
The horse plunged, bounded aside, and cast his
rider from his back.  Charles stood with one
hand to his head looking vacantly at the road
and the prostrate figure in it.  In another
moment Mrs. Veale was at his elbow.  'What
have you done?' she gasped, 'You fool! what
have you done?'

Charles had sufficiently recovered himself to
understand what had taken place.

'It is the hare hunt,' he said.  'Do you
hear them?  The dogs!  This is—my God! it
is Larry Nanspian.  He is dead.  I said I would
break his neck, and I have done it.  But I did
not mean it.  I did not intend to frighten the
horse.  I—I'—and he burst into tears.

'You are a fool,' said Mrs. Veale angrily.
'What do you mean staying here?'  She took
the horn from the prostrate Larry and blew it.
'Don't let them turn and find you here by his
dead body.  If you will not go, I must, though
I had no hand in killing him.'  She snatched
the lantern from his hand and extinguished it.
'That ever I had to do with such an one as
you!  Be off, as you value your neck; do not
stay.  Be off!  If you threatened Larry and
have fulfilled your threat, who will believe that
this was accident?'

Charles, who had been overcome by weakness
for a moment, was nerved again by fear.

'Take his head,' said Mrs. Veale, 'lay him
on the turf, among the dark gorse, where he
mayn't be seen all at once, and that will give
you more time to get off.'

'I cannot take his head,' said Charles,
trembling.

'Then take his heels.  Do as I bid,' ordered
the housekeeper.  She bent and raised Larry.

'Sure enough,' she said, 'his neck is broken.
He'll never speak another word.'

Charles let go his hold of the feet.  'I will
not touch him,' he said.  'I will not stay.  I
wish I'd never come to Langford.  It was all
Honor's fault forcing me.  I must go.'

'Yes, go,' said Mrs. Veale, 'and go along
Broadbury, where you will meet no man, and
no footmarks will be left by which you may be
traced.'  Mrs. Veale, unassisted, dragged the
senseless body out of the rough road over the
turf.

'Is he dead? is he really dead?' asked Charles.

'Go!' said Mrs. Veale, 'or I shall have the
chance of your hand to make into a better Hand
of Glory than that of Wellon.'





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.. _`BITTER MEDICINE`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI.


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   BITTER MEDICINE.

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The hare and hounds ran some distance before
they perceived that they were not pursued by
the huntsman and that the horn had ceased to
cheer them on.  Then little Piper, the
cattle-jobber, clothed in the black ox-hide, stopped
panting, turned, and said, 'Where be the
hunter to?  I don't hear his horse nor his
horn.'  The dogs halted.  They were boys
and young men with blackened faces.  Piper's
face was also covered with soot.  His
appearance was diabolical, with the long ears on
his head, his white eyes peering about from
under them, a bladder under his chin, and the
black hide enveloping him.  According to the
traditional usage on such occasions, the hunt
ends with the stag or hare, one or the other,
being fagged out, and thrown at the door of the
house whose inmates' conduct has occasioned
the stag or hare hunt.  Then the hunter stands
astride over the animal, if a stag, and with a
knife slits the bladder that is distended with
bullock's blood, and which is thus poured out
before the offender's door.  If, however, the
hunt be that of a hare the pretence is—or
was—made of knocking it on the head.  It may
seem incredible to our readers that such savage
proceedings should still survive in our midst, yet
it is so, and they will not be readily abolished.[1]

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[1] The author once tore down with his own hands the
following bill affixed to a wall at four cross roads:—

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'NOTICE!—ON THURSDAY NIGHT THE RED HUNTER'S
PACK OF STAG HOUNDS WILL MEET AT ... INN, AND WILL
RUN TO GROUND A FAMOUS STAG.  GENTLEMEN ARE REQUESTED
TO ATTEND.'

.. class:: noindent small

The police were communicated with, but were unable to
interfere as no breach of the peace was committed.

.. vspace:: 2

Not suspecting anything, the hare and the
pack turned and ran back along the road they
had traversed, yelping, shouting, hooting,
blowing through their half-closed hands, leaping,
some lads riding on the backs of others, one in
a white female ragged gown running about and
before the hare, flapping the arms and hooting
like an owl.

Would Taverner Langford come forth,
worked to fury by the insult?  Several were armed
with sticks in the event of an affray with him
and his men.  Would he hide behind a hedge
and fire at them out of his trumpet-mouthed
blunderbuss that hung over the kitchen mantel-piece
in Langford?  If he did that, they had
legs and could run beyond range.  They did
not know that he was away at Holsworthy.

The road to that town lay over the back of
Broadbury and passed not another house in
the parish.

The wild chase swept over the moor, past
Wellon's Cairn, past Langford, then turned
and went back again.

'I'll tell you what it be,' said Piper, halting
and confronting his pursuers.  'Larry Nanspian
have thought better of it, and gone home.
T'es his uncle, you know, we'm making same
of, and p'raps he's 'shamed to go on in it.'

'He should have thought of that before,'
said one of the dogs.  'Us ain't a going to
have our hunt spoiled for the lack of a
hunter.'

'Why didn't he say so in proper time?'
argued a second.

'Heigh! there's his horse!' shouted a
third, and ran over the moor towards the
piebald, which, having recovered from its alarm,
was quietly browsing on the sweet, fine moor
grass.

'Sure eneaf it be,' said Piper; 'then
Larry can't be far off.'

Another shout.

'He's been thrown.  He is lying here by
the roadside.'

Then there was a rush of the pack to the
spot indicated, and in a moment the insensible
lad was in the arms of Piper, surrounded by
an eager throng.

'Get along, you fellows,' shouted the hare.
'you'll give him no breathing room.'

'Ah! and where'll he think himself, I
wonder, when he opens his eyes and sees he is
in the hands of one with black face and long
ears, and tail and hairy body?  I reckon he
won't suppose he's in Abraham's bosom.'

'What'll he take you for either, in your
black faces?' retorted Piper.  'Not angels of
light, sure-ly.'  Then old Crout hobbled up.
He had followed far in the rear, as best he
could with his lame leg and stick.

'What be the matter, now?' he asked.
'What, Larry Nanspian throwed?  Some o'
you lads run for a gate.  Us mun' carry 'n
home on that.  There may be bones abroke,
mussy knows.'

'I reckon we can't take 'n into Langford,'
suggested Sam Voaden.

'Likely, eh?' sneered Piper.  'You Sam,
get a gate for the lad.  He must be carried
home at once, and send for a doctor.'

He was obeyed; and in a few minutes a
procession was formed, conveying Larry from
the moor.

'He groaned as we lifted 'n,' said Sam Voaden.

'So he's got life in him yet.'

'His hand ain't cold, what I may call dead
cold,' said another.

'You go for'ard, Piper,' said Tom Crout.
'that he mayn't see you and be frightened if
he do open his eyes.'

Then the cattle-jobber walked first, holding
the long cow's tail over his arm, lest those who
followed should tread on it and be tripped up.
Sam Voaden and three other young men
raised the gate on their shoulders, and walked
easily under it.  Behind came the hounds,
careful not to present their blackened faces to
the opening eyes of their unconscious friend;
and, lastly, Tom Crout mounted on the piebald.
One of the boys had found the horn, and unable
to resist the temptation to try his breath
on it, blew a faint blast.

'Shut up, will you?' shouted Piper, turning.
'Who is that braying?  You'll be making
Larry fancy he hears the last trump, and he'll
jump off the gate and hurt himself again.'

Larry Nanspian had not broken his neck
nor fractured his skull.  He was much bruised,
strained, and his right arm and collar-bone
were broken.  His insensibility proceeded from
concussion of the brain; but even this was not
serious, for he gradually recovered his
consciousness as he was being carried homewards.
Too dazed at first to know where he was,
what had happened, and how he came to be
out and lying on a gate, he did not speak or
stir.  Indeed, he felt unwilling to make an
effort, a sense of exhaustion overmastered him,
and every movement caused him pain.  He
lay with his face to the night sky, watching
the dark cloud, listening to the voices of his
bearers, and picking with the fingers of his left
hand at a mossy gate bar under him.  At first
he did not hear what words were passing about
him, he was aware only of voices speaking:
the first connected sentence he was able to
follow was this:—

''Twould be a bad job if Larry were killed.'

'Bad job for him, yes,' was the reply.

'What do y' mean by that?' asked Sam
Voaden.  He recognised Sam's voice at once,
and he felt the movement of Sam's shoulder
tilting the fore end of the gate as he turned his
head to ask the question.

'O, I mean naught but what everyone says.
A bad job for any chap to die; but I don't
reckon the loss would be great to Chimsworthy.
Some chance, then, of the farm going to proper
hands.  Larry ain't much, and never will be,
but for larks and big talk.  I say that
Chimsworthy is a disgrace to the parish; and what
is more there is sure to be a smash there unless
there comes an alteration.  Alteration there
would never be under Larry.'

'I've heard tell that the old man has
borrowed a sight of money from Taverner
Langford, and now he's bound to pay it off,
and can't do it.'

'Not like to, the way he's gone on; sowing
brag brings brambles.'

'You see,' said Voaden, 'they always
reckoned on getting Langford, some day, when
the old fellow died.'

'And what a mighty big fool Larry is to
aggravate his uncle.  Instead of keeping good
terms with the old gentleman he goes out o' his
road to offend him.'

'I say it's regular un-decent his being out
to-night hunting the hare before his own uncle's
door.'

'I say so, too.  It weren't my place to
say naught, but I thought it, and so did every
proper chap.'

'It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.'

'Does his father know what's he's been
after?'

'No, of course not; old Nanspian would ha'
taken a stick to his back, if he'd heard he was
in for such things.'

'I know that however bad an uncle might
use me, I'd never have nothing to do with a
hare hunt that concerned him—no, nor an aunt
neither.'

'Larry was always a sort of a giddy chap.'

'He's a bit o' a fool, or he wouldn't have
come into this.'

'Maybe this will shake what little sense he
has out of his head.'

'I'll tell y' what.  If Larry had been in the
army—he'd have turned out as great a
blackguard as Charles Luxmore.'

'The girls have spoiled Larry, they make so
much of him.'

'Make much of him!  They like to make
sport of him, but there's not one of them cares
a farthing for him, not if they've any sense.
They know fast enough what Chimsworthy and
idleness are coming too.  Why, there was Kate
Luxmore.  Everyone thought she and Larry
were keeping company and would make a pair;
but this evening, you saw, directly she had a
chance of Sam, she shook him off, and quite
right too.'

'Never mind me and Kate,' said Sam, turning
his head again.

'But us do mind, and us think as Kate be a
sensible maiden, and us thought her a fool
before to take up wi' Larry Nanspian.'

This conversation was not pleasant for the
young man laid on the gate to hear, and it took
from him the desire to speak and allow his
bearers to know he was awake, and had heard
their criticism on his character and conduct.
The judgment passed on him was not altogether
just, but there was sufficient justice in it to
humble him.  Yes, he had acted most improperly
in allowing himself to be drawn into
taking part in the hare hunt.  No—he was not,
he could never have become such a blackguard
as Charles Luxmore.

'Halt!' commanded Piper, and the convoy
stood still.

'We can't go like this to Chimsworthy,'
said the little cattle-jobber; 'it'll give the old
man another stroke.  Let us stop at the
Luxmores' cottage, and wash our faces, and put off
these things, and send on word that we're
coming; the old fellow mustn't be dropt down on
wi' bad news too sudden.'

'Right!  Honor shall be sent on to break
the news.'

Honor!  Larry felt the blood mount to his
brow.  She had herself dissuaded him from
having anything to do with this wretched affair
which had ended so disastrously to himself, and
when Kate advised him to keep away from it
because Honor disapproved, he had sent her an
insolent defiance.  Now he was to be laid
before her door, bruised and broken, because he
had disobeyed her warning.  He tried to lift
himself to protest—but sank back.  No—he
thought—it serves me right.

The party descended the rough lane from
Broadbury, and had to move more slowly and
with greater precaution.  The bearers had to
look to their steps and talk less.  Larry's
thoughts turned to Honor.  Now he had found
out how true were her words.  What she had
said to him gently, was said now roughly,
woundingly.  She had but spoken to him the
wholesome truth which was patent to everyone
but himself, but she had spoken it so as to
inflict no pain.  She had tried to humble him, but
with so pitiful a hand, that he could have
kissed the hand, and asked it to continue its
work.  But he had not taken her advice, he
had not learned her lesson, and he was now
called to suffer the consequences.  Those nights
spent beside Honor under the clear night sky—how
happy they had been!  How her influence
had fallen over him like dew, and he had felt
that it was well with him to his heart's core.
How utterly different she was from the other
girls of Bratton.  They flattered him.  She
rebuked him.  They pressed their attentions on
him.  She shrank from his notice.  He could
recall all she had said.  Her words stood out in
his recollection like the stars in the night
heavens—but he had not directed his course by
them.

Now, as the young men carried him down
the lane, he knew every tree he passed, and that
he was nearing Honor, step by step.  He desired
to see her, yet feared her reproachful eye.





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.. _`AFTER SWEETNESS`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AFTER SWEETNESS.

.. vspace:: 2

Oliver Luxmire had returned home before
Kate came from the dance, and had eaten his
supper, and gone to bed.  Her father had been
a cause of distress to Honor of late.  He said,
indeed, no more about Taverner's suit, but he
could not forget it, and he was continually
grumbling over the difficulties of his position,
his poverty, the hardships of his having to be a
carrier, when he ought to be a gentleman, and
might be a squire if certain persons would put
out a little finger to help him to his rights.

His careless good humour had given place
to peevish discontent.  By nature he was kind
and considerate, but his disappointment had, at
least temporarily, embittered his mood.  He
threw out oblique reproaches which hurt Honor,
for she felt that they were aimed at her.  He
complained that times were altered, children
were without filial affection, they begrudged their
parents the repose that was their due in the
evening of their days.  He was getting on in
years, and was forced to slave for the support
of a family, when his family—at least the elder
of them—ought to be maintaining him.  He
wished that the Thrustle were as deep as the
Tamar, and he would throw himself in and so
end his sorrows.  His children—his ungrateful
children—must not be surprised if some day he
did not return.  There was no saying, on
occasions, when a waterspout broke, the Thrustle
was so full of water that a man might drown
himself in it.

In vain did Honor attempt to turn his
thoughts into pleasanter channels.  He found a
morbid pleasure in being absorbed in the
contemplation of his sores.  He became churlish
towards Honor and refused to be cheered.  She
had fine speeches on her tongue, but he was a
man who preferred deeds to words.  A girl of
words and not of deeds was like a garden full
of weeds.  When the weeds began to grow, like
the heavens thick with snow, when the snow
began to fall—and so on—and so on—he had
forgotten the rest of the jingle.

Now for the first time, dimly, was Honor
conscious of a moral resemblance between her
father and Charles.  What Charles had become,
her father might become.  The elements of
character were in germ in him that had developed
in the son.  As likenesses in a family come
out at unexpected moments, that had never
before been noticed, so was it with the psychical
features of these two.  Honor saw Charles in
her father, and the sight distressed her.

Oliver Luxmore did not venture to say out
openly what he desired, but his hints, his
insinuations, his grumblings, were significant;
they pierced as barbed steel, they bruised as
blows.  Till recently, Oliver had recognised
his daughter's moral superiority, and had
submitted.  Now his eye was jaundiced.  He
thought her steadfastness of purpose to be
doggedness, her resistance to his wishes to be
the result of self-will, and his respect for her
faded.

Although Honor made no complaint, no
defence, she suffered acutely.  She had
surrendered Larry because her duty tied her to
the home that needed her.  Was it necessary
for her to make a farther sacrifice—a supreme
sacrifice for the sake of her father?  She had
no faith in the verbal promises of Taverner
Langford, to stand by and assist her brothers
and sisters, but it was in her power to exact
from him a written undertaking which he
would be unable to shake off.  Suppose she
were to marry Langford—what then?  Then—the
dark cloud would lift and roll away.
There would be no more struggle to make
both ends meet, no more patching and darning
of old clothes, no more limiting of the amount
of bread dealt out to each child.  Her father's
temper would mend.  He would recover his
kindly humour, and play with the little ones,
and joke with the neighbours, and be affectionate
towards her.  There would be no more
need for him to travel with a waggon in all
weathers to market, but he would spend his
last years in comfort, cared for by his children,
instead of exhausting himself for them.

However bright such a prospect might
appear, Honor could not reconcile herself to it.
Her feminine instincts revolted against the
price she must pay to obtain it.

That evening Oliver Luxmore ate his supper
in sulky silence, and went to bed without
wishing Honor a good night.  When Kate
arrived, she found her sister in tears.

'Honor!' exclaimed the eager, lively girl,
'what is the matter?  You have been
crying—because you could not go to the dance.'

'No, dear Kate, not at all.'

'Honor! what is the meaning of this?
Marianne Spry tells me she saw the silk
kerchief you gave me before to-day.'

'Well, why not?'

'But, Honor, I do not understand.  Mrs. Spry
says that Larry bought it—bought it at
Tavistock after he had killed the dog that
worried our lambs—after he had got the
guinea, and she believes he bought it with that
money.'

'Well, Kate!'  Honor stooped over her needlework.

'Well, Honor!'—Kate paused and looked
hard at her.  'How is it that Larry bought it,
and you had it in your chest?  That is what I
want to know.'

'Larry gave it me.'

'Oh—ho!  He gave it you!'

'Yes, I sat up with him when he was
watching for the lamb-killer; he is grateful for
that trifling trouble I took.'

'But, Honor!  Marianne Spry said that she
and others chaffed Larry in the van about the
kerchief he had bought for me—and it was *not*
for me.'

Honor said nothing; she worked very diligently
with her fingers by the poor light of the
tallow candle on the table.  Kate stooped to
get sight of her face, and saw that her cheek
was red.

'Honor, dear!  The kerchief was not for
me.  Why did you make me wear it?'

'Because, Kate—because you are the right
person to wear his present.'

'I—why I?' asked Kate impetuously.

Honor looked up, looked steadfastly into
her sister's eyes.

'Because Larry loves you, and you love him.'

'I can answer for myself that I do not,'
Kate vehemently.  'And I don't fancy he
is much in love with me.  No, Honor, he was
in a queer mood this evening, and what made
him queer was that you were not in the barn,
and had decked me out in the kerchief he gave
you to wear.  I could not make it out at the
time, but now I see it all.'  Then Kate laughed
gaily.  'I don't suppose you care very much
for him, he's a Merry Andrew and a scatterbrain,
but I do believe he has a liking for you,
Honor, and I believe there is no one in the
world could make a fine good man of Larry
but you.'  Then the impulsive girl threw her
arms round her sister.  'There!' she
exclaimed, 'I'm glad you don't care for Larry,
because he is not worthy of you—no, there's
not a lad that is—except, maybe Samuel
Voaden, and him I won't spare even to you.'

'Oh, Kate!'

So the sisters sat on, and the generous,
warm-hearted Kate told all her secret to her
sister.

When girls talk of the affairs of the heart,
time flies with them.  Their father and brothers
and sisters were asleep, and they sat on late.
Kate was happy to confide in her sister.

All at once Kate started, and held her finger
to her ear.

'I hear something.  Honor, what is it?
I hope these hare-hunters be not coming this
way.'

She had not told Honor Larry's message.

'I hear feet,' answered the elder.  'Do not
go to the door, Kate.  It is very late.'

The tramp of feet ceased, the two girls with
beating hearts heard steps ascend to their door,
then a rap at it.  Honor went at once to open.
Kate hung back.  She suspected the hare-hunters,
but was afraid of the black faces, and
she could not understand the halt and summons.

