Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

“Oh, father, don’t, don’t! You’ll hurt him.”—Frontispiece.

FORGE AND FURNACE

A Novel

BY
FLORENCE WARDEN

AUTHOR OF
“THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH,” “SCHEHERAZADE,” “A PRINCE
OF DARKNESS,” ETC.

New York
NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
156 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1896,
BY
NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY.

CONTENTS.

FORGE AND FURNACE;

THE ROMANCE OF A SHEFFIELD BLADE.

CHAPTER I. A PAIR OF BROWN EYES.

Thud, thud. Amidst a shower of hot, yellow sparks the steam hammer came down on the glowing steel, shaking the ground under the feet of the master of the works and his son, who stood just outside the shed. In the full blaze of the August sunshine, which was, however, tempered by such clouds of murky smoke as only Sheffield can boast, old Mr. Cornthwaite, acclimatized for many a year to heat and to coal dust, stood quite unconcerned.

Tall, thin, without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, with a fresh-colored face which seemed to look the younger and the handsomer for the silver whiteness of his hair and of his long, silky moustache, Josiah Cornthwaite’s was a figure which would have arrested attention anywhere, but which was especially noticeable for the striking contrast he made to the rough-looking Yorkshiremen at work around him.

Like a swarm of demons on the shores of Styx, they moved about, haggard, gaunt, uncouth figures, silent amidst the roar of the furnaces and the whirr of the wheels, lifting the bars of red-hot steel with long iron rods as easily and unconcernedly as if they had been hot rolls baked in an infernal oven, heedless of the red-hot sparks which fell around them in showers as each blow of the steam hammer fell.

Mr. Cornthwaite, whose heart was in his furnaces, his huge revolving wheels, his rolling mills, and his gigantic presses, watched the work, familiar as it was to him, with fascinated eyes.

“What day was it last month that Biron turned up here?” he asked his son with a slight frown.

This frown often crossed old Mr. Cornthwaite’s face when he and his son were at the works together, for Christian by no means shared his father’s enthusiasm for the works, and was at small pains to hide the fact.

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t remember. How should I remember?” said he carelessly, as he looked down at his hands, and wondered how much more black coal dust there would be on them by the time the guv’nor would choose to let him go.

A young workman, with a long, thin, pale, intelligent face, out of which two deep-set, shrewd, gray eyes looked steadily, glanced up quickly at Mr. Cornthwaite. He had been standing near enough to hear the remarks exchanged between father and son.

“Well, Elshaw, what is it?” said the elder Mr. Cornthwaite with an encouraging smile. “Any more discoveries to-day?”

A little color came into the young man’s face.

“No, sir,” said he shyly in a deep, pleasant voice, speaking with a broad Yorkshire accent which was not in his mouth unpleasant to the ear. “Ah heard what you asked Mr. Christian, sir, and remember it was on the third of the month Mr. Biron came.”

“Thanks. Your memory is always to be trusted. I think you’ve got your head screwed on the right way, Elshaw.”

“Ah’m sure, Ah hope so, sir,” said the young fellow, smiling in return for his employer’s smile, and touching his cap as he moved away.

“Smart lad that Elshaw,” said Mr. Cornthwaite approvingly. “And steady. Never drinks, as so many of them do.”

“Can you wonder at their drinking?” broke out Christian with energy, “when they have to spend their lives at this infernal work? It parches my throat only to watch them, and I’m sure if I had to pass as many hours as they do in this awful, grimy hole I should never be sober.”

The elder Mr. Cornthwaite looked undecided whether to frown or to laugh at this tirade, which had at least the merit of being uttered in all sincerity by the very person who could least afford to utter it. He compromised by giving breath to a little sigh.

“It’s very disheartening to me to hear you say so, Chris, when it has been the aim of my life to bring you up to carry on and build up the business I have given my life to,” he said.

Christian Cornthwaite’s face was not an expressive one. He was extraordinarily unlike his father in almost every way, having prominent blue eyes, instead of his father’s piercing black ones, a fair complexion, while his father’s was dark, a figure shorter, broader, and less upright, and an easy, happy-go-lucky walk and manner, as different as possible from the erect, military bearing of the head of the firm.

What little expression he could throw into his big blue eyes he threw into them now, as he pulled his long, ragged, tawny moustache and echoed his father’s sigh.

“Well, isn’t it disheartening for me too, sir,” protested he good-humoredly, “to hear you constantly threatening to put me on bread and water for the rest of my life if I don’t settle down in this beastly hole and try to love it?”

“It ought to be natural to you to love what has brought you up in every comfort, educated you like a prince, and made of you——”

Josiah Cornthwaite paused, and a twinkle came into his black eyes.

“Made of you,” he went on thoughtfully, “a selfish, idle vagabond, with only wit enough to waste the money his father has made.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Chris, quite cheerfully. “If that’s the best the works have done for me, why should I love them?”

At that moment young Elshaw passed before his eyes again, and recalled Christian’s attention to a subject which would, he shrewdly thought, divert the current of his father’s thoughts from his own deficiencies.

“I wonder, sir,” he said, “that you don’t put Bram Elshaw into the office. He’s fit for something better than this sort of thing.”

And he waved his hand in the direction of the group in the middle of which stood Elshaw, rod in hand, with his lean, earnest face intent on his work.

Josiah Cornthwaite’s eyes rested on the young man. Bram was a little above the middle height, thin, sallow, with shoulders somewhat inclined to be narrow and sloping, but with a face which commanded attention. He had short, mouse-colored hair, high cheek bones, a short nose, a straight mouth, and a very long straight chin; altogether an assemblage of features which promised little in the way of attractiveness.

And yet attractive his face certainly was. Intelligence, strength of character, good humor, these were the qualities which even a casual observer could read in the countenance of Bram Elshaw.

But the lad had more in him than that. He had ambition, vague as yet, dogged tenacity of purpose, imagination, feeling, fire. There was the stuff; of a man of no common kind in the young workman.

Josiah Cornthwaite looked at him long and critically before answering his son’s remark.

