MIRK ABBEY,

IT is an hour short of midnight, and the depth of winter. The morrow is Christmas Day. Mirk Abbey bears snow everywhere; inches thick upon its huge broad coping-stones; much even on its sloping roof, save on the side where the north wind makes fitful rushes, and, wolf-like, tears and worries the white fleeces. Mirk woods sway mournfully their naked arms, and grind and moan without; the ivy taps unceasingly against the pane, as though entreating shelter.

The whole earth lies cold and dead beneath its snow-shroud, and yet the snow falls and falls, flake by flake, soft and noiseless in its white malice, like a woman's hate upon her rival.

It hides the stars, it dims the moon, it dulls the murmur of the river to which the Park slopes down, and whose voice the frost has striven in vain to hush these three weeks. Only the Christmas-bells are heard, now faint, now full--that sound more laden with divine regret than any other that falls on human ear. Like one who, spurring from the battle-field, proclaims “The fight is ours, but our great chief is slain!” there is sorrow in that message of good tidings; and not only for pious Christian folk; in every bosom it stirs some sleeping memory, and reminds it of the days that are no more. No wonder, then, that such music should touch my Lady's heart--the widowed mistress of Mirk Abbey. Those Christmas-bells which are also wedding-bells, remind her doubtless of the hour when Sir Robert lifted her lace-veil aside, and kissed her brow before all the people in the little church by the sea, and called her for the first time his Wife. He will never do so more. He has been dead for years. But what of that? Our dead are with us still. Our acts, our dealings with the world, form but a portion of our lives; our thoughts still dwell with those dear ones who have gone home before us, and in our dreams they still are our companions. My Lady is not alone in her private chamber, although no human being is there besides herself. Her eyes are fixed upon the fire, and in its flame she sees a once-loved face invisible to others, whose smile has power to move her even to tears. How foolish are those who ascribe romance to Youth alone —to Youth, that has scarcely learned to love, far less to lose! My Lady is five-and-forty at the least, although still comely; and yet there are memories at work within that broad white brow, which, for interest and pathos, outweigh the fancies of a score of girls. Even so far as we—the world—are acquainted with her past, it is a strange one, and may well give her that thoughtful air.

Lady Lisgard, of Mirk Abbey, has looked at life from a far other station than that which she now occupies. When a man of fortune does not materially increase his property by marriage, we call the lady of his choice, although she may have a few thousand pounds of her own, “a girl without a sixpence.” But Sir Robert Lisgard did literally make a match of this impecunious sort. Moreover, he married a very “unsuitable young person;” by which expression you will understand that he was blamed, not for choosing a bride very much junior to himself, but for not selecting her from the proper circles. When accidentally interrogated by blundering folks respecting her ancestry, the baronet used good-humouredly to remark, that his wife was the daughter of Neptune and Thetis. When asked for her maiden name, he would reply drily: “She was a Miss Anna Dyomene;” for the simple fact was, that she had been thrown up almost at his feet by the sea—the sole survivor of a crowded emigrant-ship that went to pieces before his eyes while he was staying one stormy autumn at a sea-side village in the South. Lashed to a spar, the poor soul came ashore one terrible night in a very insufficient costume, so as to excite the liveliest compassion in all beholders. There was a subscription got up among some visitors of fashion to supply her with a wardrobe; and they do say that Sir Robert Lisgard's name is still to be seen set down with the rest of the benevolent donors, for five pounds, in the list that is kept among the archives of the village post-office.

But it was not until three years afterwards that he bought her a trousseau; for the baronet, intending to make her his wife not only in name—a companion for life, and not a plaything, which is prized so long as it is new, and no longer—caused Lucy Gavestone, during the greater part of that interval, to be educated for her future position. If it was madness in him, as many averred, to marry so far beneath him, there was much method in his madness, Not ashamed of her as a bride, he was resolved not to be ashamed of her as the mistress of his house, or as the mother of his children, if it should please Heaven to grant him issue. It was in France, folks said, that her Ladyship acquired those manners which subsequently so excited the envy of the midland county in which she lived. She bore the burden of the honours unto which she was not born as gracefully as the white rose in her blue-black hair. But to perform her loving duties as a mother, in the way even her enemies admitted that she did perform them, could scarcely have been learned in France. Only love and natural good sense could have taught her those. Never once had Sir Robert Lisgard cause to regret the gift which the sea had given him. He used, however, smilingly to remark, in his later years —and his words were not without their pathos then—that he wished that he could have married his Lucy earlier, and while he was yet a young man; but in that case she would have been fitter for the font than the altar, inasmuch as there was a quarter of a century between their respective ages. He always averred that five-and-twenty years of his manhood had been thrown away.

But good wife and matron as Lady Lisgard had been, she was no less excellent a widow and mother. If Sir Robert could have risen from that grave in Mirk churchyard, where he had preferred to lie, rather than in the family vault, so that she might come to visit him in his lonely sleep, and daily lay a flower or two, culled with her own hands, upon him—not perhaps unconscious of that loving service—he would have found all things at the Abbey as he would have wished them to be during life: that is, so far as she could keep them so. Sir Richard, their eldest son, was within a few months of his majority, and, of course, had become in a great degree his own master; not that he misused his years so as to place himself in opposition to his mother, for he was a gentleman above everything; but he was of a disposition more haughty and stern than her kindly nature could well cope with, and she nervously shrank from any contest with it, although, on a question of principle—which, however, had not occurred—she might have braved even him.

Walter Lisgard, the younger son, was as genial and good-humoured as his father before him, and although (in common with every one who knew her) loved and respected my Lady, it must be confessed that he was too openly his mother's favourite, as he was the favourite of all at Mirk, in the Abbey or out of it.

Lastly, there was Letty Lisgard—but she shall speak for her sweet self. While her mother sits and thinks before her fire, there is a knock at the chamber-door, and on the instant the picture in her brain dissolves, which was affecting her so deeply, and she has no eyes save for her only daughter. A girl of seventeen enters the room, not gaily, as would have become her age, but with a certain gentle gravity that becomes her at least as well, since it is impossible to imagine that she could look more lovely. Fair as a lily, but not pale, for her usually delicate colour is heightened by some mental emotion, which causes, too, the little diamond cross upon her bosom to rise and fall, and the hazel eyes to melt and glitter beneath their dark lashes; lithe and tall as a sapling wooed too roughly by the north wind, she glides in, with her fair head slightly bowed, and casting herself upon her knees beside my Lady, exclaims: “Ah, do not weep, dear mother—do not weep!” at the same time herself bursting into a passion of tears. “I knew what you would be thinking of,” continues she, “upon this sad night, and therefore I came to comfort you a little, if I could. If not a merry Christmas, let me at least wish you a happy one, my own dear mother. I am sure that if dear papa can see us now, he wishes you the same.”

“Yes, dearest Letty, that is true. How thoughtful and kind it was of you to leave your friend—breaking off, no doubt, some pleasant chat over school-days”——

“Nay, mother,” interrupted the girl; “what is Rose to me in comparison with you? Was it likely that I should forget this anniversary of our common loss!”

Lady Lisgard did not answer in words, but shedding by the wealth of golden brown hair that had fallen over her daughter's forehead, she kissed that pure brow tenderly. Upon her own cheeks, a crimson flush, called thither by the young girl's words, was lingering yet. Reader, happy are you if you have never known a loving voice say: “What are you thinking of, dearest?” expecting to receive the answer: “Of you,” when you have no such reply to give—when your mind has been wandering far from that trustful being, and perhaps even whither it should not have wandered. Such a flush may then have visited your cheeks, as now touched those of Lady Lisgard, although it is certain that memory never played her so false as to remind her of aught whereof she need have been ashamed. The fact was, she had not been thinking of Sir Robert at all, albeit it was upon that very day, five years back, that she had received from his failing hand its last loving pressure, and in that very room. Human nature cannot be trained like those wondrous mechanical inventions of the monks, that indicated the fasts and festivals of the church so accurately—to suffer or rejoice at particular times and seasons; we are often sad when the jest is upon our lips, and bear a light heart beneath the sackcloth. Lady Lisgard's thoughts had, Heaven knew, been far from merry ones; but because she had not been mourning with chronological propriety, her woman's heart unjustly smote her with a sense of want of fealty to the memory of him for whom she still wore—and intended to wear to her dying day—the visible tokens of regret.

It is the fashion to jeer at widows; but, to a reverent mind, there are few things more touching than that frequent sight in honest England—a widowed mother, whose only joy seems to be in what remains to her of her dead lover, husband, counsellor—his children; and the only grief that has power to wring whose heart, past sense of common pain through the dread anguish that it has once undergone, arises from their misfortunes and misdoings. Ah, selfish boy, beware how you still further burden that sorrow-laden soul!—ah, thoughtless girl, exchange not that faithful breast too hastily for one that may spurn your head in the hour of need!

My Lady—for that was what we always called her about Mirk—was neither more nor less fortunate with her children than most mothers. They all three loved her; but they did not all love one another. Between Sir Richard and Walter was only a year of time, but upon it had arisen a thousand quarrels. The former thought that the privilege of an elder brother was a divine right, extending over every circumstance of fraternal life; the latter conceived it to be an immoral institution, borrowed in an evil hour from the Jews, and one to be strictly kept within its peculiar limits—themselves more than sufficiently comprehensive—the inheritance of the family title, and the succession to the landed estates.

“Where are Richard and Walter, Letty?” asked Lady Lisgard, breaking a long silence. “They, too, have been always mindful, like yourself, of this sad day.”

“They are mindful still, dear mother. I hear Walter's foot in the corridor even now.”

A swift elastic footfall it was, such as is very suggestive of the impulsive nature of him who uses it; for a phlegmatic man may move swiftly on rare occasions—such as bayonets behind him, or a mad bull—but there will be no more elasticity in his gait, even then, than in that of a walking-doll; whereas every step of Captain Walter Lisgard had a double action, a rise and fall in it, independent of the progressive motion altogether.

He was of a slim, yet not delicate build; his every movement (and, as I have said, there was plenty of it) had a native grace like that of a child; childlike and trustful, too, were those blue eyes; soft in their expression as his sister's, while he stooped down to kiss his mother's cheek, scarce more smooth than his own. Upon his lip, however, was a fairy moustache, which being, fortunately, coal-black like his somewhat close-cropped hair, made itself apparent to all beholders, and rescued his comeliness from downright effeminacy. But no woman ever owned a softer voice, or could freight it with deeper feeling than Walter Lisgard.

“God bless you, dearest mother, and give you all the good you deserve!” murmured he tenderly.

“And God bless you, my darling!” answered Lady Lisgard, holding him at the full distance of her white and rounded arms, clasped with two costly jewels, which had a worth, however, in her eyes far beyond their price, being Sir Robert's wedding-gift. “Ah me! how you remind me of your father's picture, Watty, taken on the day when he came of age. I trust you will grow up to be like him in other respects, dear boy.”

