“‘There he is,’ said Bride softly to Eustace. ‘I think you had better go to him alone.’...
Without pausing to rehearse any speech, Eustace walked up to the lonely
figure on the rocks, holding out his hand in greeting.”—P. [234].

EUSTACE MARCHMONT

A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE

BY
EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN

BOSTON:
A. I. BRADLEY & CO.
PUBLISHERS.

CONTENTS

EUSTACE MARCHMONT

CHAPTER I
ON CHRISTMAS EVE

“Yer’s tu thee, old apple-tree,

Be zure yu bud, be zure yu blaw,

And bring voth apples gude enough

Hats vul! caps vul!

Dree bushel bags vul!

Pockets vul and awl!

Urrah! Urrah!

Aw ’ess, hats vul, caps vul!

And dree bushel bags vul!

Urrah! Urrah! Urrah!”

THIS strange uncouth song was being chanted by moonlight by two score or more of rough West-Country voices. For half-a-mile the sound was carried by the sea-breeze, and all the cottagers within hearing of the chant had run forth to join, both in the song and in the ceremony which it marked.

For it was Christmas Eve, and Farmer Teazel was “christening his apple-trees,” according to the time-honoured custom of the place. And when the trees were being thus christened, there was cider to be had for the asking; and the farmer’s cider was famed as being the best in all St. Bride’s, or indeed in any of the adjacent parishes.

The moon shone frostily bright in a clear dark sky. A thin white carpet of sparkling frost coated the ground; but the wind blew from the west over the rippling sea, and was neither cruel nor fierce, so that even little children were caught up by their mothers to assist at this yearly ceremony; and Farmer Teazel’s orchard had, by ten o’clock, become the centre of local attraction, fully a hundred voices swelling the rude chant as the largest and best trees in the plantation were singled out as the recipients of the peculiar attentions incident to the ceremony.

First, copious libations of cider were poured round the roots of these trees, whilst large toast sops were placed amid the bare branches; all this time the chant was sung again and again, and the young girls and little children danced round in a ring, joining their shriller voices with the rougher tones of the men. The cider can that supplied the trees with their libations passed freely amongst the singers, whose voices grew hoarse with something beyond exercise.

When the serenading and watering had been sufficiently accomplished, guns were fired through the branches of the chosen trees, and the company broke up, feeling that now they had done what was necessary to ensure a good crop of cider-apples for the ensuing year.

But whilst the singing and drinking was at its height, and the moon gazed calmly down upon the curious assembly beneath the hoary old trees in the farmer’s orchard, a keen observer might have noted a pair of figures slightly withdrawn from the noisy throng around the gnarled trees that were receiving the attentions of the crowd—a pair that gravitated together as if by mutual consent, and stood in a sheltered nook of the orchard; the man leaning against the rude stone wall which divided it from the farm buildings of one side, the girl standing a few paces away from him beside a sappling, her face a little bent, but a look of smiling satisfaction upon her red lips. She was clasping and unclasping her hands in a fashion that bespoke something of nervous tremor, but that it was the tremor of happiness was abundantly evident from the expression of her face.

The moon shone clearly down upon the pair, and perhaps gave a touch of additional softness and refinement to them, for at that moment both appeared to the best advantage, and looked handsome enough to draw admiring regards from even fastidious critics.

The man was very tall, and although he was habited in the homely garb of a farm labourer of the better sort, there was a something in his air and carriage which often struck the onlooker as being different from the average man of his class. If he had been a gentleman, his mien would have been pronounced “distinguished;” but there was something incongruous in applying such a term as that to a working man in the days immediately prior to the Reform agitation of 1830. If the artisan population of the Midlands had begun to recognise and assert their rights as members of the community, entitled at least to be regarded as having a voice in the State (though how that was to be accomplished they had hardly formulated an opinion), the country labourer was still plunged in his ancient apathy and indifference, regarding himself, and being regarded, as little more than a serf of the soil. The years of agricultural prosperity during the Great War had been gradually followed by a reaction. Whilst trade revived, agriculture was depressed; and the state of the labourers in many places was very terrible. Distress and bitter poverty prevailed to an extent that was little known, because the sufferers had no mouthpiece, and suffered in silence, like the beasts of the field. But a growing sense of sullen discontent was slowly permeating the land, and in the restless North and the busy Midlands there was a stirring and a sense of coming strife which had not yet reached the quiet far West. And here was this young son of Anak, with the bearing of a prince and the garb of a labourer, standing beside the farmer’s daughter, Genefer, and telling her of his love.

Although he was but one of the many men who worked by day for her father, and slept at night in a great loft above the kitchen, in common with half-a-dozen more men so employed, yet Genefer was listening to his words of love with a sense of happy triumph in her heart, and without the smallest feeling of condescension on her part. Possibly her father might have thought it presumptuous of the young man thus boldly to woo his only daughter; and yet the girl did not feel much afraid of any stern parental opposition; for Saul Tresithny, in spite of a history that to many men would have been a fatal bar towards raising himself, had acquired in the parish of St. Bride’s a standing somewhat remarkable, and was known upon the farm as the handiest and most capable, as well as the strongest man there, and one whom the farmer especially favoured.

Genefer was the farmer’s only daughter, and had to work as hard as either father or brothers, for since her mother’s death, a year or two ago, the whole management of the dairy and of the house had passed into her hands, and she had as much to do in the day as she could get through. Perhaps it was from the fact that Saul was always ready to lend a helping hand when her work was unwontedly pressing, and that he would work like a fury at his own tasks by day in order to have a leisure hour to lighten her labours towards supper-time, that she had grown gradually to lean on him and feel that life without him would be but a barren and desolate sort of existence. Her brothers, ’Siah and ’Lias, as they were invariably called, were kind to her in their own fashion, and so was her father, who was proud of her slim active figure, her pretty face, and crimpy dark hair. West-Country women are proverbially good to look at, and Genefer was a favourable specimen of a favoured race. Her eyes were large and bright, and of a deep blue tint; her skin was clear, and her colour fresh and healthy, and the winter winds and summer suns had failed to coarsen it. She was rather tall, and her figure was full of unconscious grace and activity. If her hands were somewhat large, they were well shaped and capable, and her butter, and cream, and bread were known far and wide for their excellence. She had a woman and a girl to help her in the house, but hers was the head that kept all going in due order, and her father had good cause to be proud of her.

And now young Saul stood beside the old grey wall in the light of the full moon, and boldly told her of his love.

“I’ll be a gude husband to yu if yu’ll have me, Genefer,” he said in the soft broad speech of his native place, though Saul could speak if he chose without any trace of dialect, albeit always with a subtle intonation, which gave something of piquancy to his words. “I du lovee rarely, my girl. Doee try to love me back. I’ll serve day and night for yu if thee’ll but say the word.”

“What word am I to zay, Zaul?” asked the girl softly, with a shy upward look that set all his pulses tingling. “Yu du talk so much, I am vair mazedheaded with it all. What is it yu would have me zay to thee?”

“Only that yu love me, Genefer,” answered Saul, taking a step forward, and possessing himself of one of the restless hands that fluttered in his grasp, and then lay still, as if content to be there. “It’s such a little word for yu to zay, yet it means such a deal to me.”

She let herself be drawn nearer and nearer to him as he spoke; but there was still a look of saucy mischief in her eyes, despite their underlying softness.

“Yu be such a masterful chap, Zaul, I du feel half afeared on ye. It’s all zoft talk now, but the clapper-claw come afterwards.”

“Nay, lassie, I’ll never clapper-claw yu. Yu needen be afeared of that. I’ll work for yu, and toil for yu, and yu shall be as happy as I can make yu. Only say yu can love me, Genefer. That is all I care to hear yu say to-night.”

He had drawn her close to his side by this time, and she was pressed to his heart. He bent his head and kissed her on the lips, and only when a few minutes had passed by, of which they kept no count, did the sudden salvo of the guns cause them to start suddenly apart, and Genefer exclaimed, almost nervously—

“Whatever will vaither zay?”

“Du yu think he will make a bobbery about it, Genefer?”

“Nay, I dwon’t know. He is fond of yu, Zaul, but I du not think he will part easy with me; and then——”

“I du not ask that of him, Genefer,” broke in Saul quickly; “yu du know that I have no home tu take yu tu yet. It’s the love I want to make sure of now, lassie. If I know I have your heart, I can wait patiently for the rest. Can yu be patient tu?”

“Oh, yes, Zaul, so as I know yu love me,” answered the girl with a quick blush; “dwon’t yu think that is enow for the present? Why need we speak to vaither about it at all? May be it mid anger un. Why shouldn’t we keep it a secret betwixt us twain?”

“With all my heart, if yu will have it so,” answered Saul, who was fully prepared to wait many years before he should be in a position to marry. That he would one day be a man of some small substance as things went in those parts, he was aware. But his grandfather, from whom he looked to receive this modest heritage, was yet a hale man, and it might not be his for some years to come. Meantime he had at present no ideas beyond working on with Farmer Teazel, as he had done since his boyhood, and it quite satisfied him to feel that he had won Genefer’s heart. He was ready to let this mutual avowal of love remain a secret between them for the present. He had of late been consumed with jealousy of a certain smart young farmer, who paid frequent visits to the Cliff Farm, and appeared to pay a great amount of attention to the pretty daughter who ruled there. It did not take two eyes to see what a treasure Genefer would be as a farmer’s wife, and Saul was afraid the girl’s father had begun to look with favour upon the visits of young Mr. Hewett. It was this fear which made him resolve to put his fate to the touch on this particular Christmas Eve. He half believed that his love was returned by Genefer, but he could no longer be satisfied with mere hope. He must be certain how things were to be between them in the future; but having been so satisfied, he was quite content to leave matters where they were, and not provoke any sort of tempest by openly letting it be known that he had aspired to the hand of his master’s daughter. He knew that his present position did not warrant the step he had taken, yet it was his nature to hazard all upon one throw, and this time he had won. He feared no tempest himself, but he would have been loth to provoke one that might have clouded Genefer’s life, and Farmer Teazel could be very irascible when angered, and by no means good to live with then.