“Yes,” said he at last slowly, “I daresay he’s fit for something better—indeed, I’m sure of it. But it doesn’t do to bring these young fellows on too fast. If he gets too much encouragement he will turn into an inventor (you know the sort of chap that’s the common pest of a manufacturing town, always worrying about some precious ‘invention’ that turns out to have been invented long ago, or to be utterly worthless), and never do a stroke of honest work again.”

“Now, I don’t think Elshaw’s that sort of chap,” said Chris, who looked upon Bram as in some sort his protégé, whose merit would be reflected on himself. “Anyhow, I think it would be worth your while to give him a trial, sir.”

“But he would never go back to this work afterwards if he proved a failure in the office.”

“Not here, certainly.”

“And we should lose a very good workman,” persisted Mr. Cornthwaite, who had conservative notions upon the subject of promotion from the ranks.

“Well, I believe it would turn out all right,” said Chris.

His father was about to reply when his attention was diverted by the sudden appearance, at the extreme end of the long avenue of sheds and workshops, of two persons who, to judge by the frown which instantly clouded his face, were very unwelcome.

“That old rascal again! That old rascal Theodore Biron! Come to borrow again, of course! But I won’t see him. I won’t——”

“But, Claire, don’t be too hard on the old sinner, for the girl’s sake, sir,” said Chris hastily, cutting short his protests.

Mr. Cornthwaite turned sharply upon his son.

“Yes, the old fox is artful enough for that. He uses his daughter to get himself received where he himself wouldn’t be tolerated for two minutes. And I’ve no doubt the little minx is up to every move on the board too.”

“Oh, come, sir, you’re too hard,” protested Chris with real warmth, and with more earnestness than he had shown on the subject either of his own career or of Bram’s. “I’d stake my head for what it’s worth, and I suppose you’d say that isn’t much, on the girl’s being all right.”

But this championship did not please his father at all. Josiah Cornthwaite’s bushy white eyebrows met over his black eyes, and his handsome, ruddy-complexioned face lost its color. Chris was astonished, and regretted his own warmth, as his father answered in the tones he could remember dreading when he was a small boy—

“Whether she’s all right or all wrong, I warn you not to trouble your head about her. You may rely upon my doing the best I can for her, on account of my relationship to her mother. But I would never countenance an alliance between the family of that old reprobate and mine.”

But to this Chris responded with convincing alacrity—

“An alliance! Good heavens, no, sir! We suffer quite enough at the hands of the old nuisance already. And I have no idea, I assure you, of throwing myself away.”

Josiah Cornthwaite still kept his shrewd black eyes fixed upon his son, and he seemed to be satisfied with what he read in the face of the latter, for he presently turned away with a nod of satisfaction as Theodore Biron and his daughter, who had perhaps been lingering a little until the great man’s first annoyance at the sight of them had blown over, came near enough for a meeting.

“Ah, Mr. Cornthwaite, surely there’s no sight in the world to beat this,” began the dapper little man airily as he held out a small, slender, and remarkably well-shaped hand with a flourish, and kept his eyes all the time upon the men at work in the nearest shed as if the sight had too much fascination for him to be able readily to withdraw his eyes. “This,” he went on, apparently not noticing that Mr. Cornthwaite’s handshake was none of the warmest, “of a whole community immersed in the noblest of all occupations, the turning of the innocent, lifeless substances of the earth into tool and wheel, ship and carriage! I must say that this place has a charm for me which I have never found in the fairest spots of Switzerland; that after seeing whatever was to be seen in California, the States, the Himalayas, Russia, and the rest of it, I have always been ready to say, not exactly with the poet, but with a full heart, ‘Give me Sheffield!’ And to-day, when I came to have a look at the works,” he wound up in a less lofty tone, “I thought I would bring my little Claire to have a peep too.”

“Ah, Mr. Cornthwaite, surely there’s no sight in the world to beat this.”—Page 10.

In spite of the absurdity of his harangue, Theodore Biron knew how to throw into his voice and manner so much fervor. He spoke, he gesticulated with so much buoyancy and effect, that his hearers were amused and interested in spite of themselves, and were carried away, for the time at least, into believing, or half-believing, that he was in earnest.

Josiah Cornthwaite, always accessible to flattery on the matter of “the works,” as the artful Theodore knew, suffered himself to smile a little as he turned to Claire.

“And so you have to be sacrificed, and must consent to be bored to please papa?”

“Oh, I shan’t be bored. I shall like it,” said Claire.

She spoke in a little thread of a musical, almost childish, voice, and very shyly. But as she did so, uttering only these simple words, a great change took place in her. Before she spoke no one would have said more of her than that she was a quiet, modest-looking, perhaps rather insignificant, little girl, and that her gray frock was neat and well-fitting.

But no sooner did she open her mouth to speak or to smile than the little olive-skinned face broke into all sorts of pretty dimples. The black eyes made up for what they lacked in size by their sparkle and brilliancy, and the two rows of little ivory teeth helped the dazzling effect.

Then Claire Biron was charming. Then even Josiah Cornthwaite forgot to ask himself whether she was not cunning. Then Chris stroked his mustache, and told himself with complacency that he had done a good deed in standing up for the poor, little thing.

But rough Bram Elshaw, whom Chris had beckoned to come forward, and who stood respectfully in the background, waiting to know for what he was wanted, felt as if he had received an electric shock.

Bram was held very unsusceptible to feminine influences. He was what the factory and shop lasses of the town called a hard nut to crack, a close-fisted customer, and other terms of a like opprobrious nature. Occupied with his books, those everlasting books, and with his vague dreams of something indefinite and as yet far out of his reach, he had, at this ripe age of twenty, looked down upon such members of the frivolous sex as came in his way, and dreamed of something fairer in the shape of womanhood, something to which a pretty young actress whom he had seen at one of the theatres in the part of “Lady Betty Noel,” had given more definite form.

And now quite suddenly, in the broad light of an August morning, with nothing more romantic than the rolling mill for a background, there had broken in upon his startled imagination the creature the sight of whom he seemed to have been waiting for. As he stood there motionless, his eyes riveted, his ears tingling with the very sound of her voice, he felt that a revelation had been made to him.

As if revealed in one magnetic flash, he saw in a moment what it was that woman meant to man; saw the attraction that the rough lads of his acquaintance found in the slovenly, noisy girls of their own courts and alleys; stood transfixed, coarse-handed son of toil that he was, under the spell of love.