“I hope so, mother; although,” added he, with a sudden petulancy, “there will be a vast difference between us in some things, you know. He was an only son, whereas I am not even an eldest one; and when I come of age, there will be no picture taken, nor any fuss made, such as is to happen in June, I hear, upon Richard's majority.”

“Walter, Walter!” exclaimed Lady Lisgard reprovingly, “this is not like yourself, for it's envious—and—and—covetous!”——

“At all events, it is very foolish, mother,” interrupted the young man drily; “for what can't be cured must be endured.”

“And very, very cruel to me,” added Lady Lisgard.

“Then I am sincerely sorry I spoke,” returned Walter hastily, the moodiness upon his features chased away at once by loving regret. “Only, when a fellow leaves his regiment to spend Christmas-eve at home—as I am sure I was delighted to do, so far as you and Letty were concerned—he does not want to find there another commanding officer, uncommissioned and self-appointed.”

“Walter, Walter! this is very sad,” broke in Lady Lisgard piteously: “you know what is Richard's manner, and how much less kind it is than his true meaning. Can you not make some allowance for your own brother?”

“That's exactly what I said to him, mother,” answered Walter, laughing bitterly. “Here have I just got my troop, with no more to keep myself on than when I was a cornet, and had no back debts to speak of; and yet, so far from helping me a little, as Richard might easily do, by making some allowance for his own brother, he complains of that which you are so good as to let me have out of your own income. Why, that's not his business, if it were twice as much—although, I am sure, dear mother, you are liberality itself. Has he not got enough of his own—and of what should be mine and Letty's here, by rights—without grudging me your benevolences? Is he not Sir Richard Lisgard of Mirk Abbey?”——

“I will not listen to this, Walter,” cried his mother sternly. “This is mere mean jealousy of your elder brother.”

“Oh, dear no, mother; indeed, it is not that,” answered the young man coldly. “I envy him nothing. I hold him superior to me in no respect whatever; and that is exactly why I will not submit to his dictation. Here he comes stalking along the gallery, as though conscious that every foot of oak belongs to him, and every picture on the wall.”

It was undoubtedly a firm determined step enough—unusually so, for one so young as Sir Richard. The face of the new-comer, too, was stern almost to harshness; and as he entered the room, and beheld Walter standing by his mother's side, his features seemed to stiffen into stone. A fine face, too; more aristocratic if not so winning as his younger brother's, and not without considerable sagacity: if his manner was not graceful, it had a high chivalric air about it which befitted his haughty person very well. When he taught himself submission (a rare lesson with him), as now, while he raised his mother's fingers to his lips, and kissed them with dutiful devotion, it would have been hard to find a man with a more noble presence than Richard Lisgard.

“A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you, mother.” The words, though conventional, had an earnest kindness, which came from the heart. Lady Lisgard kissed him fondly.

“Thank you, dear Richard,” said she; “but, alas! no Christmas can be a merry one, no year a happy one, when I see my children disagree.”

“Ah, Master Walter has been here before me, I see,” quoth Sir Richard bitterly, “stealing, like Jacob, his mother's blessing from her first-born, and giving his own account of matters. But please now to listen to my version.”

“Not to-night, Richard,” exclaimed Lady Lisgard with deep emotion. “Let not tonight, sacred to the memory of your common father, be a witness to your mutual accusations. In this room, almost at this very hour, but a few years back, he died, bequeathing you with his last breath to my tenderest care. Here it was that you kissed his white lips, weary with prayers for your future welfare; here it was that you promised, in return, to be good and dutiful sons. I know—I think, at least—that you both love your mother. No, I will kiss neither of you while thus unreconciled. That was not all that he required of you: he would have bidden you, could he have looked forward to this evil time, to love one another also; and O Richard! O Walter! hark to those bells, that seem to strive to beat their message into the most stubborn ears. Do you not hear what they say?—Letty, dear, do you tell them, then, for there are no lips better suited to deliver it.”

The young girl lifted up her head from her mother's lap, to gaze into her eyes; then, with exquisite pathos and softness, repeated, like a silver peal of bells: “Peace and good-will, peace and good-will, peace and good-will to all mankind.”

Sir Richard looked at his brother fixedly, but no longer in wrath. “It is my part to make the first advance,” said he, “although I was not the first to quarrel;” and he frankly stretched forth his hand.

The other paused a second; then reading on his mother's anxious lips: “For my sake, Walter,” he grasped his brother's fingers. There was grace in the very delay, as in the motion tenderness and genial ease, but scarcely the warmth of reconciliation. It was more like the action of a woman who wishes to please; and if you had seen the small hand apart from its owner, as it lay with its one glittering ring half hid in the other's huge white palm, you would have said it was a woman's hand.

CHAPTER II. THE WAITS.

ONCE more my Lady is alone, except for her companion-thoughts, which are, however, no longer of a distressing nature. The reconcilement of her boys has gladdened her to the core: she thinks, she trusts at least, that the truce will be a lasting peace. As for Letty, she is all that a mother's heart could wish her to be. If much is lost to my Lady, surely much remains. With the Poor, one misery is removed only to bring another into greater prominence; but with the Rich, this is not so. Only let the disease be cured, or the quarrel be made up, which is at present vexing them, and all, for a time at least, is sunshine. Even not to be cold, not to be hungry, is something; and not to have to take thought of the morrow is a great deal. From her warm and curtained chamber, Lady Lisgard looks forth into the night. The snow falls as fast as ever, now straight, now aslant, now whirled in circular eddies by the bitter north. Through its thick and shifting veil, she can scarcely see the old church-tower of Mirk, though it stands close by within the very garden-grounds of the Abbey; nor the windmill which crowns Mirkland Hill, and on moonlit nights stands up so clear against the sky, a beacon to all the country round. It was weather which those who are armed against it call “Seasonable;” and some of the tender sex, who have a fire lit in their rooms before they rise, and go out in seal-skin, and travel with foot-warmers, even go so far as to call “Delightful.” At all events, it is such as is pleasant to watch from within for a few moments, and then to return to one's fireside with enhanced satisfaction.

There are merry-makings in the kitchen to-night, as befits the season, and my Lady's maid has been enjoined not to hurry herself. Her mistress is beginning to unrobe, without her assistance, but very leisurely. She unclasps one warm and sparkling jewel from her arm, and gazes thoughtfully, but far from sadly, upon the picture that is hid within it. It is the miniature of a handsome man past middle age, attired in a blue coat and gold buttons; what persons of my Lady's age would call a decidedly old-fashioned portrait; but it is the likeness of Sir Robert as her bridegroom. “What a good, kind husband he was,” thinks she. “How he loved me, and loaded me with favours; how much he overlooked, how much he forgot—of which others know nothing—for my sake. How terrible would it be to feel that one had not done one's poor duty in return for so much love. Thank Heaven, I feel free from any such charge. If I had not love—that is, first love—to give him in exchange, I gave him all I had. I gave him genuine affection, esteem—worship. Everybody knows that; and what is better, my own heart knows it. It never beat with truer fealty towards him than it beats to-night. God knows. I live for his children only. What a fine noble boy is Richard grown; surely, to look upon him, and to say to one's self: 'This is my son,' should be happiness enough for any mother. True, he is proud; but has he not something to be proud of? He, Sir Richard, and one of those Lisgards who have ruled at Mirk for twelve generations. (Here a quiet smile stole over my Lady's features.) They said with reason at those tableaux at the Vanes, that with that helmet on he was the image of young Sir Maurice, who died at Edgehill with the colours twisted round him. I wonder if it was his poor mother who had her dead boy painted so. 'Tis certain that she thought: 'Ah, were he but alive, there would be no such thing as sorrow more for me.' Yet here I have him. Ah (here she grew as pale as death), why did I ever let my Walter be a soldier? What weakness to give way—to the very peril of him for whom I was so weak! He would have gone to the wars themselves but for good Dr Haldane, through whom (thanks to the Duke) he was not gazetted to the corps he had applied for. Why did he not choose the bar, like his elder brother? How he would have moved men's hearts to mercy with that winning tongue! Or why did he not become God's messenger—I am sure he has an angel's face—and carry the news those bells are telling of to shipwrecked souls? Oftentimes, when, as a child, he knelt beside me to say his prayers, his very looks have seemed to make the action more sacred. Goodness seemed better worth when he was praying for it, and heaven no home for saints unless he shared it! God grant he may grow up a good man!

“Then Letty, too—what mother's wealth must I possess since that sweet girl is not the chief of it, the central jewel of my crown? When matched with others of her age—with this Rose Aynton, for example—how bright and fair she shews! Not but that Rose is a good girl, doubtless; accomplished, too, beyond her years, and far beyond her opportunities—she sparkles like a crystal cut in ten thousand facets; but my own Letty is the flawless diamond, bright and pure as light itself. What blessings are these three! May Heaven keep them always as I deem them now. I wish my Walter were a little less impulsive; but the darling boy is young. As for dear Richard, I have no fears for him. The proud lad will find some noble helpmate, meet to——Great Heaven! what is that?”

A burst of melody without fell suddenly upon the midnight air, and at the same moment the chamber-door opened to the touch of Mistress Forest, her Ladyship's confidential maid. “I beg your pardon, my Lady, if I startled you; but I knocked twice, and could not make you hear.”

“It was not you, Mary, that startled me,” returned Lady Lisgard; “it was the sudden music. The Christmas Waits, as I suppose?”

“Yes, my Lady. They came up from the village a little while ago, and have been staying in the servants-hall for the clock to strike twelve.”

“I trust they have all had supper?”

“You may be sure of that, my Lady. Mrs Welsh is as openhanded (with your Ladyship's property) as any cook in the county; nor is George Steve a likely man to sit thirsty while he sees others drink. One would think that a public-housekeeper should have drinking enough at home; but—pardon, my Lady—I am making complaints which, however just, I know you dislike to hear, and, besides, I am interrupting the carol.”

Earthly friends will change and falter,

Earthly hearts will vary;

He is born that cannot alter,

Of the Virgin Mary.

Born to-day—

Raise the lay;

Born to-day—

Twine the bay.

Jesus Christ is born to suffer,

Born for you—born for you;

Holly, strew:

Jesus Christ was born to conquer,

Born to save—born to save;

Laurel, wave:

Jesus Christ was born to govern,

Born a king—born a king;

Bay-wreaths, bring:

Jesus Christ was born of Mary,

Born for all. Well befall Hearth and Hall.

Here the manly but not unmelodious voices exchanged their verse for prose, if Christmas good-wishes can be said to be mere prose. “A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to your Ladyship, and many on 'em!”

Lady Lisgard moved to the window with a smile, and drawing the curtain aside, threw up the sash. On the white lawn beneath, stood five dark figures, bearing various instruments of music, and one a huge horn lantern, the light of which glinted upon the laurels. It was impossible to recognise the features of the rest, as they stood, cap in hand, notwithstanding the still driving snow, awaiting her Ladyship's reply; but she addressed them each by name nevertheless.