'Don't y' be frightened, Honor,' said a voice
through the door, 'us want y' out here a bit, if
you don't mind.'  Honor unbolted, and the
blackfaced, white-eyed, long-eared, skin-clothed
Piper stood before her, holding the black cow
tail in his hand.

'Don't y' be scared.  I'm only the hare.  I
won't touch a hair of your head.'

'What do you want, Mr. Piper?' asked
Honor without trepidation.

'Well, it is this.  There's been an accident,
and Master Larry Nanspian hev fallen on his
head off his horse and hurted himself bad.'

Honor began to tremble, and caught the
door with one hand and the door-post with the
other.

'Now do y' take it easy.  He ain't dead,
only hurt.  Us don't want to go right on end
carrying him into Chimsworthy, all of us dressed
as we are.  First place, it might frighten
Master Nanspian, second place, he mightn't like
the larks Larry has been on.  So us thought if
you would let us clean our faces, and take off
our skins and other things, and cut the green coat
off the back of Larry, here; and then, you'd be
so good as run on to Chimsworthy and prepare
the old gentleman, you'd be—well, you'd be
yourself—I couldn't put it better.'

Honor had recovered her composure.

'I will do what you wish,' she said, and her
voice was firm, though low.

'You see,' Piper went on.  'It's a bit
ockerd like; I reckon the old man wouldn't be
satisfied that Larry were mixed up in a
hare-hunt that made game of Taverner Langford, his
own wife's brother; and I don't say that Larry
acted right in being in it.  Howsomever, he
has been, and is now the worse for it.  Will
you please to bring the candle and let us see
how bad he be.'

Honor took the tin candlestick with the
tallow dip, and descended the steps, holding it.

The four bearers set the gate upon the
ground, and Honor held the candle aloft that
the light might fall on Larry.  But a soft wind
was blowing, and it drove the flame on one
side, making the long wick glow and then
carrying it away in sparks.

'Mr. Piper, go into the cottage and ask my
sister Kate to give you my scissors.  I will
remove the coat.  Go all of you, either to
the well a few steps down the lane, or into our
kitchen, and wait.  Kate will give you towel
and soap.  Leave me with Larry.  I must deal
very gently with him, and I had rather you
were none of you by.'

'You're right,' said Piper.  'Us had better
have white faces and get clear of horses and
other gear before he sees us.'

'We must be quick,' said Sam Voaden.
'Larry must be got home as fast as may be.'

Then they ran, some to the well in the
bank, some—Sam, of course—into the cottage,
and left Honor for a moment or two beside the
prostrate man, kneeling, holding the guttering
candle with one hand, and screening the flame
from the wind with the other.

Then Larry opened his eyes, and looked
long and earnestly into her face.  He said
nothing.  He did not stir a finger; but his eyes
spoke.

'Larry!' she breathed.  Her heart spoke
in her voice, 'Larry, are you much hurt?'

He slightly moved his head.

'Much, Larry? where?'

'In my pride, Honor,' he answered.

She looked at him with surprise: at first
hardly comprehending his meaning.

Then Kate came down the steps with the
scissors.

'O Honor!  How dreadful!  I told him not
to go!  I told him you disapproved!  And now
he is punished.  O Honor! is he badly injured?
He is not killed?'

'No, Kate, he is not killed.  How far hurt
I cannot tell.  Larry! you must let me move
you.  I may hurt you a little——'

'You cannot hurt me,' he said.  'I have hurt
myself.'

'O Honor!' exclaimed Kate.  'If he can
speak he is not so bad.  Shall I help?'

'No, Kate,' answered Honor, 'go back to
the cottage and give the young men what they
want to clean their faces; those at the well
also.  I can manage Larry by myself.'

She stooped over him.

'Larry! you must let me raise you a little
bit.  Tell me truly, are any bones broken?'

'I do not know, Honor.  I feel as if I
could not move.  I am full of pain, full in all
my limbs, but most full in my heart.'

She began to cut up the seams of the sleeves.

'I cannot move my right arm,' he said.  'I
suppose there is some breakage there.'

'Yes,' she said gravely, 'I can feel a bone
is broken.'

'If that be all it does not matter,' he said
more cheerfully, 'but I want to say to you,
Honor, something whilst no one is by.'

'What is it?'

'I have done very wrong in many ways.  I
have been a fool, and I shall never be
anything else unless you——'

'Never mind that now,' she hastily interrupted
him.  'We must think only at present
of your aching joints and broken bones.'

Then Oliver Luxmore's voice was heard
calling, and asking what was the matter?  Who
were in the house?  He had been roused from
his sleep and was alarmed.  Kate ran up the
stairs to pacify him, and when he knew the
circumstances he hastily dressed.

An altercation broke out at the well.  There
was not room for all to get at the water.  One
came running up with streaming face to Honor,
'Am I clean?' he asked.  'How is Larry?
Not so bad hurt after all, is he?'  Then he
went up the steps into the cottage to consult
his fellows as to the condition of his face, and
to wipe it.

Honor removed the coat in pieces.

'Thank you,' said Larry.  'The candle is out?'

'Yes, the wind has made it out (extinguished it).'

'My left hand is sound.  Come on that side.'

She did as he asked.

'And this,' he said, 'is the side where my
heart is.  Honor, I'm very sorry I did not
follow your advice.  I am sorry now for many
things.  I want you to forgive me.'

'I have nothing to forgive.'

'Lean over me.  I want to whisper.  I
don't want the fellows to hear.'

She stooped with her face near his.  Then
he raised his uninjured arm, put it round her
neck, and drew her cheek to his lips, and kissed
her.  'Honor! dear Honor!  I love no one! no
one in the world but you!  And I love you
more than words can say.'

Did she kiss him?  She did not know herself.
A light, then a darkness, were before her
eyes.  What time passed then?  A second or
a century?  She did not know.  A sudden
widening of the world to infinity, a loss of all
limitations—time, space—an unconsciousness of
distinction, joy, pain, day, night, a loss of
identity—was it she herself, or another?

Then a wakening as from a trance, with
tingling veins, and dazed eyes, and whirling
brain, and fluttering heart, and voice
uncontrolled, as from the cottage door, down the
steps, and from the well, up the lane came
simultaneously the rabble of boys and men.

'Well, how is he?'  'Have you got the
coat off?'  'Can he speak?'  'Any bones
broke?'

Honor could not answer the questions; she
heard them, but had no voice wherewith to
speak.

'Raise the gate again,' said Piper.  'Sam,
are you ready?  Why are you behind?  We
must get on.'

'Honor,' said Larry in a low voice, 'walk
by the side of me.  Hold my hand.'

'He is better,' said one of the young men;
'he can speak.  He knows Honor.'

'Yes, he is better,' she said, 'but he has his
right arm broken, and he is much shaken and
bruised.  Let me walk beside him, I can stay
the gate and ease him as you carry him over
the ruts and stones.'  So she walked at his side
with her hand in his.  In a few minutes the
party had arrived at the granite gates of
Chimsworthy.

'Stay here,' ordered Piper.  'Now, Honor
Luxmore, will you go on up the avenue and
tell the old gentleman?  Us'll come after with
Master Larry in ten minutes.'

'I will go,' said Honor, disengaging her hand.

'How are you now?' asked Piper, coming
up to the young man.

'Better,' he said, 'better than ever before.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FIRST STEP`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A FIRST STEP.

.. vspace:: 2

For the next two days and nights Larry was in
great pain.  His arm and collar-bone had been
set, but strains are more painful than breakages,
and the young fellow in his fall had managed
to bruise and sprain his muscles as well as
fracture his bones.  He could not sleep; he could
not move in bed; every turn, even the slightest,
caused him agony.  The doctor enjoined
perfect rest.  Through the two long sleepless
nights his mind was active, and the train of
thought that had begun as he was being carried
from Broadbury continued to move in his brain.
What different nights were these to those spent
by him on the bench with Honor!  He
considered what she had said to him, and he knew
that what she had said was right.  How
careless of his best interests he had been!  How
regardless of his duties!  How neglectful of his
proper self-respect!  Of course she was right.
His father never had properly managed the
farm, and since his stroke he had paid it less
attention than before.  He, the son and heir,
ought to have devoted himself to the work of
the farm, and made that his main object, not
to amuse himself.

His father came up to his room several
times a day to enquire how he was.

'There's Physick coming here,' said the old
man, 'and I want you to use your hand when
he comes.'

'I have only my left.'

'Well, the left must do.  If you can't sign
your name, you can make a cross and that will
suffice.'

'What do you want me to sign, father?'

'The mortgage.  Physick will find the
money, and then we shall pay off Taverner
Langford, and have done.'

Larry sighed.  He remembered what
Honor had said.  He was helping to burden,
not to relieve, the property.

'Can't it be helped, father?  I'd rather
not, if the money could be raised any other
way.'

'But that is impossible without a sale.'

'Why did Uncle Taverner lend the money?'

'We were behind in a score of things.'

'Is it all gone, father?'

'Gone! of course it is.  Now I'm wanting
more, and I must raise double what Taverner
lends me, half to pay him off, and half to meet
present demands.'

'How is this?'

'Bad times.  Things will come round some day.'

'How long have they been bad?'

'Ever since your mother died.  That was
a bad day for us.'  The old man sat rubbing
his chin.  'The next bad day was when I
quarrelled with Taverner, or rather, when
Taverner quarrelled with me.  'Tis a pity.  I
made up his orchard with my new grafts; and
a more beautiful lot of apple-trees are not to be
seen—and he for to cut them.  Shameful.'

'What was the quarrel about, father?'

'I've told you afore.  A red spider.
Taverner tried to sloke (draw) her away, when
she was running straight as a line into my
pocket.  But I reckon he can't keep you for
ever out of Langford.  He may live for ten
or twelve years out of wicked spite, but he is
not immortal, and Langford will come to you in
the end.  Then you can clear off the
mortgages.—I reckon I shall be gone then.'

'Don't say that, father.'

'I know I shall.  When Taverner sloked
that spider away he carried off my health, and
I were took with the stroke immediately.  I've
not been myself since.'  He continued rubbing
his chin.  'And now comes this mortgage, and
you laid up in bed as you never was before.
It all comes o' sloking away the spider.'

'Father,' said Larry earnestly, but timorously:
'I wish you would let me bring another
here.'

'Another what?'

'Red Spider.'

'What do you mean?'

'Honor Luxmore.'

The old man looked puzzled, then gradually
an idea of his son's meaning crept into his
head.

'I thought,' said he slowly, 'I thought it
was t'other maid.'

'No, dear father, I love Honor.  Let me
bring her here, let her be nay wife, and I'm
sure she will bring luck to this house.'

Hillary senior continued rubbing his chin.
'Her mayn't have money,' he mused, 'but
her's good up and down the backbone; as a
money-spinner is all redness and naught else,
so is Honor all goodness and not a speck of
black in her.'

'It is so indeed, father.'

'I'm better pleased than if it were Kate.'

'I never really thought of Kate.'

'Well, you was sly about it then.  All
folks said that Kate had stolen your fancy.
Well now.  Honor mayn't be a money-bringer,
I reckon she's got nothing—Oliver be poor as
rushy land—but she may spin it.  There's no
saying.'

'Say yes, father.'

'Her's a red spider that Taverner won't
try to sloke away,' chuckled old Nanspian.
Then he continued musing.  He was an altered
man of late, not ready with his thoughts, quick
of motion, lively of tongue as before.  He took
time to come to a decision, and drifted in his
ideas from one matter to another.  'Things
haven't gone quite right since Blandina died, they
haven't—though I don't allow that to others.
I've had five years of wool heamed (laid) up.
I said I'd not sell with wool so low, and it has
been sorry down ever since, and now it's risen
a penny and I tried to sell—the worm is in it
and the staple is spoiled, and it won't fetch any
price.  Then there be the maidens.  They've
let the thunder get into the milk and turn it
sour, and wasted the Lord knows how much
butter, because they were lazy and wouldn't
leave their beds in time at five o'clock, and
make before the sun is hot.  If you'd a good
wife, her'd mend all that.  And Honor! well,
no one has other than a good word for her.
I'm main pleased wi' your choice, Larry.
Yes, I be.'

'Oh, father!  Thank you! thank you!'

'It's not for me to go into the maidens'
room and rake them out of bed at half-past
three in the mornings.  I put it to you, Larry.
Folks would say it was ondecent.  And if I
don't, the butter ain't made, the thunder gets in
the pans, and I lose many pounds.  I reckon
Honor Luxmore would do that.  I've been
racking my brains as you rack cider, how to get
over the difficulty, and it was all dark before
me, but now I see daylight at last.  Honor
will rake the maids out o' their beds, and I
needn't interfere.  You'll be quick about it,
won't you, Larry, before the blazing hot
summer weather sets in, with thunder in the
air, and spoils the milk.'

He passed his hand through his grey hair.
'I had a bell put up in their bedroom, and a
wire brought along to mine, and a handle nigh
my bed, that I might ring them up in the
mornings early.  It cost me nigh on thirty
shillings did that bell.  The hanger had to
come all the way from Tavistock, and it took
him two days to put up, and there were a lot of
cranks to it.  Well, it was just so much money
thrown away.  What do y' think the maidens
contrived?  Why, they stuffed an old worsted
stocking into the bell and tied it round the
clapper; I might pull the rope as if I were
pealing a triple bob major, and not a sound
came out of the bell, because of the stocking.
Well, I wouldn't go into the maidens' room
and see what was the matter, and so I sent to
Tavistock for the bell-hanger out again, and he
charged me three shillings for himself, and
half-a-crown for his man, and ten shillings for the
hire of a trap, and all he did was to remove the
stocking.  Next night the maidens tied up the
clapper with the fellow stocking.  If Honor were
here she'd put all that to rights, wouldn't she?'

'I'm sure of it, father.'

'You be sharp and get well,' continued the
old man, 'then we'll have it all over, and save
pounds of butter.'  He stood up.  'I mustn't
shake hands wi' you, Larry, but I'm main
pleased.  Honor's good through and through
as a money-spinner is scarlet.'

Larry was fain to smile, in spite of his
pain.  This was like his father.  The old man
went on vehemently, hotly for some new fancy,
and in a few weeks tired of it, and did nothing
more about it.

Next day Physick the lawyer came, and
brought the mortgage and the money.  The
signatures were appended, a cross for Larry,
and the money received.

'Now,' said the old man, 'I'd like you,
Mr. Physick, to go over to Langford and pay the
sum I owe to my brother-in-law.  I can't go
myself.  He's spoken that insolent to me, and
that too before the whole of Coryndon's Charity,
that I can never set foot over his drexil
(threshold) again.  So I'd wish you to go for me,
and bring me my note of hand back all square.'

'I will go as well,' said Larry, who was
up, able to walk about, but without his jacket,
because of his bandaged bones and arm strapped
back.

'You!' exclaimed his father.  'Why should
you go?'

'I wish it,' answered the lad.  'I'll tell
you the reason after.'

'You'd better not go out yet.'

'Why not?  Mr. Physick will drive me
there and back in his gig.  I shall not be
shaken.  The gig has springs.'

'I reckon there's a certain cottage the
rogue will want to get out at on the way.
Don't let him, Mr. Physick, or he won't be
home for hours.'

Although the gig had springs Larry suffered
in it, and was glad to descend with Mr. Physick
at Langford.

Taverner Langford had returned home but
an hour before; he had been to the fair at
Holsworthy, and thence had gone into
Bideford about a contract for young bullocks.  He
had just finished his dinner of bread and cheese,
washed down with water, when Mrs. Veale
opened the parlour door, and without a word
showed in Mr. Physick and Larry.

Langford greeted the lawyer with a nod.
'Please to take a chair.'  He stared at Hillary
with surprise, and said nothing to him.

'We've come to pay you the loan you
called in,' said Physick.

'Right,' answered Taverner, 'I was expecting
the money, though why?—grapes of thorns
and figs of thistles is against nature as well as
Scripture.'  Then he eyed his nephew furtively.
He saw that he was looking pale and worn,
that his arm was bandaged, and he was
without a jacket.  He saw that the lad moved
stiffly when he walked.  'You may sit down,'
he said gruffly.  Larry took the back of an
armchair with his left hand and drew it to
him, then slowly let himself down into it.
All his movements, and the twitching of the
muscles in his face, showed he was in pain.
His uncle watched him and saw this, but he
asked no questions.

When the money had been counted, and
the release handed over, and Physick had
indulged in some desultory talk, and disparagement
of water, which he saw that Taverner
was drinking, he rose to leave.  Langford was
not in a conversationable mood, his dark brows
were knit.

Then Larry stood up, and came towards
the table, against which he stayed himself with
his hand.

'I beg your pardon, Uncle Taverner,' he
said in a voice somewhat tremulous, whilst
colour came into and spotted his brow.  'I
came here, though I thought you would not
care to see me.'

'I don't mind when I see your back,' interrupted
Langford surlily, 'your father insulted
me grossly.'

'I have come, Uncle Taverner——'

'Ah!  I suppose your father has sent you.
He wants to patch up the quarrel; you may
go back and tell him it is too late.  I won't
make it up.  It is of no use.  I have nothing
to lose by estrangement.  You and he are the
losers, and that to a heavy amount, as you
shall learn some day.'

'I have not come with any message from
my father.'

'You've come for yourself, have you?
You think that Langford would be a fine farm
for the growth of wild oats?  You shan't
try it.'

'I came here of my own accord,' said the
young man.  'My father knows nothing of
my purpose.  I have come to tell you that I
am very sorry for what I did,—what I did, I
dare say you have not heard, as you have been
away.  You shall hear from me.'

'What have you done?  Some foolery, I
warrant.'

'Yes, uncle, something worse than foolery.
The night you were away, and when we did
not know but you were at Langford, there was
a hare hunt before your doors.'

'What!' almost screamed the old man.

Physick was unable to restrain a laugh.

'There was a hare hunt, and I was in it.
I took a principal part.  I was thrown from
my horse, and picked up unconscious, and the
thing came to an end, it went no further.  I have
been badly hurt.  I might have been killed.'

'And pray how came that about?' asked
the old man quivering with anger.  'A light
from heaven—struck you to the ground, like
Saul when breathing out threatenings and
slaughters against the Elect?  And now
you're a converted character, eh? and so think
I'll take you back into favour, and let you
have Langford?'

'No, uncle.  I do not know quite what it
was threw me down.  Don't think me mad if
I say it—but it seemed to me to be old Wellon
rising from the cairn and rushing down on me,
to strike me to the earth.'

Langford looked at him with amazement.

'I tell you just what happened.  I was
riding in the hunt—more shame to me—and
I had the horn to my lips, and was just by the
Gibbet Hill, when my piebald stood bolt still,
and shivered with fear, and all at once there
came a yellow light out of the barrow, and a
great black figure with flapping clothes about
it and I remember no more.'

Langford was like the rest of his class, full
of belief in the supernatural.  Larry spoke
with such earnestness of tone, his face so fully
expressed his conviction, that the old man was
awed.

'I have broken my right arm and collarbone.
I have suffered a great deal, I have not
slept for three nights, and this is the first day
I have been out of my bedroom.  Uncle
Taverner, I made up my mind the very first
night, that I would come to you directly I was
able, and tell you that I am ashamed of myself.
When the fellows were carrying me away on a
gate, and I woke up—then I knew I had done
wrong.  I was warned beforehand twice to
have nothing to do with the hunt.  I heard
those who were carrying me say how bad I
behaved in taking part in the game against my
own uncle.  There—uncle!  I'm very sorry,
and I hope I'll never be such a fool and so
wicked again.'

Taverner's lips quivered, whether from
suppressed rage, or from a rising better
emotion, neither Physick nor Larry knew, for they
left the room, whilst the old man stared after
them with his dark brows contracted over his
keen, twinkling eyes, and he sat motionless,
and without speaking.