The voice of Chris Cornthwaite close to his ear startled him out of a stupor of intoxication.

“What’s the matter with you, Bram? You look as if you’d been struck by lightning. You are to go round the works with Miss Biron and explain things, you know. And listen” (he might well have to recall Bram’s wandering attention, for this command had thrown the lad into a sort of frenzy, on which he found it difficult enough to suppress all outward signs), “I have something much more important to tell you than that.” But Bram’s face was a blank. “You are to come up to the Park next Thursday evening, and I think you’ll find my father has something to say to you that you’ll be glad to hear. And mind this, Bram, it was I who put him up to it. It’s me you’ve got to thank.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Bram, touching his cap respectfully, and trying to speak as if he felt grateful.

But he was not. He felt no emotion whatever. He was stupefied by the knowledge that he was to go round the works with Miss Biron.

CHAPTER II. CLAIRE.

Bram wondered how Mr. Christian could give up the pleasure of showing Miss Biron round the works himself. Christian’s partiality for feminine society was as great as his popularity with it, and as well known. The partiality, but not perhaps the popularity, was inherited from his father—at least, so folks said.

And Bram Elshaw, looking about for a reason for this extraordinary conduct on the part of the young master, and noting the wistfulness of that young man’s glances and the displeasure on the face of the elder Mr. Cornthwaite, came very near to a correct diagnosis of the case.

Bram was always the person chosen to carry messages between the works and Holme Park, the private residence of the Cornthwaites, and the household talk had filtered through to him about Theodore Biron, the undesirable relation of French extraction, who had settled down too near, and whose visits had become too frequent for his rich kinsman’s pleasure. And the theory of the servants was that these visits were always paid with the object of borrowing money.

Not that Theodore looked like an impecunious person. To Bram’s inexperienced eyes Mr Biron and his daughter looked like people of boundless wealth and great distinction. Theodore, indeed, was if anything better dressed than either of the Cornthwaites. His black morning coat fitted him perfectly; his driving gloves were new; his hat sat jauntily on his head. From his tall white collar to his tight new boots he was the picture of a trim, youthful-looking country gentleman of the smart and rather amateurish type.

He had a thin, small-featured face, light hair, light eyebrows, and the smallest of light moustaches; pale, surprised eyes, and the slimmest pair of feminine white hands that ever man had. Of these he was proud; and so his gloves kept their new appearance for a long time, as he generally carried them in his hand.

As for Claire, she not only looked better dressed than either Mrs. or Miss Cornthwaite, but better dressed than any of the ladies of the neighborhood. And this was not Bram’s fancy only; it was solid fact.

Claire Biron had never been in France, and her mother had been an Englishwoman of Yorkshire descent. But through her father she had inherited from her French ancestors just that touch of feminine genius which makes a woman neat without severity, and smart looking without extravagance.

In her plain gray frock and big yellow chip hat with the white gauze rosettes, the little slender, dark eyed girl looked as nice as no ordinary English girl would think of making herself except for some special occasion.

Bram had not the nicely critical faculty to enable him to discern things. All he knew, as he walked through the black dust with Miss Biron and pointed out to her the different processes which were going on, was that every glance she gave him in acknowledgment of the information he was obliged to bawl in her ear was intoxicating; that every insignificant comment she made rang in his very heart with a delicious thrill of pleasure he had never felt before.

And behind them followed the two older gentleman, Mr. Cornthwaite explaining, commenting, softening in spite of himself under the artful interest taken in every dryest detail by the airy Theodore, who trotted jauntily beside him; and grew enthusiastic over everything.

Before very long, however, Mr. Cornthwaite, who was getting excited against his will over that hobby of “the works” which Theodore managed so cleverly, drew his companion away to show him a new process which they were in course of testing; and for a moment Bram and Miss Claire were left alone together.

And then a strange thing, a thing which opened Bram’s eyes, happened. From some corner, some nook, sprang Chris, and, hooking his arm with affectionate familiarity within that of Miss Biron, he said—

“All right, Elshaw; I’ll show the rest. Come along, Claire.”

And in an instant he had whirled away with the young lady, who began to laugh and to protest, round the nearest corner.

Bram was left standing stupidly, with a feeling rising in his heart which he could not understand. What was this that had happened? Nothing but the most natural thing in the world; and the impulse of sullen resentment which stirred within him was ridiculous. There was, there could be, no rivalry possible between Mr. Christian Cornthwaite, the son of the owner of the works, and Bram Elshaw, a workman in his father’s employment. And Miss Biron was a lady as far above him (Bram) as the Queen was.

This was what Bram told himself as, with hard-set jaw and a lowering look of discontent on his face, he quietly went back to his work.

But the matter was not ended with him. As he went on mechanically with his task, as he bent over the great steel bar with his long rod, his thoughts were with the pair, the well-matched, handsome pair of lovers, as he supposed them to be, who had flitted off together as soon as papa’s back was turned.

Now what did that mean?

If it had been any other young lady Bram would not have given the matter a second thought. Christian Cornthwaite’s flirtations were as the sand of the sea for multitude, and he would bring half-a-dozen different girls in a week to “see over the works” when papa could be relied upon to be out of the way. Christian had the easy assurance, the engaging, irresponsible manners which always make their possessor a favorite with the unwise sex, and was reported to be able to win the favor of a prude in less time than it takes another man to gain the smiles of a coquette.

And so where was the wonder that this universal favorite should be a favorite with Miss Biron? Of course, there was nothing in the fact to be wondered at, but the infatuated Bram would have had this particular lady as different from other ladies in this respect as he held her superior in every other.

But then a fresh thought, which was like a dagger thrust on the one hand, yet which brought some bittersweet comfort for all that, came into his mind. Surely Miss Biron was not the sort of girl to allow such familiarity except from the man whom she had accepted for a husband. Surely, then, these two were engaged—without the consent, or even the knowledge, of Mr. Cornthwaite very likely, but promising themselves that they would get that consent some day.

And as he came to this decision Bram looked black.