“Mr Steve, I thank you kindly. Henry Ash, I am glad to find you in good voice again. John Lewis and Peter Stone—if I am not mistaken. Neighbours and friends all, I thank you very much. But it is a cold night for caroling, and I hope you have been taken care of within. A merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year.” There was a tremor in my Lady's voice, although she spoke with such particularity, which shewed how deeply she was moved.

“God bless your Ladyship,” returned the voices, disorderly as to unison, but each one of itself distinct and clear as file-firing.—“God bless Sir Richard, and send him a fair bride.—God bless Master Walter's handsome face.—God bless Miss Letty.”

Lady Lisgard closed the window, but as she did so, dropped the heavy curtain between herself and the lighted chamber, so that she could still look out, but without being seen. The curtain, too, cut her off from the observation of her maid within. “Who is the fifth man that bears the lantern, Mary?” asked her Ladyship in a tone of carelessness very unsuited to the expression of her face, which all in a moment had grown pinched and terror-stricken, as though it hungered for some reply that it yet dreaded to hear.

“Nobody as you know, my Lady—nor indeed as I know, for the matter of that. He's a stranger in these parts, who's putting up at the Lisgard Arms. He only came for a few days last week, walking across the country for all the world like a pedler—a way he says he learned in foreign parts; but Steve with his odd ways has taken his fancy, so that he stays on. A very well-spoken sort of person he is too, although the sea, it seems, has been his calling, which is a rough trade. However, he has made it answer—according at least to Mr Steve. Any way, he flings his money about free enough, and indeed is what I call rather too fond of treating folks. He is good company himself, they say, and a favourite with everybody he comes across, which is a very dangerous thing—that is,” added Mistress Forest, correcting herself, “unless one is a gentleman, like handsome Master Walter.”

“You don't—remember—this—this person's name, Mary, do you?” asked Lady Lisgard.

“No, strange to say, I don't, my Lady; although but a moment ago it was on the tip of my tongue. It is something like Hathaway.” A trace of colour once more returns to my Lady's cheek, and her breath, which, by reason perhaps of the confined space in which she stands, has seemed to be stifled during the narration of her maid, now comes and goes with a little less of effort.

“That is his voice, I reckon, my Lady—yes, I thought so—and the new carol which he has been teaching the choir.”

O'er the hill and o'er the vale

Come three kings together,

Caring nought for snow and hail,

Cold, and wind, and weather;

Now on Persia's sandy plains,

Now where Tigris swells with rains,

They their camels tether.

Now through Syrian lands they go,

Now through Moab, faint and slow,

Now o'er Edom's heather.

“Ah, now I've got it, my Lady,” cried Mistress Forest triumphantly. “It isn't Hathaway. He's the man they were talking of in the servants-hall as has just bought the windmill of old Daniels, and that was how I confused them. The stranger's name is Derrick—a Mr Derrick.”

My Lady's dimpled hand flew to her heart, and would have pressed against it had she had any strength to do so. Her limbs, however, were nerveless, and shook as if she had the ague. But for the window-seat, she must have dropped; and as it was, leaned, huddled up against it, a shapeless form, decked in gray satin and pearls indeed, but as unlike my Lady as those poor wretches whom we strangle for a show are unlike themselves, who seem to lose, the instant that the fatal bolt is drawn, all fellowship with the human, and become mere bundles of clothes. The drop had fallen, and without warning, from under Lady Lisgard's feet, but unhappily the victim was conscious, and not dead.

CHAPTER III. ONLY “THE HEART.”

IGNORANT of the ruin it had wrought, the rich full voice of the stranger still rang forth, manifestly to the admiration of the confidential maid, since her nimble tongue failed to interrupt its melody. She was not displeased that her lady too was listening with such unbroken attention, and probably also looking out upon the singer; for Mr Derrick was a very “proper man”—at all events in external appearance—and had shewn himself in the servants-hall a while ago by no means unconscious of the personal charms of Mistress Forest, which, although mature, were still by no means despicable. A few years younger than my Lady herself, Mary had been treated by Time at least with equal courtesy; her figure was plump, her eyes were bright, her voice, which, if not absolutely musical, could reach some very high notes, and upon occasion, was clear and cheery. One would have said she would have been too talkative to have suited my Lady's grave and quiet ways; but this was not so. Lady Lisgard had that blessed gift of being able not to listen unless it pleased her to do so, which enables so many conscientious persons to speak favourably of sermons; all the avalanche of her maid's eloquence passed clean over her head, and suffered her to pursue her own meditations at the easy tribute of an appreciating nod when all was ended. Even had she been much more inconvenienced by the debris of words, her tormentor would have been freely forgiven. The affection between mistress and maid was deep and genuine, and had extended over more than half their lifetime.

Mary Forest was the daughter of a fisherman at Coveton, the village on whose sandy beach Sir Robert had picked up his bride. To old Jacob Forest's cottage, the human flotsam and jetsam had been conveyed, and upon Mary, then almost a child, had much of its tending at first devolved. The kindly little nurse soon won the regard of her patient, cut off by that one night's storm from kith and kin, for this emigrant ship had contained all that were near or dear to her on earth, and ready as a babe to clasp the tendrils of love about whoever shewed her kindness. Removed from the cottage to the rectory, where the clergyman and his wife welcomed her very hospitably, first, as a poor human waif, that claimed some lodgment ere she could decide upon her future calling, for a short time after that as their nursery governess, and finally as guest and inmate pending those arrangements of her betrothed husband which subsequently took her to France, Lucy Gavestone—for that was the name by which my Lady was then known—did not forget little Mary and her loving ministrations. She asked and easily obtained permission of Sir Robert that the girl should accompany her to the semi-scholastic establishment at Dijon in which he had decided to place her previous to their marriage. This she accordingly did; and many a strange reminiscence unshared by others (itself a great knitter of the bond of friendship) had mistress and maid in common. The fortunes of the latter of course rose with those of the former, and of all the household at Mirk Abbey there was none in higher trust than Mary Forest, nor more certain of the envied position she held, since the affection of my Lady set her above the machinations of that Nemesis of favourite servants, a Domestic Cabal. Those natural enemies, the butler and the cook, had even shaken hands together for the purpose of compassing Mary's downfall, but their combined endeavours had only obtained for a reward her sovereign forgiveness and (I am afraid I must add) contempt.

In a word, Mary Forest was as happy in her circumstances as any woman at her time of life could expect to be whose title of “Mistress” was only brevet rank. She had subjugated many other male folks beside the butler (the ancient coachman, for example, with the back view of whose broad shoulders and no neck the Lisgard family had been familiar for half a century), but such victories had not at all been owing to her charms. By them, hitherto, Man had been an unconquered animal, and this was the knot in the otherwise smooth surface of Mary's destiny which no amount of planing (within her philosophy) could make even. She had been wooed, of course (what woman of twoscore, according to her own account, has not?), but hitherto the suitors had not been eligible, or her own ideas had been too ambitious. The time had now arrived with her when compromise begins to be expedient, and high expectations abate. Matrimonial opportunities at the Abbey were few and far between. She had not received such marked attention from anybody for months as this stranger, living upon his own means at the Lisgard Arms, had paid her that very night in the servants-hall. No wonder, then, that while he sang, she should for once be content to be a listener.

O'er the hill and o'er the vale

Each king bears a present;

Wise men go a child to hail,

Monarchs seek a peasant;

And a star in front proceeds,

Over rocks and rivers leads,

Shines with beams incessant.

Therefore onward, onward still,

Ford the stream, and climb the hill—

Love makes all things pleasant.

“There, now, I call that very pretty, my Lady,” exclaimed Mistress Forest, as the last cadence died away; “and a very pretty sentiment at the end—'Love makes all things pleasant;' although, for my part, I know nothing about that, thank Heaven, and prefer to be my own mistress—that is, with the exception of your Ladyship, to obey whom is a labour of love. I am sure there are few husbands for whom I would give up such a service as yours, my Lady. I wish Mr What's-his-name—dear me, how stupid of me—ah, Derrick! It's rather a pretty name too; don't you think so, my Lady? I wish this Mr Derrick would sing us another song. He has a very beautiful voice, and I am sure his expression—don't you think so, my Lady? Ahem. No; I hear them moving off. Well, he will be in the choir to-morrow morning, that's sure. Had you not better come to the fire, my—— Ah, great Heaven! Mistress, my dear darling mistress, what is the matter? Let me ring for help!”

It was impossible to misunderstand my Lady's “No,” although it was not articulate.

Huddled up, as I have said, in the space between the curtain and the window-seat, white and cold as the snow without, voiceless and almost breathless as her maid found her upon venturing to draw aside the heavy damask folds between them, such a look of agonised apprehension yet shot from her eyes as at once to prevent Mistress Forest from putting her design with respect to the bell into effect; nay, more, having assisted my Lady to the sofa, she rightly interpreted a second glance in the direction of the door, to mean “Lock it,” and this she did even before arranging the cushions, which would have been the first action with most persons of her class. Mary Forest, although a babbler, was no fool, and she perceived immediately that the distress which was agitating her beloved mistress was at least as much mental as physical. Once before, and only once, she had known my Lady to be what females call “overcome”—that was upon the eve of her marriage with Sir Robert; there was much similarity between the two attacks, but the present was far more violent. In the first instance, she had been told by her Ladyship that it was owing to “the heart,” which was fitting enough under her then circumstances—but now when there was no bridegroom-expectant to flutter that organ, it did seem singular certainly. Doubtless her mistress would speak presently, and afford the fullest information; in the meantime there was nothing for it but silence and sal volatile.

My Lady's eyes are closed, and her features pale and still as marble, but her lips are a little parted. With her white hands thus crosswise over her bosom, she looks, thinks the confidential maid—for all the world like that Dame Lisgard in the chancel, by the side of whose marble couch her twelve fair children kneel, and take their mother's ceaseless blessing. All twelve so near of an age, and so marvellously alike, thanks to the skill of the sculptor, that one would have thought the whole dozen—but that four, as Mistress Forest has read in Portents and Prodigies, is the extreme limit—had made their simultaneous arrival in the world. Stiff and cold almost as marble are my Lady's limbs, blue-veined like it and rounded; but by degrees, as Mary rubs them steadily, their life returns.

“Thank you, thank you,” murmurs her Ladyship. “I feel better now; but” (this with effort) “I wish to be left alone.”

“Alone, my Lady! I dare not leave you thus, without even knowing what ails you.”

“Nothing ails me now, Mary—nothing.” Lady Lisgard made a feint of smiling, but kept her eyelids shut. She did not dare to let her maid read what was written in her eyes.

“Was it your poor heart, again, madam?”