Whilst the lovers were thus standing in the corner of the orchard, exchanging vows of constancy which meant more than their quiet homely phrases seemed to imply, an elderly man with a slight stoop in his tall figure and a singularly thoughtful and attractive face, was coming slowly up the long steep slope of down which led to the farm, guided alike by the brilliance of the moonbeams and by the voices singing the rude chant round the apple-trees. That he was a man occupying a humble walk in life was evident from the make and texture of his garments, the knotted hardness of his hands, and other more subtle and less definable indications; but the moonlight shone down upon a face that riveted attention from any but the most unobservant reader of physiognomy, and betrayed at once a man of unusual thoughtfulness for his walk in life, as well as of unwonted depth of soul and purity of character. The face was quite clean shaven, as was common in those times, when beards were regarded as indicative of barbarism in the upper classes, and were by no means common in any rank of life save that of seafaring men. The features were, however, very finely cut, and of a type noble in themselves, and farther refined by individual loftiness of soul. The brow was broad, and projected over the deep-set eyes in a massive pent-house; the nose was long and straight, and showed a sensitive curve at the open nostril; the mouth was rather wide, but well formed, and indicative of generosity and firm sweetness; the eyes were calm and tranquil in expression. The colour it was impossible to define: no two people ever agreed upon the matter. They looked out upon the world from their deep caverns with a look that was always gentle, always full of reflection and questioning intelligence, but was expressive above all of an inward peace so deep and settled that no trouble from without could ruffle it. Children always came to his side in response to a look or a smile; women would tell their troubles to Abner Tresithny, whose lips were sealed to all the world beside. There was something in the man, quiet though he was, that made him a power in his own little world, and yet he had never dreamed of seeking power. He was at once the humblest and the most resolute of men. He would do the most menial office for any person, and see no degradation in it; he was gentle as a woman and mild as a little child: yet once try to move him beyond the bounds he had set himself in life, and it would be as easy to strive to move that jagged reef of rocks guarding St. Bride’s Bay on the south side—the terror of hapless vessels driven in upon the coast—the safeguard and joy of the hardy smugglers who fearlessly drove their boats across it with the falling tide, and laughed to scorn the customs-house officers, who durst not approach that line of boiling foam in their larger craft.

Abner Tresithny had grown up at St. Bride’s Bay, and was known to every soul there and in the neighbouring parish of St. Erme, where Farmer Teazel’s farm lay. Perhaps no man was more widely beloved and respected than he, and yet he was often regarded with a small spice of contempt—especially amongst the men-folk; and those who were fullest of the superstitions of the time and locality were the readiest to gibe at the old gardener as being a “man of dreams and fancies”—a mystic, they might have called it, had the word been familiar to them—a man who seemed to live in a world of his own, who knew his Bible through from end to end a sight better than the parson did—leastways the parson of St. Bride’s—and found there a vast deal more than anybody else in the place believed it to contain.

To-night an unwonted gravity rested upon Abner’s thoughtful face—a shadow half of sorrow, half of triumphant joy, difficult to analyse; and sometimes, as he paused in the long ascent and wiped the moisture from his brow, his eyes would wander towards the sea lying far below, over which the moon was shining in misty radiance, marking a shimmering silver track across it from shore to horizon, and he would say softly to himself—

“And she will soon know it all—all the mysteries we have longed to penetrate. All will be known so soon to her. God be with her! The Lord Jesus be near her in His mercy and His love in that struggle! O my God, do Thou be near her in that last hour, when flesh and heart do fail! Let not her faith be darkened! Let not the enemy prevail against her! Do Thou be very very near, dear Lord. Do Thou receive her soul into Thy hands.”

And after some such softly breathed prayer, during which his eyes would grow dim and his voice husky, he would turn his face once more towards the upland farm and resume his walk thither.

The firing of the guns, which told him the ceremony was over, met his ears just as he reached the brow of the hill, and he began to meet the cottagers and fisher-folk streaming away. They all greeted him by name, and he returned their greetings gently: but he could not refrain from a gentle word of reproof to some whose potations had been visibly too deep, and who were still roaring their foolish chant as they staggered together down the slippery slope.

Abner was known all round as an extraordinary man, who, whilst believing in an unseen world lying about us as no one else in the community did, yet always set his face quietly and resolutely against these time-honoured customs of propitiating the unseen agencies, which formed such a favourite pastime in the whole country. It was a combination altogether beyond the ken of the rustic mind, and encircled Abner with a halo of additional mystery.

“Yu should be to home with your sick wife, Nat,” he said to one man who was sober, but had plainly been enjoying the revel as much as the rest. “What good du yu think can come of wasting good zyder over the trees, and singing yon vulish song to them? Go home to your sick wife and remember the true Christmas joy when the morrow comes. All this is but idle volly.”

“Nay, nay, maister,” answered the man, with sheepish submission in his tone, albeit he could not admit any folly in the time-honoured custom. “Yu knaw farmer he wants a ’bundant craap of awples next year, an we awl of us knaw tha’ the trees widden gi’ us a bit ef we didden holler a bit tu ’m the night.”

“Nay, nay, Nat, it’s not your hollering that makes the trees give of their abundance,” answered Abner, with gentle sadness in his tone. “It’s the abiding promise of the Lord that seed-time and harvest shall not vail. Go home, go home, and mind thy wife.”

“Ay, ay, maister, I’m gwoan,” answered the man, and beat a hasty retreat, secretly wondering whether one of these days the black witches wouldn’t “overlook” Abner’s house and affairs generally, since he was known for a man of such peculiar views. The Duke’s head-gardener was looked upon with considerable respect by the mere labourers, and always addressed as “maister” by them. He came of a good stock himself; and from having been so much with the “quality,” he could speak pure English as easily as the Saxon vernacular of the peasantry. It was constant conversation with him which had given to Saul his command of language. From the time of his birth till he began to earn his own bread, Saul had lived with his grandfather; and it had been a disappointment to the old man that his grandson had refused the place of garden boy offered him by the Duchess when he was old enough to be of use on the place. Before that he had scared birds for Farmer Teazel, and had done odd jobs about the farm; and to the surprise of all who knew the prestige and advantages attached to the service of the Duke, the lad had elected to continue a servant of the farmer rather than work in the ducal gardens. The grandfather had not attempted to coerce his grandson, but had let him follow his own bent, although he thought he was making a mistake, and was perplexed and pained by his independent attitude.

“He wants to get away from the old ’un—he can’t stand all that preachin’ and prayin’,” had been the opinion in some quarters; but Abner knew this was not the case. His grandson had always been attached to him, and the old man had never obtruded his own opinions upon him. Saul’s reason for his decision lay beyond any natural desire for an independent home of his own. He had independence of a kind up at the farm, but only of a kind. He was a member of Farmer Teazel’s household. He had to keep the hours observed there. He had not nearly such comfortable quarters there as in his grandfather’s cottage. He had to work hard early and late, and had none of the privileges accorded from time to time on high days and holidays to the servants at Penarvon Castle. Yet he never appeared to regret the decision he had made, or spoke of desiring to change his condition. This was in one way a satisfaction to Abner; but he missed the youth from his own home, and was always glad of an excuse to get him down there for a few days.

This was, in fact, the reason of his errand to the farm on this winter evening. To-morrow (Christmas Day) no work would be done, and the day following was Sunday; so that if Saul would come home with him to-night they would have quite a little spell together before he had to return to his work on the Monday morning.

The farmer saw his approach, and hailed him with friendly greeting, offering him a tankard of cider, of which the old man partook sparingly, as was his way.

“How gwoes the world down to St. Bride’s?” asked the master, as he received back the tankard and put it to his own lips. “They du say as the Duchess be mortal bad. Is it trew that the doctors ’a given her oop, poor zoul?”

Abner shook his head mournfully.

“So they du zay,” he answered; “I asked at the castle my own self this even, and they said she could scarce live over the night. St. Bride will lose a kind friend when it loses her. God be with her and with us all this night!”

Faces were grave and serious as the sense of Abner’s words penetrated beyond the immediate circle round him. The Duchess of Penarvon had been long ill: for several years she had been more or less of an invalid; but it had not been known until quite recently that the nature of her malady was so serious as it had now proved to be, and the confirmation of the tidings of her extremity was received with a considerable amount of feeling. The Duke was a stern grave man, just and not unkindly, but self-restrained and hard in his looks and words, whatever his acts might be. But the Duchess was gentle and kindly towards rich and poor alike, and had a personal acquaintance with most of the fisher-folk and cottagers in the parishes of St. Bride and St. Erme. If those who were in trouble could obtain speech with the Duchess, they nearly always went rejoicing home again. If any casualty occurred amongst the fisher-folk in the bay during a winter storm, the Duchess was almost sure to send substantial aid to make up the loss. It was no wonder then that the news Abner brought with him was regarded as a public calamity, and that even those who had drunk most deeply of the farmer’s cider were sobered into gravity and propriety of demeanour by the thought of what was passing at the castle down by the Bay of St. Bride.

“I came to fetch Saul to bide with me till Monday,” explained Abner. “It makes a bit of company, and my heart is heavy with sorrow for them all. They say that Lady Bride looks as if her heart was breaking. She and her mother have been together almost by night and day, ever since the Duchess’s health first failed her so sadly. It’ll be a sad day for her, poor young thing, when her mother is taken from her.”

“Ay, that it will be,” answered one and another, and heads were gravely shaken. For the position of Lady Bride in stately solitude at Penarvon Castle, without the sheltering protection of her mother’s love, was felt even by these unimaginative rustics to be a trying one. It was whispered around that her father had never quite forgiven her for not being a boy. It was hard upon him that their only child should be a girl, incapable of inheriting title or estates. He was not a violent or irascible man, but the disappointment of having no son had eaten deeply into his nature, and there had always been a sense of injured disapproval in his dealings with his daughter, of which that sensitive young thing had been keenly conscious. It had thrown her more and more upon the one parent of whose love she felt secure, and even the unlettered village hinds (who knew a good deal of the tittle-tattle of the servants’ hall) could stand mute and struck for a few minutes in contemplating the thought of the terrible blank that would be left in the girl’s life when her invalid mother was taken away.

But Abner would not stay to discuss the situation with the farmer and his family. He was anxious to get home, and Saul was quickly found, and appeared ready and willing to go with him. Saul indeed was not sorry just at this juncture for a good excuse to leave the farm for a few days till he and Genefer had had time to get used to the secret that now existed between them. Genefer was quite as much relieved as her lover at this temporary parting. She felt that she should in his presence be in imminent danger of betraying herself a dozen times a day; and as her father would be at home enjoying his brief holiday, he might have leisure to note little symptoms which would pass him by on a working day. Moreover, Mr. Hewett might very likely drive over and bring her some sort of a fairing in honour of the season, and if he did so, and she was forced to be civil and friendly to him, she would just as soon have Saul fairly out of the way.

Grandfather and grandson walked down the hill together, the old man’s mind full of the mystery of death, the young man’s flooded by that kindred mystery of love—the two most wonderful mysteries of the world. He had been sorry to hear of the extremity of the Duchess; but it seemed a thing altogether apart from himself, and his own new happiness soon banished it from his mind. Not that he had not some feeling that was not happiness mingling with his own bright dreams, as the growingly stern expression of his face testified; and all of a sudden he turned upon his grandfather and asked—

“Do you know who my father was?”

“I cannot say that I know. I have my suspicions. But your mother would not tell even me, and she died so soon. Had she lived a little longer I should perhaps have learned more.”

“And so I must always be called Saul Tresithny, though that is not my name by right?”

“It is your name by right, because you were so christened. You may have another name as well, my lad, or you may not.”

The last words were spoken very slowly and sorrowfully, but Saul started as though they stung him.

“I will never believe that my mother,” he began, and then stopped short, his face contracted with passion and pain.