And all the time that these fancies chased each other through his excited brain this lad of twenty retained a saner self which stood outside the other and smiled, and told him that he was an infatuated young fool, a moonstruck idiot, to tumble headlong into love with a girl of whom he knew nothing except that she was as far above him, and of all thought of him, as the stars are above the sea.

And he was right in thinking that there was not a man in all that crowd of his rough fellow-workmen who would not have jeered at him and looked down upon him as a hopeless ass if they had known what his thoughts and feelings were. But for all that there was the making in Bram Elshaw, with his dreams and his fancies, of a man who would rise to be master of them all.

Out of the heat of the furnace and the glowing iron Bram Elshaw presently passed into the heat of the sun, and stood for a moment, his long rod in his hand, and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. And before he could turn to go back again he heard a little sound behind him which was not a rustle, or a flutter, or anything he could describe, but which he knew to be the sound of a woman moving quickly in her skirts. And the next moment Miss Biron appeared a couple of feet away from him, smiling and growing a little pink as a young girl does when she feels herself slightly embarrassed by an unaccustomed situation.

Before she spoke Bram guessed by the position in which she held her little closed right hand that she was going to offer him money. And he drew himself up a little, and blushed a much deeper red than the girl—not with anger, for after all was it not just what he might have expected? But with a keener sense than ever of the difference between them.

Miss Biron had begun to speak, had got as far as “I wanted to thank you for explaining everything so nicely,” when something in his look caused her to stop and hesitate and look down.

She was suddenly struck with the fact that this was no common workman, this pale, grimy young Yorkshireman with the strong jaw and the clear, steady eyes, although he was dressed in an old shirt blackened by coal dust, and trousers packed with pieces of sacking tied round with string.

“Ah’m reeght glad to ha’ been of any service to yer, Miss,” said Bram in a very gentle tone.

There was a moment’s silence, during which Miss Biron finally made up her mind what to do. Looking up quickly, with the blush still in her face, she said, “Thank you very much. Good-morning,” and, to Bram’s great relief, turned away without offering him the money.

CHAPTER III. SOMETHING WRONG AT THE FARM.

It is certain that Bram Elshaw was still thinking more of Miss Biron than of the communication which Mr. Cornthwaite was to make to him when he presented himself at the back door of his employer’s residence on the following Thursday evening.

Holme Park was on the side of one of the hills which surround the city of Sheffield, and was a steep, charmingly-wooded piece of grass and from a small plateau in which the red brick house looked down at the rows of new red brick cottages, at the factory chimneys, and the smoke clouds of the hive below.

Bram had always taken his messages to the back door of the house, but he was shrewd enough to guess, from the altered manner of the servant who now let him in and conducted him at once to the library, that this was the last time he should have to enter by that way.

And he was right. Mr Cornthwaite was as precise in manner, as business-like as usual, but his tone was also a little different, as he told Bram that his obvious abilities were thrown away on his present occupation, and that he was willing to take him into his office, if he cared to come, without any premium.

Bram thanked him, and accepted the offer, but he showed no more than conventional gratitude. The shrewd young Yorkshireman was really more grateful than he seemed, but he saw that his employer was acting in his own interest rather than from benevolence, and, although he made no objections to the smallness of the salary he was to receive, he modestly but firmly refused to bind himself for any fixed period.

“Ah may be a failure, sir,” he objected quietly, “and Ah should like to be free to goa back to ma auld work if Ah was.”

So the bargain was struck on his own terms, and he retired respectfully just as a servant entered the library to announce that Miss Biron wished to see Mr. Cornthwaite. And at the same moment the young girl herself tripped into the room, with a worried and anxious look on her face.

Mr. Cornthwaite rose from his chair with a frown of annoyance.

“My dear Claire, your father really should not allow you to come this long way by yourself—at night, too. It is neither proper nor safe. By the time dinner is over it will be dark, and you have a long way to go.”

“Oh, but I am going back at once, as soon as you have read this,” said Claire, putting a little note fastened up into a cocked hat like a lady’s, into his unwilling hand. “And perhaps Christian would see me as far as the town, if you think I ought not to go alone.”

But this suggestion evidently met with no approval from Mr. Cornthwaite, who shook his head, signed to Bram to remain in the room and began to read the note, all at the same time.

“My dear,” said he shortly, as he finished reading and crumpled it up, “Christian is engaged at present. But young Elshaw here will show you into your tram, won’t you, Elshaw?”

“Certainly, sir.” Bram, who had the handle of the door in his hand, saluted his employer, and retreated into the hall before Claire, who had not recognized him in his best clothes, had time to look at him again.

“A most respectable young fellow, my dear, though a little rough. One of my clerks,” Bram heard Mr. Cornthwaite explain rapidly to Miss Biron as he shut himself out into the hall and waited.

Bram was divided between delight that he was to have the precious privilege of accompanying Miss Biron on her journey home, and a sense of humiliation caused by the shrewd suspicion that she would not like this arrangement.

But when a few minutes later Claire came out of the library all his thoughts were turned to compassion for the poor girl, who had evidently received a heavy blow, and who had difficulty in keeping back her tears. She dashed past him out of the house, and he followed at a distance, perceiving that she had forgotten him, and that his duty would be limited to seeing without her knowledge that she got safely home.

So when she got into a tram car at the bottom of the hill outside the park he got on the top. When she got out at St. Paul’s Church, and darted away through the crowded streets in the direction of the Corn Exchange, he followed. Treading through the crowds of people who filled the roadway as well as the pavement, she fled along at such a pace that Bram had difficulty in keeping her little figure in view. She drew away at last from the heart of the town, and began the ascent of one of the stony streets, lined with squalid, cold-looking cottages, that fringe the smoke-wreathed city on its north-eastern side.

Bram followed.

Once out of the town, and still going upwards, Claire Biron fled like a hare up a steep lane, turned sharply to the left, and plunged into a narrow passage, with a broken stone wall on each side, which ran between two open fields. This passage gave place to a rough footpath, and at this point the girl stood still, her gaze arrested by a strange sight on the higher ground on the right.

It was dark by this time, and the outline of the hill above, broken by a few cottages, a solitary tall chimney at the mouth of a disused coal pit, and a group of irregular farm buildings, was soft and blurred.