“Ay, my poor heart!” My Lady was speaking truth there. Among the thousand millions born to suffer on this earth, there was not one upon that Christmas Eve in mental agony more deep than hers. The blow received had been so terrible and unexpected, that it had at first half stupified all feeling; the real torture was now commencing, when she was about to realise the full extent of her injuries. Lady Lisgard was not without courage; but she was no Indian warrior to desire a spectator of such torments. “I must be alone, dear Mary,” repeated she. “Be sure you breathe no word of this to any one. Say, however, that I am not very well. The cold when I opened that window to the Waits”—here she visibly shuddered—“seems to have frozen me to the marrow—you may tell them I have taken cold. I shall not be down to breakfast.”

“And I should recommend you to stay indoors, my dear (as I hope to persuade Miss Letty to do), although it is Christmas Day,” said Mary tenderly, as she made up the fire before leaving the room; “for the church is far from warm.”

“I shall not go to church,” said Lady Lisgard, with a decision that reassured her attendant, and enabled her to wish her mistress “good-night” without much apprehension.

“He will be in the choir to-morrow morning,” was the thought which was crossing the minds of mistress and maid at the same instant.

CHAPTER IV. SIR RICHARD GAINS HIS POINT.

I DON'T know how it was in the Monkish times in England, but it appears that the keeping of religious days—always excepting the Sabbath—is not in accordance with the genius of this country as it exists at present. By general habit, we are devout, or certainly reverent; and yet the majority seem unable to discriminate between a fast and a festival. Christmas Day, for example, is kept by the evangelical folks exactly like Sunday, which is with them very much the reverse of a feast-day. With the High Church people, again, it is a Holiday, to be enjoyed after a certain peculiar fashion of their own; while the great mass of the population outrage both these parties by treating half the day as a fast and the other half as a festival. After morning church, it is generally understood that one may enjoy one's self—that is, within the limit of the domestic circle. There is the rub. It is not every disposition which can appreciate forfeits and snap-dragon. My own respected grandfather used to thank Heaven with much devotion that he had always been a domestic man, who knew how to enjoy a peaceful Christmas in the bosom of his family; but then he always went to sleep immediately after dinner, and nobody ventured to wake him until the servants came in to prayers, after which he went to bed.

It is a pleasant sight, says Holy Writ, to see brethren dwelling together in unity; but the remark would not have been put on record had the spectacle been a very common one. It is a sad confession to make, but I think most of us must own that the “family gathering” in the country, even at Christmas-tide, is not the most agreeable sort of social entertainment. There is too much predetermination to be jolly about such festivities, too much resolution to put up with Polly's temper and Jack's rudeness, and to please grandpapa (who is funded) at all hazards. When we find ourselves in the up-train again after that domestic holiday-week, we are not altogether displeased that it is over, and secretly congratulate ourselves that there has not been a row. I am, of course, speaking of ordinary folks, such as the world is mainly composed of, and not of such exemplary people as my readers and myself. We have no family jealousies, no struggles for grandpapa's favour, no difficulties in having common patience with Polly, no private opinion—if he was not our brother—about Jack; no astonishment at Henry's success, no envy at Augusta's prospects. But with the majority of grown-up brothers and sisters, this is not so. Since they parted from one another under the paternal roof, their lines of life have diverged daily; their interests, so far from being identical, have become antagonistic. Margaret is as nice as ever, but Penelope is not a bit improved, and yet one must seem to be as glad to see one as the other. One must not only forgive, but forget; it is not (unhappily) necessary that we should be polite, but we must be affectionate; nay, we must not only be affectionate—grandpapa will think it extremely odd if we are not “gushing.”

The Lisgard family circle was not large, though, as we have seen, there was room in it for disagreement; moreover, there was not a “dead set” of domestic element, the consanguinity being relieved by the presence of Miss Rose Aynton. If grandpapa were wise, this should always be the case; for it prevents Courtesy from taking leave of the company, which she is only too apt to do, under the mistaken notion that near relations can afford to do without her. It was with no such intention, however, that my Lady had asked Miss Aynton to visit Mirk. She would have thought it hard, indeed, if her two sons could not have spent a week together under the same roof without the presence of a stranger to prevent their quarrelling. Rose had been a school-friend of Letty, and the latter young lady had asked permission to invite her young friend to the Abbey for Christmas. She had no home of her own to go to, poor thing, having neither father nor mother. She lived with her aunt, Miss Colyfield, a fashionable old lady in Mayfair, very popular among her acquaintance, but a sort of person, not uncommon in that locality, whom it is not altogether charming to reside with as a dependent. Miss Aynton was evidently accustomed to suppression. It made a man positively indignant to see one whose youth and intelligence entitled her to be the mistress of all who approached her, so humble, so unegotistic, so grateful. It was evident that she had plenty of natural good spirits, and every faculty for enjoyment, if she had only dared exhibit them. Her very accomplishments, which were numerous, were timidly concealed, and peeped forth one by one, almost, as it seemed, by compulsion. She might have left Mirk, for instance, without a soul knowing of her taste for ecclesiastical decoration, if it had not been for a sore throat which prevented Letty from superintending the Christmas ornamentations in the chancel.

“Can't you do it, my dear?” said Letty, a little peevish at the disappointment, and hopeless that her place could be satisfactorily filled by a London-bred girl like Rose, who had never seen holly-berries except in the greengrocers' shops, or at the artificial florist's. “Now, do try, and Richard and Walter will both help.”

“I will do my best, dear,” this young lady had answered simply. And never had anything so beautiful been seen in the county, as was the result of her efforts. So much was said of them that Letty had ventured to go to church that morning, despite her ailment, and was as earnest in her praise as any in the congregation. There was no such thing as jealousy in her composition, and the success of her friend was a genuine pleasure to her.

“O mamma, you have missed such a sight!” cried she, as Lady Lisgard made her first appearance that morning at the luncheon-table, looking a little grave and pale, but gracious and dignified as a queen in exile, as usual. “Not only the chancel, but the whole church a perfect bower of evergreens, and everything so exquisitely done! The pillars, alternately ivy and laurel; and under the gallery, beautiful texts in holly-berries set in green. As for the wall at the back of the altar—the decorations there are such that it makes one cry to think they are ever to be taken down again. Oh, I do hope you will feel well enough, dear mamma, to come to church this afternoon and see them.”

“Really, Lady Lisgard,” said Miss Aynton, blushing deeply, and with her soft eyes looking very much inclined to be tearful, “you must not believe all that Lefty's kindness induces her to say about me.”

“Nay, but it's true, mother,” broke forth Sir Richard. “I never could have dreamt of anything so beautiful being made out of leaves and berries. The old church looks enchanted, and Miss Aynton is the fairy that has done it.”

“Sir Richard suggested the centre design himself,” returned Rose gravely; “and the fact is, I am nothing but a plagiarist in the whole affair. Our curate in Park Street gives himself up to floral religion, and dresses up his church in a dozen different garbs according to the season. I am one of its volunteer tiring-women, and am therefore accustomed to the business—that is all.”

“It is very honest of you to tell us that, Rose,” said my Lady approvingly.

“Yes, mamma,” broke in Letty; “but it was very wicked of her not to tell Mr Mosely, who came to thank her in the churchyard after service. He actually made an allusion to her in his sermon—talked about her 'pious hands.' She never told him one word about this London curate.”

Letty's laugh rang merrily out as she thus twitted her friend, but her brothers did not echo it. Neither of them relished this mention of the Mayfair clergyman. They had each in turn enjoyed that religious work, in which they had been fellow-labourers with Miss Aynton, and each perhaps flattered himself that she had been most pleased when his own fingers were looping the berries for her, or holding the ivy while she fastened it in its place. Of course there was nothing serious between either of them and herself. Sir Richard would naturally look higher for a bride than to the dependent niece of a fickle old woman of fashion; while as to Walter, with his comparatively small fortune and expensive tastes, it was absolutely necessary that he should “marry money,” and not mere expectations. Still, no man is altogether pleased to hear that a young girl he admires is engaged to somebody else; and although this had not been said of Rose, yet Mayfair curates are dangerous persons, and church decoration (as they were aware by recent experience) is a fascinating occupation when indulged in by both sexes at the same time.

So Letty had all the laughter to herself.

“How strange it was to hear the people when they first came in,” continued she. “Their 'Ohs!' and Ahhs!' and 'Well I nevers!' were quite irrepressible.”

“Especially the gentleman in the gallery, who expressed his opinion that it was for all the world like May-day,” observed Walter slily. “Miss Aynton's chef-d'oeuvre reminded him, it seems, of Jack-in-the-Green.”

“Yes, was it not shocking, mamma?” exclaimed Letty. “He spoke quite loud. I shouldn't suppose that the creature had ever been in a church before. How he did stare about him!”

“You must have been looking in his direction yourself, miss,” returned the young dragoon, “as, indeed, were all the female part of the congregation. We don't see such awful beards as his in Mirk church every Sunday.”

“How touchy dear Walter is upon the subject of beards,” observed Letty demurely.

The captain's smooth face coloured like a girl's, while Miss Rose Aynton sought concealment in her pocket-handkerchief. Even Lady Lisgard forced herself to smile at the embarrassment of her handsome boy. But Sir Richard did not smile; he was not on sufficiently good terms with his younger brother to enjoy even so innocent a joke at his expense.

“You have not yet seen this distinguished stranger, I suppose, mamma?” resumed Letty, without whom—what with Rose's shyness and the coldness between the two young men—the conversation would have languished altogether.

“What stranger do you mean, my dear?” said my Lady coldly.

“Why, the man that came with the Waits last night, and sang beneath your window. Surely you must have noticed his voice, so different from poor old Ash and the rest of them.”

“Now you mention it, Letty, I think I did remark that there was a strange singer among them. He had a voice like Mr Steve's.”

“Very probably, my dear mother,” observed Walter laughing; “for they both use the same tuning-key—the Spigot. Steve is said to be quite jealous because this gentleman from foreign parts can take two glasses to his one, although it cannot be added that he doesn't shew it. Steve can look like a Methodist parson when he pleases, whereas his new friend has made a sacrifice of his very countenance to Bacchus; and yet he must have been a handsome fellow at one time.—Don't you think so, Miss Aynton?”

“I really scarcely looked at him,” returned the young lady addressed. “I should hesitate to pass an opinion upon this distinguished——”

“O Rose,” interrupted Letty archly; “how dare you!—Why, Walter, she told me herself, only five minutes ago, while we were taking off our bonnets, that she thought his expression 'magnificent '—that was her very word—and that she would like to take him in chalks.”

“I must confess,” said Rose, “without venturing to call it good-looking or otherwise, that his countenance, artistically speaking, seems to me very striking. He is just one of those wicked people, I fancy, in whom one feels a sort of interest in spite of one's self.—Now, don't you think so, Sir Richard?”