“I trust not also, Saul,” said the grandfather, his face expressing a far keener depth of pain than that of his young companion. “But she may have been deceived—that has been the fate of too many loving and ignorant women; and she came without papers upon her and would speak no word. Illness and sorrow sealed her lips, and there was no time for urging speech upon her of herself. There was but time to point the way heavenwards for the departing spirit. I have left that question with my Maker all these years, and you will have to do the same, my boy, for I fear the truth will never be known on this side of the grave.”

Saul compressed his lips and walked on in silence. His face in the moonlight looked as if carved out of solid marble.

CHAPTER II
THE DUCHESS OF PENARVON

PENARVON CASTLE was a great pile of grey building situated on the commanding promontory of land that jutted out into the sea and formed the division between the two bays of St. Bride and St. Erme.

St. Bride’s Bay lay to the south of the castle, and was a small and insignificant inlet, not deep enough to afford anchorage for vessels of any size, and avoided on account of the dangers of the jagged reef on its southern boundary, which went by the name of “Smuggler’s Reef.” The little bay, however, was a favourite spot for boats and small craft, as its waters were generally smooth, save when a direct west wind was blowing, and the smooth sand of its beach made landing safe and easy. A little hamlet of fisher-folk (and smugglers) nestled beneath the overhanging cliffs, which broke up just at this point and became merged in the green slopes of the downs behind. Smuggled goods landed in the bay could be transported thence without any great difficulty, and not a fisherman in the place but did not have his own private smuggling venture whenever fortune favoured, and his own clientèle amongst the neighbouring farmers and gentlemen, who were glad to purchase what he brought and ask no questions.

The castle faced due west, and on its north side lay the wider and larger bay of St. Erme; but the character of the coast along this bay was not such as to tempt either boats or larger vessels, for the cliffs ran sheer down into the sea and presented a frowning iron-bound aspect, and the shelter of the bay was sometimes too dearly purchased by vessels running before the gale; for if they once struck upon one of the many sunken rocks with which its bottom was diversified, they were almost bound to go to pieces without hope of rescue.

The castle was a turreted building of quadrangular construction, and in one lofty turret on all stormy nights a brilliant light was always burning, which had at last become as a beacon to passing vessels, showing them where they were, and warning them especially of those twin and much dreaded rocks called the “Bull’s Horns,” which lay just beneath the castle walls, forming the northern boundary to St. Bride’s Bay, and between which lay a shifting expanse of quicksand, out of which no vessel ever emerged if once she had run upon it.

Upon this eve of the festival of Christmas, late though the hour was, there were lights shining from many windows of the great pile of grey stone—lights that the stranger would believe to portend some festivity going on within those walls, but which in reality indicated something altogether different.

The two doctors summoned in haste earlier in the day had at last taken their leave with hushed steps and grave faces. All that human skill could avail had been done, and done in vain. Throughout the castle it was known that the fiat had gone forth that the gentle mistress whom all loved lay dying—that she would hardly see the dawn of the Christmas morning; and there was hardly a dry eye amongst the assembled household, gathered together to talk in whispers of the sad intelligence, and to listen breathlessly for any sound proceeding from the part of the house where the dying woman lay.

The pealing of the bell of the outer door caused a commotion in their midst, till the butler, who rose to answer the summons, remarked that it was most likely one of the two parsons come to see the Duchess. The Duke had sent a message to both when the death sentence had gone forth, and this was probably the response.

He went to the door, and sure enough there walked in, with hushed step and awed face, the Rev. Job Tremodart, resident clergyman of St. Bride’s, whose parsonage stood not half-a-mile away.

He was a tall, loose-limbed, lantern-jawed man, with a plain but benevolent countenance, an awkward manner, and a very decided inclination to slip into the native dialect in conversation. He entered with a nervous air, and seemed reluctant to follow the servant up the great staircase to the floor above.

“May be I shan’t be wanted,” he whispered, trying to detain the man. “Du yu know if her Grace has asked for me?”

“It was his Grace that sent word for you to be told, sir, you and Mr. St. Aubyn, of her Grace’s condition,” answered the man respectfully. “His Grace is in the little parlour here when he is not in the room. I will let him know you are here.”

“Has Mr. St. Aubyn come too?” asked Mr. Tremodart, a look of relief crossing his face; “he will du her Grace more gude than I.”

“He is not here yet, sir,” answered the butler, and then stood aside and motioned to the clergyman to go on, for at the top of the staircase stood a tall rigid figure, and Mr. Tremodart found himself shaking hands with the Duke almost before he had had time to realise the situation.

“The Duchess will be glad to see you,” was the only word spoken by the stricken husband; and whether he would or no, the hapless pastor was compelled to follow his noble host.

The Duke was tall and very spare in figure, and seemed to have grown more so during the past week of anxiety and watching. His hair, which had hitherto been dark streaked with silver, seemed all at once to have silvered over almost entirely. His face was finely cut, and the features gave the impression of having been carved out of a piece of ivory. The eyebrows were very bushy and were still dark, and the eyes beneath were a steely blue and of a peculiarly penetrating quality. The thin-lipped mouth was indicative of an iron will, and the whole countenance was one to inspire something of awe and dread. At the present moment it was difficult to imagine that a smile could ever soften it—difficult, at least, until the Duke approached the side of his wife’s bed, and then the change which imperceptibly stole over it showed that beneath a hard and even harsh exterior—too deep perhaps for outward expression—lay a power of love and tenderness such as only a strong nature can truly know.

“My love,” said the Duke very quietly, “Mr. Tremodart is here.”

“I shall be glad to see Mr. Tremodart,” spoke a soft voice from the bed; and in response to a sign from the Duke, the clergyman (visibly quaking) passed round the great screen which shut off the bed from the rest of the room, and found himself face to face with the dying woman.

It was a scene not to be forgotten by any who looked upon it. The Duchess lay back upon a pile of snowy pillows, the peculiar pallor of approaching death lying like a shadow across her beautiful face. And yet, save for this never-to-be-mistaken shadow, there was nothing of death in her aspect. Few and far between as Mr. Tremodart’s pastoral visits had been (for he was always fearful of intruding upon the great folks at the castle), he had many times seen the Duchess look more worn and ill than she did now. The lines of pain, which had deepened so much of late in her face, had all been smoothed away. Something of the undefinable aspect of youth had come back to the expression, and the soft dark eyes were full of a liquid brightness which it was somehow difficult for him to meet. It was as though the brightness had been absorbed from an unseen source. There was a great awe in his eyes as he approached and touched the feeble hand for a moment extended to him.

On her knees beside the bed, grasping the other hand of the dying woman, was a young girl whose face could not at this moment be seen, for it was pillowed in the bed-clothes, whilst the slight figure was shivering and heaving with suppressed emotion. All that could be seen besides the slim graceful form was a mass of rippling loosened hair that looked dark in shadow, but lighted up with gleams of ruddy gold where the light touched it. Mr. Tremodart gave a compassionate glance at the weeping girl. It needed no word to explain the terrible loss which was coming upon her.

“My journey is just done, sir,” said the Duchess, with a swift glance from the face of her husband to that of the clergyman. “The call home has come at last. Will you speak some word of peace to me before I go? Let me hear the message that my Lord sends to me. Give me some promise of His to lead me on my way.”

The voice was very low, but clearly audible in the deep stillness. Poor Mr. Tremodart twisted his great hands together and felt as though an angel from heaven had asked counsel of him.

“O my dear lady!” he burst out at last, “you know those promises far better than I do. You have no need of any poor words of mine. Your life has ever been a blameless one. It is you who should teach me. God knows I need it. But you, if you are going before His judgment throne, can scarcely have a sin upon your soul. I stand mute in presence of a holiness greater than any I ever have known.”

The eyes of the dying woman were fixed upon Mr. Tremodart’s face with an expression he scarce understood.

“Am I to go into the presence of my God clad in the robe of my own righteousness?” she asked with a faint smile.

“O my dear lady, how better could you go?” questioned the confused and embarrassed clergyman. “Surely if ever there were a saint upon earth it is yourself. Everybody in the place knows it. What can I say to you that you do not already know?”

Still the same searching inexplicable gaze fixed upon his face—tender, pitying, regretful. Never had the Rev. Job Tremodart felt so utterly unworthy of his office and calling as at that moment. He had always recognised the fact that he had “never been cut out for a parson,” as he had phrased it. He had allowed himself to be ordained and presented with a living in deference to his father’s wishes and the pressure of circumstances, and he had striven after his own light to do his duty amongst his illiterate and semi-savage flock. On the whole he had succeeded fairly well to his satisfaction, and was as good a clergyman as many of his brethren around. But somehow, beside the dying bed of the Duchess of Penarvon, he stood shamed and silent, having no word to speak to her save to remind her of her own saint-like life and her own righteousness. Even he felt a faint qualm as he spoke those words, yet their incongruity hardly struck him in its full force. But it was an immense relief when a slight stir without was followed by the entrance of another figure into the room, and he could step back and motion the new-comer to take his place beside the bed. Even the girl raised her head now and looked round with eyes dark-rimmed and dim with weeping. She did not otherwise move, but she no longer kept her face hidden; she turned it towards her mother with a hungry intensity of gaze that was infinitely pathetic.

“You are welcome, my friend,” said the Duchess in the same soft even tone. “I am glad to look upon your face once more. I am going down into the valley at last. The shadow is closing round me. You have brought me some word to take with me there?”

Mr. St. Aubyn came one step nearer and laid his hand upon the nerveless one of the dying woman. He was an older man than his brother clergyman, and one of very different aspect. His face was worn and hollow, as if with thought and toil; his eyes were deep and tranquil, often full of a dreamy brilliance, which bespoke a mind far away. His features, if not beautiful in themselves, were redeemed by a wonderful sweetness and depth of expression. He looked like one whose “conversation is in heaven,” and the dying woman’s eyes sought his with quiet confidence and joy.

“The shadow truly is there—but the rod and the staff are with all the servants of the Lord who can trust in Him—and the brightness of the eternal city is beyond. Truly the enemy’s power is but brief. He can but cast a shadow betwixt us and our Saviour, and we who have the staff of His consolation in our grasp need not fear. To depart and be with Christ is a blessed thing. It is through the grave and gate of death that we pass to our joyful resurrection. There is no fear, no darkness, no shadow that can come between us and that glorious promise, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’”

The eyes of the dying woman kindled—filled suddenly with a beautiful triumphant joy. Her lips moved, and she softly repeated the words—

“‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’—ah! that is enough—that is all we need to think of when our peace is made.”