Larry was some little while getting into
the gig.  Mrs. Veale stood on the doorsteps
watching him.  All at once they heard a cry
from the inside of the house—a cry, whether
of terror, or rage, or pain, could not be told.

'What is it?' asked Physick.  'What's
the matter?'

'It's master,' said Mrs. Veale; 'something
has disagreed with him, I reckon.'





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   CHAPTER XXIX.


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   A BLOW.

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Honor felt like one who has looked into the
lightning.  A glimpse of surpassing light, a
vision into a heaven of fire, was succeeded by
darkness and numbness of mind.

She was unable for some while to recover
her mental and moral balance.  The joy that
had wrapped her soul as in flame had left a
pain of fire.  What had she done?  What
would come of this?  Must she go on or could
she step back?  The moment when Larry's
lips had met her cheek, and his words of love
had rushed in at her ear and boiled through
her veins, had been one in which her
self-control had deserted her.

She thought over and over what had taken
place.  She felt his grasp of her hand, his arm
about her neck, the pressure of his lips.  What
must follow on this?  She had not withdrawn
herself from him at his touch.  She could not
have done so.  The power of resistance had
left her.  But now, as her clear mind arranged
duties and weighed them against passion, she
was doubtful what to do.  It was strange for
her to feel need of advice, to be forced to ask
another what to do, yet now she felt that she
could not judge for herself; but she also knew
of no one who could advise her.  There was
nothing for her but to wait.  Her simple faith
raised her soul to God, and she prayed for a
right judgment.  She would leave the future in
His hands: events must decide her course for
her.  Of one thing she was clear in her view:
her duty to her father and brothers and
sisters—she must not desert them.  Whether she must
wholly surrender her happiness for them, or
whether she could combine her duty with her
inclination, she could not tell; that Larry and
the future must decide.

She waited in patience.  She knew that he
would come to her as soon as he could.  She
heard daily from Chimsworthy how he was.
Little Joe ran up and inquired.

She saw him drive by with Mr. Physick.
Whither was he going?  To Okehampton?  It
was not the shortest road.  As he passed the
cottage his face was turned towards it, and she
saw his eyes looking for her, but the gig was
not arrested.  She was in the house, and had
but a glimpse of him through the open door.
Whether he had seen her or not she could not
tell.

Presently he returned.  He must have been
to Langford.  She stood in the doorway, and
their eyes met.  He did not stay the horse; he
could not.  He sat beside the lawyer, who was
driving, and the broken right arm was near the
reins.  Physick was between him and Honor;
but Larry turned his head and looked at her
as the trap went by.  How pale and thin he
seemed!  What marks of suffering were on his
face!  The tears of pity came into Honor's
eyes.

'He will come and see me soon,' she said to
herself.  'May I have my strength to do what
is right.'  Then she seated herself at her work.

Kate was in the house, lively as a finch.
Honor was always reserved: she was now more
silent than usual.  Kate's humour was unusually
lively.  Her tongue moved as nimbly as her
feet and fingers, her conversation sparkled, and
her tones danced like her eyes.  When she was
not talking she was singing.  She made her
jokes and laughed over them herself, as Honor
was in no laughing mood.

Oddly enough, Sam Voaden was daily in
the lane.  He came round by the cottage from
Swaddledown to ask at Chimsworthy after
Larry; he made two miles out of a journey
that need not have been three-quarters across
the fields.  When Sam went by he whistled
very loud, and then Kate found that the pitcher
was empty and needed replenishing at the
well; on such occasions, moreover, the pitcher
took a long time filling.  Kate made no secret
of her heart's affairs to her sister.  It was in
her nature to talk, and a girl in love likes
nothing better, when not with her lover, than to
talk about him.

Honor put away her needlework and got
the supper-table ready, and whilst she was
putting the cold pasty on the table her father
walked in.  He was going next day to Tavistock,
and had been round for commissions.

He was out of spirits, did not say much,
wiped his face with his sleeve, and complained
of the weather—it was sultry, he was tired.
Some of his customers had been exacting and
had worried him.  'The pasty is heavy; it goes
against me,' he grumbled.  'All well for young
appetites.'

'Shall I do you a bit of bacon, father?'
asked Honor.

'Rich that,' he said discontentedly.  'I'm
fanciful in my eating.  I can't help it; I'm
too poor to have what would suit me.  It is in
my constitution.  Those who have the constitutions
of gentlefolk want the food of gentlefolk.'  He
took a little piece of pasty, but
pushed it away.  'It makes my throat rise;
look at that great hunch of suet in it, like a
horse-tooth (quartz spar) in granite.  I can't eat
anything; you may clear away.'

Actually Oliver Luxmore had eaten supper
at one of the farms; that was why he had now
no appetite; but he made occasion of his having
no relish for his food to grumble and make
Honor uncomfortable.

'The fog was a hunting this morning, so
we've had a fine day for going nowhere, and it's
gone a fishing this evening, to let me
understand it will rain to-morrow when I go into
Tavistock.  It is always so.  Bain on market
days to spoil my custom and run away with
profits.'

In explanation of his words, it is necessary
to say that, when the white fog mounts the
hills it is said to go hunting, when it lies along
the rivers it is said to be fishing, and these
conditions of fog are weather indications.

'I don't know what you call that,' said
Oliver, pointing with his fork to a piece of
meat in the pasty.  'It looks to me as if it
were a goat caterpillar got in.  I suppose you
found it crawling across the lane from one of
the willow trees, and, because we're poor and
can't afford meat, stuck it in.'

'Father, it is wholesome; it is nothing
but a bit of pig-crackling.  You know we
were given a piece of young pork by
Mrs. Voaden, the other day.'

Then Oliver sprang to his feet, and Honor
started back in surprise.

Without a word of salutation, with white
face, and glaring eyes, with hand extended and
shaking, Taverner Langford came in at the
door.

'There! there!' he said, in a voice raised
almost to a scream.  'This is what comes of
doing a favour.  Now I am punished.'

'What is the matter, Mr. Langford?' asked
the carrier deferentially.

'What is the matter?  Everything is the
matter,' he cried.  He turned to Honor: 'It
is your doing, yours, yours.'

'What have I done?' she asked, with composure.

'You asked me to take him in; the scoundrel,
the rogue.'

'You cannot mean my brother Charles,'
said Honor, with dignity; 'or you would not
speak thus under our roof to his father and
sisters.'

'Oh no, of course not, you don't like to
hear it; but that is what he is.'

'What has Charles done?' asked Oliver in
alarm.

'Robbed me!' shrieked Taverner, with
his whole body quivering, and with vehement
action of his hands.  'Robbed me, and run
away with my money.'

He gasped for breath, his eyes glared, the
sweat ran off his brow.  He was without his
hat, he had run bareheaded from Langford,
and his grizzled hair was disordered.

'He has robbed me of nigh on a thousand
pounds, and he has gone away with the money.
He took occasion of my being from home;
he has taken all—all—all I had laid by.  I
thought no one knew where was my bank.
He must have watched me; he found out; he
has taken the box and all its contents.'

'Charles could not, would not, do such a
thing,' said Honor, with heaving bosom; she
was more angry at the charge than alarmed.

'Could not! would not!  Where is he now?'

'I do not know.  We have not seen him
for several days.'

'He has not been seen at Langford
either.  As soon as I was off to Holsworthy he
bolted.  He knew he would have three days
clear, perhaps more, for getting away with the
money.'

'It is impossible,' said Honor.  'Charles
may be idle, but he is not wicked.'

'He has robbed me,' repeated Taverner
vehemently.  'Do you want proof?  The five
pound note.'

Honor shuddered; she had forgotten that.

'Do you remember, Luxmore, you paid me
a note of the Exeter and Plymouth Bank?  Do
you remember that I took the number?'

Oliver looked helplessly about the room,
from Langford to Honor and Kate.

'I ask you, whence you got that note?
Come, answer me that?  You, Luxmore, who
gave you that note?'

'Charles,' moaned the carrier, and covered
his face with his hands, as he threw himself
into a chair.

'I thought as much.  Let me tell you that
that note had been abstracted from my box.
I had the list of all the notes in it, but I did
not go over them till I found that I had been
robbed.  Here is the note.  I did not restore
it to the box.  I kept it in iny pocket-book.
I can swear—I have my entries to prove
it—that it had been stolen from me.  When I
found Charles was gone, I thought it must have
been he who had robbed me.  When I saw
the number of the note agreed with one I had
put into the box a month ago, then I knew it
must be he.  You brought me the note, and he
is your son.'

Kate burst into tears and wrung her hands.

Honor saw the faces of the children
frightened, inclined for tears; she sent them all
upstairs to their bedrooms.

Oliver sat at the table with his forehead in
his hands, and his fingers in his hair.

None spoke.  Langford looked at the
carrier, then at Honor.  Kate threw herself
into the chair by the window and wept aloud.
Honor stood in the middle of the room, with
her head bent; she was deadly pale, she dared
not raise her eyes.

'What will you do?' she asked in a low tone.

'Do!' exclaimed Taverner; 'Oh, that is
soon answered.  I send at once to Tavistock,
Launceston, and Okehampton, and communicate
with the proper authorities and have him
arrested.  There are magistrates, and constables,
and laws, and prisons in England, for
the detention and chastisement of thieves and
burglars.'

Oliver moaned.  'I cannot bear the disgrace.
I shall drown myself.'

'What will that avail?' sneered Langford.
'Will it save my thousand pounds?  Will it
save Charles from transportation?  It is a pity
that there is no more hanging for robbery, or
Wellon's mound would be handy, and the old
gibbet beam in my barn would serve once more.'

The words were cruel.  Honor's teeth
clenched and her hands closed convulsively.

Then Oliver Luxmore withdrew his hands
from his face, dragged himself towards Langford,
and threw himself on the ground at his
feet.

'Have pity on him, on me, on us all.  The
shame will kill us, brand us.  It will kill me,
it will stain my name, my children, for ever.'

'Get up,' said Langford, roughly.  'I'm not
to be moved by men's tears.'

But Oliver was deaf; his great absorbing
agony momentarily gave dignity to his feeble
pitiful character, to him even crouching on
the slate floor.

'Spare us the dishonour,' he pleaded.  'I
cannot bear it; this one thing I cannot.
Luxmore—thief—convict!'  He passed his hand
over his brow and raised his eyes; they were
blank.  'Luxmore, of Coombe Park—Luxmore!
Take care!' his voice became shrill.
'Dishonour I cannot bear.  Take care lest you
drive me desperate.  Rather let us all die, I,
Honor, Kate, and the little ones, and end the
name, than that it should live on stained.'  He
tried to rise, but his knees shook and gave way
under him.

'You may sell all I have.  Take the van,
everything.  We cannot find you a thousand
pounds.  We will all work as slaves—only—spare
us the dishonour! spare us this!'

Kate came up and cast herself at her
father's side and raised her streaming eyes.

'Well,' said Taverner, turning to Honor,
'do you alone not join?  Are you too proud?'

'Mr. Langford,' she answered, with emotion,
'you are too hard.  I pray to God, who is
merciful.'

'You are proud!  You are proud!' he said,
scowling.  'You, Oliver Luxmore! you, Kate! do
not kneel to me.  Go, turn to her.  The
fate of Charles, the honour of your name,
your happiness, that of your children, rest with
her—with her!'

He looked at her.

She did not speak; she understood his
meaning.  A pang as of a sword went through
her soul.  She raised her clenched hands and
put them to her mouth, and pressed the knuckles
against her teeth.  In the agony of that
moment she was near screaming.

'There!' said Langford, pointing to her.
'Look how haughty she is.  But she must bend.
Entreat her, or command her, as you will.
With her the issue lies.  I will wait till
to-morrow at ten, and take no steps for the
capture of Charles.  If before that hour I have
yes, it is well.  I pay a thousand pounds for
that yes.  I shall be content.  If not, then—'
he did not finish the sentence; he went out at
the door.

Then only did Honor give way.  She saw
as it were a cloud of blue smoke rising round
her.  She held out her hands, grasping, but
catching nothing, and fell on the floor insensible.





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.. _`YES!`:

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   CHAPTER XXX.


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   YES!

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Honor could not rest in her bed that night.
Oliver Luxmore in the adjoining room groaned
and sighed, he was sleepless.  Kate, who shared
her bed, was awake and tossed from side to
side.  Poor Kate knew that the disgrace would
separate her from Sam.  She was too generous
to urge her sister to make the costly sacrifice.
Oliver felt that words would be unavailing, the
matter must be left to Honor; his best advocate
was in her own conscience.  The resolution
one way or the other must be come to by
Honor unresisted, unswayed.  She lay still in
her bed, but Kate knew she did not sleep.
She lay with her hands clasped as in prayer on
her heaving bosom.  Her eyes were on the
little latticed window, and on a moth dancing
dreamily up and down the panes, a large black
moth that made the little diamonds of glass
click at the stroke of its wings.  Her hair
over her brow was curled with the heat of her
brain, the light short hair that would not be
brushed back and lie with the copper-gold
strands.  Great drops rolled off her forehead
upon the pillow.  Afterwards, Kate felt that
the cover was wet, and thought it was with
Honor's tears, but she was not crying.  Her
eyes were dry and burning, but the moisture
poured off her brow.  Her feet were like ice.
She might have been dead, she lay so still.
Kate hardly heard her breathe.  She held her
breath and listened once, as she feared Honor
was in a swoon.  She did not speak to her
sister.  An indefinable consciousness that Honor
must not be disturbed, must be left alone,
restrained her.  Once she stole her hand under
the bedclothes round her sister, and laid it on
her heart.  Then she knew for certain what a
raging storm was awake in that still, hardly
breathing form.

That touch, unattended by word, was more
than Honor could bear.  She said nothing, but
stole from bed, and put on some of her clothes.
Kate watched her through her half-closed lids,
and dared not speak or otherwise interfere.
Honor went softly, barefooted down the stairs,
that creaked beneath her tread.  Her father
heard the step.  He knew whose it was.  He
also would not interfere.  It was best for
all—for Kate, for Charles, for himself, for Joe, and
Pattie, and Willie, and Martha, and Charity,
and little Temperance—that Honor should be
wholly undisturbed.

The girl unfastened the back door, took up
the little bench, cast a potato-sack over her
head, and went forth, shutting the door gently
behind her.

She carried the seat under the hedge in the
paddock, where she had watched with Larry,
and placed herself on it, then rested her elbow
on her knee, and her head in her hand.  Her
feet were bare, dipped in the dewy grass; a
seeded dandelion, stirred by them, shed its ripe
down over them.  She thrust the sack from
her head.  She could not endure the weight
and the heat, and laid it across her shoulders;
from them it slipped unheeded.  Her arms
were bare from the elbow.  The cold night
wind stroked the arm that stayed up her
scorched brain.  She had prayed that God
would guide her, and the guidance had led
into a way of sorrows.  'It is expedient that
one man should die for the people,' those words
of the High Priest recurred to Honor, and she
thought how that He to whom they referred
had accepted the decision.  She would have
died—died!  O how willingly, how eagerly!—for
the dear ones under the thatched roof; she
would have leaped into fire, not for all, but for
any one of them, for little Temperance, for dear
Charity, for Martha, for Willie, for darling
Pattie, for good, true Joe, for Kate, for her
father of course—yes, even for Charles—but
this that was demanded of her was worse than
a brief spasm of pain in fire; it was a lifelong
martyrdom, a sacrifice infinitely more dreadful
than of life.  The thrushes were singing.  There
was no night in the midst of June, and the
birds did without sleep, or slept in the glare of
midday.  The only night was within the girl's
soul.  There was no singing or piping there,
but the groaning of a crushed spirit.

She started.  She was touched.  She put
out her hand and sighed.  The horse that
Langford had let them have was in the
paddock; it had become much attached to Honor,
and the beast had come over to her,
unperceived, and was resting his head on her
shoulder and rubbing it against her ear and
cheek.  She stroked the nose of the beast with
her left hand without altering her position,
mechanically, and without much diversion of
her thoughts.  When poor Diamond was dying
in the gravel pit, Honor had sat by him and
caressed him; now Diamond's successor had
come to comfort Honor, as best he could, when
her girlhood was dying in anguish, passing into
a womanhood of sorrow.

Chink! chink! chink! a finch was perched
on the topmost twig of an alder that swayed
under its light weight in the wind, repeating
its monotonous cry, chink! chink! chink!

The cold about Honor's feet became
stronger, the dew looked whiter, as if it were
passing into frost, the breath of the horse was
as steam.  High, far aloft, in the dusky sky
some large bird was winging its way from sea
to sea, from the Atlantic boisterous barren
coast about Bude, to the summer, luxuriant
bays of the Channel.  What bird it was Honor
could not tell.  She would not have seen it but
that the winking of its wings as they caught the
light from the north attracted her attention.
Strange as it may seem, though engrossed in
her own sorrows, she watched the flap of
the wings till they passed beyond range of
vision.

Not a cloud was in the sky.  The stars
were but dimly seen in the silvery haze of
summer twilight.  One glowworm in the hedge
opposite her shone brighter than any star, for
it shone out of darkness deeper than the depths
of heaven.

One long leaf near Honor was as if it had
been varnished, wet with dew, and as the dew
gathered on it, it stooped and the moisture ran
to the lanceate end, bowing it further, and
forming a clear drop; then the drop fell, and
the leaf with a dancing rebound recovered its
first position.  Honor's eye rested on the leaf;
as the dew formed on it, and bent it down, so
were tears forming on her soul and bowing it.
The leaf shook off the drop; would her spirit
ever recover?

What wondrous sounds are heard at night!
How mysterious, how undiscoverable in origin!
It seemed to Honor less still in the meadow,
under the thorn hedge, than in the cottage.
Insect life was stirring all about; the spiders
were spinning, moths flitting, leaves rustling,
birds piping, the wind playing among the
thorns; the field mice were running, and the
night birds watching for them on wing.

All was cool, all but Honor's head.  Whatever
sounds were heard were pleasant, whatever
movement was soothing.  Through all the
intricate life that stirred there ran a breath of
peace—only not over the heaving soul of Honor.

Poor Larry!  Honor's thoughts were less
of herself than of others.  She was sure to the
ground of her heart that he loved her.  She
knew, without riddling out the why and how,
that she could have made him happy and good
at once.  There was sterling gold in him; the
fire would purge away the dross.  As in the
cocoon there is an outer shell of worthless web
which must be torn away before the golden
thread is discovered, so was it with him; the
outer husk of vanity and idleness and
inconsiderateness was coming away, and now all that
was needed was a tender hand to find and take
hold of the end of the thread and spin off the
precious fibre.  Another hand, rough and
heedless, might break and confuse and ruin it.

But, though she knew she could have made
Larry's life right and orderly, yet she would
not undertake to do so unless she saw the other
lives committed to her trust cared for and safe.

Above all, high as the highest star, in her
pure soul shone the duty imposed on her by
her mother.  If she could not combine her
duty to the dear ones under the brown thatch
with the charge of Larry's destiny, she would
not undertake the latter.

And now, most horrible gall to her womanly
mind, came the knowledge that she—she whom
Larry loved and looked up to—she, she who
loved the careless lad, even she must step in
between him and his uncle's property, that she
was chosen by old Langford as the weapon of
his revenge on the Nanspians.

The Langford estate must descend to Larry
should his uncle die childless, and she——

Her breath came in a gasp.  She tore up
the cold dockleaves and pressed them to her
brow to cool the burning there, to take the
sting out of her nettled brain.

There was no rest for Honor anywhere, in
the meadow or in her bed—no rest for her
evermore.

She rose and went back to the house, but
when she reached the door, true to her regular
habits, remembered that she had left the sack
and the bench in the field, and went back,
fetched them, and put each in its proper place.
Nothing was ever left littering about by
Honor.  If she had been dying and had seen a
chip on the floor, she would have striven to rise
and remove it.

In the morning the carrier and his two
eldest daughters looked haggard and pale.

The children seemed aware of trouble.  Joe
was attentive and helped to quiet and amuse
the youngest, and watched his father, but
especially Honor, to read what was menaced in
their faces.  He had not been at home when
Langford came, and his sister Pattie could give
him but the vaguest idea of what had occurred.
All she knew was that it was a trouble
connected with Charles, who had run away.  The
carrier had to be ready early to start for
Tavistock market.  Honor and Kate prepared
breakfast for him and the children, without a
word passing between them on what was uppermost
in their minds.  As they were eating, the
Ashbury postboy passed down the lane and
called at the steps.

The carrier went out.

'A letter for you.'

Oliver took and paid for it, then brought it
in and opened it slowly with shaking fingers.
He, Honor, Kate knew that it must have reference
to their trouble.  It was in the
handwriting of Charles; it bore the Plymouth
postmark.  The carrier spread it on his plate; he
did not read it aloud because Joe and the other
children were present; but Honor and Kate
stood behind him and read over his shoulder
without uttering a word.

This was the letter:—

'Dear Father,—I take my pen in hand,
hopping this finds you has it leafs me, with a
bad running at the noaz, and a shockin corf,
gripes orful in my innerds, and hakes all over
me.  I dersay you've eard what I gone and
done, don't judge me harshly, I couldn't do
otherwise, and I'm not so bad to blame as you
may suppose.  I didn't intend delibberat to do
't, but I did it off-hand so to speke.  Wot's dun
can't be undun.  It's no use crying over spilt
milk.  Wot can't be kured must be undured.
That's wot Mrs. Veale would say, and her's a
bad un.  I ketched a cold with getting wet
running away, but I shall be all rite soon,
please God when I'm away on the i seez.  I'm
goin to Ameri'kay which is the place to which
the flour of the British aristokracy go when its
ockerd or embarassing at ome.  As it is ockerd
and embarassing to me, I'm orf, and I hope with
the Almighty's aid to do well in the new whirld,
wheer I intend to found a new Coom Park, to
which I shall invite you all to come, when I
can drive you about in a carridge and pare.  I
want to know how it is with Larry, whether
he be alive or dead.  I came away in such aste
I couldn't stay to know, but I'm very desiring
to know.  Don't rite to me by my proper name,
there may be disagreeables in my wereabout
being knone, so direct to Mr. Charles, poast
resteny, Plymouth.—From your loving sun,

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   'CHARLES LUXMORE.'
          of Coom Park, Esquire.

.. vspace:: 1

P.S.—Doan't say nothink to nobody of were
I be, wotever you do, and kiss the kids for me.
Poast anser at Tavistock or Lanson.

.. vspace:: 2

Oliver Luxmore refolded the letter, and put
it away in his pocket without a word.  Neither
Honor nor Kate spoke or looked at each other.
It was too clear to all that Charles was guilty.
The last doubt of his guilt disappeared.

Oliver went about the horse and van.
Honor did not fail to observe the change
effected in him by one night.  He seemed
older by ten years—to have tumbled down
the decline of life, and been shaken by the fall.
His clothes did not appear to fit him, his walk
was unsteady, his hand shook, his eye
wandered, his hair had a greyer tinge, and was
lank and moist.  Joe ran to help in the
harnessing of the horse.  His father was trying to
force on the collar without turning it.  He put
on the saddle wrong, and fastened the wrong
buckles.  The boy corrected his father's
errors.  Then the man brought the van into
the lane, and stood with his hand to his forehead.

'I've forgotten 'em all,' he said.  'Whatever
were the commissions I don't know.'  The
whip was shaking in his hand as a withy
by a waterbrook.  'I shouldn't wonder if I
never came back,' he said, then looked up
the steps at Honor.  It was the first time he
had met her eye since Taverner Langford had
left the house.  'I shan't know what is to be
till I come home,' he muttered.  'The cuckoo-clock
has just called seven, and it is three hours
to ten.  I think my heart will die within me at
Tavistock.  I shan't be home till night.
However I shall bear it and remember my
commissions I do not know.  Joe shall come with
me.  I can't think.  I can't drive.  I can do
nothing.'

Then Honor came down the steps with her
scarlet cloak about her shoulders, and her
red stockings on her feet, slowly, looking
deadly pale, and with dark rings about her eyes.

'Where are you going?' asked the carrier,
'not coming with me to Tavistock?'

She shook her head.

'Are you—are you going to—to Langford?'
he asked.  'To say what?'—he held
his breath.

'Yes!'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEW MISTRESS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE NEW MISTRESS.

.. vspace:: 2

'Halloo! where be you off to, Red Spider?'
asked Farmer Nanspian, who was on Broadbury,
when he saw Honor Luxmore in her
scarlet cloak coming over the down.  'Stay,
stay!' he said, and put his hand to her
chin to raise her face.  'You never come
Chimsworthy road—leastways, you haven't
yet.—Where be you going to now?'

'To Langford, sir.'

'To Langford, eh?' his face clouded.  'I
didn't think you was on good terms with
Mr. Langford.  Take care—take care!  I won't
have he sloke away this Red Spider from
Chimsworthy.'  Then he nodded, smiled, and
went on.  He little knew, he had no suspicion,
that what he hinted at was really menaced.

Honor went on to the old, lonely house,
and asked to speak to Mr. Langford.  She was
shown into his parlour.  Taverner was about
the farm.  She had some minutes to wait, and
nerve herself for the interview, before he arrived.

'Well,' said he when he came in, 'you are
in good time.  You have brought me the
answer.'

'Yes,' she replied, looking down.

'Do I take that Yes as a reply to this
question or to that I made yesterday?'

'To both.'

'There's not another woman in all England
to whom I'd have behaved as I have to you.'

'I hope not, sir!'

'I mean,' said Langford, knitting his brows,
and reddening, 'I mean, I would not have
foregone a thousand pounds for any other.  I
would not have spared the man who had robbed
me for any other woman's sake.'

'I have come here,' she said, 'myself,
instead of sending a message, because I wished
to speak with you in private.'

'There is no one here to overhear you.
I have stopped up the keyhole; Mrs. Veale
listened, she can catch nothing now.'

'Mr. Langford, I was told by my father
that you had promised to do something for my
brother and sisters.'

'Oh, do not be afraid—I will do something
for them.'

'I want you to grant me one request, the
only one I will ever make of you.  Promise me
some small yearly sum assured to my father,
I do not ask for much.  When I am in the
house, I can manage, but it is hard work for
me to do so.  When I am gone, Kate will find
it hard, and she may not remain long there; she
is a pretty girl, and has her admirers, she is
sure to marry soon—then what will become of
my father and the little ones?  I do not ask
you to take them in here.  That would not be
reasonable—except so far as they can work for
you, and be of use to you—Joe will be a
valuable servant, and Pattie is growing up to
be neat and active and thoughtful.'

'How many more?' asked Langford.

'That is all,' replied Honor quietly.  'If I
ask you to do anything for these two it is only
because they will be worth more than you will
pay them.  But I ask for my father.  It will
be a loss to him, my leaving the house.  He
will not be happy.  Kate is very good, but she
does not understand thrift, and she is
light-hearted.  Promise me a small sum every year
for my father and the little ones to relieve
them from the pinch of poverty, and to give
them ease and happiness.'

'How many have you?'

'There are Joe, and Pattie, Willie, Martha,
Charity, and Temperance.  If I might bring
Temperance with me I should be very thankful;
she is but three, and will miss me.'

'In the Proverbs of Solomon we are told
that the horseleech hath three daughters,
which cry Give, give, give!  Here are more,
some seven, all wanting to suck blood.  If I
marry you, I don't marry the family.'

Honor was silent, for a moment, recovering
herself; his rudeness hurt her, angered her.

'I make a request.  I will ask nothing more.'

She looked up at him, and rested her eyes
on his face.  He had been observing her; how
pale she was—how worn; and it annoyed
him: it seemed to him that it had cost her
much to resolve to take him; and this was not
flattering to his pride.

'I cannot grant it,' he said.  'It is not
reasonable.  I am not going to be eaten out
of house and home by a parcel of ravenous
schoolchildren.  I want you, I do not want all
your tail of brothers and sisters, and, worst of
all, your helpless father.  I know very well
what will happen.  I shall be thrown to them
like an old horse to Squire Impey's pack—to
have my flesh torn off, and my bones even
crunched up.  I cut this away in the beginning;
I will not have it.'

'I ask only for a small sum of money for
my father.  The van barely sustains him.  The
family is so large.  I will not bring any of the
children here, except little Temperance, who is
very, very dear to my heart.'

'No, I will have none of them.'

'I may not have Temperance?'

'No, I said, none of them.  Give an inch,
and an ell is taken.  Put in the little finger
and the fist follows.'

'Then you will grant me an allowance for
my father?'

He laughed.  'A thousand pounds is what
you have cost me.  When that thousand pounds
is made up, or repaid, then we will talk about
an allowance.  Not till then—no, no!  I may
pay too dear for my bargain.  A thousand
pounds is ample.'

'That is your last word?'

'My last.'

Then Honor, looking steadily at him, said:
'Mr. Langford, it is true that you lose money
by me; but I lose what is infinitely more
precious by you.  I lose my whole life's
happiness.  When my mother was dying, I promised
her to be a mother to her darlings.  Now I am
put in this terrible position, that, to save them
from a great disgrace and an indelible stain,
I must leave them.  I have spent the whole
night thinking out what was right for me to
do.  If I remain with them, it is with a shame
over our whole family.  If I go, I save them
from that, but they lose my care.  One way
or other there is something gone.  It cannot be
other.  I have made my choice.  I will come
to you; but I have strings from my heart to
little Temperance, and Charity, and Martha,
and Willie, and Pattie, and Joe, and Kate, and
father.  If they are unhappy, uncomfortable,
I shall suffer in my soul.  If ill comes to them,
I shall be in pain.  If the little ones grow up
neglected, untidy, untruthful, my heart and my
head will ache night and day.  If my father is
uncared for, the distress of knowing it will be
on me ever.  I shall be drawn by a hundred
nerves to my own dear ones, and not be able
to do anything for them.  You cannot
understand me.  You must believe me when I say
that the loss to me is ten thousand times greater
than the loss of a thousand pounds to you.
My happiness is in the well-being and
well-bringing up of my brothers and sisters.  You
take all that away from me.  Did you ever
hear the tale of the widower who married
again, and his new wife neglected the children
by the dead wife?—One night the father came
to the nursery door, and saw the dead woman
rocking and soothing the babes.  She had come
from her grave.  The crying had drawn her.
She could not sleep because they called her.
I do not know that I can bear it, to be separated
from my brothers and sisters—I cannot say—if
they suffered or were neglected—I fancy
nothing could withhold me from going to them.'

Taverner remained silent: her eyes seemed
to burn their way into him.  She shifted her
position from one foot to the other; and went
on, in an earnest tone, with a vibration in it
from the strength of her emotion: 'I am bound
to tell you all.  If you are to be my husband,
you must know everything.  I cannot love you.
What love I have that is not taken up by
Temperance, and Charity, and Martha, and
Willie, and Pattie, and Joe, and Kate, and
father, and——' still looking frankly, earnestly
at him, 'yes, and by Charles, I have given
elsewhere.  I cannot help it.  It has been
taken from me in a whirlwind of fire, as Elijah
was caught up into heaven; it is gone from me;
I cannot call it down again.  If you insist on
knowing to whom I gave it, I will tell you,
but not now, not yet—afterwards.  To show
you, Mr. Langford, how I love my home, I
had made up my mind to give him up, to
throw away all that beautiful happiness, to
forget it as one forgets a dream, because I
would not be parted from my dear ones.  I
was resolved to give him up whom I love for
them, and now I am required to give them up
for you whom I love not.'  She breathed
heavily, her labouring heart beat.  She drew
the red cloak about her, lest the heaving
bosom and bounding heart should be noticed.
Langford saw the long drops run down her
brow, but there were no tears in her eyes.

'You will never love me?' he asked.

'I cannot say; it depends how you treat my
dear ones.'

She took a long breath.

'There is one reason why my consent costs
me more when given to you than to another;
but I cannot tell you that now.  I will tell you
later.'

She meant that by marrying him she was
widening the breach between the uncle and
nephew—that she was marrying the former
for the express purpose of depriving the latter
of his inheritance.  She could not tell Langford
this now.

'I will do my duty by you to the best of my
lights.  But I shall have one duty tying me
here, and seven drawing me to the little cottage
in the lane, and I feel—I feel that I shall be torn
to pieces.'

Taverner Langford stood up and paced the
room with his arms folded behind his back.
His head was bowed and his cheeks pale.  The
girl said no more.  She again shifted her feet,
and rested both hands, under her cloak, on the
table.  Langford looked round at her; her
head was bent, her yellow-brown hair was tied
in a knot behind.  As her head was stooping,
the back of her neck showed above the red
cloak.  It was as though she bent before the
executioner's axe.  He turned away.

'Sit down,' he said.  'Why have you been
standing?  You look ill.  What has ailed you?'

'In body nothing,' she answered.

'Who is it?' he asked surlily, looking out
of the window, and passing his own fingers
over his face.

She slightly raised her head and eyes
questioningly.

'I mean,' he said, without turning to see
her, but understanding by her silence that she
asked an explanation—'I allude to what you
were saying just now.  Who is it whom you
fancy?'

'If you insist, I will tell.  If you have any
pity you will spare me.  In time—before the
day, you shall know.'

He passed his hand over his face again.

'This is a pleasant prospect,' he said, but
did not explain whether he alluded to the
landscape or to his marriage.  He said no more to
force further confidence from her.

'Come,' said he, roughly, and he turned
suddenly round, 'you shall see the house.
You shall be shown what I have in it, all the
rooms and the furniture, also the cowsheds, and
the dairy—everything.  You shall see what
will be yours.  You would get no other man
with so much as I have.'

'Not to-day, Mr Langford.  Let me go
home.  I should see nothing to-day.  My eyes
are full, and my heart fuller.'

'Then go,' he said, and reseated himself at
the table.

She moved towards the door.  He had his
chin on his hand, and was looking at the grate.
She hesitated, holding the handle.

'Hah!' exclaimed Langford, starting up.
'Did you hear that? a-fluttering down the
passage?  That was Mrs. Veale, trying to listen,
but could hear nothing; trying to peep, but
could see nothing, because I have covered
every chink.  Come here! come here, Mrs. Veale!'

As she did not respond, he rang the bell
violently, and the pale woman came.

'Come here, Mrs. Veale! show the future
mistress out of the house!  Not by the kitchen,
woman!  Unbar the great door.  Show her
out, and curtsey to her, and at the same time
take your own discharge.'

'"When one comes in the other goes out,"
as the man said of the woman in the
weather-house,' remarked Mrs. Veale with a sneer.
She curtsied profoundly.  'There's been calm
heretofore.  Now comes storm.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CHINA DOG`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CHINA DOG.

.. vspace:: 2

No sooner was the scarlet cloak gone than
Mrs. Veale leaned back against the wall in the
passage and laughed.  Langford had never
heard her laugh before, and the noise she
made now was unpleasant.  Her face was
grey, her pale eyes glimmered in the dark
passage.

'Will you be quiet?' said Taverner angrily.
'Get along with you into the kitchen and don't
stand gulping here like water out of a
narrow-necked bottle.'

'So!—that be the wife you've chosen,
master!  It is ill screwing a big foot into a
small shoe; best suit your shoe to the size of
your foot.'

'You have received notice to leave.  A
month from to-day.'

'This is breaking the looking-glass because
you don't like your face,' said the housekeeper.
'"Come help me on with the plough," said the
ox to the gadfly.  "With the greatest of
pleasure," answered the fly, and stung the ox.'

'Gadfly!' shouted Taverner.  'Sheathe
your sting, please, or don't practise on me.'

'You marry!' scoffed Mrs. Veale '"I'm
partial to honey," said the fox, and upset the
hive.  "You must learn how to take it,"
answered the swarm, and surrounded him.'

'I'll turn you out at once,' said Langford,
angrily.

'No, you will not,' answered the housekeeper;
'or you will have to pay my wage
and get nothing for it.  I've served you
faithfully all these years, and this is my reward.
I am turned away.  What has been my pay
whilst here?  What! compared with my
services?  And now I am to make room for the
sister of a thief.  What will become of your
earnings when she comes?  If her brother
picked a stranger, he will skin a relative.
And the rest of them!  "I am tilling for you,"
said the farmer to the rabbits; "come into my
field and nibble the turnips."  Love in an old
man is like a spark in a stackyard.  It burns
up everything, even common sense.'

He thrust her down the passage.  She kept
her white face towards him, and went along
sliding her hands against the wall, against which
she leaned her back.

'I did suppose you had more sense than
this.  I knew you were bit, but not that you
were poisoned.  I thought that you would be
too wise to go on with your courting when you
found that you had been robbed by Charles.
Who that is not a fool will give the run of his
house to the man who has plundered him?
Can you keep him out when you have married
his sister?  What of the young ones?  They
will grow up like their brother.  Roguery is
like measles, it runs through a house.  Have
not I been faithful?  Have I taken a thread
out of your clothes, or a nail from your shoe?
Have I relations to pester you for help?  Mine
might have begged, but would not have stolen;
yours will have their hands in all your pockets.
Now you are everything in the house, and we
are all your slaves.  All is yours, your voice
rules, your will governs.  Will it be so when
you bring a mistress home—and that Honor
Luxmore?  Everyone knows her; she governs
the house.'  Mrs. Veale laughed again.  'That
will be a fine sight to see Master Taverner
Langford under the slipper.  "I'm seen in the
half but lost in the full," said the man in the
moon.'

Langford thrust her through the kitchen
door and shut it, then returned to his parlour,
where he bolted himself in, and paced the
room with his arms folded behind his back.

There was enough of truth in what Mrs. Veale
had said to make him feel uncomfortable.
It was true that now he was absolute in his
house; but would he reign as independently
when married?  Was not the ox inviting the
gadfly to help to draw the plough?  In going
after the honey, like the fox, was he not
inviting stings?

Langford had suffered great loss from
rabbits.  They came out of Chimsworthy
plantation and fell on his turnips, nibbled pieces
out of hundreds, spoiling whole rows, which
when touched rotted with the first frost.
Therefore Mrs. Veale's allusion to them went
home.  Yes!—there were a swarm of human
rabbits threatening, the children from the
cottage.  They would all prey on him.  He
was inviting them to do so.  'I till for you,' said
the farmer.  Confound Mrs. Veale!  Why was
she so full of saws and likenesses that cut like
knives?  And Charles!—of course he would
return when he knew that he would not be
prosecuted.  How could he be prosecuted
when the brother-in-law of the man he had
robbed?  When he returned, how could he be
kept away, how prevented from farther
rascality?  A thousand pounds gone! and he was
not to punish the man who had taken the
money.  This was inviting him to come and
rob him again.  He did not think much of
what Honor had said of an attachment to some
unknown person.  Taverner had never loved,
and knew nothing of love as a passion.  He
regarded it as an ephemeral fancy.  Every girl
thought herself in love, got over it, and bore
no scars.  It would be so with Honor.
Presently he rang for his breakfast.  Mrs. Veale
came in.  She saw he was disconcerted, but
she said nothing, till the tray was on the table,
and she was leaving; then, holding the handle
of the door, she said, 'It is a pity.'

'What is a pity?'

'The hare hunt.'

'What of that?' he asked angrily.

'That it was not put off a month, then changed
to a stag hunt,' she replied, and went through the
door quickly, lest he should knock her down.