“My dear Miss Aynton,” returned the baronet with an air of hauteur that neutralised the familiarity implied by his words, “if this person has won your sympathy, he is fortunate indeed; but I must say that I don't see that he deserves it. His beard, which is certainly a handsome one, has also—as it seems to me—the great advantage of obscuring half his countenance. I confess, I think he looks to be a scoundrel of the first salt-water.”

“That's what Rose means!” cried Letty, clapping her hands. “He's one of those dear handsome villains who used to—ah, infest—yes, that's the phrase—who used to infest the Spanish Main. How charmingly mysterious was the very place in which they carried on their profession! If it was not for seasickness, I should like to have had something to do in the Spanish Main myself. I have not the shadow of a doubt that this Mr Derrick—evidently an assumed name—— What's the matter, dearest mother?”

My Lady had uttered a low cry, such as is evoked by sudden and acute physical pain.

“Nothing, my love—nothing: it was a passing spasm, nothing more. A tinge of my old rheumatism again, I fear, which is a sign of old age, and therefore a malady I do not wish to be taken notice of.—Now, don't distress yourselves, my dears”—for all had risen with looks of genuine and affectionate anxiety, except Miss Aynton, who had rapidly poured out a glass of wine.—“Thank you, Rose; that was all I wanted. Nobody offered me any sherry, so I thought I would try whether I could not obtain it medicinally.—What were you saying, Letty, about this—this person?”

“I was merely remarking that he had probably been a buccaneer, mamma.”

“In other words, that he deserves hanging,” observed Sir Richard gruffly. “I hope he will soon take himself out of the parish, for we have got tipplers enough in it already.”

“Dear, dear, dear!” said Letty sedately; “to make such an observation as that, just after mamma has been craving for sherry! Besides, how can this gentleman annoy you, Sir Richard? He isn't come here to dispute the title, is he?”

My Lady kept her lips closed this time; but an anguish passed over her face that would have been easy to see, had not the eyes of those at table been otherwise engaged.

Letty was looking at her friend, in hopes that she should get her to laugh at her high and mighty brother; Rose did not dare look up, for fear she should do so. Walter, his handsome lips slightly curled, was contemptuously watching the baronet, who stared, Sphinx-like, right before him, as was his custom whenever he was in one of his autocratic humours, as at present.

“I don't choose to have persons of that sort in the parish,” said he with icy distinctness.

“But, my dear Richard, you can't turn him out,” reasoned Letty, rather vexed by an exhibition of her brother's pride before her school-friend beyond what she had calculated upon. “He has a right to stop at the Lisgard Arms as long as he pleases.”

“And I have a right to turn Steve out as a tenant”——

“You have nothing of the kind, Richard,” interposed Walter quietly; “you have no more right than I—not even legal right, for the inn is not yet yours, and as for moral right, it would be the most monstrous piece of territorial oppression ever heard of out of Poland. So long as the man behaves himself”——

“He does not behave himself,” put in Sir Richard angrily. “He is a drunkard, and a brawler in church.”

“Gracious mercy! how you must have been looking up Burn's Justice. But you will not be a magistrate, a custos rotulorum, till you are of age, remember, so that he is safe for six months. In the meantime, he certainly means to stay here. He is so good as to say he likes Mirk, I understand; and the village folks like him. He is a great addition to the choir; and I shall certainly ask him, in case he remains, to join our Mirk volunteers: Steve tells me he is a most admirable shot with a rifle, and will do the corps credit.”

“That is all the worse,” quoth Sir Richard violently; “he is only the more likely to be a poacher. We have more than enough of that sort already, and I beg that you will give none such your encouragement.”

“Encouragement!” returned Walter airily. “What patronage have I to offer? I am not Sir Richard, who can make a man happy with a word.”

“Very well,” continued the baronet with suppressed passion, “let him take care how he trespasses upon the Abbey-lands—that's all.”

“Nay, you'll see him at the Abbey itself,” laughed Walter carelessly, “and that pretty often, unless I quite misinterpreted Mistress Forest's manner when she parted from him at the Lych Gate: I never saw two people more affectionate upon so short an acquaintance.”

“A most ineligible suitor, I am sure,” broke forth the baronet. “I trust Mary is not fool enough to disgrace herself at her time of life by any such alliance.”

“She is almost old enough to choose for herself,” responded Walter drily. “The selection of a husband for one's servant is scarcely the privilege of even a lord of the manor, and when the servant is not one's own”——

“I believe, sir,” interrupted Sir Richard hastily, “that I am only speaking the sentiments of her mistress, in whose hands, of course, the matter lies.—Mother, do you not agree with me that it would be very unwise to encourage any attachment between Mary Forest and this reprobate stranger, Derrick?”

It was plain my Lady had not recovered from her late ailment, of whatever nature the attack might have been; otherwise, she would have interfered between the brothers before a direct appeal for her decision had been made by either of them, it being a rule with her never to place herself in an invidious position with respect to her children. To the astonishment of the baronet himself, however, Lady Lisgard now forced her pale lips to utter deliberately enough: “I think it would be very unwise.”

“And therefore,” pursued Sir Richard, hastening to push his advantage, “it would be worse than unwise, it would be absolute cruelty, since you do not intend her to marry this fellow, that opportunities should be afforded her of meeting him under the same roof. I do not say that his offence of brawling in church this morning is a sufficient ground of itself for forbidding him the house, although to most persons with any sense of decency it would be a serious misdemeanour: but would it not be well, under these particular circumstances, to treat it so?”

“Yes,” returned my Lady, rising from the table, white as a ghost, “you are right, Richard; let this Mr Derrick be forbidden the house.”

CHAPTER V. MASTER WALTER.

THE day after Christmas Day was friendly to the fox; in other words, a hard frost; and since Miss Rose Aynton and Letty had declined to play at billiards with Walter until the afternoon—for it is vicious (in the country) to indulge in that pastime in the morning, as it is to play at cards before candle-light—that young gentleman, being no reader, felt the time rather heavy on his hands, and strolled into the village to get rid of it. The snow had ceased to fall, but not before, like a good housekeeper when the family has left town, it had covered up everything very carefully, except the tops of the chimneys, through which the tidings of good-cheer rolled forth in dusky columns from every cottage; for there were no abject poor in Mirk, thanks to my Lady, or any that lacked victuals at that joyous season.

The Lisgards had ever been a free-handed race, as generous out of doors as hospitable within; and their influence for good had been felt for generations throughout the village. I do not say that they expected no repayment; their rule was paternal, and they looked for something like filial obedience in return. If a villager had passed any member of that august family without pulling his hair, as though it were a bell-handle, in token of respect, it would have been considered a sign of revolution, and they would have congratulated themselves that the yeomanry were in a state of efficiency. The feudal system was still in vogue at Mirk, but tempered not only by excellent beef-tea in sickness, and port wine from the Abbey cellar during convalescence, but by the best Gothic architecture, as applied to cottages. If eleven human beings did sometimes sleep in a single room, and the domestic arrangements were inferior to those which Mr Chifney of the Farm provided for his race-horses, the tenement looked outside very picturesque, as seen from the Abbey windows. Nay, it must be owned that even this inconvenience of overcrowding was rare in the home-village, in comparison with other places on the Lisgard estate, not so near the family seat, about which everything was in externals, at least, becomingly spick and span.

Dr Haldane, indeed, who had property of his own, and could afford to entertain political opinions at variance with those in favour at the Abbey, had been of old accustomed irreverently to adapt a certain popular nursery ballad to the state of things at Mirk.

Who built the infant school so red?

Who set that striking-clock o'erhead,

To tell us all the time for bed?

The Lisgards.

Who made, and at such great expense,

Around our pond that iron fence,

To keep the pigs and boys from thence?

The Lisgards, &c.

In short, Mirk was a pet hamlet, and exhibited a hundred tokens of its patron's favour. It was surely only right and proper, therefore, that all the votes in the village at election-time, except the doctor's, went the same way with the squire's, and that even in social matters he exercised unquestioned sway. Mirk was as respectable as the brotherhood of Quakers, and was rendered so by the same simple machinery; any one in the place who shewed a disposition to be otherwise was immediately turned out. Did a man drink, so as to cause public disturbance, or pick up sticks (to save himself trouble) out of the park-fences—or, worse than all, did he Poach—were it but a pheasant's egg—he received the most peremptory notice to quit the model village. The issuing of these ukases of banishment had been, now and then, a severe trial to the popularity of the Lisgards; but it had overlived all such acts—nay, more, even its favouritism, that seemingly indispensable element of the feudal system, had been forgiven it. Nobody now complained that George Steve, who notoriously never went to bed quite sober, still continued tenant of the Lisgard Arms; while Jacob Flail and Joseph Dibble had been condemned, with their families, to banishment for life for a less habitual commission of the same offence.

Much less did it strike the villagers that it was inconsistent in a landlord, so careful for the morality of his people, to let so large a portion of the Abbey Farm to a trainer of race-horses, of which there were at present upwards of thirty in Mirk; and in summer, when the Downland above was fit for their exercise, there were often twice as many. But then Mr Chifney was not like an ordinary trainer; nor did his jockey-boys, thanks to his strict supervision, behave like ordinary jockey-boys. They attended divine service on alternate Sundays, and half-a-dozen of them were in the choir. Mr Mosely (who was Anglican) had even taken into consideration the advisability of putting these last into surplices, but Mr Chifney had dissuaded him from that experiment. They had always been accustomed to the most tight-fitting of garments, strait-waistcoats, buck-skin breeches, and gaiters—and perhaps he thought the transition would be too abrupt. Their habits, in some other respects, were loose, and yet they were suffered to breathe the Lisgard air. Mr Chifney's boys were like the servants of ambassadors at foreign courts, who enjoy a separate jurisdiction from that to which the native inhabitants submit. The law itself—at least in the case of petty offences—was not called in to punish these young gentlemen; but I believe they were “colted”—for the whole discipline was “horsey”—by Mr Chifney's head-groom. I do not know the exact manner in which this chastisement was inflicted, but it must have differed from the ordinary method, since they never failed to pursue their daily equestrian duties as usual. Mr Chifney looked after that himself, and exceedingly sharp. Nothing went amiss through oversight in his establishment, and his employers had every reason to put confidence in him. He left no means untried to insure the success of the costly animals it was his mission to groom and guard. His very acceptance of the post of churchwarden had been described by his enemies as an attempt to “hedge”—to make friends with those powers of good which are generally supposed, to be antagonistic, if they have anything to do with it at all, to the profession of horse-racing. It is certain that Mr Chifney, whose occupations seldom permitted his own attendance at public worship, never failed to come to church upon those Sundays which immediately preceded the Derby and the St Leger, and indeed it is very likely that he treated them (without knowing it) as the eves of his patron saints' days.

