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The Vicar of Bullhampton

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Title: The Vicar of Bullhampton

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: September 5, 2008 [eBook #26541]
                Most recently updated: July 6, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26541

Credits: E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON ***




THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON.

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

With Thirty Illustrations by H. Woods.






[Illustration: Waiting-Room at the Assize Court. (frontispiece)]


[Illustration for title page]



London:
Bradbury, Evans, and Co., 11, Bouverie Street.
1870.




PREFACE.


The writing of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away; and
the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing.
Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on
its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but
desirous, in doing so, of defending myself against a charge which may
possibly be made against me by the critics,--as to which I shall be
unwilling to revert after it shall have been preferred.

I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a girl
whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in its
truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with
qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at
last from degradation at least to decency. I have not married her to
a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there
was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be
with her as they would have been had she not fallen.

There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, who
professes to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes,
should allow himself to bring upon his stage such a character as that
of Carry Brattle? It is not long since,--it is well within the memory
of the author,--that the very existence of such a condition of life,
as was hers, was supposed to be unknown to our sisters and daughters,
and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that ignorance
was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longer is beyond
question. Then arises that further question,--how far the condition
of such unfortunates should be made a matter of concern to the sweet
young hearts of those whose delicacy and cleanliness of thought is a
matter of pride to so many of us. Cannot women, who are good, pity
the sufferings of the vicious, and do something perhaps to mitigate
and shorten them, without contamination from the vice? It will be
admitted probably by most men who have thought upon the subject that
no fault among us is punished so heavily as that fault, often so
light in itself but so terrible in its consequences to the less
faulty of the two offenders, by which a woman falls. All her own sex
is against her,--and all those of the other sex in whose veins runs
the blood which she is thought to have contaminated, and who, of
nature, would befriend her were her trouble any other than it is.

She is what she is, and remains in her abject, pitiless, unutterable
misery, because this sentence of the world has placed her beyond
the helping hand of Love and Friendship. It may be said, no doubt,
that the severity of this judgment acts as a protection to female
virtue,--deterring, as all known punishments do deter, from vice. But
this punishment, which is horrible beyond the conception of those who
have not regarded it closely, is not known beforehand. Instead of the
punishment there is seen a false glitter of gaudy life,--a glitter
which is damnably false,--and which, alas, has been more often
portrayed in glowing colours, for the injury of young girls, than
have those horrors, which ought to deter, with the dark shadowings
which belong to them.

To write in fiction of one so fallen as the noblest of her sex, as
one to be rewarded because of her weakness, as one whose life is
happy, bright, and glorious, is certainly to allure to vice and
misery. But it may perhaps be possible that if the matter be handled
with truth to life, some girl, who would have been thoughtless, may
be made thoughtful, or some parent's heart may be softened. It may
also at last be felt that this misery is worthy of alleviation, as is
every misery to which humanity is subject.

A. T.




CONTENTS

      I. BULLHAMPTON
     II. FLO'S RED BALL
    III. SAM BRATTLE
     IV. THERE IS NO ONE ELSE
      V. THE MILLER
     VI. BRATTLE'S MILL
    VII. THE MILLER'S WIFE
   VIII. THE LAST DAY
     IX. MISS MARRABLE
      X. CRUNCH'EM CAN'T BE HAD
     XI. DON'T YOU BE AFEARD ABOUT ME
    XII. BONE'M AND HIS MASTER
   XIII. CAPTAIN MARRABLE AND HIS FATHER
    XIV. COUSINHOOD
     XV. THE POLICE AT FAULT
    XVI. MISS LOWTHER ASKS FOR ADVICE
   XVII. THE MARQUIS OF TROWBRIDGE
  XVIII. BLANK PAPER
    XIX. SAM BRATTLE RETURNS HOME
     XX. I HAVE A JUPITER OF MY OWN NOW
    XXI. WHAT PARSON JOHN THINKS ABOUT IT
   XXII. WHAT THE FENWICKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT
  XXIII. WHAT MR. GILMORE THOUGHT ABOUT IT
   XXIV. THE REV. HENRY FITZACKERLEY CHAMBERLAINE
    XXV. CARRY BRATTLE
   XXVI. THE TURNOVER CORRESPONDENCE
  XXVII. "I NEVER SHAMED NONE OF THEM"
 XXVIII. MRS. BRATTLE'S JOURNEY
   XXIX. THE BULL AT LORING
    XXX. THE AUNT AND THE UNCLE
   XXXI. MARY LOWTHER FEELS HER WAY
  XXXII. MR. GILMORE'S SUCCESS
 XXXIII. FAREWELL
  XXXIV. BULLHAMPTON NEWS
   XXXV. MR. PUDDLEHAM'S NEW CHAPEL
  XXXVI. SAM BRATTLE GOES OFF AGAIN
 XXXVII. FEMALE MARTYRDOM
XXXVIII. A LOVER'S MADNESS
  XXXIX. THE THREE HONEST MEN
     XL. TROTTER'S BUILDINGS
    XLI. STARTUP FARM
   XLII. MR. QUICKENHAM, Q.C.
  XLIII. EASTER AT TURNOVER CASTLE
   XLIV. THE MARRABLES OF DUNRIPPLE
    XLV. WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MYSELF?
   XLVI. MR. JAY OF WARMINSTER
  XLVII. SAM BRATTLE IS WANTED
 XLVIII. MARY LOWTHER RETURNS TO BULLHAMPTON
   XLIX. MARY LOWTHER'S DOOM
      L. MARY LOWTHER INSPECTS HER FUTURE HOME
     LI. THE GRINDER AND HIS COMRADE
    LII. CARRY BRATTLE'S JOURNEY
   LIII. THE FATTED CALF
    LIV. MR. GILMORE'S RUBIES
     LV. GLEBE LAND
    LVI. THE VICAR'S VENGEANCE
   LVII. OIL IS TO BE THROWN UPON THE WATERS
  LVIII. EDITH BROWNLOW'S DREAM
    LIX. NEWS FROM DUNRIPPLE
     LX. LORD ST. GEORGE IS VERY CUNNING
    LXI. MARY LOWTHER'S TREACHERY
   LXII. UP AT THE PRIVETS
  LXIII. THE MILLER TELLS HIS TROUBLES
   LXIV. IF I WERE YOUR SISTER!
    LXV. MARY LOWTHER LEAVES BULLHAMPTON
   LXVI. AT THE MILL
  LXVII. SIR GREGORY MARRABLE HAS A HEADACHE
 LXVIII. THE SQUIRE IS VERY OBSTINATE
   LXIX. THE TRIAL
    LXX. THE FATE OF THE PUDDLEHAMITES
   LXXI. THE END OF MARY LOWTHER'S STORY
  LXXII. AT TURNOVER CASTLE
 LXXIII. CONCLUSION




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

   WAITING-ROOM AT THE ASSIZE COURT.               (_frontispiece_)

   "YOU SHOULD GIVE HIM AN ANSWER, DEAR, ONE WAY
   OR THE OTHER."                                      (Chapter II)

   "I THOUGHT I SHOULD CATCH YOU IDLE JUST AT THIS
   MOMENT," SAID THE CLERGYMAN.                        (Chapter VI)

   MR. FENWICK CAME ROUND FROM FARMER TRUMBULL'S
   SIDE OF THE CHURCH, AND GOT OVER THE STILE
   INTO THE CHURCHYARD.                              (Chapter VIII)

   "I HOPE IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT NOW,
   MR. FENWICK," THE GIRL SAID.                        (Chapter XI)

   "HOW DARE YOU MENTION MY DAUGHTERS?"              (Chapter XVII)

   "IT IS ALL BLANK PAPER WITH YOU?"                (Chapter XVIII)

   "I HAVE COME TO SAY A WORD, IF I CAN,
   TO COMFORT YOU."                                 (Chapter XXIII)

   "CARRY," HE SAID, COMING BACK TO HER, "IT
   WASN'T ALL FOR HIM THAT I CAME."                   (Chapter XXV)

   PARSON JOHN AND WALTER MARRABLE.                  (Chapter XXIX)

   MARY LOWTHER WRITES TO WALTER MARRABLE.         (Chapter XXXIII)

   SITE OF MR. PUDDLEHAM'S NEW CHAPEL.            (Chapter XXXVIII)

   "DO COME IN, HARRY."                           (Chapter XXXVIII)

   "I DARE SAY NOT," SAID MR. QUICKENHAM.            (Chapter XLII)

   SUNDAY MORNING AT DUNRIPPLE.                      (Chapter XLIV)

   "WHO ARE YOU, SIR, THAT YOU SHOULD
   INTERPRET MY WORDS?"                             (Chapter XLVII)

   CARRY BRATTLE.                                     (Chapter LII)

   "IF I MAY BIDE WITH YOU,--IF I MAY
   BIDE WITH YOU--."                                 (Chapter LIII)

   MR. QUICKENHAM'S LETTER DISCUSSED.                  (Chapter LV)

   SHE HAD BROUGHT HIM OUT A CUP OF COFFEE.         (Chapter LVIII)

   "IT'S IN HERE, MUSTER FENWICK,--IN HERE."        (Chapter LXIII)

   "OH, FATHER," SHE SAID, "I WILL BE GOOD."         (Chapter LXVI)

   THE DRAWING-ROOM AT TURNOVER CASTLE.             (Chapter LXXII)




THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON.