“Yea, verily—the Lamb of God suffered death for us to reconcile us again to God: and He rose triumphant from the grave—the first-fruits of them that sleep—for us to know that in the appointed day we too may rise again and be glorified together with Him. And meantime we rest in His peace, awaiting the day of our common perfecting. Ah! and when the trump of the Archangel is heard, it is the blessed dead who rise first, whilst in a moment of time the faithful living are caught away with them to meet the Lord in the air. O blessed, blessed hope for living and dead alike—to meet the Lord and be ever with Him! Surely that is the promise that takes the sting from death and robs the grave of victory. We know not the day nor the hour—that is hid in the foreknowledge of the Divine Father; but we have the everlasting promise—the promise which robs death of its sting, even for those who are left behind—who are parted from our loved ones. For at any moment the wondrous shout of the Lord may be heard as He descends from heaven to awaken the dead and call ‘those that are His at His coming,’ and we may be one with them in the blessed and holy first resurrection. ‘Wherefore comfort one another with these words.’”

The gaze of the clergyman as he spoke these latter words was rather bent on the daughter than the mother, and the dying woman read the thought in his heart and laid her own feeble hand upon her child’s head. The girl’s tears were dry now. Her lips had parted in a smile of wondrous vividness and hope. She clasped her hands together, and her glance sought her mother’s face.

“O mother, my mother—if it might only be soon! O pray for me that I lose not heart—that I may learn to live in the hope in that promise!”

“The Lord will give you help and grace so to live, my child, if you will but trust in Him. Heaven and earth may pass away, but His word will not pass away, and that hope is His most blessed promise. ‘We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.’ O my child, never think to put off the making of your peace with God till the hour of death, as some do. Remember that ‘we shall not all die.’ It is the life eternal, not the grave and gate of death, upon which our hearts must be fixed. Although I am called to pass through that gate, ask not, my child, for power to die. Ask rather the gift of the everlasting life which will be given without dying at the coming of the Lord. Ask for that coming and kingdom to be hastened, that He will come down speedily upon this rent and riven earth, and cause His reign of peace to begin. Yea, pray for the outpouring of His Spirit in this time of darkness and perplexity. Pray for that great and glorious day when mortality shall be swallowed up of life!”

The Duchess had half risen upon her pillows as she spoke. A strange light was in her eyes. In spite of her physical weakness, she spoke with a power and strength that had seemed impossible a few moments before. Was it the last expiring spark, flashing out with momentary vividness; or was it some spiritual power within her that gave to her this access of strength?

Those about her knew not, yet they hung upon her words with a sense of strange wonder and awe.

To the Duke and the other clergyman this talk was absolutely inexplicable—like words spoken in a strange language. Deeply as the reserved and stern husband had loved his wife, there were subjects that were never spoken of between them, owing to his resolute reserve and reticence. Dry orthodoxy and an upright walk before men had been characteristic of the Duke through life. The fruits of the Spirit, showing forth in love, joy, and peace, and the yearning for light upon the dealings of God with His children, were absolutely unknown to him; and though he knelt with the rest when Mr. St. Aubyn offered a prayer beside the bed of his dying wife, the words spoken fell meaningless on his ears. He had far more sympathy with the clergyman who had called his wife a saint, and shrunk from striving to speak any words of promise, than with him who was speaking of things so far beyond his ken as to appear to him idle mysticism and folly.

But the peace and joy beaming from those dying eyes told him more eloquently than any words what it meant to her, and he bowed his head and stifled the groan which rose to his lips as he realised that, despite their tender love, they had yet lived so far asunder in spirit that a great gulf already seemed to divide them.

Yet the wife would not suffer herself to be long sundered in spirit from her husband; and when the two clergymen had silently departed, having done all that they could, each in his own way, she summoned him to her bedside by a glance, and brought her mind back to earth again with something of an effort.

“My dear, dear husband,” she fondly whispered; and then the groan would have its way, as he took her hand in his and dropped down into the seat beside the bed which had been his for so many long hours during the past days.

The Duchess bent her head softly towards the other side where her daughter knelt, and said in a low voice—

“My child, I would be alone with your father a brief while. Leave me for one short half-hour, then you shall return, and I will send you away no more, my patient darling.”

The words of tender endearment brought a rush of tears to the girl’s eyes, but she rose without a word, and slipped noiselessly from the room. The mother looked after her with wistful eyes.

“Husband,” she said softly, “you will be tender with the child? You will let her take my place with you so far as such a thing is possible. She will try to do her duty by you and by all. You will let that duty be a labour of love?”

“I will do what I can; but I am old to change my ways, and I do not understand young girls. No one can take your place; you talk of impossibilities. O Geraldine! Geraldine! it is too hard to be thus left, old and stricken, and alone. Why must it be?—you so many, many years younger than I. I never thought to be the one left behind. I cannot be resigned. I cannot be willing to let you go. The Almighty is dealing very bitterly with me!”

“Dear husband, the parting will be the shorter that you are well stricken in years,” she answered gently, answering him according to the measure of his understanding and feeling. “It will be but a few short years before we meet again in the place where there is no parting. And now, my husband, before I am taken away from you—before this new strength, which, I believe, God has given me for a purpose, be spent—I have a few things to say to you—a few charges to give to you. Will you let me speak from my very heart, and forgive me if in any sort I pain and grieve you?”

“You pain or grieve me by any precious words you may speak! That thing is impossible. Let me know all that is in your tender, noble heart. It shall be the aim and object of the miserable residue of my days to carry out whatever you may speak.”

The Duchess pressed his hand affectionately, and lay still for a moment, gathering strength. Her husband gave her some of the cordial which stood at hand, and presently she spoke again—

“My husband, we are living in troubled and anxious days. The world around us is full of striving and upheaval. You and I remember those awful struggles in France now dying out of men’s minds, and we have indications, only too plainly written on the face of the earth, that the spirit of lawlessness and anarchy thus let loose is seething and fermenting throughout the world.”

The Duke bent his head in assent. He well knew such to be the case, but hardly expected that to be the subject of his dying wife’s meditations. She continued speaking with pauses in between.

“My husband, perhaps you know that ever since those terrible days, when men began to see in that awful Revolution the first outpouring of God’s last judgments upon the earth, godly men and women of every shade of opinion have been earnestly and constantly praying for God’s guidance and Spirit, that they may read the signs of the times aright, and learn what are His purposes towards mankind, as revealed in His written Word. I will not speak too particularly of all that has been given in answer to this generation of prayer; but it is enough for me to tell you that Light has come, that the long-neglected prophetic writings have been illumined by the light of God’s Spirit to many holy men and women, who have made them their study day by day and year by year, and that rays of light from above have come to us, illumining the darkness, and showing us faintly, yet clearly, God’s guiding hand in these days of darkness and trouble. Do you follow me so far?”

“I understand your words, and am ready to believe that in these things you have a knowledge that I cannot attain unto; but what then?”

“What I would ask of you, my husband, is patience and trust—patience with many things that will seem strange to you, that will seem like a subversion of all your ideas of wisdom and prudence—and trust in God’s power to make all things work together for good, and to bring good out of evil. We know that the latter days are coming fast upon us—that the armies of good and evil are gathering for that last tremendous struggle which precedes the reign of the Lord. We know that the strange upheavals we see in the world about us are the beginnings of these things, and that those who would be found faithful must learn to discern between the evil and the good; for Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, and deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, whilst God has again and again chosen the weak and despised things of this world to confound the strong; and it is human nature to turn away in scorn from all such weak things, and look for strength and salvation from the mighty and approved.”

The Duke listened with a sigh. He understood but little of all this. Yet every word from his dying wife was precious, and engraved itself upon his memory in indelible characters.

“There are difficult days coming upon the earth: great wrongs will be righted, much that is pure and good will spring up; and side by side with that much that is evil, lawless, and terrible. Dear husband, what I would ask of you is a patient mind, patience to look at changes without prejudice, and strive prayerfully to discern whether or not they be of God;—also patience to hear what is said by their advocates, and to weigh well what you hear. Let mercy ever temper justice in your dealings with your dependents; and condemn not those who are not at one with you without pausing to understand the nature of all they are striving to accomplish. The evil and the good will and must grow up together till the day of the harvest. The wheat and the tares cannot be sorted out till the reapers are sent forth from God. But let us strive with eyes anointed from above to distinguish in our own path that which is good, and not cast it scornfully aside, nor rush after what is evil because it approves itself to the great ones of the earth. I am sure that God will lead and guide all those who truly turn to Him in these times of darkness and perplexity. My dear, dear husband, if I could feel sure that you would be amongst those who would thus turn to Him now, I should pass away with a sweeter sense of trust and hope—a brighter confidence in that most blessed meeting on the other shore.”

The white head of the husband was bowed upon the pillow. He did not weep—the fountain of his tears lay too deep for him to find relief thus—but a few deep breaths, like gasps, bespoke the intensity of his emotion, and when he could articulate, he answered briefly—

“My life, I will try—I will try—so help me God!”

“He will help you, my precious husband,” she answered, with quivering tenderness of intonation, “and you know the promise that cannot fail, ‘All things are possible to him that believeth.’”

And then from that bowed head there came the earnest cry—

“‘Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.’”

After that followed a pause of deep silence. The Duchess, exhausted but content, lay back on her pillow with closed eyes. The Duke held her hand between his, and fought out his battle in silence and alone. He was passing through deeper waters than the dying woman; for her peace was made, and she was going confidently forth to meet Him who had bidden her to come; whilst he was fighting in doubt and helplessness the tempestuous winds and waves, feeling every moment that they must engulf him. And yet never had the two loving hearts beat more in sympathy and unison. Those moments were unspeakably precious to both, although no word passed between them.

The silence was scarcely broken as the door opened softly, and Bride stole back to her mother’s side. She had been caught by her old nurse meantime, and had been dosed with soup and wine, while some of the dishevelment of her dress and hair had been removed. Her aching eyes had been bathed, and she looked altogether strengthened and refreshed. The dying eyes turned upon her took in this, and the Duchess smiled with a sense of relief to think that there was one faithful woman beneath the castle roof who would make Bride her first care.

The girl’s eyes sought her mother’s face with wistful intensity of gaze, and at once noted a change that even that brief half-hour had brought with it. The shadow had deepened; there was a dimness coming over the bright eyes, the hand she touched was icy cold.

“Mother!—mother!—mother!” she cried, and sank down on her knees beside the bed.

“My child, my little Bride. You have been a dear, dear child to me. In days to come, if you live to have children of your own, may you be rewarded for all the tenderness you have shown to me.”

“Mother, mother, let me die too! I cannot bear it! I cannot live without you!”

“Dearest, you must live for your father; you must comfort each other,” and with a last effort of strength, the dying woman brought the hands of father and daughter together across her emaciated form, and held them locked together so in her stiffening fingers.

When the end came they neither knew exactly. Bride was on her knees, her face hidden, the shadow seeming to weigh her down till all was blackness round her, and she felt sinking, sinking, sinking down into some unknown abyss, clinging frantically to something which she took to be her mother’s hand. The Duke, with his eyes upon his wife’s face, saw the fluttering of the eyelids, heard a soft sigh, and then watched the settling down upon that wan face of a look of unspeakable rest and sweetness.

If that was death, why need death be dreaded? It was like nothing that he had seen or imagined before. The only words which came into his mind were those of a familiar formula never understood before—

“The peace of God that passeth all understanding.”