It was to the Abbey Farm that Mr Walter Lisgard was now bound; for to the young gentlemen of England, what is a more interesting spectacle than a racing-stable—what is a more charming subject of conversation than the next Great Event? And who more fitted to afford every information upon that important topic—if he chose—than Mr Tite Chifney? If he chose. Therein lay the whole matter; for Mr Chifney was reticent, as became one intrusted with a hundred thousand pounds' worth of horseflesh, upon whose performances depended perhaps, in the aggregate, millions of money. He had put “Master Walter” up to a “good thing,” however, more than once, and the captain had no doubt but that he would do it again. He never did doubt of his own success either with man or woman. Confidence, but without swagger, self-content, but without vanity, were evident enough in those handsome features, illuminated almost at all times with the desire to please. He lit his cigar at the hall-door, smoothed away a fallen spark from his sealskin waistcoat, and took his way down the leafless avenue, humming the latest lively air, as he crunched the snow beneath his dainty boots. How different from Sir Richard's measured step and haughty silence, thought the gatekeeper's wife, as she hastened out of the lodge, from the side-window of which she had marked her favourite approach. “Never mind me, Martha,” cried he laughing; “I'm tall enough now to lift the latch for myself. My boots are thicker than yours are—look—and I have no rheumatism, which, I am afraid, you have not quite got rid of yet. There—I won't speak a word with you till you go inside. How's the guidman? Ah, out, is he? How's little Polly? Hullo, Polly, how you're grown! Why, I daresay she won't kiss me now, as she always used to do.”

“Oh yes, she'll kiss you, Master Walter,” answered the old dame; “there's no harm in kissing o' you; although I wouldn't say that to my daughter of ne'er another young man in the county.—Come, lass, you need not blush so, for I've had many a one from the same young gentleman.” And the old dame laughed and chuckled, until that dread enemy of honest-hearted mirth, the lumbago, twitched her into her chair.

Polly, a very pretty country lassie, about sixteen, stood pink and hesitating while the captain removed his cigar, and waited—smiling demigod—for the promised favour.

“Come, gi'e it to him, and ha' done wi' it,” cried the old lady, exasperated by her torments. Thereupon the girl stepped forward, head aside. Master Walter met her, touched her soft cheek with his lip, and as his silken moustache brushed her ear, whispered an airy something which turned her crimson. There was nothing in the words themselves save the merest compliment; their magic lay in the tone of him who used them; so tender, yet so frank, so familiar, and yet so gracious. Then, with a smile, he bade them both “good-bye,” and strolling through the gate, resumed his interrupted ditty, as though kissing were the most innocent as well as the most natural of all pastimes; but Polly pressed her throbbing brow against the pane for its very coolness, and watched him saunter down the village street with quite a flutter at her heart, and promised to herself that she would not forget the captain's kiss—no, not though Joe, the under-gardener, should speak his mind next “feast” (as it was rumoured in well-informed circles that he intended to do), and “keep her company” in earnest.

That she was doing no wrong in this was certain, for not only her mother, but everybody else in Mirk, agreed that there was no sort of harm in Master Walter, let him do what he might. He had a way of doing things so very different from others. How the very dogs fawned upon him as he sauntered on, and the old horse in the straw-yard stretched its gray head over the gate in hopes of a caress as he went by! How the boys by the roadside left their Snow-man an unfinished torso, and ran to make their bows before the good-natured captain, with an eye to largesse, in the form of a copper scramble; and how the school-girls courtesied, with admiring awe, as they pictured to themselves how fine a figure handsome Master Walter must needs cut in gold and scarlet! He had a nod or a word for almost everybody, young or old; but if his look but lit upon another's face, it left a pleasure there, as the Sun leaves when it has shone upon one. Delayed by these reciprocal manifestations of good-will, like a young prince making a Royal Progress among a well-affected people, Walter Lisgard at length got free of the village, and climbing a steep hill (never used by the race-horses even in much less slippery weather), arrived at his destination, the Abbey Farm. This was a long, low, ancient building, belonging to one could scarce tell what date, so pieced, and restored, and added to, had been the original structure; but when the Abbey was an Abbey, the Abbey Farm had been a sort of branch-establishment, in the occupation of the monks; there were traces of their sojourn even now: over the pointed porch yet stood a cross of stone, though broken; and in the garden, now all white and hoar, that lay between the house and road, there was a mighty sundial, carved like a font with noseless saints in niches, and round the rim a scripture, of which alone the words nox venit could be deciphered. The night had come, not only upon those who built and blessed such things, but on the faith which they professed. The very memory of themselves and it had faded from men's minds. Not one in ten at Mirk—where all had owned the Abbot for liege-lord, and bowed their heads before his meanest monk, in token of their soul's humility, but a few centuries back—not one in ten, I say, could tell even what that niche on the south side of the communion-table meant, which the learned called Piscina. The mighty bower that had once been the granary of the Abbey, and to which the poor had looked with thankful eyes in times of scarcity, still stood beside the homestead, but the remembrance of its very use was gone; the only legend clinging to its moss-grown walls was that a Long Parliament had once held its sittings there. Save the farmhouse and the barn, all relics of the past had been swept away. Immediately behind them was quite a town of stables and loose boxes, all of the most modern construction, and furnished with the latest inventions for equine comfort. The enormous farmyard, strewn with a thick carpet of clean straw, was now the exercising-ground for the horses; but in the summer, a gate at the back of the premises opened immediately upon the grassy upland, the proximity of which had tempted Mr Tite Chifney to pitch his tent and enlarge his boundaries at the Abbey Farm. So high had been the rent he offered for this eligible situation, that the late Sir Robert had removed his own agricultural head-quarters elsewhere, and suffered Mr Chifney and his race-horses to occupy the whole place, which was now the capital of the Houwhyhims—the largest establishment in Great Britain, wherein man held the secondary position, and the Horse the principal.

CHAPTER VI. THE RACING-STABLE.

IT was Mr Chifney in person who admitted Walter Lisgard, after a precautionary glance at him through a little grating, which doubtless the monks had used for a similar purpose, although without the same excuse, for they had never possessed any Derby “cracks” to be poisoned. Mr Chifney might have been himself a monk but for his apparel, which, although scrupulously neat and plain, fitted him almost like war-paint, so that there was not a crease to be seen, except at the knees, of which he made as much use as the holy fathers themselves did, though not precisely in the same way. His dark hair was closely cropped, and a little bald spot on the top of the crown might well have been taken for a tonsure. Moreover, he had a grave and secretive look, which would have well enough become one in whom were reposed the secrets of the Confessional; and when he smiled, he looked sorry for it immediately afterwards, as though he had given way to a carnal pleasure.

Captain Lisgard shook the trainer's hand with his usual hearty warmth, and Mr Chifney returned his pressure with unwonted cordiality. He was accustomed to meet men of a much higher social rank than his present visitor on something like equal terms; many of them shook hands with him; all of them treated him with familiarity. The Turf, like the Grave, levels all distinctions. Between the Lord and the Blackleg (to make an antithetical use of terms that are not seldom synonymous), there is but slight partition on that common ground; the widest gulf of social difference is bridged over, pro tem, by the prospect of an advantageous bet. How much more, then, was this wont to be the case in view of the trustworthy “information” which Mr Tite Chifney had it so often in his power to bestow? Marquises had taken his arm in a confidential manner before now in the most public places, and dukes had called him “Tite;” even ladies of the highest fashion had treated him to pretty speeches, and to what they hoped might turn out literally “winning ways.” But the great trainer estimated all these condescensions at their true value. He never concealed from himself the motives that caused these people to be so civil to him; and perhaps he had seen too much of the turfite aristocracy to be flattered by their attentions, even had they been disinterested. But Walter Lisgard's greeting was different from those which he was wont to receive from his great patrons; there was not only a cordial frankness about it, but a something of sympathy, conveyed with marvellous tact, in his air and manner; which seemed to say: “I unfeignedly regret that anything like friendship should be impossible between us, for I am your social superior; and yet, how ridiculous a thing it is that this should be so! I, but the younger brother of a man himself of no great position, and you, at the head of that profession in which the noblest in the land take so great and personal an interest.” If Mr Chifney did not read all this, it is certain that so acute an observer could not fail to read some of it. He was as far from being moved by any considerations not strictly practical as any man connected with horseflesh; his calling, too, rendered him as suspicious of his fellow-creatures as a police detective; but Master Walter's sort of flattery was too subtle for him. He had always had a liking for this genial young fellow, with his handsome face and pleasant speech, and who, moreover, rode across country like a centaur; he was one of his own landlord's family, too, and the heir-presumptive of the property, whose favour it was just as well to win and keep; and lastly, the lad had been so unfeignedly grateful to him for the little hints he had occasionally afforded him, as well as so wisely reticent about his informant, that he was not unwilling to help him again to a few “fivers,” if he could do so without the betrayal of professional confidence.

“Come for another 'tip,' eh, Master Walter?” whispered he good-naturedly as he led the way into the house. “You see I did not deceive you the last time you were here about Cambyses!”

“No, indeed, you did not, Mr Chifney” (Walter never addressed this friend of his without the Mister), “and a very great blessing it was to yours thankfully at a time when he was even more hard-up than usual. Is your Derby 'crack' visible today? I am poor, but honest. I have no motive beyond that of curiosity, and if suspected of a concealed weapon, will submit to be searched.”

“Well, Master Walter,” grinned the trainer, “I can't say that I much credit the honesty of anybody myself; but I don't see why you should not have a look at his majesty, particularly as there is one coming here this morning already upon the same errand, and I'm sure I'd as soon oblige you as him—or, indeed, as any man, let it be who it will.”

“You are very kind to say so, Mr Chifney, and still more to mean it, as I am sure you do; but I feel that I have no right with my bagatelle of a stake depending upon the matter to take up your time—nay, I must insist upon throwing my cigar away before entering your house; it is all very well for Mrs Chifney to give you the privilege of smoking within doors, but I could not venture to take such a liberty myself. What a jolly place this is of yours; I always think it is so much snugger than the Abbey. I should never sit anywhere but in your grand old kitchen, if I were you.”

“Well, the fact is we do sit a good deal in the kitchen,” returned Mr Chifney reddening. “It's warm, you see, although it's large, and my wife likes to see how things are going on. She's engaged there just at present, and—you're a great favourite of hers; but I would recommend you to step in as you go out, instead of now. A queer thing is woman, Master Walter, and no man can tell how queer till he comes to be married! Young gals is all sweetness and easily cajoled; but wives—O lor! Now, it's exactly different with horseflesh, for the brood-mares one can manage with a little care, and it's only the fillies that give us trouble, and have such tempers of their own. There; that's a Derby nag, Blue Ruin, in the cloths yonder, and I believe the Duke would not sell him for three thousand pounds; but I have told His Grace, as I tell you, that I wouldn't back the horse even for a place.”

“A splendid stepper, too,” exclaimed Walter admiringly, as the beautiful creature paced slowly round the straw-yard, with arching neck and distended nostrils, as though he were aware of the trainer's depreciating remarks, and could afford to despise them.

