CHAPTER PAGE
In Childhood[1]
I.Otho’s Return[11]
II.Magdalen—and the Neighbourhood[25]
III.Langstroth’s Folly[37]
IV.The Faculty of Close Observation[47]
V.Gilbert’s Cautiousness[56]
VI.Gilbert’s Coup de Theatre’[62]
VII.Michael, Roger, Gilbert[78]
VIII.The First-fruits of the Wisdom of Gilbert[92]
IX.The Goddess of the Tender Feet[102]
X.The Process of Annealing[111]
XI.Otho’s Letter-bag[119]
XII.Eleanor[133]
XIII.Twenty-eight and Twenty-two[145]
XIV.Thrust and Parry[150]
XV.Three Women[163]
XVI.A Friendship explained[172]
XVII.Roger Camm’s Courting[181]
XVIII.A Wild-goose Chase[188]
XIX.Inevitable[204]
XX.How a Thorn was planted[222]
XXI.Work and Wages[237]
XXII.Cross-purposes[255]
XXIII.Quarrel[267]
XXIV.Otho’s Revenge[277]
XXV.In the Ante-room[287]
XXVI.Her Heart’s Desire[296]
XXVII.Recrimination[306]
XXVIII.At the Mills[316]
XXIX.A False Step in Good Faith[327]
XXX.Sermon, by a Sinner[343]
XXXI.Brass Pots and Earthenware Pipkins[359]
XXXII.First Alarm[375]
XXXIII.Broken off[383]
XXXIV.How Crackpot was scratched[391]
XXXV.‘Carelesse Contente’[400]
XXXVI.The Shadow[409]
XXXVII.The Return[418]
XXXVIII.Ada[432]
XXXIX.The Brothers[440]
XL.‘Amidst the Blaze of Noon’[449]
XLI.‘Let me alone’[460]
XLII.How Ada solved her Problem[465]
XLIII.Magdalen. In Valediction[474]

BORDERLAND

IN CHILDHOOD

One summer, which in point of date now lies many years behind us, four boys used to play together, and to quarrel and make it up again with one another—to live together through the long, golden days, that vivid, eager life peculiar to children, in a curious, old-fashioned garden on the bank of the river Tees, and on the Durham side of that stream. The garden belonged to a great house, not very old, though it was the abode of an old family, solemn, not to say gloomy, in its dulness and stateliness of appearance, and standing out in rather sombre contrast to the woods which were behind it, and the terraces which sloped down from its front to the river-side. The name of the house was Thorsgarth; many a spot hereabouts bore some name reminiscent of long-past Danish occupation and Scandinavian paganism. It was a characteristic giving a peculiar flavour to the language and nomenclature of the whole country-side, and one, too, which has been sweetly sung by at least one of our English poets. With this fact, these four particular boys were probably unacquainted, and it is more than probable that if they had known all about it they would have cared less than nothing for the circumstance. What could it matter to them that, a little farther down the stream, that sweet spot where they loved to wade in the shallows, and not far from which noisy Greta came tumbling and laughing into the arms of sedater Tees—where the numerous wasps’ nests were to be found under the bank, to destroy which nests they had gone through such delicious toils and perils, and where on sunny days the trout would lurk in the pools amongst the big boulders,—what could it matter to them that this scene had been immortalised by both poet and painter? To them it was all their own paradise; the presence of an artist would have vexed and incommoded them. There they kicked, jumped, splashed, and generally misconducted themselves in the sweet solitude and the generous sunshine of that far-back summer, without a thought of its being hallowed ground. Three of them were not of an age at which the ordinary boy is given to appreciate poetry. As for the eldest of them, if he ever did read it, he kept the fact to himself.

These four boys were all the sons of gentlemen, in the conventional sense of the term—albeit their fathers were men of widely different calibre, as regarded not only worldly, but also mental and moral characteristics.

The eldest and the third in age were brothers, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth. Their father’s was one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood, and had been one of the richest, although many people had begun to say that not much was now practically left to him except the old house itself, the Red Gables, which stood in genial vicinity to many other houses, both great and small, in the great cobble-stoned, slanting square, which formed the west end of Bradstane town.

Michael Langstroth at this period was twelve years old, a noble boy to look at, tall and broad, with a dark face, and a sweet, rather rare smile. There was a good deal of unconscious pride in his manner and bearing. Perhaps his piercing gray eyes, going with this dark complexion, might really betoken that Norse descent in which his family gloried. All his actions were, so far as one could judge, in harmony with his outer appearance; without fuss or ostentation, but all partaking of the intrinsically splendid, generous, and lavish. Even at this early time of their lives, the other boys knew that Michael hated lies with an intensity which showed itself more in sudden, violent action than in words. They knew that he resented any untruth amongst them as if it had been a personal insult. There was, indeed, no doubt that Michael was a son in whose proud looks a father might glory; while with all his strength and power there were in him other and quieter charms, such as a mother might delight in. And Mrs. Langstroth did very greatly delight in what seemed to her her son’s high and noble qualities, during the short time that she was allowed to do so.

‘I fear it will never last,’ she would say to herself, watching him with prayer and trembling, as mothers do watch those sons who have a way of turning into something so different from what the maternal yearnings would shape them into if, along with the yearnings, the power existed of fulfilling them. ‘I fear it will never last. Contact with the world will harden him. Flattery will make him vain. Universal homage will spoil him.’ Mrs. Langstroth was a sweet and saintly lady, and her son Michael a brave and noble boy; but what insignificant hen-mother exists who does not think that the attention to herself and her matchless offspring must of necessity be universal?

With pathetic, devoted blindness she would have prepared him to meet this irresistible tide of flattery and greatness by keeping him fast at her own side, and never loosing his leading strings. The mention of a public school drew tears from her eyes, and set her gentle heart beating wildly. It was written that her son Michael’s education—every branch of it—was to be taken out of her hands, and placed in others, firmer, harder, sterner, and to them who can survive their roughness, kinder hands than even those of a mother.

Gilbert, Michael’s brother, was a well-grown boy, too, of ten, with a smaller, rounder head, a narrower forehead, and blue-gray eyes, which had a trick of languishing sometimes. He had an exquisitely soft and melancholy voice, was slow of speech, and possessed a graceful, though by no means effeminate figure. He was always, and apparently by nature, courteous and gentle in manner and speech, seldom indulging in the downright unflattering candour which Michael, for all he was so gentlemanly, frequently used towards his companions. Gilbert never said rude things to any one, but he was not so popular with his comrades as Michael.