CHAPTER I.

BULLHAMPTON.


[Illustration]

I am disposed to believe that no novel reader in England has seen the
little town of Bullhampton, in Wiltshire, except such novel readers
as live there, and those others, very few in number, who visit it
perhaps four times a year for the purposes of trade, and who are
known as commercial gentlemen. Bullhampton is seventeen miles from
Salisbury, eleven from Marlborough, nine from Westbury, seven from
Haylesbury, and five from the nearest railroad station, which is
called Bullhampton Road, and lies on the line from Salisbury to
Yeovil. It is not quite on Salisbury Plain, but probably was so once,
when Salisbury Plain was wider than it is now. Whether it should be
called a small town or a large village I cannot say. It has no mayor,
and no market, but it has a fair. There rages a feud in Bullhampton
touching this want of a market, as there are certain Bullhamptonites
who aver that the charter giving all rights of a market to
Bullhampton does exist; and that at one period in its history the
market existed also,--for a year or two; but the three bakers and
two butchers are opposed to change; and the patriots of the place,
though they declaim on the matter over their evening pipes and
gin-and-water, have not enough of matutinal zeal to carry out their
purpose. Bullhampton is situated on a little river, which meanders
through the chalky ground, and has a quiet, slow, dreamy prettiness
of its own. A mile above the town,--for we will call it a town,--the
stream divides itself into many streamlets, and there is a district
called the Water Meads, in which bridges are more frequent than
trustworthy, in which there are hundreds of little sluice-gates for
regulating the irrigation, and a growth of grass which is a source
of much anxiety and considerable trouble to the farmers. There is a
water-mill here, too, very low, with ever a floury, mealy look, with
a pasty look often, as the flour becomes damp with the spray of the
water as it is thrown by the mill-wheel. It seems to be a tattered,
shattered, ramshackle concern, but it has been in the same family
for many years; and as the family has not hitherto been in distress,
it may be supposed that the mill still affords a fair means of
livelihood. The Brattles,--for Jacob Brattle is the miller's
name,--have ever been known as men who paid their way, and were able
to hold up their heads. But nevertheless Jacob Brattle is ever at
war with his landlord in regard to repairs wanted for his mill,
and Mr. Gilmore, the landlord in question, declares that he wishes
that the Avon would some night run so high as to carry off the mill
altogether. Bullhampton is very quiet. There is no special trade
in the place. Its interests are altogether agricultural. It has
no newspaper. Its tendencies are altogether conservative. It is
a good deal given to religion; and the Primitive Methodists have
a very strong holding there, although in all Wiltshire there is
not a clergyman more popular in his own parish than the Rev. Frank
Fenwick. He himself, in his inner heart, rather likes his rival,
Mr. Puddleham, the dissenting minister; because Mr. Puddleham is an
earnest man, who, in spite of the intensity of his ignorance, is
efficacious among the poor. But Mr. Fenwick is bound to keep up the
fight; and Mr. Puddleham considers it to be his duty to put down Mr.
Fenwick and the Church Establishment altogether.

The men of Bullhampton, and the women also, are aware that the glory
has departed from them, in that Bullhampton was once a borough, and
returned two members to Parliament. No borough more close, or shall
we say more rotten, ever existed. It was not that the Marquis of
Trowbridge had, what has often delicately been called, an interest in
it; but he held it absolutely in his breeches pocket, to do with it
as he liked; and it had been the liking of the late Marquis to sell
one of the seats at every election to the highest bidder on his side
in politics. Nevertheless, the people of Bullhampton had gloried
in being a borough, and the shame, or at least the regret of their
downfall, had not yet altogether passed away when the tidings of
a new Reform Bill came upon them. The people of Bullhampton are
notoriously slow to learn, and slow to forget. It was told of a
farmer of Bullhampton, in old days, that he asked what had become of
Charles I., when told that Charles II. had been restored. Cromwell
had come and gone, and had not disturbed him at Bullhampton.

At Bullhampton there is no public building, except the church, which
indeed is a very handsome edifice with a magnificent tower, a thing
to go to see, and almost as worthy of a visit as its neighbour the
cathedral at Salisbury. The body of the church is somewhat low, but
its yellow-gray colour is perfect, and there is, moreover, a Norman
door, and there are Early English windows in the aisle, and a
perfection of perpendicular architecture in the chancel, all of which
should bring many visitors to Bullhampton; and there are brasses in
the nave, very curious, and one or two tombs of the Gilmore family,
very rare in their construction, and the churchyard is large and
green, and bowery, with the Avon flowing close under it, and nooks in
it which would make a man wish to die that he might be buried there.
The church and churchyard of Bullhampton are indeed perfect, and yet
but few people go to see it. It has not as yet had its own bard to
sing its praises. Properly it is called Bullhampton Monachorum, the
living having belonged to the friars of Chiltern. The great tithes
now go to the Earl of Todmorden, who has no other interest in the
place whatever, and who never saw it. The benefice belongs to St.
John's, Oxford, and as the vicarage is not worth more than £400 a
year, it happens that a clergyman generally accepts it before he has
lived for twenty or thirty years in the common room of his college.
Mr. Fenwick took it on his marriage, when he was about twenty-seven,
and Bullhampton has been lucky.

The bulk of the parish belongs to the Marquis of Trowbridge, who,
however, has no residence within ten miles of it. The squire of the
parish is Squire Gilmore,--Harry Gilmore,--and he possesses every
acre in it that is not owned by the Marquis. With the village, or
town as it may be, Mr. Gilmore has no concern; but he owns a large
tract of the water meads, and again has a farm or two up on the
downs as you go towards Chiltern. But they lie out of the parish of
Bullhampton. Altogether he is a man of about fifteen hundred a year,
and as he is not as yet married, many a Wiltshire mother's eye is
turned towards Hampton Privets, as Mr. Gilmore's house is, somewhat
fantastically, named.

Mr. Gilmore's character must be made to develope itself in these
pages,--if such developing may be accomplished. He is to be our
hero,--or at least one of two. The author will not, in these early
words, declare that the squire will be his favourite hero, as he
will wish that his readers should form their own opinions on that
matter. At this period he was a man somewhat over thirty,--perhaps
thirty-three years of age, who had done fairly well at Harrow and at
Oxford, but had never done enough to make his friends regard him as a
swan. He still read a good deal; but he shot and fished more than he
read, and had become, since his residence at the Privets, very fond
of the outside of his books. Nevertheless, he went on buying books,
and was rather proud of his library. He had travelled a good deal,
and was a politician,--somewhat scandalising his own tenants and
other Bullhamptonites by voting for the liberal candidates for his
division of the county. The Marquis of Trowbridge did not know him,
but regarded him as an objectionable person, who did not understand
the nature of the duties which devolved upon him as a country
gentleman; and the Marquis himself was always spoken of by Mr.
Gilmore as--an idiot. On these various grounds the squire has
hitherto regarded himself as being a little in advance of other
squires, and has, perhaps, given himself more credit than he has
deserved for intellectuality. But he is a man with a good heart, and
a pure mind, generous, desirous of being just, somewhat sparing of
that which is his own, never desirous of that which is another's. He
is good-looking, though, perhaps, somewhat ordinary in appearance;
tall, strong, with dark-brown hair, and dark-brown whiskers, with
small, quick grey eyes, and teeth which are almost too white and too
perfect for a man. Perhaps it is his greatest fault that he thinks
that as a liberal politician and as an English country gentleman he
has combined in his own position all that is most desirable upon
earth. To have the acres without the acre-laden brains, is, he
thinks, everything.