“That's true,” rejoined Mr Chifney drily; “but we don't want steppers, but goers; there's a vast of steppers in this world, both men and horses.—Now, in that box yonder, there is an animal who, in my opinion, could give Blue Ruin ten pounds; but you shall judge for yourself presently. The King's palace is this next one.”

And truly, scarce could horse be better housed than was his equine majesty. No light-house could be more exquisitely clean; no drawing-room in Mayfair more neat, or better suited to the requirements of its inhabitant, although of ornament, save the plaited straw that fringed the royal couch, there was nothing. A dim religious light pervaded this sanctuary, which was kept at a moderate temperature by artificial means, while an admirable ventilation prevented the slightest “smell of the stable” from being perceptible. The object of all this consideration was a magnificent bay horse, by rule of Liliput, very fitly named The King, since, if not a head taller than his fellows, he was fully “a hand.” His coat quite shone amid the gloom, and as the key turned in the door, he pricked his long fine ears, and turned his full eyes upon his two visitors inquiringly, with far more expression in his lean-jawed face than is possessed by many a human creature.

“This gives the world assurance of a horse indeed,” muttered Walter to himself as he contemplated this wonder. “Shew me his faults, Mr Chifney, for his excellences dazzle me.”

“Well, sir,” whispered the trainer, looking up towards a square hole in the ceiling, “it is not for me to depreciate 'the crack;' and there's a boy up yonder—for the horse is never left for a moment, night or day—who is getting too sharp to live, at least in my stables. But look at what he stands on.”

Most men who ride think it a disgrace not to know all about a horse. Every man who keeps a pony thinks himself qualified to “pick” out the winner from any number of thoroughbreds before “the start;” and when the race is over, protests that he had picked him out in his own mind, only something (not quite satisfactorily explained) made him distrust his own judgment, and back a loser.

It was a great temptation to Captain Walter Lisgard, of the 104th Light Dragoons, to shew himself horse-wise, but he put it from him manfully, or rather, with strength of mind far beyond that of most men of his class. “The pasterns seem to be long and strong enough,” answered he, “and the feet neither too large nor too small.”

“Just what my lord says,” observed the trainer in the same low tones; “nor can I make him see that there is any degree of contraction. But he is not your horse, so tell me; look now—is it not so?”

It was so, or at least it seemed to be so to the captain, as the trainer returned the faulty member to its proprietor, with the air of a banker declining a forged cheque.

“It is of small consequence to me,” said Walter; “but I shall be sorry if the winner does not come out of your stable. I took a thousand to twenty in October, which I can now hedge to great advantage.”

“If you take my advice, you will hold on,” said Mr Chifney confidentially. “Twenty pound is little to lose, and what I have shewn you by no means destroys his chance; moreover, The King will not be deposed in the betting. I shall be surprised if, in the paddock, they lay more than three to one.”

“You were going to tell me something, Mr Chifney, only you thought better of it,” said Captain Lisgard, laying his finger upon the other's coat-cuff as they emerged from the royal presence. “And yet you trusted me when I was but a boy at school, and I never abused your confidence.”

“What a fellow you are to read a chap!” returned the trainer admiringly. “Burst my buttons, but you are a cunning one, Master Walter! It is true that I was thinking of letting you into a little secret—though, after all, it mayn't be worth much. Let us come on to the tan-gallop for five minutes, for nowhere else can we get out of earshot of these boys.” With that, passing through a paddock, itself provided with a straw-ride, so that the race-horses need not set foot upon the frost-bound turf as they issued forth to exercise, Mr Chifney led the way to the upland, where a broad brown road of tan was permanently laid on the level down. Here the trainer paused, and speaking aloud for the first time, observed in a solemn tone: “Now, look you, true as fate, I would tell no other man but you. What I said about The King's feet was on the square: but that ain't all. There's a horse here as nobody ever heard of, and yet who's a real good un. He's the one that I said could give Blue Ruin ten pounds. You may get two hundred to one against him at this blessed moment, and he'll be at twenty to one before April Fool Day. It's the best thing we've had at Mirk yet, and—— Ah, the devil! here comes the man I was expecting; remember, we were talking about The King.”

“Morning, Mr Chifney,” said the new-comer, nodding familiarly to the trainer.—“And morning to you, sir, if you ain't too proud to accept it.”

He was a large-built middle-aged man, with a sunburnt countenance, generally good-humoured enough, notwithstanding the presence of a truculent red beard, but upon this occasion, somewhat sullen, and even defiant. Walter recognised in him the stranger stopping at the Lisgard Arms, at once, and was at no loss to account for his displeasure. He had doubtless received some hint that his presence at the Abbey would not be welcome.

“Good-morning, Mr Derrick,” returned the captain cheerfully. “There is no pride about me, since, unfortunately, I have nothing to be proud of; but if there was, why should I not return a civil reply to a civil speech?”

“Oh, because I ain't good enough to speak to,” answered the other scornfully. “Because I ain't a gentleman, forsooth, like your high and mighty family. But the fact is, sir, although I have got decent blood in my veins myself, I come from a country where we don't care that”—and he snapped his fingers with a noise equal to the crack of a whip—“for who is a man's father, unless the man himself is worth his salt.”

“That, then, must have been the reason why this good-for-nothing ruffian left that country,” thought the captain; but he answered with humility: “Then, I fear, I should be giving up my best chance if I went there.”

“Well,” answered the stranger, somewhat mollified, “you don't speak like one of them beastly aristocrats—that I will say—as though it were too much trouble to open their darned lips.”

Mr Derrick himself did not speak like an aristocrat either; his voice, though rich in song, had in speech a strong northern burr, which rescued it from any such imputations. “Why, if a man in my country,” continued he, “should venture to warn another off his land—unless, of course, it was a mining claim—as Sir Richard Lisgard”——

“Mr Derrick,” interrupted the captain firmly, “I am sure that it is not the custom in any country in the world to abuse a man's brother to his face. Having said that much, I will add that, if you have received any rudeness from any one at the Abbey, I am sincerely sorry for it. It did not emanate from me. Mr Chifney here will give me a character so far.”

“Master Walter is as civil-spoken and well-behaved a young gentleman as any in the county,” exclaimed the trainer warmly; “and I will go bail has never given you or any man offence. He has just stepped in, like you, to see 'the crack' on which he has a little money; and since I am not one of those who say: 'It is no use now a days to attempt to take in your enemies, and therefore your friends must suffer,' I have been giving him some advice.”

“About Manylaws?” inquired the stranger suspiciously, turning sharp round upon the captain.

The look of blank astonishment upon that gallant officer's face would have set at rest the doubts of a Pollaky.

“It is not my habit to disclose my customer's secrets,” observed the trainer tartly; “although I may say that, with Master Walter, everything is as safe as wax.”

“Is it so?” quoth Mr Derrick warmly; “then let him come with us and see the Black.—Only mind, Mr Walter Lisgard, I will not have that brother of yours bettered by a fourpenny-piece by anything you may see or hear to-day.”

“My brother never bets upon any race,” answered the captain quietly; “so that promise is easily given.”

“Then come along with me and Mr Chifney,” said the stranger, holding out his hairy hand in token of amity. “You've read a deal about that crack as I've just been looking at; but I dare say, now, you have never so much as heard of this same Manylaws.”

“Not unless you mean the French horse, about which there were a few lines in Bell some time ago—Menelaus.”

“Ay, that's him. But it's called Manylaws” explained Mr Derrick; “for you wouldn't think of calling the Oaks' mare Antigown, I suppose, Antigone. Well, the Black ain't fancied much, I reckon; but he will be, Mr Chifney, eh? He will be?”

“It is my opinion that he will be at very short odds indeed,” returned the trainer; “and many more people will be desirous of paying him a call than do him that honour just at present. This is his stable. He does not look quite such a likely horse as The King, Master Walter, does he? There's bone for you!”

“An ounce of blood is worth a pound of bone, says the proverb,” remarked the captain.

“So far as that goes, although he is a Frenchman,” answered the trainer, “he has Godolphin's blood in his veins. But only look at his ragged hips!”

“Ragged enough, Mr Chifney. And do you mean to say that this animal will be a public favourite?”

“We hope not,” returned the trainer, winking facetiously at his bearded friend; “but—— Shall we tell him what we do hope, Mr Derrick?”

“I'll tell him myself,” quoth the other impulsively, “for you say the young gentleman is safe, and I have taken a sort of unaccountable fancy to him. We hope, and more than that, believe, Captain Lisgard, that that same ragged-hipped horse will Win the Derby!”

“Two hundred to one against Mr Blanquette's Menelaus,” murmured Walter pathetically, as though it were a line from some poem of the affections.

“That's the present quotation,” answered Mr Derrick with a chuckle, and rattling a quantity of loose silver and gold in his breeches' pockets. “Perhaps you would like to lay it in ponies with Mr Chifney and me.”

“No, Mr Derrick; but I should like to thank you very much for letting me into this secret, which, I assure you, shall never pass my lips;” and he held out his hand to the stranger.

“Our way lies together as far as the inn,” returned the other warmly; “we'll liquor—— But there; I forgot I was no longer in Cariboo. I dare say a gentleman like you don't liquor so early in the day.”

“At all events, I will walk with you, my good sir,” answered the captain laughing; and so, forgetting to repeat his request to be permitted to pay his respects to the trainer's wife, he took his departure with his new acquaintance.

“And who is this Monsieur Blanquette?” inquired Walter carelessly as they walked down the village street.

“He was a mate of mine at the gold-diggings in British Columbia, and the only Frenchman as ever I saw there. We did a pretty good stroke of work together; and when we came home, he invested his money in horseflesh, and that there Manylaws was one of his cheapest bargains.”

“I think I saw it stated somewhere that Mr Blanquette is only part-owner of the horse?” observed the captain inquiringly.

“That's so,” rejoined the other. “It belongs to him and a company.”

“And you are the company, eh, Mr Derrick?”

“You have hit it,” responded the bearded man with the air of a proprietor. “This here child is the Co. in question.”

CHAPTER VII. A BROKEN FRIENDSHIP.

WEEKS and months have passed by at Mirk Abbey; the snow has thawed, and the cold winds of March have done their worst, and the spring is clothing nature's nakedness with garments of green. Yet all this time, my Lady, who is so fond of outdoor exercise, even in rough weather, and such a constant visitor of the poor, has never been seen beyond the Park gates. To be sure, she has had more to keep her within than usual, for the captain has got his leave prolonged at the beginning of the year, but came home for three weeks very shortly after, and is at Mirk again at the present time. Miss Rose Aynton, too, a very nice young lady, and most attentive to her hostess, seems to have become quite a resident at the Abbey, for, with the exception of a week's absence in London, she has remained there since Christmas, her departure having indeed been vaguely fixed more than once, but only to be as indefinitely postponed. It is now understood that she will certainly stay over the festivities attendant upon Sir Richard's coming of age in June. The baronet himself, who, his detractors say, always prefers the country, where he is somebody, to town, where baronets are plentiful, has scarcely been away at all. He writes to inquiring friends in London, most of whom happen to have marriageable daughters, that he is immersed in business connected with the estate, and cannot leave Mirk at present. Mr Rinkel, the agent, however, has seen no cause to relax his ordinary exertions, in consequence of this new-born application of the young gentleman to his own affairs; and Walter wickedly asserts that his brother is in reality occupied with no other business whatever, save that of keeping the man Derrick from trespassing upon the Abbey lands. He is very glad, he says, that Richard has at last found an object in life, and hopes that, like the French sportsman's woodcock, it will last him for a good long time.