Mrs. Veale went to her kitchen, and seated
herself by the fire.  She was paler than usual,
and her eyelids blinked nervously.  There
was work to be done that morning, but she
neglected it.

Her scheme had failed.  She had endeavoured
to force Charles Luxmore on to steal
of his master, thinking that this must inevitably
break the connection with the Luxmores.
Taverner, she thought, could not possibly pursue
his intentions when he knew he had been
robbed by Charles.  She was disappointed.
What next to attempt she knew not.  She was
determined to prevent the marriage if she
could.  She had not originally intended to
steal the cash-box, nor, indeed, to rob it of any
of its contents, but she had been forced to take
it, as Charles would not.  Now she was given
her dismissal, and if she left, she would take
the money with her.  But she had no desire
to leave without further punishment of her
ungrateful master.  She had spent fifteen years
in his service.  She had plotted and worked and
had not gained any of her ends.  She had at
first resolved on making him marry her.  When
she found it impossible to achieve this, she
determined to make herself so useful to him,
so indispensable, that he would in his old age
fall under her power, and then, he would leave
her by his will well off.  She was now to be
driven out into the cold, after all her labour,
disappointments, to make room for a young girl.
This should not be.  If she must go, she would
mar the sport behind her back.  If Taverner
Langford would not take her, he should take
none other.  If she was not to be mistress in
the house, no young chit of a girl should be.

She stood up and took down from the
chimney-piece a china dog blotched red, and
turning it over, removed from the inside a
packet of yellow paper.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that
she did not see that someone had entered the
kitchen by the open backdoor.

'I declare!  They'd make a pair!'

Mrs. Veale started, a shiver ran through
her from head to foot.  She turned, still
quivering, and looked at the speaker.  Kate Luxmore
had entered, and stood near the table.

'Well, now,' said Kate, 'this is curious.
We've got a dog just like that, with long curly
ears, and turns his dear old head to the left,
and you've one with the same ears, and same
colour, turns his head to the right.  We'd a
pair once, but Joe broke the fellow.  I reckon
you'd a pair once, but your fellow is broke.
'Tis a pity they two dogs should be widowers
and lonely.'

Mrs. Veale stared at her; Kate had never
been there before.  What had brought her
there now?  Were all the Luxmores coming
to make that their home, even before the
marriage?

'And what have you got there?' pursued
Kate, full of liveliness.  'Why, that is one of
the yellow paper rat-poison packets the man
sold at the fair.  I know it.  'Tis a queer
thing you keeping the poison in the body of
the dog.  But I suppose you are right; no one
would think to go there for it.'

'What do you want here?' asked Mrs. Veale,
hastily replacing the packet and the
dog on the mantel-shelf.  'Why have you
come?  We've had enough of you Luxmores
already.  Your brother Charles has played us
a pretty tune, and now your sister's like to
lead a dance.'

'I have come for Honor.  Is she here?'

'She—no!  She's been gone some time.
Ain't she home?  Perhaps she's walking over
the land, and counting the acres that may be
hers, and prizing the fleeces of the sheep.'

'She is wanted.  As for Charles, there's
naught proved against him, and till there is, I
won't believe it.  I've just had a talk with
someone, and he tells me another tale
altogether.  So there—not another word against
poor Charles.  He wasn't ever sweet on you,
I can tell you.  'Tis a pity, too, about those
dogs.  They're both water-spaniels—what
intelligent eyes they have, and what lovely long
curly ears!  They ought to be a pair some day.'

'I tell you,' said Mrs. Veale, 'your sister
is not here.'

'Our dog,' went on Kate, unabashed, 'don't
belong to father.  He is Honor's own.  She
had the pair, till Joe knocked one of them
over.  Her mother gave it her.  'Tis curious
now that her dog should turn his blessed nose
one way, and this dog should turn his nose the
other way.  It looks as if they were made for
each other, which is more than is the case with
some that want to be pairing.  A mantel-shelf
don't look as well with a spaniel in the middle
as it do with one at each end.  That is, I
suppose, why your master is looking out for a wife.
Well!  I think he'd have matched better with
you than with someone else whom I won't
name.  A house with one in it is like a
mantel-shelf with one odd dog on it.  Does this
chimney ornament belong to you or to the house?'

'Never mind, go your ways.  Don't you
think ever to pair them two dogs, nor your
sister and the master.  There is a third to be
considered.  If one be broken, there is no
pairing.  Do y' know what the ash said to the
axe?

   |  Whether coupled or counter is wisht (unlucky) for me,
   |    My wood makes the haft for to fell my tree.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AMONG THE GORSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AMONG THE GORSE.

.. vspace:: 2

'Where be you going to, Larry?' asked his
father.  'I've just seen the Red Spider running
Langford way.  Take care Uncle Taverner
don't sloke that one away as he tried to sloke
t'other.'

Hearing that Honor was gone over the
moor to Langford, Hillary took that direction,
and, as he had expected, encountered her as
she was returning to her cottage, before she
had left the down.

'You are going to give me a quarter of an
hour,' said Larry.  'I dare say you may be
busy, but I can't spare you till we've had it out
with each other.  I've but one arm now that I
can use, but I'll bar the way with that, if you
attempt to escape me.'

Honor looked at him hesitatingly.  She was
hardly prepared for the inevitable trial, then.
She would have liked to defer it.  But, on
second thoughts, she considered that it was
best to have it over.  Sooner or later, an
explanation must be made, so perhaps it would
be as well for her that day to pass through
all the fires.  There on Broadbury, when the
gorse is swaled (burnt), the cattle are driven
through the flames.  They plunge and resist,
but a ring of men and dogs encloses them,
armed with sharp stakes, and goad them
forward, and at last, with desperation, lowing,
kicking, leaping, angry and terrified, they
plunge through the flames.  Honor thought of
this familiar scene, and that she was herself
being driven on.  Sooner or later she must
enter the fire, be scorched, and pass through;
she would traverse it without further resistance
at once.

'I am ready, Larry,' she said in a low voice.

'My dear, dear Honor, what ails you?
You are looking ill, and deadly white!  What
is it, Honor?'

'We all have our troubles, Larry.  You
have a broken arm, and I have a breakage
somewhere, but never mind where.'

'I do mind,' he said vehemently, 'What
is amiss?'

'You told me, Larry, the night your arm
was hurt, that—your pride had sustained a fall
and was broken.'

'So it was.'

'So also is mine.'

'But what has hurt you?  How is it?
Explain to me all, Honor.'

She shook her head.  'It is not my affair
only.  I have others to consider beside myself,
and you must forgive me if my lips are
locked.'

He put his left arm round her, to draw her
to him, and kiss her.  'I will keep the key of
those lips,' he said, but she twisted herself from
his grasp.

'You must not do that, Larry.'

'Why not?  We understand each other.
Though we did not speak, that night, our
hearts told each other everything.'

'Larry, do you remember what I said to
you when we were together in the paddock?'

'I remember every word.'

'I told you that I regarded you—as a
brother.'

'I remember every word but that.'

'You have been a friend, a dear friend, ever
since we were children.  You were always
thoughtful towards us, my sister and me, when
you thought of nothing else.  You were always
kind, and as Charles was away, of late, I came
to think of you as a brother.'

'But I, Honor, I never have and never will
consent to regard you as a sister.  I love you
more dearly than brother ever loved sister.
I never had one of nay own, but I am quite
sure I could not think of one in the way I think
of you.  I love you, Honor, with all my heart,
and I respect you and look up to you as the
only person who can make me lead a better life
than I have led heretofore.'

Honor shook her head and sighed.  It was
her way to answer by nod or shake rather than
by word.

'I have good news to tell you,' he went
on; 'my father is delighted at the prospect,
and he is nearly as impatient as I am to
have your dear self in Chimsworthy.'

'I cannot go there,' said Honor in a tone
that expressed the desolation of her heart.

'Why not?'

She hesitated.

'Why not, Honor?  When I wish it,
when my father is eager to receive you?'

'Dear Larry,' she said sadly, 'it can
never, never be.'

'Come here,' he exclaimed impatiently, and
drew her along with him.  'What is the meaning
of this?  I will understand.'  Before them
for nearly a mile lay a sheet of gold, a dense
mass of unbroken gorse, in full blaze of flower,
exhaling a nectareous fragrance in the sun, that
filled the air.  So dense were the flowers that
no green spines could be seen, only various
shades of orange and gold and pale yellow.
Through it a path had been reaped, for
rabbit-shooters, and along this Hillary drew her.
The gorse reached to their waists.  The
fragrance was intoxicating.

'Look here, Honor,' said he, 'look at
this furze.  It is like my nature.  It is said
that there is not a month in the year in which
it does not blossom.  Sometimes there is only
a golden speck here and there—when the
snow is on the ground, not more than a few
flowers, and then one stalk sets fire to another,
as spring comes on, and the whole bush burns
and is not consumed, like that in the desert,
when God spoke to Moses from it.  It has
been so with me, Honor.  I have always loved
you.  Sometimes the prickles have been too
thick, and then there have been but few tokens
of love; but never, never has the bloom died
away altogether.  In my heart, Honor, love
has always lived, and now it is all blazing, and
shining, and full of sweetness.'

'Larry,' answered Honor slowly, 'look
here;' she put her hand to a gorse bush and
plucked a mass of golden bloom.

'Honor!' he exclaimed, 'what have you
done?'  She opened her hand, it was full of
blood.

'I have grasped the glorious flower,' she
said, 'and am covered with wounds, and
pierced with thorns.'

'No—no, dear Honor,' he said, taking her
hand, removing from it the prickles, and
wiping the blood away with the kerchief that
bound his broken arm.  'There shall be no
thorns in our life together.  The thorns will
all go from me when I have you to prune me.
I have been wild and rough, and I dare say I
may have given you pain.  I know that I
have.  I was angry with you and behaved
badly; but I was angry only because I loved
you.'  Then his pleasant sweet smile broke
over his pale face, and he said in an altered
tone, 'You do not harbour anger, Honor;
you forgive, when the offender is repentant.'

She raised her eyes to him, and looked
long and steadily into his.

'I forgive you for any little wrong you
may have done me, heartily and wholly.  But,
O Larry!  I must wrong you in a way in
which I can expect to get no forgiveness from
you.'

'That is quite impossible,' he said, smiling.

'Larry, you cannot even dream what my
meaning is.  When you know—there will not
be a flower on the furze-bush, the last gold bud
of love will fall off.'

'Never, never, Honor!'

'You do not know.'

He was perplexed.  What could stand In
the way of her ready acceptance of him, except
his own former bad conduct?

'Honor,' he said, 'I have had some sleepless
nights—these have not been altogether
caused by my arm—and during the dark hours
I have thought over all my past manner of
life, and I have quite resolved to break with
it.  I will no longer be idle.  I will no more
boast.  I will no more let the girls make a
fool of me.  I will work hard on the farm as
any labourer—indeed, Honor, I will work
harder and longer than they.  If you
mistrust me, prove me.  I deserve this trial.  My
father would like you to be his daughter-in-law
at once; but I know that I do not deserve
you.  In the old story, Jacob served fourteen
years for Rachel, and I am not a Jacob—I will
wait, though fourteen years is more than my
patience will bear, still—dear Honor, dear
heart!—I will wait.  I will wait your own
time, I will not say another word to you till
you see that I am keeping my promise, and
am becoming in some little way worthy of you.
I know,' he said in a humble tone, 'that
really I can never deserve you—but I shall
be happy to try and gain your approval, and,
if you do not wish me to say more of my love
till I show you I am on the mend, so shall it
be.  I am content.  Put on the kerchief when
I am to speak again.'

He stopped, and looked at her.  She was
trembling, and her eyes cast down.  Now, at
last, the tears had come, and were flowing
from her eyes.  One, like a crystal, hung on
her red cloak.  Knowing that he awaited an
answer, she raised her head with an effort,
and looked despairingly right and left, but
saw no help anywhere, only the flare of yellow
blossom flickering through a veil of tears.

O, infinitely sweet, infinitely glorious was
this sight and this outpouring of Larry's heart
to her—but infinitely painful as well—piercing,
wounding, drawing forth blood—like the gorse.

'Larry!' she said earnestly, 'No—no—not
for one moment do I doubt your word.
I believe everything you say.  I could trust
you perfectly.  I know that with your promise
would come fulfilment, but—it is not that.'

'What is it then?'

She *could* not tell him.  The truth was too
repugnant to her to think, much less to
tell—and tell to *him*.

'I cannot tell you; my father, my brothers
and sisters.'

'I have thought of that, you dear true
soul,' he interrupted.  'I know that you will
not wish to hurt them.  But, Honor, there will
be no desertion.  I have only to cut a gap
through the hedge of your paddock, and in
three minutes, straight as an arrow, you can go
from one house to the other.  Round by the
road is longer, but when you are at Chimsworthy
we'll have a path between; then you
can go to and fro as you like, and the little
ones will be always on the run.  You can have
them all in with you when and as long as you
like; and my father will be over-pleased if your
father will come and keep him company on the
Look-out stone.  Since Uncle Taverner and he
have quarrelled father has been dull, and felt
the want of some one to talk to.  So you see
all will be just right.  Everything comes as
though it were fitted to be as we are going
to make it.'

Again he paused, waiting for her answer.
Whilst he had been speaking she had worked
herself up to the necessary pitch of resolution
to tell him something—not all, no! all she
could not tell.

'Larry! it cannot be.  I am going to marry
another.'

He stood still, motionless, not even breathing,
gazing at her with stupid wonder.  What
she said was impossible.  Then a puff of north-west
wind came from the far ocean, rolling over
the down, gathering the fragrance of the yellow
sea, and condensing it; then poured it as a
breaking wave over the heads of those two
standing in the lane cut through the golden
trees.  And with the odour came a humming,
a low thrilling music, as the wind passed
through the myriad spines beneath the foam of
flower, and set them vibrating as the tongues of
Æolian harps.  The sweetness and the harmony
were in the air, all around, only not in the
hearts of those two young people, standing
breast deep in the gorse-brake.  The wind
passed, and all was still once more.  They
stood opposite each other, speechless.  Her hand,
which he had let go, had fallen, and the blood
dropped from it.  How long they thus stood
neither knew.  He was looking at her; she
had bent her head, and the sun on her hair
was more glorious than on the gorse-flowers.
He would have pierced to the depth of her
soul and read it if he could, but he was baffled.
There was an impenetrable veil over it, through
which he could not see.

'You do not—you have not loved me,' he
said with an effort.  This was the meaning of
her coldness, her reserve.  Then he put out
his left hand and touched her, touched her
lightly on the bosom.  That light touch was
powerful as the rod of Moses on the rock in
Horeb.  Her self-control deserted her.  She
clasped her hands on her breast, and bowed,
and burst into convulsive weeping, which was
made worse by her efforts to arrest it and to
speak.

Hillary said nothing.  He was too dazed to
ask for any explanation, too stupefied by the
unexpected declaration that cut away for ever
the ground of his happiness.

She waved her hand.  'Leave me alone.
Go, Larry, go!  I can tell you nothing more!
Let me alone!  Oh, leave me alone, Larry!'

He could not refuse to obey, her distress
was so great, her entreaty so urgent.  Silent,
filled with despair, with his eyes on the ground,
he went along the straight-cut path towards
the road, and nearly ran against Kate.

'Oh! you here!' exclaimed the lively girl,
'then Honor is not far distant.  Where is she?
What, yonder! and I have been to Langford
to look for her.  What is the matter?  Oh,
fiddlesticks! you have been making yourselves
and each other miserable.  There is no occasion
for that till all is desperate, and it is not so yet.
Come along, Larry, back to Honor.  I must
see her; I want to tell her something, and you
may as well be by.  You are almost one of the
family.'

She made him follow her.  Honor had
recovered her composure when left to herself,
unwatched, and she was able to disguise her
emotions from her sister.

'Oh, Honor!' exclaimed Kate, 'I have something
to tell you.  I think you've been a fool,
and too precipitate—I do indeed, and so
does Sam Voaden.  A little while ago I chanced
to go down the lane after some water, when,
curiously enough, Sam was coming along it, and
we had a neighbourly word or two between us.
I told Sam all about Charles, and what
Mr. Langford charged him with.'

'Kate—you never—!' gasped Honor in dismay.

'I did.  Why not?  Where's the hurt?
Sam swore to me he'd tell no one.'

'What is this?' asked Hillary.

'Don't you know?' retorted Kate.  'What,
has Honor not told you?  Faith! there never
was another girl like her for padlocking her
tongue.  I'm sure I could not keep from telling.
Sam saw I was in trouble and asked the reason,
and my breast was as full as my pitcher, so it
overflowed.  Well, Honor, Sam is not such a
fool as some suppose.  He has more sense than
all we Luxmores put together—leastways, than
we had last night.  He says he don't believe a
word of it, and that you was to blame for
acting on it till you knew it was true.'

'It is true.  I know it is true,' said Honor
disconsolately.  'It is no use denying it.'

'But, as Sam said, why act on it till it is
proved?  Where is Charles?  All you know
is from Taverner Langford, and he is an
interested party; he may be mistaken, or he may
put things wrong way on wilfully.'

'No, Kate, no!  You should not have spoken.'

'But I have spoken.  If a pitcher is full,
will it not run over the brim?  I have been
over-full, and have overflowed.  That is nature,
my nature, and I can't help it.  No hurt is
done.  Sam will not talk about it to anyone; and
what he says shows more sense than is to be
found in all the nine heads that go under our
cottage roof, wise as you consider yourself,
Honor.  Sam says nothing ought to be promised
or done till Charles has been seen and
you have heard what account he can give of
himself.'

'His letter, Kate?'

'Well, what of his letter?  He says nothing
about stealing in it—stealing a thousand pounds.
What he says may mean no more than his
running away and leaving ninepence a day for
nothing.'

'I am sorry you spoke,' said Honor.

'I am glad I spoke,' said Kate sharply.  'I
tell you Sam's brain is bigger than all our nine.
He saw the rights of the matter at once,
and—look here!—he promised me that he would go
and find Charles if he's gone no further than
Plymouth.'

'You told him where he was!' exclaimed
Honor, aghast.

'Of course I did.  I wasn't going to send
him off searching to Lundy Isle or Patagonia.
Well, Sam says that he'll go and find him on
certain conditions?'

'On what conditions?'

'Never mind, they don't concern you, they
are private.  And he wants to have a talk with
Larry first; but Sam says he don't believe
Charles took the money.  He's too much of
a Luxmore to act dishonourable, he said.'

Honor was still unconvinced.  'Larry,'
continued Kate, 'will you go at once to
Swaddledown and see Sam?'

'Yes; but I understand nothing of what
this is about.  You must explain it to me.'

'No, Larry, go to Sam—he knows all.'

.. vspace:: 2

In after years, when the gorse was flowering
full, Honor said to Larry, 'The honey scent
always brings back to my memory *one* day.'

'Yes,' he replied; 'the furze is like love,
thorns and flowers; but the flowers grow, and
swell, and burst, and blaze, and swallow up the
thorns, that none are seen.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE VISITATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE VISITATION.

.. vspace:: 2

The amazement of Larry was equalled by his
indignation when he heard from Sam Voaden
the whole story of the charge against Charles,
and of Honor consenting to save him at the
cost of herself.  He did not share Sam's
confidence in the groundlessness of the charge; he
thought Charles quite rascal enough to have
robbed his master and bolted with the money.
Nevertheless he thought that the best thing
that could be done was for Sam to go after
Charles, as he himself could not do so, on
account of his arm and collar-bone; and he
urged on Voaden to use his best endeavours,
if he found Charles, which was doubtful, to
persuade him to return the money, through
him, to Langford.

'When he finds that he is suspected he
may do that, especially if you threaten to hand
him over to the constables should he refuse.'