And now it may be as well told at once that Mr. Gilmore is over head
and ears in love with a young lady to whom he has offered his hand
and all that can be made to appertain to the future mistress of
Hampton Privets. And the lady is one who has nothing to give in
return but her hand, and her heart, and herself. The neighbours all
round the country have been saying for the last five years that Harry
Gilmore was looking out for an heiress; for it has always been told
of Harry, especially among those who have opposed him in politics,
that he had a keen eye for the main chance. But Mary Lowther has not,
and never can have, a penny with which to make up for any deficiency
in her own personal attributes. But Mary is a lady, and Harry Gilmore
thinks her the sweetest woman on whom his eye ever rested. Whatever
resolutions as to fortune-hunting he may have made,--though probably
none were ever made,--they have all now gone to the winds. He is so
absolutely in love that nothing in the world is, to him, at present
worth thinking about except Mary Lowther. I do not doubt that he
would vote for a conservative candidate if Mary Lowther so ordered
him; or consent to go and live in New York if Mary Lowther would
accept him on no other condition. All Bullhampton parish is nothing
to him at the present moment, except as far as it is connected with
Mary Lowther. Hampton Privets is dear to him only as far as it can be
made to look attractive in the eyes of Mary Lowther. The mill is to
be repaired, though he knows he will never get any interest on the
outlay, because Mary Lowther has said that Bullhampton water-meads
would be destroyed if the mill were to tumble down. He has drawn for
himself mental pictures of Mary Lowther till he has invested her with
every charm and grace and virtue that can adorn a woman. In very
truth he believes her to be perfect. He is actually and absolutely in
love. Mary Lowther has hitherto neither accepted nor rejected him.
In a very few lines further on we will tell how the matter stands
between them.

It has already been told that the Rev. Frank Fenwick is Vicar of
Bullhampton. Perhaps he was somewhat guided in his taking of the
living by the fact that Harry Gilmore, the squire of the parish,
had been his very intimate friend at Oxford. Fenwick, at the period
with which we are about to begin our story, had been six years at
Bullhampton, and had been married about five and a half. Of him
something has already been said, and perhaps it may be only necessary
further to state that he is a tall, fair-haired man, already becoming
somewhat bald on the top of his head, with bright eyes, and the
slightest possible amount of whiskers, and a look about his nose and
mouth which seems to imply that he could be severe if he were not so
thoroughly good-humoured. He has more of breeding in his appearance
than his friend,--a show of higher blood; though whence comes such
show, and how one discerns that appearance, few of us can tell. He
was a man who read more and thought more than Harry Gilmore, though
given much to athletics and very fond of field sports. It shall
only further be said of Frank Fenwick that he esteemed both his
churchwardens and his bishop, and was afraid of neither.

His wife had been a Miss Balfour, from Loring, in Gloucestershire,
and had had some considerable fortune. She was now the mother of
four children, and, as Fenwick used to say, might have fourteen for
anything he knew. But as he also had possessed some small means
of his own, there was no poverty, or prospect of poverty at the
vicarage, and the babies were made welcome as they came. Mrs. Fenwick
is as good a specimen of an English country parson's wife as you
shall meet in a county,--gay, good-looking, fond of the society
around her, with a little dash of fun, knowing in blankets and
corduroys and coals and tea; knowing also as to beer and gin and
tobacco; acquainted with every man and woman in the parish; thinking
her husband to be quite as good as the squire in regard to position,
and to be infinitely superior to the squire, or any other man in
the world, in regard to his personal self;--a handsome, pleasant,
well-dressed lady, who has no nonsense about her. Such a one was, and
is, Mrs. Fenwick.

Now the Balfours were considerable people at Loring, though their
property was not county property; and it was always considered that
Janet Balfour might have done better than she did, in a worldly point
of view. Of that, however, little had been said at Loring, because it
soon became known there that she and her husband stood rather well in
the country round about Bullhampton; and when she asked Mary Lowther
to come and stay with her for six months, Mary Lowther's aunt, Miss
Marrable, had nothing to say against the arrangement, although she
herself was a most particular old lady, and always remembered that
Mary Lowther was third or fourth cousin to some earl in Scotland.
Nothing more shall be said of Miss Marrable at present, as it is
expedient, for the sake of the story, that the reader should fix his
attention on Bullhampton till he find himself quite at home there.
I would wish him to know his way among the water meads, to be quite
alive to the fact that the lodge of Hampton Privets is a mile and a
quarter to the north of Bullhampton church, and half a mile across
the fields west from Brattle's mill; that Mr. Fenwick's parsonage
adjoins the churchyard, being thus a little farther from Hampton
Privets than the church; and that there commences Bullhampton street,
with its inn,--the Trowbridge Arms, its four public-houses, its three
bakers, and its two butchers. The bounds of the parsonage run down
to the river, so that the Vicar can catch his trout from his own
bank,--though he much prefers to catch them at distances which admit
of the appurtenances of sport.

