The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Yes, yes, I forgive you; I forgive you. Oh, my boy, I forgive all. I wish I could die instead of you."

"And--will you set her right with the world?" continued Harry, holding his father's hand against his cheek caressingly. "It is only you who can effectually do it, I think. And allow her a little income to maintain her in comfort?"

"Harry, I will do all."

"She is my wife, you see, father, and it is what should be. Your promise will ease my soul in dying. Had I lived, she would have shared my state and fortune.

"All, all; I will do all," said the Master of Greylands.

"For the past, it is not she who is to blame," continued Harry, anxious that there should be no misapprehension of Jane's conduct. "She would have held out against the marriage on account of my family, always begging of me to wait. But I would have my way. Do not visit the blame upon her, father, for she does not deserve it."

"I understand: she shall have all justice, Harry. Be at peace."

But, in spite of this one absorbing grief for his son, there was another care that kept intruding itself in no minor degree on the Master of Greylands: and that was the business connected with the smugglers. How much of that was known?--how much had good fortune been enabled to keep concealed? While the doctors were again with Harry towards midday, Mr. Castlemaine snatched a moment to go out of doors.

How strange the broad glare of day appeared to him! Coming out of the darkened room with its hushed atmosphere, its overlying sadness, into the light of the sun, high in the heavens, the hum of the crowding people, the stir of health and busy life, the Master of Greylands seemed to have passed into another world. The room he had left was as the grave, where his son would soon be; this moving scene as some passing pageantry, very redolent of mundane earth.

Which Greylands was making the most of,--the strange accident to Harry Castlemaine (every whit as strange as the self-shooting that had temporarily disabled young Dance; nay, stranger); or the astounding news touching the smugglers, or the reappearance of Jane Hallet--it was hard to say. All kinds of reports were afloat; some true, some untrue, as usual. Mr. Superintendent, Nettleby, it appeared, had for a considerable time suspected that smuggling to an extraordinary extent was carried on somewhere along this line of coast. From information supplied to him, he had little doubt that valuable goods found their contraband entrance, somewhere; within, say, the length of a dozen miles. The difficulty was--how to hit upon the spot. Surmises were chiefly directed to the little place called Beeton, a mile or two higher up. It presented unusual facilities for running contraband goods; slight incidents occurred from time to time that seemed to bear out the superintendent's suspicions of it; and his chief attention was directed to that place. It was directed to any spot rather than Greylands. Greylands, in the estimation of the revenue-men, was exempt from suspicion, or nearly exempt. Save the open beach, there was no spot at Greylands where a cargo could be run--and the superintendent took care that the beach should be protected. Not an idea existed that the little strip of beach under the old Friar's Keep could be made available for anything of the kind, or that it had a passage of communication with Commodore Teague's Hutt, or with any other place in the world. Counting on his ten fingers, Mr. Nettleby could number up fifteen months during which he had beset Beeton like a watchdog, and nothing at all had come of it. The unsuspected Greylands had been left at ease, as usual, to do what it would.