'I don't believe he ever took it,' said Sam.
'I know Charles better than you.'

Hillary was coming away from Swaddledown,
along the road or lane to Broadbury,
when he met his uncle Taverner, in his Sunday
suit, a hat on his head, walking along lustily,
with a stick in his hand.

Larry stood in the way.

'Uncle Taverner,' he said.

'Stand aside,' said Langford roughly.

'One word.'

'Not one!  I have nothing to do with you
or yours.  Stand aside that I may pass on.'

'I cannot; I will not!  You are in my
path, not I in yours—that is, in the path of my
life's happiness.'

Langford looked at him interrogatively.

'Uncle Langford, I must speak to you.'

'I am busy, I have to go to the church.
It is the rural dean's visitation.  I am churchwarden.'

'I will not detain you long.'

'I will not be detained at all.'

'I must speak to you, uncle.  You are too—too
cruel! you have come between me and
happiness.'

'Get along.  Don't think anything you say
will make me leave Langford to you.'

'It is not that.  I have not given that a
thought.  But, Honor——'

'What of Honor?' asked Taverner sharply,
stopping.

'I love her, uncle—I love her with my
whole heart.  I always have loved her, more
or less, but now I love her as I can love no
one else.'

'Oh, that is it!' exclaimed the old man,
bending his brows, and disguising his agitation
and annoyance by striking the stones out of
the road with the end of his stick.  'A boy's
fancy, light as thistle-seed; and a boy's head is
as full of fancies as a thistle is of seed.'

'Nothing of the sort,' said the young man
vehemently.  'There is no one but Honor can
make me what I know I ought to become.
I have never had a mother or a sister to guide
me.  I have grown up unchecked, unadvised,
and now I want my dear, dear Honor to help
me to be what I should be, and am not.
Uncle! you sneer at Chimsworthy because it is
full of docks, and thistles, and rushes, but I am
like that—worthy land, and none but Honor
can weed me.  Why do you come cruelly
in between us, and kill her happiness as well
as mine?  Her you cannot make other than
noble and true, but me!—me, without her you
will ruin.  I must have Honor!  I cannot live
without her.  Oh, uncle, uncle! what are you
doing?  It is unworthy of you to use poor
Honor's necessity to wring from her her
consent.  You know she only gives it to save her
brother.  Why, because she is generous, would
you take advantage of her generosity?'

The lad pleaded with earnestness, vehemence,
and with tears in his voice.  Taverner
looked at him, and thought, 'How like he is
to his mother!  This is Blandina's face and
Blandina's voice.  He is not a Nanspian, he is
a Langford.'  But he said roughly, 'Pshaw! let
me go by.  The rural dean is waiting.  Do
not you mistake me for a weathercock to be
turned by every breath.  You must get over
your fancy—it is a fancy—or change it to
regard for Honor as your aunt.  Do not
attempt to move me.  What is settled is
settled.'

As Hillary still interposed himself between
Langford and his course the old man raised his
stick.

'Come! must I strike you?' he said angrily.
'I've spoken to you more freely than you
deserve.  Stand aside.  I am not to be turned
from my way by you or any other.'

He went forward headlong, striking about
him with his stick, and was not to be further
stayed.  He went, as he said, to the church to
meet the rural dean, but not only because
summoned—he went also to see him as
surrogate, and obtain a marriage licence.

'A Langford cannot be married by banns,'
he said.  'And I'm not going to have
everyone in church sniggering when our names are
called.'

As he went along the road, head down,
muttering, the face of Hillary haunted
him—pale with sickness, refined, spiritualised by
suffering, not the suffering of the body but of
the mind.  He was strangely like Blandina
in her last sickness, and there were tones in his
voice of entreaty that brought back to Langford
memories of his sister and of his mother.

He arrived at the church before the rector
and the rural dean.  The latter was taking
refreshment at the parsonage a mile away.  Would
Nanspian be there?  He did not wish to meet
him, but he would not be away lest it should
be said he had feared to meet him.  Nanspian
was not there.  He had forgotten all about the
visitation.

'He wants a deal of reminding,' said the
clerk, who had unlocked the church.  'He
forgets most things worse than ever since his
stroke.'

Langford disengaged himself from the
clerk and entered the church—a noble
building, of unusual beauty.  In the nave at his
feet was a long slate stone, and the name
TAVERNER LANGFORD.  He knew very well that
the stone was there, with its inscription and
the date 1635; but as he stood looking at
it an uncomfortable feeling came over him,
as if he were standing at the edge of his own
grave.  He was alone in the church.  The
air was chill and damp, and smelt of decay.
The dry-rot was in the pews.  The slates were
speckled, showing that the church roof was the
haunt of bats, who flew about in flights when
darkness set in.  If it were cold and damp in
the church, what must it be in the vault below?
He knew what was there—the dust of many
Langfords, one or two old lead coffins crushed
down by their own weight.  And he knew
that some day he would lie there, and the
'Taverner Langford' on the stone would apply
to him as well as to his ancestor.  How
horrible to be there at night, with the cold eating
into him, and the smell of mildew about
him, and the bats fleeting above him!  The
thought made him uneasy, and he went out
of the church into the sunlight, thinking that
he would pay a woman to scour the stone
of the bat-stains which befouled it.  He had
never dreamed of doing this before, but when
he considered that he must himself lie there, he
took a loathing to the bats, and an indignation
at the vault-covering stone being disfigured by
them.

He walked through the coarse grass to where
his sister was laid.  She was not buried in the
family vault.  Nanspian had not wished it.

The clerk came to him.

'Mr. Nanspian had a double-walled grave
made,' said the clerk, who was also sexton.
'Folks laughed, I mind, when he ordered it,
and said he was sure to marry again—a fine
lusty man like he.  But they were wrong.  He
never did.  He has bided true to her memory.'

'I would never have forgiven him had he
done other,' said Langford.

'I reckon you never forgive him, though
he has not,' said the solemn clerk.

Langford frowned and moved his shoulders
uneasily.

'The grave is cared for,' said he in a
churlish tone.

'Young Larry Nanspian sees to that,'
answered the clerk.  'If there be no other
good in him there is that—he don't forget
what is due to his mother, though she be
dead.'

Langford put his stick to the letters on the
headstone.  'In loving memory of Blandina
Nanspian, only daughter of Moses Langford, of
Langford, gent.'  'Oh!' muttered Taverner,
'my father could call himself a gentleman
when he had Chimsworthy as well as
Langford, but I suppose I can't call myself
anything but yeoman on my poor farm.
Blandina should never have married, and then
Chimsworthy would not have gone out of the
family.'

'But to whom would both have gone after
your death, Mr. Langford?' asked the clerk.
''Twould be a pity if an old ancient family
like yours came to an end, and, I reckon,
some day both will be joined again, by Mr. Larry.'

'No, no!—no, no!' growled Taverner, and
walked away.  He saw the rural dean and
the rector coming through the churchyard gate.

An hour later, Taverner was on his way
home.  He had paid the fee, made the necessary
application, and would receive the licence
on the morrow.  It was too late for him
to draw back, even had he been inclined.
Taverner was a proud man, and he was
obstinate.  He flattered himself that when he had
once resolved on a thing he always went
through with it; no dissuasion, no impediments
turned him aside.  But he was not easy
in mind as he walked home.  Never before
had he seen the family likeness so strong in
Larry; he had caught an occasional look of
his mother in the boy's face before, but now
that he was ill in mind and body the likeness
was striking.  Taverner still laid no great
weight on Larry's expressed attachment for
Honor; he did not know that love was not a
fiction, and was unable to conceive of it as
anything more than a passing fancy.  What
really troubled the old man was the prospect
of disarrangement of his accustomed mode of
life.  When he was married his wife would
claim entrance into his parlour, and would
meddle with what he had there, would use
his desk, would come in and out when he
was busy, would talk when he wanted quiet.
A housekeeper could be kept in order by
threat of dismissal, but a wife was tied for life.
Then—how about Larry?  He might forbid
him the house, but would he keep away?
Would not he insist on seeing his old friend
and companion and love, Honor?  That would
be dangerous to his own peace of mind, might
threaten his happiness.  He remembered some
words of Mrs. Veale, and his blood rushed
through his head like a scalding wave.

When he came to his door Mrs. Veale
was there.  She seemed to know by instinct
his purpose in going to Bratton.

'Have you got it, master?' she asked
with husky voice and fluttering eyelids.

'Got what?'

'What you went to get—the licence.'

'It is coming by post to-morrow.  Are
you satisfied?' he asked, sneering, and with
a glance of dislike.

'A corpse-light came up the lane and
danced on the doorstep last night,' said
Mrs. Veale.  'And you are thinking of marrying!
"I'd better have left things as they were," said
the man who scalded his dog to clear it of
fleas.  The spider spread for a midget and
caught a hornet.  "Marry come up," said the
mote (tree-stump), "I will wed the flame;" so
she took him, embraced him, and——'  Mrs. Veale
stooped to the hearth, took up a handful
of light wood-ash, and blew it in her master's
face from her palm, then said, 'Ashes, remain.'

The ensuing night the house was disturbed.
Taverner Langford was ill, complaining of
violent sickness, cramps, and burning in the
throat.  He must have a doctor sent for from
Okehampton.

'Get a doctor's foot on your floor and he
leaves his shoes,' said Mrs. Veale.  'No, wait till
morning.  If you're no better then we will send.'

'Go out of my room,' shouted Taverner to
the farm men and maids who had crowded in.
His calls and hammerings with the stick had
roused everyone in the house.  'Do you think
I am going to die because I'm took with
spasms?  Mrs. Veale is enough.  Let her
remain.'

'I reckon I caught a chill standing in the
damp church with the smell of the vaults in
my nose,' said Taverner, sitting in his chair
and groaning.  'I felt the cold rise.'

'It is waiting,' remarked Mrs. Veale,

'What is waiting?' he asked irritably.

'The corpse-candle; I see it on the doorstep.
And you that should be considering to
have the bell tolled ordering a wedding peal!
Those who slide on ice must expect falls,
and elephants mustn't dance on tight-ropes.
Rabbits that burrow in bogs won't have dry
quarters.  The fox said, "Instead of eating I
shall be eaten," when, seeking a hen-roost, he
walked into a kennel.'





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.. _`A WARNING`:

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   CHAPTER XXXV.


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   A WARNING.

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The day was wet; a warm south-westerly wind
was breathing, not blowing, and its breath was
steam, a steam that condensed into minute
water-drops.  The thatch was dripping.  The
window panes were blind with shiny films of
moisture.  There had been dry weather for
the haysel, glorious weather, and now, just
when wanted, the earth was bathed in a cloud.
It would be inaccurate to say that it rained.
It rained only under the eaves and beneath the
trees; the earth was taking a vapour bath.

Honor and Kate were in the cottage, basket-weaving.
The children were at school.  No
wet dismays the Devonian, but east wind
throws him on his back, and he shrivels with
frost.  Kate had recovered her spirits
marvellously since her interview with Sam Voaden.
She had a buoyant heart; it was like a cork in
water, that might be pressed under, but came
up with a leap again.  She felt keenly for the
time, but wounds speedily healed with her.
It was other with Honor; she remained
depressed, pale, thin looking, and silent.  She
said nothing to her sister about Hillary.  Kate
had some glimmering idea that Honor liked
the young man, but did not suppose that there
was more in her heart than a liking.  But
Kate, though she dearly loved her sister, was
somewhat in awe of her.  She never ventured
to peer into her soul, and she understood
nothing of what went on there.  Honor was
scrupulous, precise, close; and Kate, though a
good-hearted, true girl, was not close, but open,
not precise, but careless, and ready to stretch
a point of conscience to suit her pleasure.
Kate, in the presence of Honor, was much like
an unmathematical boy set over a problem in
Euclid.  She was sure that all was very true
in Honor's mind, but also that the process
by which it arrived at its conclusions was
beyond her understanding.  Honor possessed,
what is the prerogative of few women, a just
mind.  Forced by her position into dividing
between the children who looked up to her,
obliged to consider their complaints against
each other in petty quarrels from opposite
sides, and of deciding equably, she had
acquired breadth and fairness and self-restraint,
against action upon impulse.  Kate was eager
to take sides, and was partial; Honor never.
She was always disposed to consider that there
was something to be said on the side opposed
to that first presented to her, and was cautious
not to pronounce an opinion till she had heard
both sides.  This Kate could not understand,
and she regarded her sister as wanting in
warmth and enthusiasm.

'No news yet from Sam,' said Kate.  'That
is odd.  I thought we should have known at
once about Charles.'

'How could that be?  Plymouth is a large
place, and Sam Voaden will not know where
to look.  It is even possible that Charles may
have sailed.'

'If he has sailed you need not be tied to
old Langford—that is, not unless you like.'

'I have passed my word.  I cannot withdraw.'

'Fiddlesticks-ends!  You only promised on
condition that Mr. Langford would not proceed
against Charles.'

'He has not proceeded.'

'He can't—if Charles is out of England.'

'But he might have done so the day he
discovered his loss, before Charles got away.
I gave my word to prevent his taking immediate
action, and so Charles had time to make
his escape from the country.'

'Taverner Langford had no right to ask it
of you.'

'He did ask it, and I gave my word.  I
cannot withdraw now.  That would not be
fair and right.'

Kate shrugged her shoulders.  'I should
pay him out in his own coin.'

'Like Charles at the circus?'

Kate coloured.  'That was another
matter altogether.  Mr. Langford had no right
to put such a price on his forbearance.
Besides, I don't believe in Charles's guilt.
Sam does not, and, thick as some folks think
Sam, he has as much brains as are wanted to
fill a large skull, and these of first quality.
Sam can see into a millstone.'

'Yes, Kate, but what is in a millstone?—the
same as outside.'

'Sam says that he knows Charles is innocent.'

'What reasons does he give?'

'Oh, none at all.  I did not ask for
any.  *He* thinks it, that is enough for me.'

'He *thinks* it, now; he knows it, a minute ago.'

'I am quite sure that Charles never took
the money.'

'Why?'

'There you are again with your
"whys."  Because Sam says it.'

'Yes, dear Kate, Sam is a good-hearted
fellow, who will not think badly of anyone,
and he supposes others are as straightforward
as himself.'

'You have a dozen splendid reasons for
thinking Charles a thief, and not one of them
convinces me.  I don't know why, except that
Sam is so positive; but I will scratch all the
silver off my looking-glass if I am wrong.
Charles did not take the money.'

Honor said no more.  It was useless arguing
with Kate, and nothing was gained if she did
convince her.  The girls worked on for a few
minutes in silence; then Kate burst out with,
'After all, I do not see anything so dreadful
in becoming Mrs. Langford.  One cannot have
everything.  Taverner has not the youth and
looks of—say Sam Voaden, but Sam Voaden
has no money of his own, and Mr. Langford
can roll in money when his back itches.
Langford is a very fine property still, and the
house is first-rate.  If I take Sam at any
time—I don't say I shall—I shall have to put up
with poverty.  If you take Taverner Langford
you must put up with ugliness.  You can't
catch herring and hake at one fishing.'  Then
she burst into a ringing laugh.

'It will be worth while marrying him only
for the fun of making Larry Nanspian call you
aunt.'  Honor winced, but Kate was too
tickled by the idea to observe her sister's
face.

'When is it to be, Honor?  It is mean of
you to be so secret about the day.  I am your
sister, and I ought to know.'

'I only do not tell you because you cannot
keep a secret, and I wish no one to know till
all is over.  Some morning when nothing is
expected, it——'  She shivered and turned her
face to the wall.

'I will not blab.  I will not, indeed, dear.'

'Some day this week.  Well, if you must
know, Thursday.  Pray be secret; you will
only add to my pain, my shame, if it be known,
and a crowd of the curious be assembled to see.
*He* also wished it to be kept from getting wind.
Indeed, he insisted.'

'I don't like a marriage without smart
and bridesmaids.  Who is to be best
man?  I don't believe old Taverner has a
friend anywhere.  Why—Honor, he'll be my
brother-in-law.  That is a strange prospect.
We'll come up to Langford and see you
every day, that you may not be dull.  What
are you going to do with Mrs. Veale?  You
are surely not going to keep her!  Do you
know, Honor, in the kitchen is a darling china
spaniel, just like ours yonder on the
mantel-piece, and he turns his head the opposite way
to ours.  I'm really glad you are going to
marry Mr. Langford, because then the dogs
will make a pair.  They look so desolate, one
here and the other there; they are ordained to
keep company.'  Honor said nothing; she let
her sister rattle on without paying heed to her
tattle.

'Honor,' said Kate, 'do you know whence
Charles got the notion of putting the
five-pound note under the dog?  Guess.'

'I cannot guess.  It does not matter.'

'Yes, it does matter.  Charles got the
notion from sweet Mrs. Veale.  When I was
at Langford looking for you, I saw that she
used the dog as a place for putting things
away that must not lie about.  If you turn one
of these china dogs on end, you will see that
they are hollow.  Well, Mrs. Veale had
stuffed a packet of rat poison into the dog.
You remember the man at the Revel who sold
hones and packets of poison for mice and rats?
Do you not recollect the board above his table
with the picture on it of the vermin tumbling
about as if drunk, and some lying on their
backs dead?  All his packets were in yellow
paper with a picture on them in small like
that on the board.  It does not seem right to
let poison lie about.  I should lock it up if I
had it; but Mrs. Veale is unlike everyone else
in her appearance and in her talk, and, I
suppose, in her actions.  She keeps the yellow
paper of rat-poison in the body of the china
spaniel.  I saw her take it thence, and stow it
in there again.  The place is not amiss.  No
one would dream of looking there for it.
Who knows?  Perhaps Mrs. Veale keeps her
money in the same place.  Charles may have
seen that, and when he came here, and wanted
to give us five pounds and escape thanks, he
put it under the dog.  That is reasonable, is it
not, Honor?'  Honor did not answer.

'I declare!' exclaimed Kate impatiently.
'You have not been attending to what I said.'

'Yes, I have, Kate.'

'What was I saying?  Tell me if you can.'

'You said that Mrs. Veale kept her money
in a china dog on the chimneypiece.'

'No, I did not.  I said she kept rat-poison
there in a yellow paper.'

'Yes, Kate, so you did.  She hides the
poison there lest careless hands should get hold
of it.'

'I am glad you have had the civility to
listen.  You seemed to me to be in a dream.
I don't think, after all, Honor, but for Sam,
that I should mind being in your place.  It
must be an experience as charming as new to
have money at command.  After all, an old
man in love is led by the nose, and you, Honor,
he must love, so you can take him about, and
make him do exactly what you want.  I
almost envy you.  Where is father?'

'Gone to see Frize, the shoemaker.  I had
a pair of shoes ordered from him two months
ago, and father has gone to see if they are
done.  I shall want them on Thursday.'

'Father is quite pleased at the idea of your
marriage.  I know he is.  He makes sure of
getting Coombe Park.  He says that Mr. Langford
will lend the money; and he expects
grand days when we get our own again.
Father don't believe any more in Charles being
guilty, after I told him Sam's reasons.'

'What reasons?'

'Well, I mean assertions.  Does father know
the day on which you are to be married?'

'No, Kate.  Mr. Langford wished him not
to be told.  Father is so obliging, so
good-natured, that if anyone were to press him to
tell, he could not keep the secret, so we thought
it best not to let him know till just at the last.'

'Won't father be proud when you are at
Langford!  Why, the van will not contain
all his self-importance.  To have his eldest
daughter married into one of the best and
oldest families of the neighbourhood, to be
planted in the best house—after Squire
Impey's—in the parish!  My dear Honor! an
idea strikes me.  Shall I throw myself at
Squire Impey's head?  Father would go stark
mad with pride if that were so—that is, if I
succeeded.  And if he got Coombe back, we three
would rule the parish.  We might all three
become feoffees of Coryndon's Charity, and pass
the land round among us.  That would be
grand!  Honor! what is to be done with
Mrs. Veale?  I cannot abide the woman.  It was a
queer idea, was it not, putting the rat-poison
in the china dog?'

All at once Kate looked up.  'My dear
Honor, talk of somebody that shall be nameless,
and he is sure to appear.'  She spoke in a
whisper, as Mrs. Veale came from the steps in
at the door.  She had a dark cloak thrown
over her pale cotton dress.  She stood in the
doorway blinking nervously.

Honor stood up, put her light work aside,
and, with her usual courtesy to all, went
towards her.  'Do you want me, Mrs. Veale?
Will you take a chair??

'No, I will not sit down.  So'—she looked
about—'you will go from a hovel to a
mansion!  At least, so you expect.  Take care!
Take care, lest, in trying to jump into the
saddle, you jump over the horse.'

Honor moved a chair towards the woman,
Kate looked curiously at her.  The pale, faded
creature stood looking about her in an inquisitive
manner.  'I've come with a message,' she
said.  'You are very set on getting into
Langford, eh?  Oh, Langford is a palace to
this cottage.'

Honor did not answer.  She drew up her
head, and made no further offer of a seat.
'What is your message?' she asked coldly.
But Kate fired up in her sister's defence, and,
tossing her head, said, 'Don't you suppose,
Mrs. Veale, that Honor, or my father, or I, or
Joe, or any of us think that a prize has been
drawn in your master.  Quite the other
way—he is in luck.  He don't deserve what he has
got, for Honor is a treasure.'

'What message have you brought?' asked
Honor again.

The vindictiveness against the girl seemed
to have disappeared from the woman—at least,
she did not look at Honor with the same
malevolent glance as formerly; and, indeed, she was
not now so full of hate against her as anger
against Langford—the deadlier passion had
obscured the weaker.

'What is the message?' she repeated.

'Oh, this: You and your father are to
come up to Langford as soon as you can.
Lawyer Physick be there and waiting.'  Then,
with quivering voice and eyelids, and
trembling hands thrust through her black cloak,
'I—I be sent wi' this message.  He had the
face to send me!  Him that I've served true,
and followed as a hound these fifteen years,
turns against me now, and drives me from
his door!  Look here, Miss Honor Luxmore!'  She
held up her long white finger before
her face.  'I've knowed a man as had a dog,
and that dog wi' ill-treatment went mad, and
when the dog were mad she bit her master,
and he died.' She blinked and quivered, and
as she quivered the water-drops flew off her
cloak over the slate floor, almost as if a poodle
had shaken himself.  'Take care!' she said
again, 'take care!  The man that kicks at me
won't spare you.  Take care, I say again.  Be
warned against him.  I've given you his
message, but don't take it.  Don't go to
Langford.  Let Lawyer Physick go away.  The
licence has come.  Let it go to light a fire.
Make no use of it.  Stay where you are, and let
the master find he's been made a fool of.  Best
so!  In the hitting of nails you may hammer
your knuckles.  I've served him fifteen years
as if I were his slave, and now he bids me
pack.  "I should have thought of my thatch
before I fired my chimney," said the man who
was burnt out of house and home.'

'Go back to Langford, and say that my
father and I will be there shortly.'

'Then take the consequences.'  Mrs. Veale's
eyes for a moment glittered like steel, then
disappeared under her winking white lashes.
She turned and left the cottage, muttering,
'When the owl hoots look out for sorrow.
When the dog bays he smells death, and I am
his dog—and, they say, his blinking owl.'





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.. _`A SETTLEMENT`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVI.


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   A SETTLEMENT.

.. vspace:: 2

Oliver Luxmore entered shortly after Mrs. Veale
had left.  'Frize promises the shoes by
Monday,' he said.

Then Honor told him that he and she
were awaited at Langford, and she went
upstairs to get herself ready.  In the corner of
her room was an old oak box, in which
she kept her clothes and few treasures.  She
opened it, and took out the red cloak, her best
and brightest pair of red stockings.  Then she
touched the paper that contained the kerchief
Larry had given her.  Should she wear it?
No; that she could not wear, and yet she felt
as if to have it crossed over her bosom would
give it warmth and strength.  She opened the
paper and looked at the white silk, with its
pretty moss-rose buds and sprigs of forget-me-not.
A tear fell from her eye on it.  She
folded it up again, and put it away.

Presently she came downstairs, dressed to
go with her father.  On Sundays she wore a
straw bonnet with cherry-coloured ribbons in
it, but now that the air was full of moisture she
could not risk her pretty bows in the wet.
She would draw the hood of her scarlet cloak
over her head.

Neither she nor her father spoke much on
the way to Langford.  He was, as Kate had
said, not ill-pleased at the alliance—indeed, but
for the trouble about Charles, he would have
been exultant.

Honor had been brought to accept what
was best for her and for all the family at last.
Oliver had easily accepted Kate's assertion that
Charles was innocent, but he would not maintain
the innocence of Charles before Honor,
lest it should cause her to draw back from her
engagement.

Even on a fine day, with the sun streaming
in at the two windows, Langford's parlour was
not cheerful.  It was panelled with deal,
painted slate-grey; the mouldings were coarse
and heavy.  There were no curtains to the
windows, only blinds, no carpet on the floor,
and the furniture was stiff, the chairs and sofa
covered with black horsehair.  What was in
the room was in sound condition and substantial,
but tasteless.  Even the table was bare of
cover.  Till Honor entered in her scarlet cloak
there was not a speck of pure colour in the
room.  She removed her cloak, and stood in a
dark gown, somewhat short, showing below it
a strip of red petticoat and her red stockings.
Round her neck was a white handkerchief, of
cotton, not of silk.

Mr. Physick and Langford were at the table;
they were waiting, and had been expecting them.
Both rose to receive her and her father, the
first with effusion, the latter with some embarrassment.

'What is the matter with you, sir?' asked
the carrier of Taverner Langford.  'You don't
look yourself to-day.'

'I've been unwell,' answered the yeoman.
'I had to be down at the church t'other day to
meet the rural dean, as I'm churchwarden, and
Nanspian is too lazy to act; I heated myself
with walking, and I had an encounter with the
young Merry Andrew on the way.'  He glanced
at Honor, but she neither stirred nor raised her
eyes from the table.  'Some words passed.  He
was impudent, and I nigh on thrashed him.  I
would have chastised him, but that he had a
broken arm.  My blood was up, and I had to
stand in the damp church, and I reckon I got
a chill there.  I was taken bad in the night,
and thought I must die—burning pains and
cramps, but it passed off.  I'm better now.  It
was an inflammation, but I'm getting right
again.  I have to be careful what I eat, that is
all.  Slops—slops.  I wouldn't dare touch
that,' said he, pointing to a brandy bottle beside
the lawyer.  'It would feed the fire and kill me.'

'My opinion is that the affection is of the
heart, not of the stomach,' laughed Physick,
'and when I look at Miss Honor I'm not
surprised at the burning.  Enough to set us all in
flames, eh, Langford?  Heartburn, man,
heartburn!—nothing worse than that, and now
you're going to take the best medicine to cure
that disorder.'

'Not that at all,' said Taverner surlily.  'I
caught a chill across me standing waiting in
the church at the visitation; I felt the cold and
damp come up out of the vault to me.  I was
taken ill the same night.'

'You've a nice house here,' said the lively
Physick, 'a little cold such a day as this, with
the drizzle against the windows, but—love will
keep it warm.  What do you think, Miss
Honor, of the nest, eh?  Lined with wool,
eh? well, money is better than wool.'

Honor measured him with a haughty glance,
and Physick, somewhat disconcerted, turned
to the carrier and Mr. Langford to discuss
business.

Honor remained standing, cold, composed,
and resolute, but with a heart weaker than
her outward appearance betokened.  'Come,'
said Physick, 'next to the parson I'm the
most necessary workman to hammer the chain.
The parson can do something for the present,
I for the future.  If you will listen to
the settlement, you won't grumble at my
part.  Little as you may think of me, I've
had your interests in eye.  I've taken care of
you.'

'You have done nothing but what I have
bid you,' said Taverner roughly.  'Oliver
Luxmore and I talked it over before you, and
you have written what we decided.'

'Oh, of course, of course!' exclaimed
Physick, 'but there are two ways of doing a
thing.  A slip of the pen, a turn of expression,
and all is spoiled.  I've been careful, and I do
consider it hard that the parson who blesses the
knot should be allowed to claim a kiss, and
the lawyer who plaits it should not be allowed
even to ask for one.' He glanced at Taverner
and Oliver and winked.

'Certainly, certainly,' said the carrier.

'Come,' said Langford, 'to business.  I want
her'—he pointed with his elbow at Honor—'to
see what I have done.  I'm a fair man, and
I want her to see that I have dealt generously
by her, and to know if she be content.'

'I have asked you for one thing, Mr. Langford,
and that you have refused.  I must
needs be content with whatever you have
decided for me, but I care for nothing else.'

'Listen, listen, Honor, before you speak,'
said Oliver Luxmore.  'I have considered your
interests as your father, and I think you will
say that *I* also have dealt handsomely by
you.'

'You, dear father!'  She wondered what
he could have done, he who had nothing, who
was in debt.

'Read,' said Luxmore, and coughed a
self-complacent, important cough.

The settlement was simple.  It provided
that in the event of Honor becoming a widow,
in accordance with a settlement made in the
marriage of Moses Langford and Blandina Hill,
the father and mother of Taverner Langford, the
property should be charged to the amount of
seventy-five pounds to be levied annually, and
that, in the event of issue arising from the
contemplated marriage, in accordance with the
afore-mentioned settlement the property was to
go to the eldest son, charged with the seventy-five
pounds for his mother, and that every other
child was, on its coming of age, to receive one
hundred pounds, to be levied out of the estate.
And it was further agreed between Taverner
Langford and Oliver Luxmore that, in the event
of the latter receiving the estates of the
Luxmore family, named Coombe Park, in the parish
of Bratton Clovelly and other, he, the said
Oliver Luxmore, should pay to Taverner
Langford, the husband of his daughter, the sum of
five hundred pounds to be invested in the three
per cents. for the benefit of the said Honor
Langford, *alias* Luxmore, during her lifetime,
and to her sole use, and with power of disposal
by will.  This was the stipulation Oliver had
made; he insisted on this generous offer being
accepted and inserted in the marriage contract.
Honor listened attentively to every word.  She
was indifferent what provision was made for
herself, but she hoped against conviction that
Langford would bind himself to do something
for her father.  Instead of that her father had
bound himself to pay five hundred pounds in
the improbable event of his getting Coombe
Park.  Poor father! poor father!

'You have done nothing of what I asked,'
said Honor.

'I have no wish to act ungenerously,'
answered Taverner.  'Your request was
reasonable; however, I have acted fairly, I
have promised to advance your father a hundred
pounds to assist him in the prosecuting of his
claims.'

'There,' said Oliver Luxmore, 'you see,
Honor, that your marriage is about to help
the whole family.  We shall come by our
lights at last.  We shall recover Coombe Park.'

Then Taverner went to the door and called
down the passage, 'Mrs. Veale!  Come here!
You are wanted to witness some signatures.'

The housekeeper came, paler, more trembling
than usual, with her eyes fluttering, but
with sharp malignant gleams flashing out of
them from under the white throbbing lashes.

'I be that nervous,' she said, 'and my hand
shakes so I can hardly write.'

She stooped, and indeed her hand did
tremble.  'I'm cooking the supper,' she said,
'you must excuse the apron.'  As she wrote she
turned her head and looked at her master.  He
was not observing her, and the lawyer was
indicating the place where she was to write and was
holding down the sheet, but Honor saw the look
full of deadly hate, a look that made her heart
stand still, and the thought to spring into her
brain, 'That woman ought not to remain in the
house another hour, she is dangerous.'

When Mrs. Veale had done, she rose, put
her hands under her apron, curtsied, and said,
'May I make so bold as to ask if that be the
master's will?'

'No, it is not,' said Langford.

'Thank you, sir,' said Mrs. Veale, curtseying
again.  'You'll excuse the liberty, but if it
had been, I'd have said, remember I've served
your honour these fifteen years faithful as a
dog, and now in my old age I'm kicked out,
though not past work.'

She curtsied again, and went backward out
of the room into the passage.

Langford shut, slammed the door in her face.

'Is the woman a little touched here?'
asked the lawyer, pointing to his forehead.

'Oh no, not a bit, only disappointed.  She
has spent fifteen years in laying traps for
me, and I have been wise enough to avoid
them all.'  Then he opened the door
suddenly and saw her there, in the dark passage,
her face distorted with passion and her fist
raised.

'Mrs. Veale,' said the yeoman, 'lay the
supper and have done with this nonsense.'

'I beg your pardon,' she said, changing her
look and making another curtsey, 'was it the
marriage settlement now?  I suppose it was.  I
wish you every happiness, and health to enjoy
your new condition.  Health and happiness!
I'm to leave, and that young chick to take my
place.  May she enjoy herself.  And, Mr. Langford,
may you please, as long as you live,
to remember me.'

'Go along!  Lay the table, and bring in
supper.'

'What will you please to take, master?'
asked the woman in an altered tone.

'Bring me some broth.  I'll take no solids.
I'm not right yet.  For the rest, the best you
have in the house.'

Mrs. Veale laid the table.  The lawyer,
Langford, the carrier, and Honor were seated
round the room, very stiffly, silent, watching
the preparations for the meal.

Presently Honor started up.  She was
unaccustomed to be waited upon, incapable of
remaining idle.

'I will go help to prepare the supper,' she
said, and went into the passage.

This passage led directly from the front
door through the house to the kitchen.  It was
dark; all the light it got was from the front
door, or through the kitchen when one or
other door was left open.  Originally the front
door had opened into a hall or reception room
with window and fireplace; but Taverner had
battened off the passage, and converted the old
hall into a room where he kept saddles and
bridles and other things connected with the
stables.  By shutting off the window by the
partition he had darkened the passage, and
consequently the kitchen door had invariably
to be left open to light it.  In this dark passage
stood Honor, looking down it to the kitchen
which was full of light, whilst she pinned up
the skirt of her best gown, so as not to soil it
whilst engaged in serving up the supper.  As
she stood thus she saw Mrs. Veale at the fire
stirring the broth for her master in an iron
saucepan.  She put her hand to the mantelshelf,
took down the china dog, and Honor saw her
remove from its inside a packet of yellow
paper, empty the contents into the pan, then
burn the paper and pour the broth into a bowl.
In a moment Kate's story of the rat poison in
the body of the dog recurred to Honor, and
she stood paralysed, unable to resolve what to
do.  Then she recalled the look cast at Taverner
by Mrs. Veale as she was signing the settlement
as witness.  Honor reopened the parlour door,
went into the room again she had just left, and
seated herself, that she might collect her
thoughts and determine what to do.  Kate
was not a reliable authority, and it was not
judicious to act on information given by her
sister without having proved it.  Honor had
seen Mrs. Veale thrust the yellow paper into
the flames under the pot.  She could not
therefore be sure by examination that it was the
rat-poison packet.  She remained half in a
dream whilst the supper was laid, and woke
with a start when Taverner said, 'Come to
table all, and we will ask a blessing.'

Honor slowly drew towards the table; she
looked round.  Mrs. Veale was not there;
before Taverner stood the steaming bowl of
soup.

Langford murmured grace, then said, 'Fall
to.  Oliver Luxmore, you do the honours.  I
can't eat, I'm forced to take slops.  But I'm
better, only I must be careful.'  He put his
spoon into the basin, and would have helped
himself, had not Honor snatched the bowl
away and removed it to the mantelshelf.

'You must not touch it,' she said.  'I am
not sure—I am afraid—I would not accuse
wrongfully—it is poisoned.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A BOWL OF BROTH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A BOWL OF BROTH.

.. vspace:: 2

The words were hardly out of Honor's mouth
before the party were surprised by a noise
of voices and feet in the kitchen, and a cry as
of dismay or fear.  A moment after the tramp
was in the passage the parlour door was flung
open, and Sam Voaden, Hillary Nanspian and
his father, Piper, Charles Luxmore, and
Mrs. Veale came in, the latter gripped firmly by
Piper and Charles.

'Here I am,' said young Luxmore, with his
usual swagger, and with some elation in his
tone, 'here I am, come to know what the deuce
you mean, Mr. Langford, charging me—a
gentleman—not to the face but behind the back,
with stealing your money?  Look here, Sam,
produce the box.  There is your cash—whether
right or not I cannot say.  I have taken none
of it.  I did not remove the case.  Tell 'em
where you found it, Sam.'

'I found it in Wellon's Mound,' said the
young man appealed to.  'I've been to
Plymouth after Charles.  I didn't believe he
was a thief, but I'd hard matter to find him.
Howsomedever, I did in the end, and here he
be.  He came along ready enough.  He was
out of money—wanted to go to America, but
had not the means of paying his passage, and
not inclined to work it.'

'I've lost a finger,' exclaimed Charles.
'How could I work, maimed as I am?—a
wounded soldier without a pension!  That is
shameful of an ungrateful country.'

'He took on badly,' continued Sam, 'when
I told him that Mr. Langford said he had
stolen his cashbox with a thousand pounds.'

'I'm a Luxmore of Coombe Park,' said
Charles, drawing himself up.  'I'm not one of
your vulgar thieves, not I.  Mrs. Veale did her
best to tempt me to take it, but I resisted it
manfully.  At last I ran away, afraid lest she
should over-persuade me and get me into trouble,
when I saw she had actually got the box.  I
ran away from Mrs. Veale, and because ninepence
a day wasn't sufficient to detain me.  I
wasn't over-sure neither that I hadn't, against
my intention, broke the neck of Larry
Nanspian.  Now you know my reasons, and
they're good in their way.  Mrs. Veale, there,
is a reg'lar bad un.'

'As soon as Sam returned with Charles,'
said Larry, 'they came on direct to
Chimsworthy, and then Charles told us the whole
tale, how Mrs. Veale had shown him where
Mr. Langford kept his money, then how she'd
enticed him out on the moor to Wellon's Cairn,
and had let him see that she had carried off the
box and had concealed it there.  Charles told
us that it was then that he ran away, and
frightened my horse so that I was thrown and
injured.'

'There was nothing ungentlemanly or
unsoldierlike in my cutting away,' exclaimed
Charles.  'Adam was beguiled by Eve, and I
didn't set myself up to be a better man than
my great forefather.  I'd like to know which
of the company would like to be fondled by
Mrs. Veale, and made much of, and coaxed to
run away with her?  She's a bad un.  It
wasn't like I should reciprocate.'

'When we had heard the story,' continued
Larry, 'I persuaded my father and Mr. Piper,
who was at our house, to come along with us
and see the whole matter cleared up.  We
went immediately to Wellon's Cairn, and found,
as Charles Luxmore said we should, a stone
box or coffin, hidden in the hill, with bushes of
heather and peat over the hole.  That we
cleared away, and were able to put our hands
in, and extracted from the inside this iron case.
It is yours, is it not, Mr. Langford?'

He put the cashbox on the table, taking it
into his left hand from his father.

Taverner went to it and examined it.
'Yes,' he said slowly, 'this is the stolen box.'

'The lock is uninjured, it is fast,' said
Charles; 'but I can tell you how to open it.
"Ebal" is the word this year, and "Onam" was
last year's word.  Try the letters of the lock and
the box will fly open.  I know; Mrs. Veale
told me.  A reg'lar bad un she be, and how
she has worreted me the time I've been here!—at
ninepence, and Mrs. Veale not even good-looking.'

'How about the five-pound note?' asked
Langford, looking hard at Charles from under
his contracted heavy brows.  'You can't deny
you had that.'