But the windows of the farmhouse were all ablaze with light. A long, plain stone building very near the summit of the hill, and holding a commanding situation above a sudden dip into green pasture land, the unpretending homestead dominated the landscape and blinked fiery eyes at Claire, who uttered a low cry, and then dashed away from the footpath by a short cut across the fields, making straight for the house.

All the blinds were up, and groups of candles could be seen on the tables within, all flickering in the draught, while the muslin curtains in the lower rooms were blown by the evening wind into dangerous proximity to the lights.

And in all the house there was not a trace of a living creature to be seen, although from where Bram stood he could see into every room.

He followed still, uneasy and curious, as Claire climbed the garden wall with the agility of a boy, and ran up to the house door.

It was locked. Nothing daunted, she mounted on the ledge of the nearest window, which was open only at the top, threw up the sash, and got into the room.

A moment later she had blown out all the candles. Then she ran from room to room, extinguishing the lights, all in full view of the wondering Bram, who stood watching her movements from the lawn, until the whole front of the house was in complete darkness.

Then she disappeared, and for a few minutes Bram could see nothing, hear nothing.

But presently from the back part of the rooms, there came to his listening ears a long, shrill cry.

CHAPTER IV. CLAIRE’S APOLOGY.

The effect of that cry upon Bram Elshaw was to set him tingling in every nerve.

The lawn which ran the length of the farmhouse was wide, and sloped down to a straggling hedge just inside the low stone wall which surrounded the garden and the orchard. Up and down this lawn Bram walked with hurried footsteps, uncertain what to do. For although he recognized Claire’s voice, the cry she had uttered seemed to him to indicate surprise and horror rather than pain, so that he did not feel justified in entering the house by the way she had done until he felt more sure that his assistance was wanted, or that his intrusion would be welcome.

In a very few moments, however, he heard her cry—“Don’t, don’t; oh, don’t! You frighten me!”

Bram, who was by this time close to the door, knocked at it loudly.

Waiting a few moments, on the alert for any fresh sounds, and hearing nothing, he then made his way round to the back of the house, leaping over the rough stone wall which divided the garden from the farmyard, and tried the handle of the back door.

This also was fastened on the inside.

But at the very moment that Bram lifted the latch and gave the door a rough shake he heard a sound like the clashing of steel upon stone, a scuffle, a suppressed cry, and upon that, without further hesitation, Bram put his sinewy knee against the old door, and at the second attempt burst the bolt off.

There was no light inside the house except that which came from the fire in an open range on the right; but by this Bram saw that he was in an enormous stone-paved kitchen, with open rafters above, a relic of the time when the farmer was not one of the gentlefolk, but dined with his family and his laborers at a huge deal table under the pendant hams and bunches of dried herbs which in the old days used to dangle from the rough-hewn beams.

Bram, however, noticed nothing but that a door on the opposite side of the kitchen was swinging back as if some one had just passed through, and he sprang across the stone flags and threw it open.

There was a little oil lamp on a bracket against the wall in the wide hall in which he found himself. Standing with his back to the solid oak panels of the front door, brandishing a naked cavalry sword of old-fashioned pattern, stood the airy Theodore Biron in dressing-gown and slippers, with his hair in disorder, his face very much flushed, and his little fair moustache twisted up into a fierce-looking point at each end.

On the lowest step of a wide oak staircase, which took up about twice the space it ought to have done in proportion to the size of the hall, stood little Claire, pale, trembling with fright, trying to keep her alarm out of her voice, as she coaxed her father to put down the sword and go to bed.

“Drunk! Mad drunk!” thought Bram as he took in the situation at a glance.

At sight of the intruder, whom she did not in the least recognize, Claire stopped short in the midst of her entreaties.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” asked she, turning upon him fiercely.

The sudden appearance of the stranger, instead of further infuriating Mr. Biron, as might have been feared, struck him for an instant into decorum and quiescence. Lowering the point of the weapon he had been brandishing, he seemed for a moment to wait with curiosity for the answer to his daughter’s question.

When, however, Bram answered, in a respectful and shame-faced manner, that he had heard her call out and feared she might be in need of help, Theodore’s energy returned with full force, and he made a wild pass or two in the direction of the young man, with a recommendation to him to be prepared.

Claire’s terrors returned with full force.

“Oh, father, don’t, don’t! You’ll hurt him!” she cried piteously.

But the entreaty only served to whet Theodore’s appetite for blood.

“Hurt him! I mean to! I mean to have his life!” shouted he, while his light eyes seemed to be starting from his head.

And, indeed, it seemed as if he would proceed to carry out this threat, when Bram, to the terror of Claire and the evident astonishment of her father, rushed upon Theodore, and, cleverly avoiding the thrust which the latter made at him, seized the hilt of the sword, and wrested it from his grasp.

It was a bold act, and one which needed some address. Mr Biron was for the moment sobered by his amazement.

“Give me back my sword, you impudent rascal!” cried he, making as he spoke a vain attempt to regain possession of the weapon.

But Bram, who was a good deal stronger than he looked, kept him off easily with his right hand, while he retained a tight hold on the sword with his left.

“You shall have it back to-morrow reeght enough,” said Bram good-humoredly. “But maybe it’ll be safer outside t’house till ye feel more yerself like. Miss Claire yonder knaws it’s safe wi’ me.”

“Oh, yes; oh, yes,” panted Claire eagerly, though in truth she had not the least idea who this mysterious knight-errant was. “Let him have it, father; it’s perfectly safe with him.”

But this action of his daughter’s in siding with the enemy filled Mr Biron with disgust. With great dignity, supporting himself against the wall as he spoke, and gesticulating emphatically with his right hand, while with his left he fumbled about for his gold pince-nez, he said in solemn tones—

“I give this well-meaning but m-m-muddle-headed young man credit for the best intentions in the world. But same time I demand that he should give up my p-p-property, and that he should take himself off m-m-my premises without furth’ delay.”

“Certainly, sir. Good-evening,” said Bram.

And without waiting to hear any more of Mr Biron’s protests, or heeding his cries of “Stop thief!” Bram ran out as fast as he could by the way he had come, leaving the outer door, which he had damaged on his forcible entry, to slam behind him.