It does not help to heal the breach between the brothers that Walter and this same man have grown very intimate, a fact which Sir Richard (assuming to himself a metaphor usually applied only to Providence) stigmatises as “flying in his face.”—His mother, however, declines to take this view of it—declines even to express an opinion about it one way or another, and avoids the subject as much as she can. Even with the confidential maid, notwithstanding her decision about Mr Derrick's ineligibility as a suitor, she forbears to reason with respect to this matter, although it is understood that the forbidden swain is gaining ground in the affections of Mistress Forest. There is but one person to whom my Lady has opened her lips concerning the man she dimly saw by lantern-light on Christmas Eve, and has never seen since. Her confidant—if one can be called so to whom so little was confided—is Mr Arthur Haldane, the only son of the doctor, and one who has been a great favourite with Lady Lisgard from his youth up, not for his own sake merely, although he is honest and kind, and very winning with those who look beyond externals (for he is not goodlooking, or, at least, does not appear so by contrast with her own handsome sons), but for another reason: my Lady owed him a reparation of love for a wrong that she had inadvertently done his father.

Dr Haldane and the late Sir Robert had been at school together, and their boy-friendship had lasted, as it seldom does, through their university course. Their mutual esteem had not afterwards suffered by propinquity, when they came to pass their days within a few hundred yards of one another; and when my Lady married, she found that the dearest friend her husband had on earth was Dr Haldane. She was not the woman to come between her husband's friends and himself; and the doctor (who had had his doubts about the matter before he came to know her) was wont to declare the Abbey was even more of a second home to him than it used to he, now that his old friend had placed so charming a mistress at the head of it. He was always welcome there, and being himself a widower, was glad to take advantage of Sir Robert's hospitality whenever he could; a knife and fork were laid for him at table all the year round; and when he did not appear at the dinner-hour, either husband or wife was sure to observe: “I am afraid we shall not see the doctor with us to-day.” It would have seemed as though nothing short of death could have interrupted such cordiality as this.

But in those days there was such a thing as Politics. The baronet was a Tory, and his friend a Whig of what was afterwards called “advanced opinions.” They bickered over their wine three nights out of every seven, though they never failed to drink each other's healths before they sought the company of the hostess. These political discussions (unfortunately, as it turned out) were scrupulously confined to the diningroom, so that my Lady had no idea of the strength of the respective prejudices of the combatants, and of the severity of the trial to which their friendship was so often subjected. Brought up as she had been among persons in humble life, who were engaged in bread-winning (a very monopolising occupation), and educated in France, where the question of English reform was never mooted, she knew little or nothing of the matters which formed the subjects of dispute, although they were setting half England together by the ears. It seems strange to read of now, but the idol which Toryism had set up to worship at that epoch was a heartless and vulgar fop, whom it sycophantically dubbed the First Gentleman in Europe; while the Whigs pinned their faith upon the virtue of his wife, a woman as vulgar as himself, and whom her enemies endeavoured to shew was almost as vicious. Over this good-for-nothing pair, Lords, Commons, and People were quarrelling together, like a mob at a dog-fight, and the public press was solely occupied with hounding them on. To dip into a newspaper of that date is to make an excursion to Billingsgate, for both parties, equally unable to whitewash their candidate, confined themselves to vilifying their opponent.

When the report upon the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline was finally approved by a majority of nine only, and those nine representing the votes of the ministers themselves, the popular excitement culminated. The Whigs decreed that there should be illuminations throughout the kingdom, and (what seems hard) that their adversaries should express the same satisfaction in a similar manner. For three consecutive nights, the Londoners made plain the innocence of their queen, so far as pyrotechnics and oil-lamps could do it; and for one night, the country was expected to do the like. Vast mobs paraded the streets of the provincial towns, to see that this was done, and even made excursions to the country-houses of the Disaffected. Among others, Mirk Abbey was threatened with a visitation of this sort; and I must confess that the doctor rather chuckled over the notion, that the stubborn Sir Robert, who had called his sovereign lady so many opprobrious epithets, would have to dedicate his candles to her, as though she were his patron saint. The baronet, on his part, protested that every window in his house should be broken rather than exhibit so much as a farthing-dip; but he said nothing to his wife about the matter, lest it should make her nervous.

They happened to be engaged to pass that November week at a friend's house in the country, and left home accordingly.

The gentleman with whom they stayed himself suffered some inconvenience from the rioters on the night in question; and when Sir Robert came back, he was even less inclined to be a convert to his Whig friend's opinions than before.

“But you did illuminate,” said the doctor with a chuckle, as they sat together after dinner, as usual, upon the day of his return.

“I did nothing of the kind, sir,” returned the baronet angrily.

“Well, your servants did it for you, then, and I presume by your orders. Mr Brougham himself could not have exhibited his patriotism more significantly. The Abbey was a blaze of light from basement to garret.”

“That is a lie!” cried Sir Robert, making the glasses jump with the force with which he brought his fist down upon the table.

“A what?” exclaimed the doctor, rising from the table livid with rage. “Do you, then, call me a liar?”

“Yes,” thundered the baronet; “like all your radical crew.”

The two men that had so long been nearer and dearer to each other than brothers never again interchanged one word.

Dr Haldane left the Abbey, solemnly protesting that he would never cross its threshold again during the lifetime of its owner; and he kept his determination even in the hour when his old friend lay a-dying.

Now, poor Lady Lisgard was the person to blame for all this. Before Sir Robert and she had set out on their visit, the housekeeper had told her that everybody was going to illuminate their houses on the 12th, on account of what had happened in London with respect to Queen Caroline; and she was afraid that if some sign of rejoicing was not shewn at the Abbey, the mob would do some damage. A candle in each of the windows would save a hundred pounds of mischief belike. “Well, then, put a candle,” said my Lady, not dreaming that by that simple order she was wounding her husband in his most vital point, his pride, and making a sacrifice of principles that he held only second to those of the Christian Religion. She did not even think it necessary to tell him that she had left this command behind her; but when she heard him praise the determination of the friend with whom they stayed, not to submit to the dictation of the rabble, she had not the heart to tell him of the mistake she had committed, and which it was by that time too late to remedy. That mistake, and, still more, her unfortunate reticence, had caused the quarrel, destined never to be healed, betwixt her husband and his friend. They both forgave her, but she could not forgive herself. It seemed to her that she could never do enough to shew how sorry she was for her grievous fault. We have said how she made up so far as was in her power, in love and duty to Sir Robert, for the loss of his friend; but to that friend himself, self-exiled from her roof, and out of the reach, as it were, of reparation, how was she to atone for the wrong she had inadvertently done him? When the quarrel first took place, the doctor's wrath was quite unquenchable; he would listen to nothing except an apology—a debt which Sir Robert (although he certainly owed it) most resolutely refused to pay. The doctor, who had hitherto confined his Whiggism to after-dinner eloquence, and coarse but biting epigrams, which had earned him the reputation of a philosopher with those of his own party, thereupon became an active political partisan, and not only voted at election-time, but canvassed with might and main against the Lisgard interest; nay, he even composed, as we have ventured to hint, satirical ballads against the paternal rule of that respectable family.

But although neither sex nor age was spared in those savage days, not one word did the vengeful doctor breathe about my Lady; nay, it was on record that when some too uncompromising apostle of Liberty had reflected upon her humble extraction in the presence of that friend estranged, he had risen to his full height of five feet eight, and levelled the slanderer to the earth. Perhaps my Lady did not esteem him the less upon that account; but certain it was that the first visit she paid after Sir Robert's death was to the doctor's house, taking with her, it was said, from her husband's dying lips, a message of affectionate reconciliation. The baronet had never brought himself to alter the words in his will by which he had appointed his tried and loving friend, Bartholomew Haldane, trustee for his children; and of course the doctor accepted his trust. He never could be induced to visit the Abbey, although his oath no longer forbade it; but the Lisgard children were his constant guests, and his only son, Arthur Haldane, was as another brother to them, and almost as another son to my Lady. His nature was grave and serious, like Sir Richard's, but very tender withal, and she felt that she could confide in him what she could not have confided to the rigid young baronet, although he was her own flesh and blood; nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, when she took Arthur's arm that April morning, upon pretence of shewing him some alterations that were proposed to be made at a place in the Abbey-grounds called the “Watersmeet,” she thought it necessary to preface what she was going to say to him with an explanation.

“My dear Arthur,” said she, when they had got out of view of the house, “you will think it cruel that I have brought you away from the society of that charming young lady, Miss Aynton, to chat with an old woman like me, who have boys of my own to take counsel with; but the fact is, I have inveigled you hither to get an opinion from you which I could scarcely ask of your learned brother.”

This was conferring a brevet rank upon Sir Richard, who had not yet been called to the Bar, although he was reading for it; while Arthur had been in practice for some years.

“My dear Lady Lisgard,” returned the other smiling, “I must, for my professional credit's sake, enter my protest against what you say about Miss Aynton, as irrelevant, and travelling out of the record, but besides that, it is a delusion which I should be sorry to see you entertain. Miss Aynton is nothing whatever to me; although, indeed, if she were, I would rather chat with you than with any young lady (save one) in Christendom.”

The young barrister's tone was so unnecessarily earnest and impressive, that one so acute as Lady Lisgard could scarcely have failed to see that he courted inquiry concerning such excess of zeal. She either saw it not, however, or refused to see it; and he was far too delicate by nature to press it upon her attention. “And now, ma mère,” continued he, taking her hand in his affectionately, “in what way can I be of use to you?”

“By your good sense, and by your good feeling, Arthur. I need the aid of your talents and your virtues, too, dear boy; I want your best advice, and then your promise that you will never disclose that I have asked it.”

“You shall have both those, ma mère. As the pashas say to the sultan when there is nothing to fear: 'I bring you my head;' as for my heart—that has been devoted to you these many years.”

MIRK ABBEY,

By James Payn

The Author of “Lost Sir Massengberd;” “the Clyffards Of Glyffe;” etc., etc.

In Three Volumes. Vol. I.

London: Hurst And Blackett, Publishers,1866.

TOCharles Dickens,This Book Is, By Permission,Cordially dedicated.

CHAPTER I. IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER.