SO many years ago that those who are old now were young then, and so few years ago that deeds then transacted are fresh in the memory of many who are living now, John Tincroft, an undergraduate of Oxford, was invited to spend the long vacation with a college friend.

And the invitation came very opportunely, John thought.

For one reason, he had no home of his own. His parents had been long dead, and a distant relative—a London merchant—who had charge of his orphanhood, was not particularly, certainly not passionately, fond of him. This gentleman took care to explain, however, to all whom it might concern, that he had always done his duty towards the lad. But, as regards this duty, whatever else it might include, it possibly had not occurred to Mr. Rackstraw that the providing a happy home should have formed a component part of it.

In the next place, John Tincroft was comparatively poor, and he was becoming poorer. His patrimony, a small one at first, had been woefully diminished by his three years' term-keeping, and still more so by carrying on a Chancery suit; that is, by paying his lawyer to carry it on for him. He was not in debt, however, which was something in his favour—or perhaps in his disfavour with college tradesmen.

But he was much nearer the bottom of his purse than he cared to be, when the offer of a three months' residence in a hospitable home was placed before him. He had only one or two more terms to keep, and he wisely thought that he could not employ this last long vacation better than in reading with young Grigson (if he would be read with) as was proposed. So the invitation was accepted.

In another year, Tincroft would be far-away from England. He was going to India in the Civil Service. This much his guardian, who had no sons of his own to step into the appointment, had done for him, without much cost or trouble to himself.

"It will be the making of you, if you mind what you are about John," said Mr. Rackstraw; "and as to that plaguey Chancery suit and the Tincroft estate, it isn't worth your while staying in England to be the winner—or the loser, which is the more likely of the two."

He did not add audibly, "And I shall be well rid of you into the bargain," though probably, he thought it within himself.

John Tincroft had already commenced making preparations in a small way for his expatriation, as well as for his future duties; that is, he had plunged head foremost into certain Oriental histories, under a misty idea that they would be useful to him when he got to Calcutta.

John Tincroft, though an Oxford "gownsman," was a shy and awkward youth, of about two or three and twenty. He had never had the advantage of society—ladies' society, of course, is meant; and this deprivation had been hurtful, for it had made almost a misanthrope of him. In this respect, however, he had been the victim of circumstances.

His mother he had never known: he had no sister nor aunt nor fair cousin to initiate him into the mysteries of easy intercourse with his species. His school breeding, and, after that, his college training, together with his guardian's want of sympathy, had had the further effect of monasticising his young life. And this effect, which had grown into a habit, had been intensified by his narrow circumstances. Everybody knew that John Tincroft was under the cloud of straitened means, and who does not know, or cannot understand, how this evil reputation (according to worldly maxims) inexorably closes one door after another against those who lie under it?

Tincroft, at any rate, had felt it keenly, and it had increased his natural shyness.

The isolation of which we have spoken had favoured him in one respect, however: it had made a hard student of him, which, perhaps, he might not otherwise have been. For, to tell the truth, John Tincroft was not over-bright, though, under the circumstances, which otherwise were in his disfavour, he had thus far, and almost to the end, passed through his college course creditably.

More than this, he had happened to be of some use to Tom Grigson, the hospitalities of whose home he was about to experience. How the young freshman in his first term managed to get into trouble with the authorities of the university, and how the older and remarkably quiet fellow-collegian was accidentally, but fortunately, able to help him out of it; how the two thereafter formed a kind of friendly acquaintance; how Tincroft aided Grigson in his attempts at scaling some of the lower heights of Parnassus; how, in return, the younger occasionally enticed the elder to the Minor dissipations of a boating trip to Nuneham, a scamper to Woodstock on hired hacks, a stroll to Wytham strawberry gardens—(are they there still, I wonder?)—or a cricket match on Bullingdon Green, must be left to another pen or another time.

Once, I grieve to say, the volatile Tom induced the sober John to a surreptitious badger-draw in Bagley Wood, where they had "capital sport," as Tom averred; and on another occasion—but this is a secret—the two started off, under shelter of a winter evening, to the neighbouring town of Abingdon to witness the débût of a young actress at a temporary theatre there, the severe morality of Oxford forbidding stage-plays within the precincts of the sacred university town; and once, only once, the recluse was entrapped by his tempter into the revelries of a wine-party—once was enough, for, as the due punishment of his sin, poor Tincroft had a splitting headache which lasted him three days. All this, in more minute detail, must remain untold.

To compensate for these occasional outbreaks, it is only fair to say that the influence of the steadier gownsman was often exerted in keeping his more mercurial friend from mischief, and in prompting him to a decent attention to his studies. An assurance of this fact from Tom Grigson himself had been the procuring cause of invitation to Grigson Manor House, which was presided over by the head of the family—Tom's elder brother.

Portmanteaus, trunks, boxes, and carpet bags were heaped on the roof of the Tally-ho. There was a huge mountain of them, for some dozen or two gownsman were "going down" that day on this particular coach, and dozens more would follow on the morrow, and more morrows after that. And so with all other coaches going out of the university city on those days and every succeeding day till the old colleges were empty.

From the Angel, up the High Street, by Carfax, along the New Road, over the Botley bridges, on and on the coach rattled merrily, with John Tincroft and Tom Grigson among its passengers. It was early morning when they started from Oxford; evening was drawing on when they were safely deposited with their luggage at the town on the old coach road nearest to their destination. There the dog-cart from the Manor House received them, and in another hour they were safely landed, had performed their ablutions, changed their dusty travelling attire, and were doing justice to the late dinner specially prepared for their benefit.

The shy, awkward gownsman had no reason to complain of his reception. His host was a bluff, good-natured bachelor, older than his brother Tom by a dozen years or more. He prided himself on being a country gentleman of the good old school, without any nonsense about him (which, however, sometimes implies a good deal of that commodity); and the hearty welcome he gave to the invited guest was none the less agreeable, perhaps, for being rough and homely as well as sincere.

"You'll have to take us as we are," said Mr. Richard Grigson: "all I can say is that this is Liberty Hall."

And so it was Liberty Hall. It was a pleasant change for John Tincroft, who, as we have said, had never known what it was to have a comfortable home of his own. The Manor House was a large, rambling old place, something between a mansion and a farmhouse, with plenty of rooms in it, well furnished with old-fashioned furniture. There was one room with a cheerful aspect, overlooking a pretty flower garden, and bookcases lining its walls: it was the library of the old house. Tincroft sat there from day to day—one hour with Tom Grigson reading, and as many hours as he pleased by himself, studying for his vocation in the East, till he almost forgot that he was "under a cloud."