Once outside the farmyard, however, he found himself in a difficulty, being suddenly stopped by a farm laborer, in whom his rapid exit from the house had not unnaturally aroused suspicions, which were not allayed by the sight of the drawn sword in his hand.

“Eh, mon, who art ta? And where art agoin’?”

Bram pointed to the house.

“There’s a mon in yonder has gotten t’ jumps,” explained he simply, “and he was wa-aving this abaht’s head. So Ah took it away from ’un.”

The other man grinned, and nodded.

“T’ mester’s took that way sometimes,” said he. “But this sword’s none o’ tha property, anyway.”

Bram looked back at the house. Nobody had followed him out; even the damaged door had been left gaping open.

“Ah want a word wi’ t’ young lady,” said he. “She knaws me. I work for Mr. Cornthwaite down at t’ works in t’ town yonder.”

“Oh, ay; Ah’ve heard of ’un. He’s gotten t’ coin, and,” with a significant gesture in the direction of the farmhouse, “we haven’t.”

“You work on t’ farm here?” asked Bram.

The man answered in a tone and with a look which implied that affairs on the farm were in anything but a flourishing condition—

“Ay, Ah work on t’ farm.”

And, apparently satisfied of the honesty of Bram’s intentions, or else careless of the safety of his master’s property, the laborer nodded good-night, and walked up the hill towards a straggling row of cottages which bordered the higher side of the road near the summit.

Bram got back into the farmyard, and waited for the appearance at the broken door of some occupant of the house to whom he could make his excuses for the damage he had done. He had a shrewd suspicion who that occupant would be. Since all the noise and commotion he and Theodore Biron had made had not brought a single servant upon the scene, it was natural to infer that Mr. Biron and his daughter had the house to themselves.

And this idea filled Bram with wonder and compassion. What a life for a young girl, who had seemed to rough Bram the epitome of all womanly beauty and grace and charm, was this which accident had revealed to him. A life full of humiliations, of terrors, of anxieties which would have broken the heart and the spirit of many an older woman. Instead of being a spoilt young beauty, with every wish forestalled, every caprice gratified, his goddess was only a poor little girl who lived in an atmosphere of petty cares, petty worries, under the shadow of a great trouble, her father’s vice of drink.

And as he thought about the girl in this new aspect his new-born infatuation seemed to die away, the glamour and the glow faded, and he thought of her only as a poor little nestling which, deprived of its natural right of warmth and love and tenderness, lives a starved life, but bears its privations with a brave look.

And as he leaned against the yellow-washed wall he heard a slight noise, and started up.

Miss Biron, candlestick in hand, was examining the injuries done to her back door.

Bram opened his mouth to speak, but he stammered and uttered something unintelligible, taken aback as he was by the vast difference between the fancy picture he had been drawing of the young lady and the reality with which he was confronted.

For instead of the wan, white face, the streaming eyes, the anxious and weary look he had expected to see, he found himself face to face with a cheery little creature, brisk in movement, bright of eyes, who looked up with a start when he appeared before her, and said rather sharply—

“This is your doing, I suppose? And instead of being scolded for the mischief you have done you expect to be thanked and perhaps rewarded, no doubt?”

At first Bram could scarcely believe his ears.

“Ah’m sorry for t’ damage Ah’ve done, miss,” he said hurriedly. “And that’s what Ah’ve waited for to tell yer, nowt but that. But it’s not so bad as it looks. It’s nobbut t’ bolt sprung off and a scratch to the paint outside. If you can let me have a look into your tool-chest, Ah’ll set it reght at once. And for t’ paint, Ah’ll come up for that to-morrow neght.”

Miss Biron smiled graciously. The humble Bram had his sense of humor tickled by the airs she was giving herself now, as if she had forgotten altogether her helpless fright of only an hour before, and the relief with which she had hailed his disarming of her father.

“Well, that’s only fair, isn’t it?” said she with a bright smile, as she instantly acted upon his advice by disappearing into the house like a flash of lightning.

Bram heard the rattling of tools, and as it went on some time without apparent result, he stepped inside the door to see if he could be of any assistance.

Claire had thrown open the door of a cupboard to the left of the wide hearth, and was standing on a Windsor chair turning over the contents of a couple of biscuit tins on the top shelf. Bram, slow step by slow step, came nearer and nearer, fascinated by every rapid movement of this, the first feminine creature who had ever aroused his interest. How small her feet were! Bram looked at them, and then turned away his head, as if he had been guilty of something sacrilegious. And the movement of her arm as she turned over the odds and ends in the boxes, the bend of her dark head as she looked down, filled him afresh with that strange new sense of wonder and delight with which she had inspired him on his first sight of her at the works. Against the light of the candle, which she had placed on the shelf, he saw her profile in a new aspect, in which it looked prettier, more childlike than ever.

“Better give me t’ box, miss,” suggested Bram presently.

Miss Biron started, not knowing that he was so near.

“Very well,” said she. “You can look, but I am afraid you won’t find any proper tools here at all.”

She was right. But Bram was clever with his hands as well as with his head, and he could “make things do.” So that in a very few minutes he was at work upon the door, while Miss Biron held the light for him, and watched his nimble movements with interest.

And while she watched him it occurred to her, now that she felt quite sure he was no mere idler who had burst his way into the house from curiosity, that she had been by no means as grateful for his timely entrance as he had had a right to expect. And the candle began to shake in her hands as she glanced at him rather shyly, and wondered how, without casting blame upon her father, she could make amends to this methodical, quiet, and rather mysterious young Orson for the part he had taken in the whole affair.

“I’m really very much obliged to you,” she said at last, with a very great change in her manner from the rather haughty airs she had previously assumed. “I——”

She hesitated, and stopped. Bram had glanced quickly up at her, and then his eyes had flashed rapidly back to his work again.

“I seem to know your face,” said she with a manner in which sudden shyness struggled with a sense of the dignity it was necessary for her to maintain in these novel circumstances. “Where have I met you before? And what is your name?” she added quickly, as a fresh suspicion rushed into her mind.

“My name is Elshaw, miss. Bram Elshaw,” he answered, as he sat back on his heels and hunted again in the biscuit tin. “And I’ve seen you. I saw you t’ other day, last Tuesday, at Mr. Cornthwaite’s works. It was me showed you round, miss.”

