CHAPTER XVII.
DENAS.
| “She that is loved is safe; and he that is loved is joyful.” ––Bishop Taylor. |
| “No pearls, no gold, no stones, no corn, no spice, No cloth, no wine, of Love can pay the price; Divine is Love, and scorneth worldly pelf, And can be bought with nothing but itself.” ––Heywood. |
| “To-morrow, Love, as to-day, Two blent hearts never astray; Two souls no power may sever; Together, O Love, for ever!” ––Rossetti. |
During the summer which followed, Tris was much at home. Mr. Arundel did not go to Norway; he was in London with the lady whom he intended to marry, until the end of the season, and afterward frequently at her country home in Devonshire. Tris had then his opportunity and he did not neglect it. But he was an impulsive young man, and very often lost the ground on Monday that he had gained on Sunday. All of love’s fitful fevers and chills tormented him, and then he tormented Denas. He was jealous of every moment of her time, of every kind word and look she bestowed on others. The school offended, the children irritated 332 his conception of his own rights. He was as thoroughly unreasonable and Denas as thoroughly contradictory as was necessary for the most tantalising of love affairs.
About the beginning of the summer, just before the pilchard season, Jacob Trenager died. He was a Pentrath man, and of course “went home” for his burying. It did not seem an event likely to affect the lives of Tris and Denas, and yet it did have a very pleasant influence upon their future. In some far-back generation a Trenager had saved the life of an Arundel, and ever since, when any adult of one family was buried an adult of the other threw the first earth upon the coffin, in token of their remembrance and of their friendship. Mr. Arundel was aware of the tradition, and he desired to perpetuate it. He was, perhaps, actuated by some religious respect for the customs and feelings of his ancestors; he was, undoubtedly, considerate of the fact that he had just bought a valuable estate in the midst of these old clannish fisher-folk, and well aware that such a trifling concession to their prejudices might in a future Parliamentary struggle be of preponderating value to him.
So, in accord with his expressed desire, Trenager’s funeral was observed with all the ancient ceremonies. His mates from the numerous villages around carried him all the way on his bier to Pentrath; carried him by the sea-shore, singing hymns as they went. A great crowd of men and women were in the procession, and the old church at Pentrath was full to overflowing. Jacob’s forefathers for centuries 333 back lay in Pentrath church-yard, and there were old people living in the town who remembered Jacob casting the first earth on the present Mr. Arundel’s father’s coffin, and who wondered whether the son would do the same kindness for the fisherman.