Richard Grigson was a good specimen of his class, and a good match for his house. He was half farmer, half idler. He was rich, so he had no need to work; was strong in constitution and active in habits, so he was a sportsman. He shot in shooting season, hunted in hunting season, and thought it a waste of time to read much beyond the daily and weekly papers and a sporting magazine. Add to this, Richard Grigson was reckoned a fair sort of landlord by his numerous tenants—small farmers mostly—so long as they paid their rents with tolerable punctuality. We shall, however, know more about him by-and-by.

As to Tom Grigson, the collegian, he would very well have liked to be as idle and active as his brother; but the fates were against him, as he would have said. He was a younger brother, with only a younger brother's portion—a very small one; and needs must that he would have to work for his living, in some respectable and gentlemanly way, of course, but still to work. So he had consented to go to college, to learn how to do it, or how not to do it, as the case might be.

To tell the truth, Tom was not much more studiously inclined than his elder brother. At any rate, he did not see the fun of poring over books in vacation time, when he could be on horseback half the day, and lounging the other half of it to his heart's content. Very soon, therefore, John Tincroft had the library to himself, and worked away with his Oriental studies.

"This will never do, Tincroft," said his host to him one day, two or three weeks after his arrival; "you are positively wearing yourself to skin and bone with your books and all the rest of it."

"Am I?" said John, glancing nervously at his nether extremities, and feeling his arm above the elbow. "No, I don't think I am, though," he added, in so serious a tone that his friend laughed.

"I didn't mean to alarm you, old fellow; and now I look at you again, you have some muscle left, though none too much. But come, you must follow Tom's example—the idle scamp—and lay aside your books for a while. They'll wait for you; they won't run away from you, I'll warrant."

"But I shall have to run away from them soon," returned John, gravely.

"So much the better, for anything I can see to the contrary. A jolly time you will have of it when you get out to India; tiger-hunting, elephant-riding, and all that sort of thing. Do you know, I half envy you!"

"You forget fever and sunstroke and snakes, and all that sort of thing," retorted the guest. "And even the tigers you speak of—supposing such a thing as a tiger-hunt for me, which isn't likely—but even they have claws and teeth."

"I must give up India, then," said Grigson. "But seriously, friend, your shutting yourself up in this room all day—" they were in the library—"when you might be enjoying yourself out and about, is good neither for body nor mind."

"I must work, you know, Mr. Grigson," returned John.

"No doubt: so must we all, I suppose. But that doesn't mean that we are never to do anything else. 'All work and no play,' you know, 'makes Jack a—' I beg your pardon, though; I didn't mean that you are 'a dull boy,' though you are Jack. But come, you must shut up for once. We are going to drive over to the Mumbles. I have some business to do with Elliston; and Tom wants to introduce you to the ladies there—Jane and Kitty. By the way, if you could get hold of one of them, Tincroft, you might burn your books and stop in England. And why shouldn't you?"

"I shall never marry. I have no vocation that way. If I were independent, I might; but what's the use of talking? No, thank you, Grigson, I would rather be excused the Mumbles."

"You must do something of the sort, or where is the use of having a holiday? By the way, next week, Tuesday, we have our summer picnic; all the tenants that like to come, and their families; wives, daughters, sons, lovers, and all the rest of that sort of thing. You'll join us there, at any rate?"

"What do you mean? I mean, what do you do? Where do you go?" John Tincroft asked dreamily.

"Oh, as to the going, we shan't have to go far. They come to us. We have tables, forms, and chairs out on the lawn; and there's eating and drinking, you may make sure of that; and after that—but you'll see enough of it before it is over. And you must put your books away for that day, at any rate."

"Are your tenants a very noisy set?" asked quiet John.

"Oh, they are not as still as mice, and they don't roar quite so loud as lions. They are a decent set altogether; and with two Oxford men to keep them in order, we shall do. It will be something to amuse you, I dare say."

"I am afraid not," said John, wearily; "but I suppose I must do what you bid me."

"Of course you must," said Richard Grigson.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE LOVERS' WALK.

LEAVING Tincroft for the present to the hospitalities of the Manor House, we introduce two other actors in our domestic drama. The time is evening; the place, an old-fashioned garden; the date, a year or thereabouts before that of our previous chapter, for necessity is laid upon us to take a retrograde step or two before fairly starting off in our history.

There was a shaded walk in the garden just referred to, which, from time immemorial, had been known as "the lovers' walk." True to this designation, the grass-path was, on the evening of a summer's day, trodden by two lovers, who paced up and down it side by side.

"I don't like this going away from you, Sarah dear, any better than you like it yourself," he said, in a tone half-sorrowful, half-remonstrative.

"What occasion is there for your going away then, Walter?"

She was a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl of eighteen, who asked this question. Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked up into her lover's face. It was hard to withstand such a pleading look—so Walter doubtless felt.

"You know the reason why, Sarah," he replied, tremulously; "I have told you, over and over again, that father says there are too many of us at home, eating up all the profits of his small farm, and that one of us boys ought to be getting on at something else, and earning a living for himself."

"I know all that, Walter; but there is no occasion for you to be the one. You are the oldest, and ought to be at home. And we going to be married, too; and that will have to be put off—with such a home as you know I have got! Oh, Walter, Walter, it does not seem as if you loved me much!" Saying this, the now weeping girl threw herself on a rustic seat and sobbed sadly.

What could the lover do but seat himself close by her side and speak soothing words, comforting words, encouraging words, very gently, very lovingly?

But she would not hear him.

"I know why it is; you want to be rid of me now you know that there's nothing to be got by me—that father has no money, and can't pay back what your father lent him, and it's all an excuse your going away to make more room for the rest. Why couldn't George go if somebody must—or Alfred, or James?"

"Sarah, you don't mean what you say—you can't mean what you say."

The words were spoken very gravely, we may be sure, yet not sternly. Walter Wilson was a commonplace man enough—a rough farmerly young man, without much education; but he was tender-hearted and true-hearted, and his love for his cousin was strong. For they were cousins, these two, as well as lovers—the children of two brothers.

Matthew Wilson (Walter's father) and Mark Wilson (Sarah's father) were both farmers in a small way, but they were widely different in character, different also in regard to their home surroundings. Matthew, for instance, had a large family; Mark had but one child, the Sarah of our narrative.

Matthew was hard-working and sober; Mark was idle and dissipated. In spite of his large family, Matthew had prospered, while Mark—who, by the way, had the better farm of the two—had managed to go down in the world, sinking lower and lower, as time went on, into debt and despondency. So it came to pass that, in one particular strait, and with promises of stricter attention to business in future, Mark had been saved from absolute or immediate ruin by the generosity and confidence of his brother, who placed nearly the whole of his hard-earned savings in Mark's hands—and lost them.

Matthew had a hearty affection for his brother, but he liked money too; and it was not in human nature—at least, it was not in his nature to be indifferent to the loss of the four or five hundred pounds which he had lent to Mark when the certainty came home to him that they were lost. In his first paroxysm of vexation, he vowed that, brother or no brother, Mark Wilson should smart for his treachery; and, though he soon cooled down in these thoughts of vengeance, he declared that neither he nor his family should hold any further intercourse with the man who had stripped him of almost every ready-money pound he could call his own.

This, however, was easier said than done. Matthew's eldest son, Walter, was not only in love with, but had been sometime affianced to, his (Walter's) pretty cousin, Mark's daughter, and that with the mutual consent and liking of the parents on either side. And Walter, at any rate, had no thought of visiting the sins of the father upon the innocent girl, and—himself. He even clung with the greater fondness to poor Sarah, who could not be held accountable for her father's misconduct and consequent misfortunes.

Matthew himself acknowledged this; but inwardly determined, if possible, to sever the only remaining link between his unlucky brother and himself; and probably thinking, not unwisely, that such a connection would be a drag to Walter in after-life, he insisted that his own altered circumstances made it necessary that his eldest son should leave home. He did this trusting to the probable chances that absence would, in some way or other, effect the separation which he had no power to compass by absolute authority. But he had a fair reason also for this determination. Walter, of all his sons, was the most fitted to push his way in the world. And, added to this, an old school-fellow and friend had made overtures to him to join him in a distant part of the north country, where he himself was established as a land surveyor.

These explanations given, we return to the two disconsolate lovers.

They were again pacing the shady walk, sorrowful enough; but Sarah's complaining mood had disappeared for the time, and she was listening to the hopeful pleadings of her lover. What lover is not hopeful? Can love be without hope?

"It won't be long, darling. Two years will soon pass away, and then I am to have a share in Ralph's business. We shall be sure to get on, for Ralph is a capital fellow, and so clever; and I—well, I can work, you know; and with you, Sarah, to brighten up my prospects, I'll work like a slave, and think nothing of it."

"Dear Walter!"

"The worst of it is, I shall be so far-away that it won't be possible for us to see each other till the two years are gone; but you won't forget me, love?"

"Forget you? Oh, Walter!"

"I know you won't: you are such a darling, you know, to remember. And then, when the two years are past and gone—"

"It is a long time to look forward to, Walter," sighed the young lady. "I shall be quite an old woman by that time."

"An old woman of twenty! What shall I be then? But we won't make a trouble of that: only say that you'll try to keep up a good heart. Courage, my pet, and all will turn out well in the end. And as to this move, I don't know that it isn't the best thing that could have happened. Farming isn't much without plenty of money to carry it on; and if a fellow like me hasn't got money, his knowing how to work on a farm doesn't help him much. He is nothing better than a day-labourer. So, Sarah dear, give me a kiss, and say 'tis all right."

And so the lovers parted that evening.

The next morning, Walter was travelling far-away—every mile widening the distance between him and all that his heart held dear.

Walter Wilson was not a hero exactly; but he had some good stuff in him, for all that. He was, at any rate, sturdy, honest, persevering, and affectionate. All that is necessary to say for him in this chapter, however, is that he reached his destination in due course, joined his friend Ralph, and entered with a good deal of energy on his new line of life. Here, for the present, we leave him.

Poor Sarah, his cousin and affianced wife, had a more trying ordeal to pass through. Her home was not a happy one. Her father was now as often in liquor as sober, and, in whichever state, he was dissatisfied and quarrelsome.

Her mother had never been very managing as a farmer's wife, and what qualifications she once possessed, had long since been abandoned. The cloud that hung over her household was so dark and threatening that she could see no light breaking through it, and she had become hopeless. Worse than this, the habit which had ruined the husband in health and circumstances was insensibly gaining ground upon the wife. She drank secretly, and was for days together incapable of conducting her family affairs. Then, waking up to a sense of her degradation, she made feeble and unsuccessful efforts to "set things to rights."

This was bad enough for the daughter, who had neither strength of body nor mental capacity to cope with surrounding difficulties; and who, now that Walter was gone, had no one to encourage or comfort her. For she was at feud with Walter's family.

Her uncle Matthew looked coldly upon her. Her aunt treated her as if she were a puppet or a doll—so she said—when they met, which was not very often, but it sometimes could not be avoided; for Mrs. Matthew now and then looked in to see how Mr. and Mrs. Mark were getting on, and to report at home what she saw and heard. And these reports served only to widen the breach between the two brothers and their households.

As to her cousins, George, Alfred, and James, they plainly made it to be understood that they considered their brother Walter a fool for tying himself up to "a helpless bit of goods" like Sarah, though she was his cousin and theirs. And they were naturally enough bitter against their uncle Mark for having made off with so much of their father's cash.

All this was hard upon Sarah. Of course, if she had been made of the stuff of which heroines are supposed to be formed, she would have risen above all discouragements. But she was not a heroine. She was merely a farmer's daughter, poorly educated, but fond, and, we must add, feeble also, with no particularly vivid apprehension of the sterner duties of life, and with no very strong principle to help her on in a course of self-denial and self-sacrifice, should this be needed. She knew, however, or thought, that she loved Walter, and she had full faith in his fidelity.

One of Sarah's greatest trials was in the unkindness of her cousin Elizabeth, Walter's sister. With only a year difference in their ages, the two girls had been very close and intimate companions from childhood; and till within a year or two of the date of our history, their friendship had been unbroken. And it was Elizabeth who had been, first of all, the secret prompter of the engagement between the cousins, and then the private go-between of the two lovers until that engagement was ratified by the higher powers. Now, however, all old associations were severed; and Elizabeth, as Sarah well knew, had employed all her skill, though unsuccessfully as yet, to induce her brother Walter to break off the match which she prophesied would be an unhappy one.

Thus completely alienated from her former friends, and more sinned against than sinning, with an unhappy home, and more required of her in domestic duties than she had power to accomplish, poor Sarah Wilson would have given way to utter hopelessness but for the bright vision of Walter and the happy home—in nubibus; where we must leave her, while we take up the former thread of our drama.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE PICNIC.

AS bright a day as could be desired opened upon Richard Grigson's picnic. Determined that for one day at least his recluse guest should be drawn out of his shell, the hospitable master of the Manor House declared himself unequal to the task of making preparation for his visitors without John Tincroft's help. So the morning was occupied in setting out tables, forms, and chairs on the lawn, in daintily dressing up bowers, and, finally, in drawing up a programme for the evening's entertainment.

"Are you much of a cricketer, Tincroft?" demanded the squire.

"I detest the game," said John, heartily, remembering a stunning blow he had received from a cricket-ball on Bullingdon Green.

"That's capital. Then, while Tom and I are at it with the young fellows, you will have to take care of the ladies."

"Worse and worse!" exclaimed the guest, in sore dismay. "Your brother knows I am not a ladies' man."

"The more's the pity," said the remorseless squire; "and the more reason why you should begin to be."

"But, my dear friend—"

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Tincroft," put in Tom, who rather enjoyed the perplexity of his college friend. "There will be only a score or two of old women and a few pretty girls. And if you don't succeed in amusing them, they will amuse you, and themselves too, I daresay."

"If they can't do that, they will fare badly, I am afraid," said John, disconsolately, wishing himself for the time safe back in his Oxford rooms.

"We shall have the parson here to help you out," continued Mr. Grigson.

"And to keep you out of mischief," added Tom, laughing.

With a heavy heart John Tincroft at length took refuge in the library, anathematising all picnics in general, and this one in particular; by the time the dinner-bell sounded, he was deep in his Oriental studies.

It was an early dinner; but before it was well over, the invited guests began to arrive, and were spreading themselves over the lawn in detached groups, or were wandering in the gardens, that day thrown open to them. An hour later, they were clustering round the tables. An hour later still, the wickets were pitched in an adjoining meadow to which the host and his brother and the young tenant-farmers had adjourned; while the fair sex, with a sprinkling of the older men, were devising other means of employing the next two or three hours of the evening.

Among these, in company with Mr. Rubric, the grey-headed clergyman of the parish, John Tincroft walked about uneasily. Under the protection of the reverend gentleman, however, he managed not only to keep down his natural shyness, and to conceal his awkwardness, but to make mental notes of the, to him, strange society into which he found himself thrown.

Especially his attention was drawn towards a remarkably pretty young woman (so he thought her), who, seated at one of the tables a little apart from the rest, was pouring out tea—for the tea-things had not yet been removed—for an elderly couple, the only other remaining occupants of the half-dozen or more seats at that particular table. The young person was rather smartly dressed; and under her bonnet, which was redundant of pink satin bows, shone out, as John believed, the brightest pair of blue eyes it had ever been his fate to encounter. Perhaps it was the previous exercise in the open air, or it might have been the exertion of tea-making and tea-drinking, or it might even have been the consciousness of having attracted the attention of the gentleman from Oxford; but, from whatever cause, a bewitching blush overspread her cheek, and mantling there, took refuge under the fair, glossy hair which hung low down so as half to conceal an alabaster neck in delicious curls, for so John apostrophised both neck and curls in his foolish thoughts.

It is not to be supposed that the Oxonian had more than a hasty glance, for this first time, of the rustic beauty. His natural shyness indeed would have cut still shorter even this brief observation, if the clergyman by his side had not halted at the table to make two or three commonplace remarks to the elderly pair, who seemed not particularly gracious in their replies.

Accordingly he, still accompanied by his friend from Oxford, passed on to another group some distance off; at another table. Here the pair were more pleasantly received, and an invitation was given to them to take seats which, as in the other instance, had been vacated. The invitation was accepted.

"There's a cup of tea or two left in the bottom of the pot," said an oldish lady who had officiated; "and there's clean cups and saucers, and there's lots of cake."

"The boys were in such a hurry to get away to the cricketing," added a farmerly man at her elbow, "that they forgot what they came here for, I think."

While these and other compliments were passing, and after being introduced to the hearty speakers, John Tincroft noticed that this group consisted also of three individuals—apparently, as in the former instance, father, mother, and daughter. Singularly enough, also, there was considerable resemblance between the two men at either table. They were both elderly, grizzled, and weather-worn. Their countenances were alike in form and feature, though remarkably different in expression; and even the tones of their voices were similar. The females, however, of this table presented a striking contrast to those of the other: the mother, if she were the mother, being stout and red-checked, whereas the elderly woman in the other instance was thin and pallid; while the daughter, if she were the daughter, was coarse and hard-featured, with hands which might, as John opined, have been accustomed to grasping the stilts of a plough, or wielding a flail upon occasion.

"And your eldest son Walter—you hear from him sometimes, I suppose, Mr. Wilson? I hope he is getting on in his new profession," said the clergyman, when one or two other topics of conversation had been exhausted.

"Oh, bravely, sir. Ralph Burgess and Walter yoke together uncommon. Their business is brisk, and Ralph says as how Walter takes to it like anything."

"He has not been home to see you since he left, a year ago or more, I think?"

"No, he hasn't," said the farmer; "he is a longish way off, you see, sir."

"True."

"And a good thing too," said Mrs. Wilson, sharply.

"Indeed, my good friend; now I should have thought you would have been glad for him to have been nearer you, so that you might—"

"Better away," said the mother, interrupting her pastor.

"Dear me!" he ejaculated, quietly.

"You see, sir," interposed the husband, "we should be glad enough to see Walter; but there's others, leastways there's another, would be glad enough too. And that's what we don't want."

"And don't mean, if we can help it," added the young woman, who had not hitherto spoken; and the natural hue of her cheeks glowed with a deeper, darker colour.

"Ah! I understand," said the clergyman, rather reprovingly, or so it seemed to John. "You mean that you wish to break off his connection with his cousin," he looked towards the other table as he spoke; "but is this quite right, Mrs. Wilson? Do you think it is, friend Matthew?"

"Walter shan't marry Sarah if we can hinder him, right or wrong," exclaimed the young woman, fiercely.

"Fie, fie, Miss Elizabeth!" the meek clergyman interposed.

"I am not wanted here, I think," said the shy Oxford man to himself, when he had heard enough to understand that a family matter was in danger of being discussed. Accordingly, he slipped away from the table, and wandered without his guide to another part of the lawn.

By this time the tables on the lawn were for the most part deserted, and the greater number of the tea-drinkers had strolled into the cricketing meadow—the old farmers to criticise the play of the juniors, and to compare the puny strokes and new-fangled bowling of modern Toms, Dicks, and Bills, with those of former cricketers in the good old times when they themselves also knew how to handle a bat. The young maidens went to watch and admire their lovers and brothers as they increased the score of runs.

The lawn was not altogether left desolate, however, and Tincroft noticed that the first trio of whom we have spoken still lingered at the table where he and the rector had left them. I do not know whether or not his curiosity was quickened by the evident reference he had just heard to the pretty girl at that board, or whether it arose from the strange and unaccustomed sensation his accidental glance had awakened in his breast; but certain it is that before he had been alone many minutes, he was steering his course towards the group. Not a straight course either; but by repeated tacks, and as though he were unaware of his own intention, he presently arrived within eyeshot of the pretty flaxen curls, the alabaster neck, and the bright eyes of the fair object of his admiration—yet not near enough to attract special attention.

If he had not been shy and awkward, nothing of course would have been easier than to have gone boldly up to the table and, under cover of being the friend and guest of the squire, making acquaintance with the elderly couple; and thus have gazed his fill at the beauty by their side. This feat was too daring to be attempted, however; and it answered his purpose quite as well, probably, to gaze at the fair Dulcinea at a safer distance.

The tea-drinking was over at that table as elsewhere; and now John Tincroft was sorely troubled to see that the pretty girl was crying. That is, he judged as much, for a handkerchief was repeatedly used as though to wipe away the tears which he was too far-off to discern. He was not too far, however, to hear angry tones from the farmer, either seconded or answered by shrill objurgations on the part of his wife, and apparently directed towards the weeping girl.

"I wish I knew what to do," muttered John to himself; "but there, what have I to do with it? What's come over me, I wonder?"

Leaving this question unanswered, John walked slowly away; but either unable to resist the fascination which had "come over" him, or moved by a chivalric desire to protect the damsel, if need were, he presently retraced his steps, venturing nearer this time, though partially concealed from view under the foliage of an old chestnut tree, at the foot of which was a rustic seat.

"I have a right to be here," quoth John, inwardly; "and if people choose to talk loud enough in other people's grounds to be overheard, it is no fault of mine."

If Mr. John had cared (which he did not) to hear the dispute, he was baulked, for the conversation had by this time subsided. He saw plainly enough, though, that the girl was in some kind of distress, and he partly guessed the reason when he observed that her father's face was flushed, and that he was, with unsteady hand, pouring out into a tea-cup some transparent fluid from a flask he had drawn from his pocket. He had evidently had recourse to this before, and was again raising the cup to his lips when a voice from some distance caused him to hold his hand and look round.

Tincroft looked too in the direction of the voice, and saw his friend the clergyman, with Farmer Wilson and his wife within a dozen yards of the table. It was Wilson who had spoken. He spoke again when he came nearer.

"So you are at it again, Mark," said he, angrily, and looking the other in the face. "If you must be getting drunk," he added, snatching the cup out of the drinker's hand, and dashing out its contents on to the greensward, "you might at least have the decency to do it at home, and not come here making a show of yourself, and disgracing your kith and kin."

"And so I've been telling him, and so has Sarah," cried Mrs. Mark; "but he wouldn't heed us—you know you wouldn't, Mark," said she, deprecatingly.

By this time the unhappy man, whom our readers will before now have recognised, was on his feet, and giving vent to ebullitions of rage against his wife, his daughter, his brother, and all and sundry besides. And it was plain to Tincroft that the poor miserable man had made such bad use of his time and his gin-flask since tea as to be unsteady alike on his legs and in his speech.

The quarrel might have heightened to a disturbance had not the peace-making clergyman interfered, by replying to the thickly-spoken demand of Mark to his brother—"What business is it of yours what I do or don't do, Matthew? What right have you to come prying about like a sneak, as you are?"

"Gently, gently, friend," said the rector; "and you, Mr. Matthew, don't answer your brother, for 'grievous words stir up strife,' you know, and 'a brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.' It was I, Mr. Mark, who persuaded your brother and sister to come and speak to you and Mrs. Mark here. I told them that it would not look well if it were known that you were all at this pleasant holiday party, and should go away without having passed a word with each other. I am sorry now that I interfered."

"Oh, never mind, sir, never mind," said the sober brother; "Mark knows that I know that there's nothing new in this. As good a fellow as ever lived, sir, till he took to drinking; and now—there, the least said the soonest mended."

And saying this, Matthew Wilson took his wife by the arm and walked slowly away, leaving Mr. Rubric to make what impression he might upon the unhappy brother.

Meanwhile, as John Tincroft had seen from under the chestnut tree, the pretty daughter of Mark had vanished from the scene; and coincidently with this, all his interest in it was over. He noticed only that his friend the clergyman sat down by Mark's side, and seemed to be giving him a quiet lecture, which was listened to, or rather received, in stolid silence; and that afterwards, Mark and his wife retreated through the gate of the Manor House grounds into the high road, so that he saw them no more at that time.

Then, seeing that the rector was walking towards the cricket-field, he followed, and joined company, arriving at the ground just as his college friend Tom Grigson was bowled out, after an innings of an hour, and having made forty runs for his score.

[CHAPTER IV.]

IN THE GROTTO.

JOHN TINCROFT soon got tired of the cricket ground, and retraced his steps to the now deserted lawn. The sun was near setting, but it was shining hotly nevertheless; and the poor student, wearied with his day's exertions, and somewhat perturbed in spirit as well, betook himself to a cool grotto in a remote part of the grounds, which Richard Grigson had had constructed for his own especial pleasure.

The grotto was not only cool, but secluded. It was built of rough stones, after the manner of an ancient ruin, only, unlike ruins in general, it was snugly roofed in, and was weather-tight. It consisted of two chambers, the inner one—which was accessible from the outer by a low archway—being fitted up with some regard to comfort. Among the accessories were a soft couch and a rough rustic table; also a locker, in which were the materials, if required, for the creature enjoyments of smoking and so forth.

Tincroft was not a smoker, nor did he care at that time for treating himself hospitably, though a half-emptied bottle of pale sherry end a tumbler might have tempted one who was so inclined. As it was, he merely stretched himself comfortably on his friend's couch, wondering what pleasure could be found in entertaining a parcel of rustics, and thinking that the life of a country gentleman, and a landlord to boot, was not without its drawbacks, till his memory went back to the pretty girl in pink bows and fair curls, and his own disconsolate condition.

Finally, he dropped off into a sound slumber, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."

Was it a dream? It seemed like one; and yet, when the sleeper lazily roused himself, and half raised himself on his elbow, something like the following dialogue fell upon his ear.

It should be noted that by this time the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the fast gathering twilight was, within the walls of the grotto or hermitage, intensified into a deeper gloom. The voices came through the low archway, and the speakers, whomsoever they might be, had evidently taken up their positions in the outer chamber.

"And now we have come together, we don't part, miss, till I have told you a bit of my mind." The voice of this speaker was firm and strong and rough, though feminine. To whom it belonged, the unintentional listener could only guess. He had heard the same voice, however, in almost equally harsh and loud tones, that same afternoon.

"It is very cruel of you, Elizabeth, to treat me so," was said in reply, by another female speaker, and, as it seemed to John, in piteous remonstrance. At any rate, the tones had a musical softness and pathos which smote upon the listener's heart.

"It isn't cruel," said the first speaker; "it is only straightforward and honest, and that is what I mean to be."

"Such friends as we used to be, Elizabeth," sobbed the second interlocutor.

"And may be again, if you will only be sensible, and give up Walter, as you ought to do."

"I won't, I won't, I won't!" cried the weaker one. "And to think of your wanting me to do this, when you were the first to—to—to make him fall in love with me."

"I didn't do anything of the sort," rejoined the other, promptly; "and if I did," she added with a little inconsistency and self-contradiction, "it was when we were both children, and I did not know any better."

"And you are grown wiser since then, cousin—do you mean to say that?" asked the harassed one, with a little more spirit than before—for which John applauded her in his heart. He understood it all now.

"Yes, I am grown wiser, miss," replied Elizabeth. "I didn't know then how your father was robbing my father and all of us."

"It isn't robbing. Father borrowed the money, and if he could pay it back, he would; and if he can't, he can't."

"And why can't he? What's he always getting drunk for? That isn't the way to get on, and to pay his debts, I reckon; is it? And your mother, too—"

"I won't hear you talk like that—I won't; no, I won't!" cried the unhappy girl, desperately. "Let me go, Elizabeth."

There seemed then, to Tincroft, as though there were a slight scuffle; but while he hesitated whether or not to make his presence known by some audible token, it ceased, and the conversation was resumed.

"There, there, I didn't mean to hurt you, Sarah," were the first words spoken, and in response, as it appeared, to the pantings and hysterical sobs of the weaker girl—"and I don't believe I have. But I have not said what I had to say to you, and I mean to say it."

"You may say what you like now, Elizabeth."

"I don't mean to say anything more about uncle Mark and aunt," the other went on; "because I know as well as you do, that you can't help that. And you and I might be as good friends as ever, Sarah, if you would only be sensible, as I said before, and see things as you ought. Now look, dear—"

(Oh, thought John Tincroft, in his concealment—dear, too! When women begin to call one another dear, it looks ominous. So I have heard. Not that I know anything about it. How should I?)

"Now, look, dear; you know you can't be Walter's wife—"

"I don't know anything of the sort," said Sarah.

"Not for a long time, not for years and years, if ever."

"I'll wait, and so will he," replied the poor baited girl, bravely; but with a perceptible tremulousness of voice, nevertheless.

"Ah, you think so now; but I know better. I won't say anything about you, dear; but I know Walter better than you do. He made up to you because you took his fancy. But such fancies don't last long. Look at Mr. Elliston, of the Mumbles; he was all hot for Miss Summerfield, as you know. But he didn't have her, not he. He saw somebody richer, and so he turned off his Laura—and glad enough she is of it now. And it will be just the same with Walter and you."

"You can go on, and say what you like," said Sarah, panting for breath.

John Tincroft began to feel more uncomfortable in being the involuntary hearer of all this family difference.

"Yes, I mean to, Sarah," continued the stronger-minded cousin. "It will be just the same with Walter, I say. Why, there's Miss Burgess, Mary Burgess he calls her, Ralph Burgess's sister, who keeps house for her brother—you should read what Walter writes about her."

"It isn't true—it isn't!" almost screamed the tortured girl. "It's all stories you are telling, you good-for-nothing thing, you!"

"And she has got money," the torturer went on, without noticing the contradiction, or caring for the agony she might possibly be inflicting; "and why shouldn't Walter have it?"

"Let him have it—let him!" cried poor Sarah.

"That's what I say, dear; let him have it. Why shouldn't he? I declare if I was in your place, I should write and tell him so at once. I think it would be very selfish in you to try to keep him dangling after you when he has the chance of bettering himself. Don't you see it in that light, dear?"

"Have you got anything more to say, Elizabeth?" asked the other, faintly.

"No, I think that's pretty much all I have to say now."

"Then please go, and let me alone. Go, go!" she added, more vehemently.

And then there was a sound of departing footsteps faintly echoing in the inner grotto, and reaching John's ears. Then followed a low wailing cry, and after that there was silence.

How long the involuntary eavesdropper remained in concealment after the conversation ended, he never exactly knew, for strange thoughts and feelings rushed unbidden into his mind and made him oblivious to the flight of time. From these meditations, whatever their import, he was presently roused by distant shouts which proclaimed that the cricket match in the meadow was concluded, and that the players, with the spectators, were returning to the lawn.

Not caring to be missed at the breaking up of the party, Tincroft roused himself from his lair and prepared to leave the grotto. And then he was surprised to find how rapidly the shades of evening had drawn on, so that even the entrance chamber, which opened upon the lawn, was in semi-darkness.

It was not so wrapped in gloom, however, but that while rapidly passing through it, his steps were suddenly arrested by what at first appeared to be a bundle of white clothes in an angle close to the doorway.

In another moment he had made a further discovery, which turned back his thoughts to the conversation he had overheard, and quickened the current of blood in his veins. In yet another moment, he was clumsily but anxiously endeavouring to raise the insensible form of the poor girl from whose lips had broken the low wail of distress which had just now fallen so sorrowfully on his ear.

Succeeding at last in his endeavours to raise the young person, and to place her in a reclining position, John looked around him for help. It was plain that she had fainted, and it was necessary that some means should be adopted for her restoration. But there was no help at hand: the grotto was, as we have said, in a distant as well as secluded part of the pleasure-grounds; and the company were, as Tincroft knew, now gathering together into the hall of the Manor House for the parting cup and their host's hearty farewell.

There was no one near the grotto, therefore, and had there been, John Tincroft would, naturally enough, considering his inbred shyness, have shrunk from exposing himself to probable jokes, if not to unjust suspicion, by his merely accidental proximity to, and discovery of, the fainting damsel.

Driven then to his own unaided resources, John bethought him of untying the bonnet strings, which evidently impeded the free circulation of blood in the swollen veins. So far, good. Then the clumsy fingers, trembling a little at their unaccustomed task, loosened a kerchief which was fastened round the unconscious girl's neck with a gaudy brooch. These operations seemed to give some little relief, for a gentle sigh was heard; still the eyes remained half closed, and there was no further sign of returning animation.

"What shall I do next?" muttered John, in perplexity. "I have heard that cutting the stay laces—but that will never do. Ah! I have it," he said, as a sudden thought seized him, and in less time than it takes to tell, he had dived under the low archway into the cool retreat, and as speedily reappeared, bearing in his hand a half-tumbler of the precious hoard from Richard Grigson's locker. Filling it up with cold water, he moistened the lips of the poor girl with the liquid, and then, by slow degrees, insinuated the edge of the tumbler between them, himself trembling the while still more violently, as though he were perpetrating an awful crime.

"If Tom or anybody were to find me at this sort of work, I should never hear the last of it," he murmured.

But for all his craven fears, he did not desist in his endeavours till a half-choking, gurgling sound in the poor girl's throat warned him that it was time to withdraw the tumbler from her lips, and to devise some other method, if he could, for calling back the lost senses. Happily for the clumsy nurse, before he could proceed to further extremities, the damsel began to breathe more freely; then the closed eyes opened, and, finally, an outbreak of hysterical cries and a flood of tears proclaimed that the long fainting fit was over.

"Oh! Where am I? What has been happening?" asked Sarah, wildly, when she found herself half-reclining against the wall of the hermitage, and half-supported by the arm of a stranger.

John Tincroft briefly explained that he had accidentally found her on the floor of the grotto, and in what state; and that he had, as far as lay in his power, enacted the part of the Good Samaritan. He did not think it necessary to add that he had heard the previous conversation of the two cousins.

It was very kind of him, then, the maiden said, and she was afraid she had given him a great deal of trouble.

"A great pleasure to be of any use to you, I am sure," stammered John, scarcely knowing what he said, and whether he ought not now to draw in the arm and shoulder against which the patient was yet leaning.

She saved him the trouble by staggering in a frightened way to her feet, and adjusting her bonnet strings, and then by making an effort to step into the outer air. It was beyond her strength, however, and she sank back on to the bench from which she had before risen, once more crying violently.

Again John was at his wits' ends; but as his remedy had previously been successful, there was nothing better to do, he thought, than to replenish the tumbler.

"You had better drink a little of this," said he, once more by her side.

The damsel obeyed.

"And then, when you are able to walk, I will—You don't live far from here, I suppose?" continued John, as he stood watching her.

By this time the restorative had produced its effect, and the rustic beauty's colour had partially returned to her cheeks.

"I live at High Beech Farm," said she; "and it is time I was there. My father and mother went home long ago, and—oh, dear!"

She was once more on her feet, and anxiously looking out at the darkening landscape.

"It is a fine evening," said John; "and I'll—yes, if you will accept my help, I'll walk home with you. You are not well enough to be by yourself. You might have another fit on the road, you know. You must take my arm, and I'll see you safe, miss."

[CHAPTER V.]

THE MAELSTROM.

IN some part of the world, no matter where, is said to be a terrible whirlpool, which engulfs all sea-going craft which come within its influence. At certain states of the tide, we are told, this whirlpool is no whirlpool, but a tranquil though deceitful sea. Gradually, however, as the tide changes, the waves rise high, their circular movement commences, and woe then to the stoutest ship ever built, if driven by the winds, or lucklessly steered near the outer circumference of its vortex. Once within the fatal attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down, and beaten to pieces against the rocks below.

Something like this is sometimes known to happen in the experiences of poor humanity. Not exactly, for no man is driven by irresistible force, despite his own will, to inevitable destruction, nor even into folly. However, as neither figures, similes, nor parables ever run upon all-fours, nor ever will, it is enough to say that there is a maelstrom of the passions in human life which does often draw the unthinking or unresisting mariner out of his course, and sometimes woefully shatters his barque. Happy are they who have wisdom to avoid even the appearance of evil!

Happiest of all when they have Divine grace given them in all their ways to acknowledge Him who is the source of wisdom, and to seek His direction and pilotage.

There were no more Oriental studies for John Tincroft now, or at most they were few and far between, unless indeed, he cultivated them in his walks between the Manor House and High Beech Farm.

Of course he had walked home on the evening of the picnic with the distressed damsel whom he had taken under his protection.

"What else, as a gentleman, could I do?" said the clumsy fellow, when afterwards rallied by his host and his college friend on the adventures of that night, which he was, sorely against his will, compelled partly to recount, to account for his late return.

He did not think it necessary, however, to tell how the maiden had, innocently enough—have I not said that Sarah was not gifted with superfluous intellect and strength of mind, and was as little of a heroine as was ever to be found in a true story or out of it?—so she had innocently enough, in that slow and faltering walk to High Beech Farm, disclosed to John the immediate cause of her fainting fit. Not that John had not in part known it before; but his indignation was roused against the poor girl's persecutors (as she deemed them), all and sundry, as they reached his ear through the medium of her soft and plaintive voice. Ah! John Tincroft, you are on the margin of the maelstrom now; but you do not know it.

Of course, when they reached the farmhouse, John was hesitatingly invited to step in and rest himself, which he did not do, however, for which Sarah was thankful, perhaps, when she found her father in one of his fits of drunken ill-humour, and ready to quarrel with anybody who came in his way. After this invitation, however, it seemed the more incumbent on the awkward youth, who had the instincts of a gentleman for all that, to step over the next morning to ask after the health and welfare of his "partner."

As the fates would have it—the expression is no doubt heathenish, as there are no such things or principles as the fates—as accident, then—and this is almost as bad, but let it pass—accidentally, then, Mark Wilson was within, and (a rare thing for him) happened to be in a good humour. He made "the gentleman from college" welcome, took him over his small farm, insisted on his staying to lunch, treated him to some home-brewed, which John thought execrable, but did not say so; and, finally, invited him to come again as often as it pleased him.

After that it did please John Tincroft to repeat his visits every day. Sometimes, he found Mark in the sulks, and sometimes he did not. Occasionally, he noticed a peculiar thickness and hesitancy in the farmer's speech (which he attributed to a severe cold in his head and throat, and John believed it); and then, on the next occasion, he seemed to have recovered from the distressing complaint.

Sometimes John—the infatuated youth—found Sarah deep in domestic duties, which never, however, prevented his obtaining a glimpse of her pretty face, and her pretty hands, which, if they were floury and pasty, he admired all the more for having been usefully employed.

Sometimes, he found the maiden free, and at liberty to receive him in the little shabbily-furnished parlour, where, seated on a high-backed slippery-seated mahogany, horse-haired chair, he could equally admire those pretty fingers, armed with a darning-needle and worsted thread, working in and out, in the intricacies of a stocking-web. At these times our hero, who was as little guilty of being a hero as the silently admired one was of the slightest approach to a heroine, enacted to perfection the part of the Laird of Dumbiedykes (if my readers have ever heard of such a personage). Who can doubt, though, that the maelstrom current was getting powerful now?

"And oh, Walter," wrote Sarah Wilson to her distant cousin and lover (I must correct the bad spelling and false English)—"oh, Walter, there is such a funny man comes hanging about here. His name is Tincroft, and he came to these parts with young Mr. Grigson from Oxford College, and he is up at the Manor House for all the long holidays. That isn't what they call it, though. I forget what the word is, but that's what it means. And father has taken a fancy to Mr. Tincroft, and brings him here every day, and sometimes twice a day, and more than that. And he takes him over the farm, and brings him in to lunch very often, and tea sometimes, and you cannot think what a stupid he is, though he is a college gentleman; and they say he is going over to India soon to hunt tigers. He hunts tigers, too! I should say he has never hunted a fox yet, nor yet a rat."
"You should only see him—Mr. Tincroft, I mean—when he comes in, and stops an hour, and sometimes more, and father isn't in the way, and poor mother is lying down, as you know she always does in the afternoon, and there's nobody but me to keep him company. You would laugh to see how he sits and stares, and looks as if he couldn't say Boo to a goose, and is ready to go into fits with our hard-bottomed chairs—I always put the hardest, knobbiest for him, dear; but he seems as if he was stuck to it with glue. You can't think what a donkey he is. But he is to be a rich man some day—so father says he says—if he can get an estate as rightfully belongs to him, only it is locked up in some London law-courts now."
"But what does this all matter to you and me, Walter, dear? Only I sometimes wish we had such a chance of an estate; wouldn't, we," etc. etc. etc.
And then the letter went on in this wise: "We don't get on any better at home, Walter. You know what father is; and poor mother gets weaker and weaker, I think. And as to the farm, it is all going to rack and ruin. Mr. Grigson came in the other day, and had high words with father about it. He said he wouldn't stand having his land kept down in such a ruination state, and that if father wouldn't farm it better, somebody else must be got to do it. And what's worse than this, he said—the squire, I mean—that he must and will have his rent paid up punctual, or he shall distrain. Now I know there has been no rent paid the last year and a half. And what is worse still, I know that father can't pay it. And the squire says that if it isn't paid up by Christmas, there shall be an end of it. Oh, Walter, what are we to do?"
Then the letter further went on: "I have not seen much of uncle Matthew and aunt and cousin lately, and don't want to. I know they are doing all they can to set you against me. And it is too bad of them, Elizabeth and all; but they shan't do it, they shan't—"

I shall spare my readers what follows. There are hundreds of such letters written every day, and will be so long as pen, ink, and paper are to be had for love or money.

Is it travelling out of the regular course of ordinary story-telling to say that Walter Wilson was not altogether pleased with the letter I have just transcribed when he received it? Lovers are naturally suspicious; and Walter did not half like the idea of a young college man from Oxford being always dangling about, and having the range of his own special preserve, as he might have said. Perhaps he was none the less displeased with the contents of the letter for its referring, in a postscript, to a certain Mary Burgess already mentioned; and in a tone of jealousy, too, which the writer had not cared to suppress.

"Sarah knows very well that Mary Burgess is nothing to me," said he bitterly to himself. "But while she keeps house for Ralph, how can I help being sometimes in her company? It is different with her and that puppy Tincroft," he added; "and I am half a mind to write and tell her so."

It would, upon the whole, have been better for Sarah to have left out that postscript, and to have filled up her sheet of letter-paper by telling how she first became acquainted with the shy and awkward collegian. At least, as it afterwards turned out, she laid herself open to additional suspicion by this reticence. We pass this matter by for the present, however.

No doubt the other part of Sarah's letter, as I have transcribed it,—the part, I mean referring to her troubles and apprehensions,—in some degree moved her cousin's sorrow and pity. But he had heard these or similar complaints so often, and he knew so well that the inevitable end could not be very much longer staved off, that they did not produce so much effect upon him as might otherwise have been expected. If eels get so used to skinning that they do not much mind it—which possibly might be the case if the operation could be repeated on the same individual eel—it is equally certain that, after a time, we become accustomed to wails of distress from our friends when often reiterated.

To return to the main branch of our narrative. John Tincroft knew nothing of the commotion he, in his innocence, was causing, and was equally insensible to the fact that the whirlpool beneath his frail bark of human nature was increasing in velocity and deepening. He felt no alarm, therefore, but, contrariwise, rather enjoyed the new sensations springing up within him by the novel quickening of his dull capacity for pleasure, accompanied as this was by his partially laying aside his abstruse researches into Oriental literature. As to those new sensations, he could not have given them a name if he had tried.

To be sure, his friends at the Manor House had given them a name in their daily quizzical, good-natured badinage concerning John's change of habits. But then, as John remarked, it was too preposterous and absurd. As to Tom Grigson, he was always fond of his jokes; and his elder brother did not seem to be far behind him in this respect.

The matter looked more serious, though, when one day about a month after the picnic, John Tincroft, either accidentally or designedly on one part, fell in with the clergyman of whom previous mention has been made. John was returning from one of his morning walks to High Beech Farm when the rencontre took place.

"You are fond of taking exercise, Mr. Tincroft," observed the reverend gentleman.

"I don't know; not particularly, I think, Mr. Rubric," said John, with his accustomed innocent awkwardness. "At least," added he, "not till lately. I have taken more exercise of late, I think."

"And a very good thing too, if taken discreetly. You Oxford men are not always good judges, though, of how and when and where to take it. Do you think you are?"

"I beg pardon, sir," said John; "but I—I don't quite understand you."

"No! May I give you a hint, then, without offence? I am an older man than you, Mr. Tincroft," remarked Mr. Rubric, gravely but good-humouredly.

"I shall be happy, I am sure, and obliged also," answered Tincroft.

"Thank you; then I'll speak. You are coming from High Beech, I see."

"True, sir; yes, I am," said John.

"Don't you think it would be wise occasionally to vary the direction? There are more points of the compass than one."

"I have not thought about it, Mr. Rubric," said John.

"I daresay not. I thought as much, Mr. Tincroft. But will you allow me to suggest that we have some delightful scenery in quite the opposite direction. The One Tree Hill, for instance. Why, you can see seven counties from the summit of that hill—on a fine day, at least."

"Dear me! I wasn't aware of that," said John.

"And another thing," continued the parson; "I should say that High Beech is—ahem!—is, in some respects, unhealthy. I am afraid your constant excursions in that direction are not doing you any good."

"Oh!" said John, with a start, for he was rather fidgety about his health. "Do you really think so? It has never struck me in that light. I fancied I was all the better for taking more exercise. I find I can get over the ground a good deal easier than I could a month ago. And I have a better appetite too. So I am rather surprised to hear you speak of High Beech being unhealthy."

"I must speak out," thought Mr. Rubric to himself. "What a nuisance it is to have to do with men who can't understand metaphors." He did not say this, of course, but went on another tack.

"Mr. Tincroft," said he, "when I was at Oxford, and that is forty years ago, I had a young friend in the same college—I should rather say, hall. I am a Pembroke Hall man. Well, we were very close companions, and I believe we had a strong regard for each other. There came a time, however, when our friendship was to be broken in twain. It came about in this wise. We used to take long walks together, and a favourite walk of ours was to the Hinkseys. You know the Hinkseys, Mr. Tincroft?"