“Oh!”

The bright little face of the girl was clouded with bewilderment.

“And then again Ah saw you to-neght up to Mr. Cornthwaite’s house, up at t’ Park. And he told me for to see you home, miss.”

“Oh!”

This time the exclamation was one of confusion, annoyance, almost of horror.

“I remember! He said—he said—he would send some one to see me home. But—er—er—I was in such a hurry—that—that I forgot. And I ran off by myself. And—and so you followed; you must have followed me!”

And Claire’s pretty face grew red as fire.

The truth was she had been angry with Mr. Cornthwaite for the manner of his reception, for the dry remarks he had made about her father, and for his manifest and most ungracious unwillingness to allow Christian to see her home. And she had made up her mind that no “respectable young man” of Mr. Cornthwaite’s choosing should accompany her if Chris might not. And so, dashing off through the park in the dusk by a short cut, she had thought to escape the ignominy which Mr. Cornthwaite had designed for her.

Bram, with a long, rusty nail between his teeth, grew redder than she. In an instant he understood what he had not understood before, that the young lady had taken the offer of his escort as a humiliation. She had wanted to go back with Christian, and Mr. Cornthwaite had wished to put her off with one of his workmen! Bram felt that her indignation was just, although he was scarcely stoical enough not to feel a pang.

“You see, miss,” he said apologetically, taking the nail out of his mouth, “Ah was bound to come this weay, and so Ah couldn’t help but follow you. And—and when Ah heard you call aht—why Ah couldn’t help but get in. Ah’m reght sorry if Ah seemed to be taking a liberty, miss.”

Again Claire was struck as she had been that day at the works by the innate superiority of the man to his social position, of his tone to his accent.

“It was very lucky for me—I am very glad, very grateful,” said she hurriedly, in evident distress, which was most touching to her hearer. “I don’t know what I should have done—I—I must explain to you. You must not think my father would have done me any harm,” she went on earnestly, with a great fear at her heart that Bram would report these occurrences to his employer, and furnish him with another excuse for slighting her father. “He gets like that sometimes, especially in the hot weather,” she went on quickly, and with so much intensity that it was difficult to doubt her faith in the story. “He was in the army once, and he had a sword-cut on the head when he was out in India. And it makes him excitable, very excitable. But it never lasts long. Now he is fast asleep, and to-morrow morning he will be quite himself, quite himself again. You won’t say anything about it to Mr. Cornthwaite, will you?” she wound up, with a sidelong look of entreaty, as Bram, having finished his task, rose to his feet and picked up the coat he had thrown off before setting to work.

“No, miss.”

There was something in his tone, in his look, as he said just those two words which inspired Claire with absolute confidence.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

And Bram understood that her gratitude covered the whole ground, and took in his forcible entrance, the time he had spent in mending the door, and his final promise.

“And Ah’ll look in to-morrow neght, miss,” said he as he turned in the doorway and noticed how sleepy her brown eyes were beginning to look, “and give a coat of paint to’t.”

“Oh, you need not. It’s very good of you.”

He touched his cap, and turned to go; but as he was turning, Claire, blushing very much, and conscious of this conflict between conventionality and her sense of what she owed to this dignified young workman, who could not be rewarded with a “tip,” thrust out her little hand.

Then Bram’s behavior was for the moment rather embarrassing. The privilege of touching her fingers, of holding the hand which had stirred in him so many strange reflections for a moment in his own, as if they had been friends, equals, was one which he could not accept with perfect equanimity. She saw that he started, and, blushing more than ever, she seemed in doubt as to whether she should withdraw her hand. But, seeing her hesitation, Bram mastered himself, took the hand she offered, wrung it in a strong grip, and walked quickly away towards the gate.

He felt as if he was in Heaven.

CHAPTER V. BRAM’S RISE IN LIFE.

What was there about this little brown-eyed girl that she should bewitch him like this? Bram, who flattered himself that he had his wits about him, who had kept himself haughtily free from love entanglements up to now, could not understand it. And the most amazing part of it all was that his feelings about her seemed to undergo an entire change every half-hour or so. At least a dozen times since his infatuation began he fancied himself quite cured, and able to laugh at himself and look down upon her. And then some fresh aspect of the little creature would strike him into fresh ecstasies, and he would find himself as much under the spell as ever.

Thus the first sight of her that evening in Mr. Cornthwaite’s study had thrilled him less than the announcement of her name. But, on the other hand, the touch of her hand so unexpectedly accorded, had quickened his feelings into a delicious frenzy, which lasted during the whole of his walk down into the town and out to the one small backroom in a grimy little red brick house where he lodged.

When Bram tried to think of Miss Biron soberly, to try to come to some sort of an estimate of her character, he was altogether at a loss. Her tears, her terrors, her smiles, her little airs, all seemed to succeed each other as rapidly as if she had been still a child. No emotion seemed to be able to endure in her volatile nature. He doubted, considering the matter in cold blood, whether this was a characteristic he admired; yet there it was, and his infatuation remained.

With all her limitations, whatever they might be; with all her faults, whatever they were, Miss Claire Biron had permanently taken her place in Bram’s narrow life as the nearest thing he had ever seen to an ideal woman, as the representative, for the time being at least, of that feminine creature, the necessity for whom he now began to understand, and who was to come straight into his heart and into his arms some day.

For, with all his ambitions, his reasonable hopes, Bram was as yet too modest to say to himself that this white-handed lady herself, this pearl among pebbles, was the prize for which he must strive; no, she only stood for that prize in his mind, in his heart, or so at least Bram told himself.

Bram thought about Miss Biron and her bibulous papa all night, for he scarcely slept, but with the morning light came fresh cares to occupy his thoughts.

It was his first day at his new employment in the office, and Bram, though he managed to hide all traces of what he felt under a stolid and matter-of-fact demeanor, felt by no means at his ease on his first entrance among the young gentlemen in Mr. Cornthwaite’s office.

He had put on his Sunday clothes, not without a pang at the extravagance in dress which his rise in life entailed. Nobody in the office seemed to have heard of his promotion, for the other clerks took no notice of him on his entrance, evidently supposing that he had been sent for, as was frequently the case, to take some message or to do some errand which required a trustworthy messenger.