CHAPTER III
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING

EUSTACE MARCHMONT came in sight of Penarvon Castle just as the last rays of the winter sunset were striking upon its closed windows and turning them into squares of flashing red light dazzling to the eye. The castle stood commandingly upon its lofty promontory of jagged cliff, and from its garden walls, as the young man remembered well, the spectator could look sheer down a deep precipice into the tossing waves of the sea beneath. He remembered the long side terrace of the castle, against which the thunder of the surf in winter months made a perpetual roar and battle; whilst even on summer evenings, when the sea lay like a sheet of molten gold beneath them, the ceaseless murmur was always to be heard, suggestive of the restless life of the ocean. It was natural perhaps that Eustace should draw rein and look at the majestic pile with something of pride in his gaze, for he was the Duke’s next of kin, and in the course of nature would one day be master here. Yet there was no exultation in the steady gaze he fixed upon his future home: it was speculative and thoughtful rather than triumphant. There was a shade of perplexity in the wide-open grey eyes intently fixed upon the place, which looked at the moment as though lit up for illumination, and the firm lips set themselves in lines that were almost grim.

Eustace Marchmont was clad in a suit of black, which was evidently quite new, although slightly stained and disordered by the evidences of a long and hasty journey. He had, in fact, ridden hard from town ever since the news of the Duchess’s death reached him, now three days ago. He knew that propriety demanded he should be present at her funeral, even without the invitation from the Duke. He had come as fast as post-horses could bring him, with his two servants in attendance, and had travelled without mischance.

It was many years now since Eustace had visited Penarvon. His father (dead two years since) and the Duke were cousins, and the Duke had no brother. As young men there had been some attachment between them, but they had grown apart with the advance of years. The Duke was by many years the elder of the two; and perhaps on account of seniority, perhaps from his position as head of the family, had striven with possibly unwise persistence to mould his cousin after his own wishes. Disagreement had ended in coolness, and the intercourse had become slacker. Although Eustace had visited his “uncle’s” house (he had been taught so to speak of the Duke), he did not remember ever having seen his father there, and since his own boyhood he had not seen the place himself.

He had not understood at the time why his visits ceased, but he knew it well enough now. Although the Duke long cherished hopes of a son of his own to succeed him, he had always regarded Eustace as a possible heir, and had desired to have a voice in his education. The boy had been sent to Eton at his suggestion; but when his school-days were ended, and his uncle naturally supposed that the University would be the next step in his training, Mr. Marchmont had suddenly decided to travel abroad with the boy and see the world—the close of the long war having just rendered travelling possible with safety. When he himself returned to England at the end of two years, it was with the news that Eustace had been left behind in Germany to finish his education there; and the indignant remonstrances of the Duke had resulted in a coolness which had never been altogether conquered. He considered that the young man would be rendered entirely unfit by such training, for the position every year seemed to make it more probable he would one day hold, whilst Mr. Marchmont argued that, the youth’s heart being set upon it, it was far better to give him his own way than try to force him into paths uncongenial and distasteful.

Eustace was now seven-and-twenty, and in command of an ample fortune. Both his parents were dead—his mother he did not even remember, and he had neither brother nor sister. His second cousin, Lady Bride Marchmont, whom he dimly remembered as a shrinking little girl, for ever clinging to her mother’s hand, was the only relative of his own generation that he possessed; and it had naturally occurred to him before now that to marry the Duke’s daughter, if he could learn to love her and teach her to love him, would be the best reparation he could make to her for the lack of brothers of her own. It seemed to him a hard and unjust thing that her sex should disqualify her from succeeding to her father’s wealth and title. Eustace was no lover of the time-honoured laws of primogeniture, entail, or the privileges of the upper classes. The leaven of the day was working strongly in him, and he was ready to break a lance in the cause of freedom and brotherly equality with whatever foe came in his way.

His face bespoke something of this temperament. He had the broad lofty brow of the thinker, the keen steady eye of the man of battle, the open sensitive nostril of the enthusiast, and the firm tender mouth of the philanthropist. Without being handsome he was attractive, and his face was worthy of study. There was something of quiet scorn lying latent in his expression, which argument easily called into active existence. The face could darken sternly, or soften into ardent tenderness and enthusiasm, as the case might be. He had the air of a leader of men. His voice was deep, penetrating, and persuasive, and he had a fine command of language when his pulses were stirred. In person he was tall and commanding, and had that air of breeding which goes far to win respect with men of all classes. He moved with the quiet dignity and ease of one perfectly trained in all physical exercises, and in whom no thought of self-consciousness lurks. He looked well on horseback, riding with the grace of long practice. As he followed the windings of the zigzag road which led up to the castle, looking about him with keen eyes to observe what changes time had made in the old place, he looked like one whom the Duke might welcome with pride as his heir, since it had not pleased Providence to bestow upon him a son of his own.

He rode quietly up to the great sweep before the gateway and passed beneath it, answering the respectful salute of the porter with a friendly nod, and found himself in the quadrangle upon which the great hall door opened. His approach had been observed, and the servants in their sombre dress were waiting to receive him; but the drawn blinds over all the windows, and the deep hush which pervaded the house, struck a chill upon the spirit of the young man as he passed beneath the portal, and a quick glance round the hall assured him that none but servants were there.

A great hound lying beside the roaring fire of logs rose with a suspicious bay and advanced towards him, but seeming to recognise kinship in the stranger, permitted him to stroke his head, as Eustace, standing beside the hearth, addressed the butler in low tones:—

“How is it with his Grace?”

The man slowly shook his head.

“Sadly, sir, but sadly. He keeps himself shut up in his own room—the room next to that in which her Grace lies—and unless it be needful nobody disturbs him. He looks ten years older than he did a month back: it has made an old man of him in a few weeks.”

“And the Lady Bride?”

“She is bearing up wonderfully, but we think she has scarce realised her loss yet. She seems taken out of herself by it all—uplifted like—almost more than is natural in so young a lady. But she was always half a saint, like her Grace herself. She will be just such another as her mother.”

“And the funeral is to-morrow?”

“Yes, sir—on the first day of the new year. Her Grace died very early upon the morning of Christmas Day—just a week from now.”

Eustace was silent for a few minutes, and then turning to the servant, said—

“Does his Grace know I am here? Shall I see him to-day? Does he see anybody?”

“If you will let me show you your rooms, sir, I will let him know you have arrived. He will probably see you at dinner-time. He and Lady Bride dine together at five—their other meals they have hitherto taken in their own rooms, but that may be changed now. You will join them at dinner, of course, sir.”

“If they wish it, certainly,” answered Eustace; “but I have no wish to intrude if they would prefer to be alone. Is anybody else here?”

“There is nobody else to come, sir. Her Grace’s few relatives are in Ireland, and there has not been time to send for them, and they were not nearly related to her either. I am glad you are here, sir. It is a long time since Penarvon has seen you.”

“Yes, I have been much abroad, but the place looks exactly the same. I could believe I had been here only yesterday.”

And then Eustace followed the man up the grand marble staircase and down a long corridor, so richly carpeted that their foot-falls made no sound, till they reached a small suite of apartments, three in number, which had been prepared for the use of the guest, and which were already bright with glowing fires, and numbers of wax candles in silver sconces arranged along the walls.

The costliness and richness of his surroundings was strange to Eustace, for although wealth was his, his habits were very simple, and he neither desired nor appreciated personal indulgences of whatever kind they might be. He looked round him now with a smile not entirely free from contempt, although he recognised in the welcome thus accorded him a spirit of friendly regard, which was pleasant.

“Unless, indeed, it is all the work of hired servants,” he said, after a moment’s cogitation. “Probably it is so—who else would have thought to spare for a guest at such a time as this? This is the regular thing at the castle for every visitor. There is nothing personal to me in all this warmth and brightness.”

His baggage had arrived, and his servant had laid out his evening dress: but Eustace never required personal attention, and the man had already taken his departure. The young man donned his new suit of decorous black with rapidity and precision. He was no dandy, but he was no sloven either, and always looked well in his clothes. After his rapid toilet was completed, he sat down beside the fire to muse, and was only interrupted by the message to the effect that his Grace desired the pleasure of his company at the dinner-table that evening.

This being the case, and the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece pointing ten minutes only to the hour of five, Eustace at once rose and descended to the drawing-room, the door of which was thrown open for him by one of the footmen carrying in some logs to feed the huge fire. One glance round the once familiar apartment showed him that it was empty. It was the smallest of the three drawing-rooms, opening one into the other in a long suite, and formed indeed the ante-chamber to the larger ones beyond; but it was the one chiefly used when there were no guests at the castle; and Eustace remembered well the pictures on the white and gold walls, the amber draperies, and the cabinets with their treasures of silver, china, and glass.

Nothing seemed changed about the place, and the sense of stationary immutability and repose struck strangely upon the alert faculties of the young man, whose life had always been full of variety—not only of place and scene, but of thought and principle. A dreamlike feeling came over him as he stood looking about him, and he did not know whether the predominant sensation in his mind were of satisfaction or impatience.

The door slowly opened, and in came a slim black-robed figure. For a moment Eustace, standing near to an interesting picture, and shadowed by a curtain, passed unnoticed, so that he took in the details of this living picture before he himself was seen. He knew in a moment who it was—his cousin Bride—the little timid girl of his boyish recollections; but if all else were unchanged at Penarvon, there was change at least here, for had he seen her in any other surroundings he would never have known or recognised her.

Bride’s face was very pale, and there were dark violet shadows beneath the eyes which told of vigil and of weeping; yet the face was now not only calm, but full of a deep spiritual tranquillity and exaltation, which gave to it an aspect almost unearthly in its beauty. Bride had inherited all her mother’s exceptional loveliness of feature, but she owed more to that expression—caught from, rather than transmitted by, that saintly mother—which struck the beholder far more than mere delicacy of feature or purity of colouring. Eustace was no mean student of art, and had studied at the shrine of the old masters with an enthusiasm born of true appreciation for genius; yet never had he beheld, even in the greatest masterpieces, such a wonderfully spiritualised and glorified face as he now beheld in the person of his cousin Bride. A wave of unwonted devotional fervour came suddenly upon him. He felt that he could have bent the knee before her and kissed the hem of her garment; but instead of that he was constrained by custom to walk forward with outstretched hand, meeting the startled glance of her liquid dark eyes as she found herself not alone.

“You are my cousin Eustace,” she said, in a low melodious voice that thrilled him strangely as it fell upon his ear; “my father will be glad you are come.”

For once Eustace’s readiness failed him. He held Bride’s hand, and knew not how to address her. His heart was beating with quick strong throbs. He felt as though he were addressing some being from another sphere. What could he say to her at such a moment?

Perhaps his silence surprised her, for she raised her soft eyes again to his, and the glance went home to his soul like a sword-thrust, so that he quivered all over. But he found his voice at last.

“Forgive me,” he said, and his voice was soft and even tremulous. “If I am silent, it is because I have no words in which to express what I wish. There are moments in life when we feel that words are no true medium of thought. I remember your mother, Bride—that is all I can find to say. I remember her—and before the thought of your great loss I am dumb. Silence is sometimes more eloquent that any speech can be.”

He still held her hand. She raised her eyes to his, and he saw that he had touched her heart, for they were swimming now in bright tears, but her sweet mouth did not quiver.

“Thank you,” she said, in tones that were little raised above a whisper. “I am glad you have said that. I am glad you remember her. I think she was fond of you, Eustace.”

Then the door opened and the Duke appeared.

Eustace was shocked at his aspect. He remembered him as a very upright, dignified, majestic man, whose words were few and to the point, whose personality inspired awe and reverence in all about him, whose wishes were law, and whose will none ventured to dispute. He beheld before him now a bowed, white-headed man, out of whose eyes the light and keenness had passed, whose voice was low and enfeebled, and whose whole aspect betokened a mind and heart broken by grief, and a physique shattered by the blow which had desolated his home.

Nevertheless this form of grief did not appear to the young man so pathetic as Bride’s, and he was not tongue-tied before the Duke. His well-chosen words of sympathy and condolence were received kindly by the old man, and before the first dinner was over Eustace felt that the ice was broken, and that he began to have some slight knowledge of the relatives with whom he felt he should in the future have considerable dealings if he succeeded in winning their favour. Their loneliness, isolation, and weakness appealed to the manly instincts of his nature, and he resolved that any service he could perform to lighten their burden should not be lacking.

When left alone with the Duke after Bride had vanished, little passed between them. The host apologised for his silence, but said he could not yet begin to talk of common things, and contented himself by obtaining a promise from Eustace to remain some weeks at the castle as his guest. In those days visits were always of considerable length, and Eustace had made his preparations for a lengthened absence from London, in case he should be required here. He accepted the invitation readily, and the Duke, rising and saying good night, with an intimation that he should retire at once to his room, Eustace strolled across the vast hall to the drawing-room, half expecting to find it empty; but his heart gave a quick bound as he saw it tenanted by the slim black-robed figure, and met the earnest gaze of Bride’s soft eyes.

She rose as he appeared, and advanced to met him. Upon her face was an expression which he did not understand till her next words explained it.

“Would you like to come and see her for the last time? To-morrow it will be too late.”

Eustace bent his head in voiceless assent. He could not say nay to such an invitation, albeit he thought that there was something morbid in the feeling which prompted it. Habituated to foreign ways and customs, this keeping of the dead unburied for so many days was in his eyes slightly repulsive; but he followed the noiseless steps of his guide, and was at last ushered into a large dim room, lighted by many wax tapers, the light of which seemed, however, absorbed into the heavy black draperies with which the walls were hung.

In this sombre apartment the Duchess had lain in state (if such a phrase might be used) for many days. The whole population of St. Bride and St. Erme had combined to plead for a last look upon her who in life had been so greatly beloved; and both the Duke and his daughter had been touched by the request, which was promptly gratified.

And so Eustace now found himself before a prostrate figure that bore the likeness of a marble effigy, but was clad in soft white robes of sheeny texture, the fine dark hair being dressed as in life, and crowned by the film of priceless lace which the Duchess was wont to wear. Tall lilies in pots made a background for the recumbent figure, and the wax tapers cast their light most fully upon the tranquil face of the dead. And when once the eye rested on that face, the accessories were all forgotten. Eustace looked, and a great awe and wonder fell upon him. Bride looked, and her face kindled with that expression which he marked upon it when first he had seen her, and which afterwards, when he heard the words, seemed to him best described in this phrase, “Death is swallowed up of victory.”

She knelt down beside the couch on which all that was mortal of her mother lay, and when Eustace turned his eyes away from the peaceful face of the dead, it was to let them rest for a moment upon the ecstatic countenance of the living.

But after one glance he softly retired, unnoticed by Bride, and shut the door behind him noiselessly.

In the shelter of his own room the sense of mystic awe and wonder that possessed him fell away by degrees. He paced up and down, lost in thought, and presently a frown clouded the eyes that had been till now full of pity and sympathy.

“She looks as though she had been living with the dead till she is more spirit than flesh. How can they let her? It is enough to kill her or send her mad! Well, thank heaven, the funeral is to-morrow. After that this sort of thing must cease. Poor child, poor girl! A father who seems to have no knowledge of her existence, her mother snatched away in middle life. And she does not look made of the stuff that forgets either. She will have a hard time of it in the days to come. I wonder if she will let me help her, if I can in any wise comfort her. That must be a heart worth winning, if one had but the key.”

Upon the forenoon of the next day the funeral of the Duchess was celebrated with all the pomp and sombre show incident to such occasions in the days of which we write. Bride did not accompany the sable procession as it left the castle and wound down the hill. Women did not appear in public on such occasions then; and she only watched from a turret window the mournful cortège as it set forth, the servants of the household forming in rank behind the coaches, and walking in procession in the rear, and as the gates were reached, being followed in turn by almost every man, woman, and child within a radius of five miles, the whole making such a procession as had never been seen in the place before.

Hitherto the girl had been supported by the feeling that her mother, although dead, was still with her; that she could gaze on that dear face at will, feel the shadowing presence of her great love, and know something of the hallowing brooding peace which rested upon the quiet face of the dead. Moreover, she was upheld all these days by a wild visionary hope that perhaps even yet her mother would be restored to her. Her intense faith in the power of God made it easy to her to imagine that in answer to her fervent prayer the soul might be restored to its tenement—the dead raised up to life. If the prayer of faith could move mountains—if all things were possible to him that believeth, why might not she believe that her own faith, her own prayer, might be answered after this manner? Had not men been given back from the dead before now? Why not this precious life, so bound up in her own and in the hearts of so many?

Thus the girl had argued, and thus she had spent her days and her nights in fasting and prayer, raised up above the level of earth by her absorbing hope and faith, till she had almost grown to believe that the desired miracle would become a reality. And now that the dream was ended, now that she stood watching the disappearance of that long procession, and knew that God had not answered her prayers, had not rewarded her faith as she felt it deserved to be rewarded, a strange leaden heaviness fell upon her spirit. The reaction from the ecstatic fervour of spirit set in with somewhat merciless force. She felt that the earth was iron and the heavens brass, that there was none below to love her, none above to hear her. A sense akin to terror suddenly possessed her. She turned from her post of observation and fled downwards. She felt choking, and craved the fresh salt air, which had not kissed her cheek for more than this eternity of a week. At the foot of the turret was a door opening into the garden. She fled down, and found herself in the open air, and with hasty steps she passed through the deserted gardens till she came to the great glass conservatory, which had been erected at no small cost for the winter resort of the Duchess since she became so much the invalid; and flinging herself down upon the couch which still stood in its accustomed place in the recess made for it, the girl burst into wild weeping, and beat her head against the cushions in a frenzy akin to despair.

How long she thus remained she knew not. Darkness seemed to fall upon her, and a great horror of she knew not what. The next sensation of which she was really conscious was the touch of a hand on her shoulder, and the sound of a kindly and familiar voice in her ear—

“Lady Bride, ladybird, don’tee take on so bitterly, my lamb. It is not her they have put underground. May be she is near yu now whilst you weep. May be it was she who put it into my heart to come here just at this time. If they can grieve whom the peace of God Almighty has wrapped round, I think ’twould grieve her to see yu breaking your heart to-day.”

“O Abner!” cried the girl, sitting up and pushing the heavy hair out of her eyes, “I am glad you have come! I felt as though there was no one left in the wide world but me—that I was all alone, and all the world was dead. But I have not been like this before. Till they took her away I felt I had her with me. I knew that she was near—that she was watching over me. There was always the hope that she was not dead—that her spirit might come back once more. O Abner, Abner! why does God always take those who can least be spared? There are so many who would scarce be missed, and she——”

Bride could not complete her sentence, and the old gardener looked tenderly at her. He had known her from her birth. He had guided her tottering steps round the garden before she could fairly walk alone. He had watched her growth and development with an almost fatherly tenderness and pride. She was as dear to him as though she had been his own flesh and blood; and the mother who was now taken away had never interfered with the friendship between the child and the old servant; nay, she had many and many a time held long talks herself with Abner, and knew how strong a sympathy there was between his views and her own, despite their widely different walk in life. And so in the old gardener Bride had a friend to whom at such a moment as this she could talk more freely than to any other living creature.

“May be the Lord wants the most beautiful flowers for His own garden, my Ladybird,” answered the old man, using the familiar pet name which had grown up between them in childhood. “When I used to gather flowers for her Grace’s room, I chose the sweetest and most perfect blossoms I could find. We mustn’t wonder if the Lord sometimes does the same—nor grudge Him the fairest and purest flowers, even though the loss is ours.”

Slightly soothed by the thought, Bride tried to smile.

“Only it seems as though we wanted them so much more,” said she.

“I don’t know. The dear Lord must have loved her full as much as we do. He lent her to us for many years; may be He knew she would be better placed in His garden now, where no pruning-knife need ever touch her, and no suns can scorch her, and where her leaves will never wither. Sure, my Ladybird, yu du not grudge her her place in God’s garden of Paradise?”

“O Abner! I will try not. I know what you mean; she did have much suffering to bear here, and I am thankful she will have no more. But there are some things so hard to understand, even when we believe them. I cannot bear to think of her body lying in the cold ground, and becoming—oh! it does not bear thinking of.”

“Then, why think of it, Ladybird?—why not look beyond this poor corruptible body, and think of the glorious resurrection body with which we shall all arise?”

“Oh, it is so hard to understand!” cried Bride, pressing her hands together—“it is so hard to understand!”

“I think it is not possible to understand,” said the old man quietly, “but surely it is easy to believe, for we see it every day and every year.”

“How do we see it?” asked Bride, almost listlessly.

Abner put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a little packet of seed, some of which he poured into his palm.

“Lady Bride,” he said in his grave meditative way, “it does not seem wonderful to yu that each of these tiny seeds will, after it has rotted in the ground, germinate and bear leaves and flowers and fruit. But if yu did not know it from constant seeing it year by year, if it was a strange thing that yu have been told, and yu would not believe it, and yu said to me, ‘No, Abner, that cannot be. It is not sense. It cannot be understood. I must prove it first before I believe it.’ And suppose yu took that seed and put it under that glass which clever men use for discoveries, and suppose beneath that powerful glass yu pulled it bit by bit to pieces to see if it contained the germ of the mystery, du yu think yu would find it there? Du yu think your seed would grow after being treated so?”

“No, of course not,” answered Bride.

“Well, isn’t it just so with the mysteries of God? He gives them to us, and says, ‘Here is your body. It is corruptible and mortal; but it has within it the germ of immortality, and though it will die and perish in the ground, yet it will rise again glorified when the day of resurrection comes.’ But men in these days take that mystery and say, ‘We will not take God’s word for it; we will put it beneath the glass of our great intellects, and examine and see if it be true, and if we may not prove it by examination, then we will not believe it!’ And so they set to work, and when they have done, they tell men not to believe God any longer, because they have proved Him a liar by the gauge of their own intellects. Du yu think these men would believe that this seed would sprout into a flower if they did not see it do so with their own eyes? No; they would laugh yu to scorn for telling them so. And so they laugh us to scorn who tell them that there will be a resurrection of the dead. But, Ladybird, never let your heart fail you. Never let doubt steal over your mind. What God has promised we know He will surely accomplish—and His words cannot fail.”

She rose with a faint smile and held out her hand, which the old gardener took reverently and tenderly between both of his own.

“I will try to think of that if ever I doubt again,” she said softly. “I do know—I do believe—but sometimes it is very hard to keep fast hold on the faith.”

CHAPTER IV
THE DUKE’S HEIR

“YOUR name is Tresithny, is it not?—and you are the gardener here, by what I understand, and have lived at Penarvon all your life. Is that so?”

“Yes, sir. My father was gardener to the old Duke, and he brought me up to take his place; and I’ve been working on the place here, man and boy, these fifty years. I was only a lad of eight when first I used to help my father with some of the lighter tasks, and now I have all the men on the place working under my orders. It is a long while since you paid us a visit, sir; but I remember you well as a little fellow when you came to Penarvon.”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember you. Boys are selfish little brats, and go about thinking of nothing but their own amusement. But, Tresithny, I have come to you now for information. They tell me you are a thoughtful man, and have educated yourself soundly in your leisure hours. One can almost see as much by looking at you and hearing you speak. I feel as though you are the man I want to get hold of. I have been here nearly a month now, and I have not been idle meantime: I have come here with an object, and I have been collecting information as far as I have been able to do so alone; but I believe you will be able to help me better than I can help myself.”

The gardener raised his head, and looked at the young gentleman before him with thoughtful mien. Although this was the first time he had been addressed by Eustace, he had seen him often pacing the garden paths in meditative abstraction, and had heard of him from others as walking or riding over the country roads, and asking strange questions of those he encountered in his rambles. He had been down amongst the fisher-folk of the bay. He had been up amongst the downlands, talking with the shepherd-folk who dwelt in the scattered stone huts that were met with from time to time there. He had been seen at various farmsteads, making friends with their inhabitants, and people were beginning to ask in a puzzled way what he meant by it all, and to wonder at the nature of his questions, albeit the stolid rustic mind was not wont to disturb itself much by inquiry or speculation. When asked a question of the bearing of which he was doubtful, the peasant would generally scratch his head and look vacantly out before him; and again and again, when pressed by Eustace for an answer, would drawl out something like the following reply—

“Zure, thee’d better ask Maister Tresithny. He mid knaw. He du knaw a sight o’ things more’n we. ’E be a’most as gude as Passon tu talk tu. Thee’d best ask he.”

And after some time Eustace had followed this counsel, and was now face to face with his uncle’s servant, although in the first instance he had told himself that he would speak of these things to nobody at Penarvon itself.

“I’ll be pleased and proud to help any one of your name and race, sir,” answered Abner quietly, “so far as I may rightly do so. What can I do for you, sir? You have been main busy since you came here, by all I see and hear.”

“You have heard of me, then?” questioned Eustace, with a smile. “People have talked of my comings and goings, have they?”

“Folks here mostly take notice of what goes on up to the castle,” answered Abner, “and they say that the young master is wonderful little there, but out all day on his own business, which is what they cannot make out.”

Eustace laughed pleasantly, and then his face grew grave again.

“I should be more at the castle if I could be of service to his Grace or Lady Bride; but there is a sorrow upon which a stranger may not intrude, and at present I can call myself little else. In time I trust I may win my way there; but during these first days I believe the truest kindness is to keep away from them for the greater part of my time. And I have my own object to pursue, which is one that may not be ignored; for it is a duty, and I am resolved to do it to the utmost of my power.”

Abner nodded his head in grave approval.

“That is the way our duties should be tackled, sir. It is no good giving half our energies to them. We have our orders plain and simple—‘What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’”

“Yes—just so,” answered Eustace, with a quick glance at the man, whose hands were still at work amongst his pots, even whilst he talked. He was in the potting-shed, pricking out a quantity of young seedlings; and although he gave intelligent heed to the words of the young gentleman before him, he continued his employment with scrupulous care and exactness. “By-the-bye, Tresithny,” Eustace suddenly interpolated, “aren’t you something of a preacher, by what they say? Don’t you hold meetings in St. Bride’s amongst the fisher-folk? I have heard something of it down amongst the people there.”

“Well, sir,” answered Abner, “it isn’t so to say a service; but we’ve got men-folk down there as will not enter the doors of a church, do what you will; and though they be good enough friends with the Rev. Tremodart when he comes down on the bit of a quay to chat with them, they won’t go to church, and he’s too wise, may be, to try and force them. But they’ll sometimes come of a Sunday evening to Dan Denver’s cottage, and listen whilst I read them a chapter and talk it over afterwards. Some days they don’t seem to have much to say, and leaves it most to me, and then it du seem to them almost like a bit of a sermon. But that’s not what I mean it to be. I want to get them to think and talk as well.”

The young man’s eyes suddenly flashed, and he took up the word with suppressed eagerness.

“Ah! Tresithny, that’s just it! That’s the very pith of the whole matter. You and I ought to be friends. We both want to rouse the people to think. If we could do that—how much could be achieved!”

“Ay, indeed it could, sir. There be times when it seems as though it would be as easy to get the brute beast of the field to think, as it is to rouse them up to do it. And yet they have all immortal souls, though they care no more what becomes of them than the beasts that perish. Think of it!—think of it!”

Eustace gave Abner a quick keen look of mingled sympathy and criticism. He saw that their minds were working on absolutely different lines, but was by no means sure that these lines might not be made to coincide by a little gentle diplomacy. He recognised at once in this upright and stalwart old gardener a man of considerable power and influence, who might be a valuable ally if won over to the cause. But he knew, too, that the limitations imposed upon his intellect by the manner of his life, and his opportunities of self-culture, might form a serious barrier between them, so he resolved to feel his way cautiously before advocating openly any of those opinions of which he was apparently the pioneer in these parts.

“Ah!” he said, with a long-drawn breath, “that hopeless apathy towards everything ennobling and elevating comes from centuries of oppression and injustice. Whilst men are forced to live like beasts, they will grovel in the mire like beasts, and not even know that they are treated like beasts. But let them be raised out of their helpless misery and grinding poverty, and their minds will grow healthy with their bodies. The state into which the people of this land have fallen is a disgrace to humanity; and all men of principle must stand shoulder to shoulder together to strive to raise and elevate them. It is a duty which in these days is crying aloud to Heaven, and to which thinking men in all countries are responding with more or less of zeal and energy. Things cannot go on as they have been doing. France has taught us a grim lesson of what will happen at last if we continue to tread down and oppress our humble brethren, as we have been doing all these long years and centuries!”

Eustace threw back his head, and the fire flashed from his eyes. His nature was always stirred to its depths by the thought of the wrongs of humanity. He had not found round and about Penarvon quite that amount of physical misery that he had heard described in other places; yet he had seen enough of the bovine apathy and stolid indifference of the rustics to rouse within him feelings of indignation and keen anger. He argued fiercely within himself that men were made into patient beasts of burden just to suit the selfish desires of the classes above them, who dreaded the day of reckoning which would follow any awakening on their part to a sense of their wrongs. The artisans of the Midlands and the North had partially awakened, and from all sides was the cry going up—the cry for justice, for a hearing, for some one to expound their grievances and make a way out of them. Their helpless rage had hitherto been expended in the breaking of machinery, which they took to be their worst enemy, and in riots which had brought condign punishment upon them. Now they were being taken in hand by men of wealth and power, and were raising the cry of reform—crying aloud for representation in Parliament—agitating for a thing the nature of which they hardly understood, but which they were told would bring help and well-being in its wake. And men like Eustace Marchmont, with generous ardour all aflame in the cause which they held to be sacred and righteous, longed to see the spread of this feeling through the length and breadth of the land. The agricultural labourers were far more difficult to arouse than the artisan classes had been; but if the whole nation with one accord raised its voice aloud in a cry for justice, would not that cry prevail in spite of the whole weight and pressure brought to bear against it, and carry all before it in a triumphant series of long-needed reforms?

So Eustace argued in his hot and generous enthusiasm, and gently and cautiously did he strive to explain his views to Abner and win his sympathy for them. Here was a man who loved his fellows with a great and tender love—in that at least the two men were in accord—but whilst Abner thought almost exclusively of their immortal souls, Eustace’s mind was entirely bent upon the improvement of their physical condition. He was by no means certain in his heart of hearts whether they possessed souls at all. As to everything connected with the spiritual world his mind was altogether a blank. There might or might not be a life to come; he could not profess any opinion of his own on such a point as that, but at least of this present life he was sure, and his religion, in as far as he could be said to have one, was directed with perfect singleness of purpose towards the attainment of what he held to be the loftiest aim and object a man could have, namely, raising his fellow-men to a sense of their own responsibilities and rights, to ameliorate their condition, teach them self-restraint, self-culture, rational and intelligent happiness, to give them sunshine in their lives here, and a high code of moral ethics to live up to when they were able to receive it.

Something of all this did he strive to make plain to Abner as he sat beside him at his work. That he succeeded in winning the interest of his hearer was abundantly evident from the expression of the thoughtful intelligent face, and that the gardener understood a good deal of the questions of the day appeared from the nature of the questions and comments he made from time to time.

When Eustace had said his say there was silence for a while, and he waited with some eagerness to hear the effect produced upon the old man. He felt that Abner was a power in the place, and that a good deal of his own success might depend on how far he could get him to be a partisan in the good cause. Abner was slow to speak when his mind was not made up, and he was not one to reach a conclusion in a hurry. It was some time before he spoke, and then he said slowly and meditatively, “There’s a deal of good in what you say, sir, and a deal more good in what you mean; but yet for all that I can’t quite see as you do. There’s something in it all that’s like putting the cart before the horse, to use a homely phrase, and that’s not a thing as is found to answer when folks come to try it on.”

“I don’t think I quite take your meaning, Tresithny.”

“No, sir? Well, I’ll try to make it plainer like—that is, if you care to hear what an old man like me thinks, who has picked up his knowledge a bit here and a bit there, and less from books than from men.”

“I do care,” answered Eustace, “and yours are the best methods of gaining instruction. You are a man of the people and a thinking man. I do value your opinion, and should like to have it.”

“Well, sir, you shall. I am, as you truly say, a man of the people, and I think I may lay claim to understand my people as well as gentlefolks can do; and I’m very sure of one thing, that I’d be very sorry to live in a country where they were the rulers; for they haven’t either the patience, or the knowledge, or the faculty of government; and things will go badly for England if the day comes when the voice of the people shall prevail as the voice of God.”

“Ah! but the people have to be elevated and educated to be fit to rule,” said Eustace. “They are not fit now, I admit, but we are to seek to raise them, body, soul, and spirit, and then a vastly different state of affairs will be brought about.”

But Abner’s face was very grave, and anything but acquiescent.

“Sir,” he said, “I can’t see that as you do. I’ve read a bit of history here and there, and I’ve seen too in my own lifetime something of what comes when the voice of the people prevails.”

“It is not fair to charge upon the people the horrors of the French Revolution,” interposed Eustace quickly. “The tyrants who provoked it were the people really to blame. They had made brutes and devils of the people, and they only reaped what they had sown.”

“Very well, sir, I know in part at least you are right. We will say no more about history that may be open to such arguments as yours. But we always have our Bibles to go to when in doubt and perplexity, and we have it there in black and white that the powers that be are ordained of God, that riders and men of estate are to be reverenced, obeyed, and feared, that we are to submit ourselves to them as the ordinance of God.”

“Yes, yes, Tresithny, in moderation; and if they do their duty on their side, that would be all right enough,” answered Eustace, who began to feel that Abner was taking an unconsciously unfair advantage of him in adducing arguments drawn from Holy Writ, which had no value for him whatsoever. “But when kings and men of estate abuse their powers and become tyrannical and oppressive, then the compact on both sides is broken, and the people must stand up for themselves and their rights, or they will only fall into absolute slavery.”

“Well, sir, I can’t quite see that,” answered Abner thoughtfully. “When St. Paul wrote by the power of the Holy Ghost about the reverence due to the great men and rulers of the earth, he was speaking in the main of heathen tyrants, of whom he stood in peril of his own life; but he still recognised them as the ordinance of God, as our Lord Himself did when He stood at the judgment-seat of Pilate. It isn’t that I deny the wrongdoing of kings and nobles, but that I don’t think you’ve got hold of the right way of making things better. I said it was like putting the cart before the horse, and that’s just how it appears to me.”

“But you have not explained how.”

“Well, sir, that’s soon done. My way of thinking is this. God meant first of all, in the early dispensations, to rule the world directly Himself, through His prophets and faithful servants; but the hardness and perverseness of man stood in His way, and so He gave them rulers and governors of their own to be their natural heads; and before the Christian dispensation had come, this was the ordered method, and He Himself gave it His sanction and blessing in many ways when He lived on earth: ‘Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,’ and so forth. Now, knowing that God has ordained kings and rulers, it seems plain to me that we should continue to give them reverence and honour; and if the world is going wrong through those evils which you speak of as abuses, that instead of the wise, and earnest, and good men (such as yourself, sir) coming to the people and trying to stir up in their hearts hatred and ill-will towards those above them—which your doctrine will and does do, sir, whether you mean it or not—you should go to the kings and the nobles. Why not strive to stir them up to do their duty by the people, to be just and merciful and liberal, to cease from oppression where it exists, and give them such things as are good for them to have by free and willing pleasure, instead of teaching the people to wring them from them little by little grudgingly and unwillingly? If men like you, sir, and those you have told me of, born to wealth and all that is great in the world, can feel for the wrongs and distresses of the poor of the land, surely others can be brought to do the same, the more so when they learn that mercy and liberality and justice are enjoined by God Himself. Then the people would learn to love and trust those above them, and would rejoice in their rulers as the Lord means them to; but teach them discontent and hatred and rebellion, and indeed, sir, I know not where it will end.”

Eustace smiled with something of covert triumph.

“No; we do not know where it will end, save that it will end in the emancipation of the people from tyranny and oppression, which is what we aim for. That is the fear which holds men back from the good cause; but we are careless of that. Do what is right and leave the rest: that is our maxim. You who are such a theologian should know, Tresithny, that all things work together for good.”

“To those who love the Lord, sir,” answered Abner quietly, and then there was silence for a moment between the men.

“Your plan is not bad in theory, Tresithny,” broke out Eustace, after a pause, “but practically it is unworkable in these days. It would not accomplish our ends. We should not be listened to. We are not listened to. We are scouted and held in abhorrence of rulers.”

“You might not be listened to all at once,” said Abner, as the young man paused; “but neither will the people listen all at once. You say yourself it will take a generation, perhaps two or three, to accomplish what should be done. Suppose those generations were given to the other attempt—the striving to work upon the hearts of those in high places to study the needs of the land, and do justly by its humbler sons, might not there be hopes of a better result? I am but an unlettered man; I am scarce fit to dispute with you; but I think I know the nature of the classes you wish to see holding power, and I should not desire to be ruled by them.”

“Well, well, we must agree to differ in some things, I see,” said Eustace, rising with a smile, and holding out his hand in token of good-fellowship; “all this sounds strange and sudden to you. Men’s minds have to grow into new ideas. But at least you love your people—in that we are agreed; and you would fain see them raised, and their condition improved, if it could be achieved. In that at least we agree. So we will part friends, and not oppose each other, even though we each see the shield on a different side.”

Abner’s smile was pleasant to see, and Eustace sauntered away, a little disappointed perhaps—for Abner’s look of intellect had made him hope to win a disciple here—but pleased and interested in the man, and by no means despairing of winning him at last.

A few days later the Duke spoke to him upon a subject of keen interest to him. Both the Duke and his daughter had kept themselves very much secluded since the funeral, as was rather the custom of the day, although in their case it was real broken-hearted sorrow which held them aloof from all the world at this juncture. But February came with sunshine and soft south winds, and the old nobleman began to resume his ordinary habits, and was pleased in his silent way to have a companion in Eustace. The young kinsman was sincerely attached to the head of his house, and his quick sympathies were aroused to real tenderness for him in his great sorrow. He had hitherto avoided any sort of speech that could possibly raise any irritation in the Duke’s mind. Their talk had been of a subdued and quiet kind, so that nothing had arisen to disturb the harmony that existed between them.

Yet Eustace knew that he and his kinsman differed widely in thought and opinion, and that some day this divergence must appear in their talk. He meant to be very moderate and reasonable in all he might be forced to say, but to hide his views either from cowardice or motives of policy was a thing abhorrent to his nature, and could not be contemplated for a moment.

The first note of warning was struck one day when the pair were riding together across a stretch of bleak down. The Duke suddenly looked at his companion and asked—

“Do you ever think of standing for Parliament, Eustace?”

The young man flushed quickly.

“I have had some thoughts of it,” he answered with subdued eagerness, “but I do not know of any constituency that would accept me. I am almost a stranger to my country.”

“Ah! yes—that German education of yours was a great mistake—a great mistake,” said the Duke, with drawn brow; but after a few moments his face cleared and he drew rein, his companion following his example. “But after all, you might manage it—it might be done. Do you see yonder heap of stones away there to the left? Well, that marks the site of an old manor belonging to us. That heap of stones returns a member to Parliament. I return the member, in point of fact, as you doubtless know. The old member now sitting is growing infirm and deaf: he feels the journeys backwards and forwards too much for him. I think it will not be long before he resigns. When he does so, the borough will fall vacant, and I can give it as I please. Then would come your chance, boy.”

Eustace had flushed quickly; now he grew pale. The whole iniquity of this system of rotten boroughs was one of the flagrant abuses of the day, which he stood pledged to sweep away. Whilst growing and opulent cities like Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield had no representation of any kind, a heap of stones, a lonely field, a tiny group of hovels frequently returned a member to Parliament. Practically the House of Lords returned half the House of Commons, and the middle and lower classes were scarcely represented in any way.

Eager as Eustace was for a voice in the legislation of the future, he hesitated to think of gaining it in such a fashion.

“You are very good, uncle, he said”—he found it pleased the Duke to be so addressed. “But I am afraid I should hardly be a candidate to your mind. Times advance, and men’s views change, and I suspect that mine and yours are scarcely in accord.”

He had expected a sharp and almost scornful answer, and certainly a close and sifting examination; but nothing of the kind came, and looking into his kinsman’s face, Eustace was surprised to see a strangely far-away and softened expression stealing over it.

“Times change!—ay, verily, they do—and men with them,” he said, in a very gentle tone, “and we must learn to be patient with new ways and not condemn them unheard. Boy, I am not fond of change. I have lived my life from day to day and year to year in quiet and peace, and I have not seen that good follows on the steps of those things that men call reform. But I am an old man now, and shall not be here much longer. What I think matters little, so that the right be done. Do not be afraid to speak to me freely. I will, at least, hear you patiently. I have learned that God’s purposes may be fulfilling themselves when we can least see it. I may not agree, nor yet approve, but at least I can strive after patience.”

Greatly surprised at a development altogether unexpected in the irascible old Duke, as he remembered him in the past, with his intolerance of anything but the strongest Tory statesmanship and the most conservative fashion of regarding everything, Eustace spoke with an answering moderation and sympathy, ignoring nothing that was wise and good in the old régime, but pointing out that the day for advance had come, and that the good of the country was at stake. He spoke well, for he had education and enthusiasm, and had thought for himself as well as having learned from others.

The Duke rode on very silently, only putting in a word here and there, but listening with close attention; and as they entered the courtyard, at last, still in earnest talk, he said—

“I do not agree with you, Eustace. I cannot see things as you do; but I will not go so far as to say you are altogether wrong. There may be two sides to the question, and we will talk more of it another time. I am sorry you take such pronounced views upon a side I hold to be in error, but you do so with pure motives and honest conviction. Youth is always ardent, and you are young. Perhaps in days to come you will see that we are not altogether to blame for a state of things such as exists in the country to-day. I have lived longer than you have done in the world, boy; and I do not think you are going to rid the world of sin, misery, oppression, and degradation by your methods. If you have strength to carry them, you will work a silent and I trust a bloodless revolution; but you have an enemy to fight stronger than you think for. You may reduce the power of the Crown to a mere cipher. You may abolish privilege, prerogative, and a hundred other bugbears against which your ardent spirits are chafing. But when you have hurled them down from their places, do you think you will have contented the seething masses you are stirring up to ask for their ‘rights?’ Do you think crime, misery, vice, and degradation will be lessened? I think they will steadily increase, and that you will find yourselves, you reformers, fifty years hence, face to face with problems in comparison with which these before you now are but molehills to mountains. But go your way, go your way. Only experience can teach you your lesson; and that is the dearest master you can have—and generally teaches his lessons just a generation too late!”

CHAPTER V
MAN OF THE WORLD AND MYSTIC

“THERE be no zarvice in the church to-day, my lady—not to St. Bride’s,” said a garden lad to Bride one bright Sunday morning in February as she was returning from a walk along the cliff in time for the eight-o’clock breakfast. Eustace had met her strolling homewards and had joined her. This had happened once or twice lately, and the strangeness of the feeling of having a companion was beginning to wear off.

“No service?” questioned the girl, pausing in her walk. “Is Mr. Tremodart ill? I had not heard of it.”

The lad scratched his head as he replied in the slow drawl of his native place—

“’Tisn’t ezactly that, my lady. Passon isn’t zick; but he du have one of his hens a settin’ in the pulpit, and zo he du not wish her distarbed.”