'What five-pound note?—what five-pound
note have I had from you?'

'The note you gave us, Charles,' explained
his father.

'Oh, that.  Did it come from your box?
I did not know it; Mrs. Veale gave it me.
Now, don't you glow'r at me that way!'  This
was to the housekeeper, who had turned her
white, quivering face towards him.  'Now
don't you try to wriggle or shiver yourself out
of my hold, for go you don't; as you couldn't
catch me, I've caught you, and to justice I'll
bring you; a designing, harassing, sweethearting
old female, you be!'  He gripped her so
hard that she exclaimed with pain.  'And to
lay it on me when I was gone!  To make out
I—that am innocent as the angels in heaven—was
a thief!  And I, a Luxmore of Coombe
Park, and a hero of the Afghan War!—I, that
carried off the sandal-wood gates of Somnath!
I, a thief!  I, indeed!  Mrs. Veale gave me,
off and on, money when I was short—I wasn't
very flush on ninepence a day.  A man of my
position and bringing up and military tastes
can't put up well with ninepence.  I only
accepted her money as a loan; and when she
let me have a five-pound note, I gave her a
promise to pay for it when I came into my
property.  How was I to know that five pound
was not hers?  I suppose, by the way you ask,
it was not?'

'No,' said Langford, 'it was not; it was
taken from my box.'

'That is like her—a bad un down to the
soles of her feet.  Wanted to mix me up with
it and have evidence against me.  I reckon I've
turned the tables on the old woman—considerably.'

'What do you say to this?' asked Taverner,
directing his keen eyes on her face.  She was
flickering so that it was impossible to catch her
eyes.  Her face was as though seen through
the hot air over a kiln.

'I've been in your service fifteen years,'
she said, in a voice as vibrating as the muscles
of her countenance.  'I've been treated by you
no better than a dog, and I've followed you,
and been true to you as a dog.  Whenever
did I take anything from you before?  I've
watched for you against the mice that eat the
corn, watched like an owl!'

'You acknowledge this?'

'What is the good of denying it?  Let me
go, for my fifteen years' faithful duty.'

'No, no,' said Taverner with a hard voice.
'Not yet; I've something more to ask.  Honor
Luxmore, what did you say when you took
my bowl of broth from me?'  Honor drew back.

'I spoke too hastily,' she said.  'I spoke
without knowing.'

'You said that the bowl contained poison.
Why did you say that?'

'It was fancy.  Let me throw the broth
away.  I am sure of nothing.'  Unlike her
usual decision, Honor was now doubtful what
to say and do.

'I insist on knowing.  I made a charge
against your brother, and it has proved false,
because it has been gone into.  You have
made a charge——'

'I have charged no one.'

'You have said that this bowl'—he took it
from the shelf—'is poisoned.  Why did you
say that?  No one touched it, no one mixed it,
but Mrs. Veale.  Therefore, when you said it
was poisoned, you charged her with a dreadful
crime; you charged her, that is, with an
attempted crime.'

'I heard my sister say that she saw a yellow
packet of rat-poison in the china dog on the
shelf in the kitchen,' said Honor nervously,
'which—I do not mean the dog—I mean the
poison, which Mrs. Veale had bought at the
Revel, and when I was in the passage just now
I saw Mrs. Veale put the contents of this
packet into the broth she was stirring on the
fire, before pouring it out into the basin, in
which it now is.  But,' continued Honor,
drawing a long breath, 'but Kate is not very
accurate; she sometimes thinks she sees a
thing when she has only imagined it, and she
talks at random at times, just because she
likes to talk.'

'It was mace,' said Mrs. Veale.

'Follow me,' ordered Taverner Langford,
taking the basin between his hands, and going
to the door.  'Let her go.  She will follow me.'

'I've followed at your heel as a dog these
fifteen years,' muttered Mrs. Veale, 'and now
you know I must follow till you kick me away.'

Charles, however, would not relinquish his hold.

'Don't let her escape,' entreated Charles;
'she's a bad un, and ought to be brought to
justice for falsely charging me.'

'Open the door, will you?' said Taverner
roughly.  'Mrs. Veale, follow me into the
harness-room'—this was the room on the other
side of the passage, the room made out of the
entrance hall.

Charles drew the woman through the door,
and did not relax his hold till he had thrust
her into the apartment where Langford wished
to speak to her alone.

Taverner and she were now face to face
without witnesses.  The soft warm mist had
changed to rain, that now pattered against the
window.  The room was wholly unfurnished.
There was not a chair in it nor a table.
Taverner had originally intended it as an office,
but as he received few visitors he had come to
use the parlour as reception room and office,
and had made this apartment, cut from the
hall, into a receptacle for lumber.  A range of
pegs on the wall supported old saddles and the
gear of cart-horses, and branches of beanstalks,
that had been hung there to dry for the
preservation of seed.  An unpleasant, stale
odour hung about the room.  The grate had
not been used for many years, and was rusty;
rain had brought the soot down the chimney,
and, as there was no fender, had spluttered it
over the floor.  The window panes were dirty,
and cobwebs hung in the corners of the room
from the ceiling—old cobwebs thick with dust.
Moths had eaten into the stuffing of the saddles,
and, disturbed by the current of air from the
door, fluttered about.  In the corner was a
heap of sacks, with nothing in them, smelling
of earth and tar.

'I've served you faithful as a dog,' said
Mrs. Veale.  'Faithful as a dog,' she repeated;
'watched for you, wakeful as an owl.'

'And like a dog snarl and snap at me with
poisoned fangs,' retorted Mr. Langford.  'Stand
there!'  He pointed to a place opposite him,
so that the light from the window fell on her,
and his own face was in darkness.  'Tell me
the truth; what have you done to this broth?'

'If you think there's harm in it, throw it
away,' said Mrs. Veale.

'No, I will not.  I will send it to
Okehampton and have it analysed.  Do you know
what that means?  Examined whether there
be anything in it but good juice of meat and
water and toast.'

'There's mace,' said the woman; 'I put in
mace to spice it, and pepper and salt.'

'Anything else?  What do you keep in
yellow paper, and in the china dog?'

'Mace—every cook puts mace in soup.  If
you don't like it throw it away, and I will
make you some without.'

'Mrs. Veale, so there's nothing further in
the soup?'

'Nothing.'

'You warned me that a corpse-candle was
coming to the door—nay, you said you had
seen it travel up the road and dance on the
step, and that same night I was taken ill.'

'Well, did I bring the corpse-light?  It
came of itself.'

'Mrs. Veale, I am not generally accounted
a generous man, but I pride myself on being a
just man.  You have told me over and over
again that you have served me faithfully for
fifteen years.  Well, you have had your way.
You served me in your own fashion, with your
head full of your own plans.  You wanted to
catch me, but the wary bird don't hop on
the limed twig, to use your own expressions.
I don't see that I'm much in your debt; if
you are disappointed in the failure of your
plans, that's your look-out; you should have
seen earlier that nothing was to be made out
of me.  Now I am ready to stretch a point
with you.  You have robbed me.  Fortunately
for me, I've got my money and box back before
you have been able to make off with it.  What
were you waiting for?  For my death?  For
my marriage?  Were you going to finish me
because I had not been snared by your
blandishments?  I believe you intended to
poison me.'

'It's a lie!' said Mrs. Veale hoarsely,
trembling in every limb, and with flickering
lips and eyes and nostrils and fluttering hair.

'Very well.  I am content to believe so.
I can, if I choose, proceed against you at
once—have you locked up this very night for your
theft.  But I am willing to deal even generously
with you.  It may be I have overlooked
your many services; I may have repaid them
scantily.  You may be bitterly disappointed
because I have not made you mistress of this
house, and I will allow that I didn't keep you
at arm's length as I should, finding you useful.
Very well.  The door is open.  You shall go
away and none shall follow, on one condition.'

He looked fixedly at her, and her quivering
became more violent.  She did not ask what
his condition was.  She knew.

'Finish this bowl, and convince me you
were not bent on my murder.'

She put out her hands to cover her face,
but they trembled so that she could not hold
them over her eyes.

'If you refuse, I shall know the whole depth
of your wickedness, and you shall only leave
this room under arrest.  If you accept, the
moor is before you; go over it where you will.'

He held the bowl to her.  Then her trembling
ceased—ceased as by a sudden spasm.  She
was still, set in face as if frozen; and her eyes,
that glared on her master, were like pieces of
ice.  She said nothing, but took the bowl and
put it to her lips, and, with her eyes on him, she
drained it to the dregs.

Then the shivering, like a palsy, came over
her again.  'Let me go,' she said huskily.  'Let
none follow.  Leave me in peace.'  Langford
opened the door and went back into the parlour.
Mrs. Veale stole out after him, and those
in the sitting-room heard her going down the
passage like a bird, flapping against the walls
on each side.

'Where is she going?' asked Charles.
'She is not to escape us.  She's such a bad un,
trying to involve me.'

'I've forgiven her.' answered Langford in a
surly tone.  'I mayn't be over generous, but I'm
just.'

'And now, Taverner, one word wi' you,'
said old Nanspian.  'I reckon you thought to
sloke away this Red Spider, as you did the first;
but there you are mistaken.  As I've heard,
you have tried to force her to accept you—who
are old enough to be her father—shame
be to you!  But this is your own house, and
I'll say no more on what I think.  Now,
Taverner, I venture to declare you have no
more hold on the girl.  Her brother never
took your money; you were robbed by your
own housekeeper.  You say you've forgiven her
because you are just.  What the justice is,
in that, I don't see, but I do see one thing
clear as daylight, and that is, you've no right
any more to insist on Honor coming here
as your wife, not unless by her free will and
consent, and that, I reckon, you won't have, as
Larry, my boy, has secured her heart.'

Langford looked at Nanspian, then at
Honor and Larry; at the latter he looked long.

'I suppose it is so,' he said.  'Give me the
settlement.' He tore it to pieces.  'I'll have
nothing more to do with women, old or young.
They're all vexatious.'

'Hark!'  They heard a wailing cry.

'Go and see what is the matter,' said
Langford to Piper; then, turning to Oliver, he
said, 'I tear up the settlement, but I'll not
lend the hundred pounds.'

'Larry!' said old Nanspian, 'she shan't be
sloked away any more.  Take the maid's hand,
and may the Lord bless and unite you.'  Then
to Langford, 'Now look y' here, Taverner.  Us
have been quarrelling long enough, I reckon.
You've tried your worst against us, and you've
failed.  I've made the first advance on my
side, and uninvited come over your doorstep,
a thing I swore I never would do.  Give me
your hand, brother-in-law, and let us forget the
past, or rather let us go back to a past before
we squabbled over a little Red Spider.  You
can't help it now; Langford and Chimsworthy
will be united, but not whilst we old
folk are alive, and Honor will be a queen o'
managers.  She'll rake the maidens out of their
beds at five o'clock in the morning to make the
butter, and——'

Piper burst into the room.  'Mrs. Veale!'
he exclaimed.

'Well, what of Mrs. Veale?' asked Langford sharply.

'She has run out, crying like an owl and
flapping her arms, over the moor, till she came
to Wellon's Hill.'

'Let her go,' said Langford.

'She went right into the mound,' continued
Piper breathlessly, 'and when I came up
she had crawled into the stone coffin inside,
and had only her arm out, and she was tearing
and scraping at the earth and drawing it down
over the hole by which she'd gone in—burying
herself alive, and wailing like an owl.'

'Is there any money still hid there?' asked
Langford.

'She screamed at me when I came up,
"Will you not leave me alone?  I be poisoned!
I be dying!  Let me die in peace!"  Whatever
shall us do?'





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.. _`THE LOOK-OUT STONE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LOOK-OUT STONE.

.. vspace:: 2

One Sunday evening, a year after the events
just related, Taverner Langford and Hillary
Nanspian, senior, were seated in the sun on
the Look-out stone, in friendly conversation.
Nanspian was looking happier, more hale, and
prosperous than he had appeared since his
stroke.  He wore the badger-skin waistcoat,
and his shirtsleeves.  The waistcoat had been
relined with brilliant crimson stuff; bright
was the hue of the lining displayed by the
lappets.  Taverner Langford had not a cheerful
expression; his hair was more grizzled than
it was twelve months ago, and his face more
livid.  There was, however, a gentler light
in his eyes.

'It is a great change in Larry,' said
Nanspian.  'Though I say it, there never
was a steadier and better son.  He is at work
from morning to night, and is getting the farm
into first-rate order—you'll allow that?'

'Yes,' answered Langford, 'I'll allow he
begins well; I hope it will last.  As for
first-rate order, that I will not admit.  "One year's
seeds, three years' weeds," as Mrs. Veale——'

He checked himself.

'That were a queer creature,' observed
Nanspian, taking the pipe from his mouth,
and blowing a long puff.  'That was the
queerest thing of all, her burying herself, when
she felt she was dying, in old Wellon's grave.'

'It was not his grave.  It was a grave of
the old ancient Britons.'

'Well, it don't matter exactly whose the
grave was.  Mrs. Veale seemed mighty set on
making it her own.'  He continued puffing,
looking before him.  'I'm not sure you acted right
about her,' he said after a while.  'I suppose
you didn't really suppose there was any poison
in the broth.'

'I'm a just man,' said Langford, 'To do
as you were to be done by is my maxim.
And—it's Gospel.'

'But you didn't think it would kill her?'

'I don't know what I thought.  I wasn't sure.'

Another pause.

'Swaddledown ain't coming to the hammer
after all,' said Nanspian.

'No, I'm glad the Voadens remain on.'

'Ah! and Sam is a good lad.  I reckon
before Michaelmas he and Kate will make a
pair.  They'd have done that afore if it had
been settled whether Swaddledown would be
sold, and they have to leave.'

'Kate is too giddy to be any use in a farm.'

'Oh, wait till she has responsibilities.  See
how well she has managed since Honor has
been here—how she has kept the children,
and made her father comfortable.'

'The children are half their time at Chimsworthy.'

'Well, well, I like to hear their voices.'

'And you see more than you like of Luxmore.'

'Oh, no, I like to see a neighbour.  I
allow I'm a bit weary of Coombe Park; but
bless you, now you and I let him have a trifle,
he spends most of his time when not in the van
rambling about from one parish to another
looking at the registers, and trying to find
whether his grandfather were James, or John,
or Joseph, or Jonah.  It amuses him, and it
don't cost much.'

'He'll never establish his claim.'

'I reckon he won't.  But it's an occupation,
and the carrying don't bring him much money—just
enough to keep the children alive on.'

'Have you heard of Charles lately?'

'Oh, he is on the road.  That was a fine
idea, making a carrier of him between
Exeter and Launceston.  There are so many
stations on the way—there's Tap House, and
Crockernwell, and Sticklepath, and Okehampton,
and Sourton Down Inn, and Bridestowe,
and Lew Down, and Lifton; and he can talk
to his heart's content at each about what he
did in Afghanistan, and what he might be if
his father could prove his claim to Coombe
Park.  Then he's so occupied with his horses
on Sundays at Launceston that he can't possibly
get over here to see his relations, which
is a mercy.'

'I've been thinking,' said Langford, 'as
we've got Larry in for third feoffee in
Coryndon's Charity, couldn't we get the baby in for
the fourth now there's a vacancy?'

'But the baby ain't come yet, and I don't
know whether it'll be a boy or a maid.'

'It would be a satisfaction, and a further
bond of union,' argued Langford.  'The
Coryndon trust land comes in very fitting with
Langford and Chimsworthy, and I thought
that when you and I are gone, Larry might
absorb our feoffeeships into himself, as a snail
draws in his horns, and then there'd be only he
and his son, and when he himself goes, his son
would be sole feoffee and responsible to no one.
Coryndon's land comes in very fitly.'

'I don't think it can be done,' said Nanspian,
shaking his head.  'There's such a lot of
ramping and roaring radicalism about.  I
thought we'd better put in Sam Voaden.  Thus
it will be in the family.'

'In the Luxmore, not in ours.'

'We can't have everything,' argued Nanspian.
Then both were silent again.  Langford
sighed.  Presently he said, 'I'm a just man,
and do like to see the property rounded
shapely on all sides.  That is why I proposed it.'

Then another pause.

Presently Hillary Nanspian drew a long
pull at his pipe, and sent two little shoots of
smoke through his nostrils.  'Taverner,' said
he, when all the smoke was expended, 'going
back to that woman, Mrs. Veale, I don't think
you ought to have taken me up so mighty
sharp about her.  After all this is sifted and
said, you must allow you stood afraid of her,
and I allow that you had a right to be so.  A
woman as would steal your cashbox, and
make attempts on your heart, and poison your
gruel, no man need blush and hang his head to
admit that he was a bit afraid of.'

'And, Nanspian,' said Langford with
solemnity, 'you will excuse my remarking
that I think you took me up far too testily
when I said you was a long-tailed ourang-outang,
for it so happens that the ourang-outang
is a *tailless* ape.  Consequently, no offence
could have been meant, and should not ha'
been taken.'

'You don't mean to say so?'

'It is true.  I have it in print in a Nature
History, and, what is more, I've got a picture of
an ourang-outang, holding a torn-off bough in
his hand, and showing just enough of his back
to let folks understand he's very like a man.
Well, I've a mind, as the expression I used
about you was repeated in the long room of the
"Ring of Bells," to have that picture framed
and hung up there.  Besides, under it stands
in print, "The ourang-outang, or *tailless* ape."'

'You will?  Well, I always said you were
a just man; now I will add you're generous.'  The
brothers-in-law shook hands.  After a
moment's consideration Nanspian said, 'I don't
like to be outdone in generosity by you, much
as I respect you.  If it would be any satisfaction
to the parish of Bratton Clovelly, the
weather being warm, and for the quieting of
minds and setting at rest all disputes, I don't
object to bathing once in the river Thrustle
before the feoffees of Coryndon's Charity,
excepting Larry, whom from motives of delicacy
I exclude.'

'Well,' said Langford, 'I won't deny you're
a liberal-minded man.'

Taverner sprang to his feet, and Nanspian
also rose.  Over the stile from the lane came
Honor, in her red stockings and scarlet cloak,
the latter drawn closely round her.

'Why didn't you call us?' said Nanspian.
'We'd have come and helped you over.'

'You shouldn't be climbing about now,'
said Taverner.

'Come and sit between us on the Look-out
stone,' said Nanspian.

So the two old men reseated themselves on
the granite slab, with Honor between them.

'You tried hard to sloke her away,'
remarked Nanspian, shaking his head.

'Let bygones be bygones,' said Langford.
'She may be here at Chimsworthy now, but
she'll be at Langford some day.  I'm proud
and happy to think.'

'Ah!' said Nanspian, 'she's made a mighty
change in Larry, and, faith, in me also.  I'm a
happier man than I was.'  He put his arm round
behind Honor.

'I may say that of myself,' said Langford.
'I can know that Langford will be made the
most of after I'm gone.' He put his arm round
her, and clasped that of Nanspian.

'Ah!' said Nanspian, in his old soft, furry,
pleasant voice, 'if I'd a many score of faces in
front of me, and I were addressing a political
meeting, I'd say the same as I says now.
Never you argue that what we was taught as
children is gammon and superstition, it's no
such thing.  It has always been said that he
who lays hold of a red spider secures good
luck, and we've proved it, Taverner and I,
we've proved it.  Us have got hold of the very
best and biggest and reddest of money-spinners
between us—us don't try to sloke her away to
this side or to that.  Her belongs ekally to
Chimsworthy and to Langford, to myself
and to Taverner, and blessed if there be a
chance for any man all over England of
getting such another treasure as this Red Spider
which Taverner and I be holding atween
us—ekally belonging to each.'

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   THE END.

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   PRINTED BY
   SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
   LONDON

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