When, after being called into the inner office, he came out again and took his place at a desk among the rest there was a burst of astonishment, amusement, and some contempt at his expense. And when the truth became known that he had come among them to stay, he straight from the coalyard and the mill and the shed outside, the feelings of all the young gentlemen found vent in “chaff” of a particularly merciless kind.

His accent, his speech, his dress, his look, his walk, his manner, all formed themes for the very easiest ridicule. Never before had they had such an opportunity, and they made the most of it. But if they thought to make life in the office unbearable for Bram they had reckoned without their host. Bram cased himself in an armor of stolid good humor, joined in the laugh against himself, and in affecting to try to assume their modes of speech and manner contrived to burlesque them at least as well as they had mimicked him.

And the end of it was that the fun languished all too soon for their wishes, and Bram when he left the office that afternoon, and wiped his face as he used to do after another sort of fiery ordeal, congratulated himself on having got through the day better than he had expected.

Christian Cornthwaite ran out after him, and slapped him on the back.

“Well, Elshaw,” cried he, “and how do you feel after it?”

“Much t’ same as Dan’l did when he’d come out of t’ den o’ lions, sir,” replied Bram grimly. “T’ young gentlemen in there,” and he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, “doan’t find me grand enough for’em.”

“And so you want to go back to the works, Bram?”

“No fear, sir,” answered the new clerk dryly. “They’ll get used to me, or else maybe I shall get used to them. Or wi’ so many fine patterns round me maybe Ah shall be a polished gentleman myself presently.”

“No doubt of it, Bram. But you’ve been rather roughly treated. It ought to have been managed gradually, bit by bit, and then at last, when you took your place in the office, I ought to have sent you to my own tailor first, and had you properly rigged out.”

Bram looked down ruefully at his Sunday clothes.

“Ah felt a prince in these last evening,” he expostulated.

Christian laughed heartily.

“Well, they couldn’t beat you at the main things, Elshaw, at writing and spelling and calculating, eh?”

“No,” answered Bram complacently. “Ah could beat most of ’em there.”

As a matter of fact, Bram’s self-teaching, with the additional help of the night school in the winter, had so developed his natural capacity that he was as far ahead of his new companions intellectually as he was behind them in externals. Christian, who knew this, felt proud of his protégé.

“There are some more hints I want to give you,” said he, as he put his arm through that of his rough companion and walked with him up the street, with the good-natured familiarity which made him popular with everybody, but in the exercise of which he was very discriminating. “You will have to leave William Henry Street, or wherever it is you hang out, and take a room in a better neighborhood. And I will show you where you can go and dine. Look here,” he went on, stopping abruptly, “come up to me this evening, and we’ll have a talk over a pipe. You smoke, I suppose?”

“No, sir,” said Bram. “Ah don’t smoke. It’s too expensive. And Ah thank you kindly, but Ah’ve got a job out Hessel way this evening, and—”

Christian interrupted him with sudden interest.

“Out Hessel way? Why, that’s near Duke’s Farm. Will you take a note up for me to Miss Biron? She lives there. You can find the house easy enough.”

Bram, who had listened to these words with emotions he dared not express, agreed to take the note, but did not mention that it was to the farmhouse that his own errand took him.

All the happiness he had felt over the anticipated walk to Hessel evaporated as he watched Christian tear a leaf out of a note-book, scribble hastily on it in pencil, fold and addressed it to “Miss Claire Biron.”

But what a poor fool he was to be jealous? Could there be a question but that Mr. Christian Cornthwaite, with his good looks and his gayety, his position and his fortune, would make her a splendid mate?

Something like this Bram carefully dinned into himself as he took the note, and went home to his tea.

But for all that, he felt restless, dissatisfied, and unhappy as he set out after tea on his walk up to Hessel with that note from Christian Cornthwaite to Miss Biron in his pocket.

Although it was a hot evening, and the walk was uphill all the way, Bram got to the farm by half-past six, and came up to the door just as a woman, whom he decided must be the servant, came out of it.

She was about forty years of age, a little under the middle height, thickset of figure, and sallow of skin. But in her light gray eyes there was a shrewd but kindly twinkle; there was a promise of humor about her mouth and her sharply-pointed nose which made the countenance a decidedly attractive one.

She made no remark to Bram, but she turned and watched him as he approached the back door, and did not resume her walk until he had knocked and been admitted by Claire herself.

Miss Biron seemed to feel some slight embarrassment at the sight of him, and received his explanation that he had come to repaint her door with an assumption of surprise. The shrewd young man decided that the young lady had repented her unconventional friendliness of the preceding evening, and was inclined to look upon his visit as an intrusion. His manner, therefore, was studiously distant and respectful as he raised his cap from his head, gave the reason for his coming, and then said that he had brought a note for her from Mr. Christian Cornthwaite.

Claire blushed as she took it. Bram, who had brought his paint can and his brush, took off his coat, and began his task in silence, with just a sidelong look at the girl as she began to read the note.

At that moment the inner door of the kitchen opened, and Mr. Biron entered with a jaunty step, arranging a rosebud in his button-hole in quite a light comedy manner. Catching sight at once of Bram at work on the door, that young man observed that a slight frown crossed his face. After a momentary pause in his walk, he came on, however, as gayly as ever, and peeping over his daughter’s shoulder read the few words the note contained, and said at once—

“Well, you must go, dear; you must go.”

Claire blushed hotly, and crumpled up the note.

“I—I don’t want to. I would rather not,” said she in a low voice.

“Oh, but that’s nonsense,” retorted he good-humoredly. “Chris is a good fellow, a capital fellow. Put on your hat, and don’t be a goose. I’ll see that the young man at the door has his beer.”

Bram heard this, and his face tingled, but he said nothing. He perceived, indeed, from a certain somewhat feminine spitefulness in Mr. Biron’s tone, that the words were said with the intention of annoying him.

Claire appeared to hesitate a moment, then quickly making up her mind she said—“All right, father, I’ll go,” and disappeared through the inner door.

Theodore, without any remark to Bram, followed her.