Now there must be one word of Mary Lowther, and then the story shall
be commenced. She had come to the vicarage in May, intending to stay
a month, and it was now August, and she had been already three months
with her friend. Everybody said that she was staying because she
intended to become the mistress of Hampton Privets. It was a month
since Harry Gilmore had formally made his offer, and as she had not
refused him, and as she still stayed on, the folk of Bullhampton were
justified in their conclusions. She was a tall girl, with dark brown
hair, which she wore fastened in a knot at the back of her head,
after the simplest fashion. Her eyes were large and grey, and full
of lustre; but they were not eyes which would make you say that Mary
Lowther was especially a bright-eyed girl. They were eyes, however,
which could make you think, when they looked at you, that if Mary
Lowther would only like you, how happy your lot would be,--that if
she would love you, the world would have nothing higher or better to
offer. If you judged her face by any rules of beauty, you would say
that it was too thin; but feeling its influence with sympathy, you
could never wish it to be changed. Her nose and mouth were perfect.
How many little noses there are on young women's faces which of
themselves cannot be said to be things of beauty, or joys for ever,
although they do very well in their places! There is the softness
and colour of youth, and perhaps a dash of fun, and the eyes above
are bright, and the lips below alluring. In the midst of such sweet
charms, what does it matter that the nose be puggish,--or even a
nose of putty, such as you think you might improve in the original
material by a squeeze of your thumb and forefinger? But with Mary
Lowther her nose itself was a feature of exquisite beauty, a feature
that could be eloquent with pity, reverence, or scorn. The curves of
the nostrils, with their almost transparent membranes, told of the
working of the mind within, as every portion of human face should
tell--in some degree. And the mouth was equally expressive, though
the lips were thin. It was a mouth to watch, and listen to, and read
with curious interest, rather than a mouth to kiss. Not but that
the desire to kiss would come, when there might be a hope to kiss
with favour;--but they were lips which no man would think to ravage
in boisterous play. It might have been said that there was a want
of capability for passion in her face, had it not been for the
well-marked dimple in her little chin,--that soft couch in which one
may be always sure, when one sees it, that some little imp of Love
lies hidden.

It has already been said that Mary Lowther was tall,--taller than
common. Her back was as lovely a form of womanhood as man's eye ever
measured and appreciated. Her movements, which were never naturally
quick, had a grace about them which touched men and women alike. It
was the very poetry of motion; but its chief beauty consisted in
this, that it was what it was by no effort of her own. We have all
seen those efforts, and it may be that many of us have liked them
when they have been made on our own behalf. But no man as yet could
ever have felt himself to be so far flattered by Miss Lowther. Her
dress was very plain; as it became her that it should be, for she was
living on the kindness of an aunt who was herself not a rich woman.
But it may be doubted whether dress could have added much to her
charms.

She was now turned one-and-twenty, and though, doubtless, there were
young men at Loring who had sighed for her smiles, no young man had
sighed with any efficacy. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that she
was not a girl for whom the most susceptible of young men would sigh.
Young men given to sigh are generally attracted by some outward and
visible sign of softness which may be taken as an indication that
sighing will produce some result, however small. At Loring it was
said that Mary Lowther was cold and repellent, and, on that account,
one who might very probably descend to the shades as an old maid in
spite of the beauty of which she was the acknowledged possessor. No
enemy, no friend, had ever accused her of being a flirt.

Such as she was, Harry Gilmore's passion for her much astonished his
friends. Those who knew him best had thought that, as regarded his
fate matrimonial,--or non-matrimonial,--there were three chances
before him: he might carry out their presumed intention of marrying
money; or he might become the sudden spoil of the bow and spear of
some red-cheeked lass; or he might walk on as an old bachelor, too
cautious to be caught at all. But none believed that he would become
the victim of a grand passion for a poor, reticent, high-bred,
high-minded specimen of womanhood. Such, however, was now his
condition.

He had an uncle, a clergyman, living at Salisbury, a prebendary
there, who was a man of the world, and in whom Harry trusted more
than in any other member of his own family. His mother had been
the sister of the Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Chamberlaine; and as Mr.
Chamberlaine had never married, much of his solicitude was bestowed
upon his nephew.

"Don't, my dear fellow," had been the prebendary's advice when he was
taken over to see Miss Lowther. "She is a lady, no doubt; but you
would never be your own master, and you would be a poor man till you
died. An easy temper and a little money are almost as common in our
rank of life as destitution and obstinacy." On the day after this
advice was given, Harry Gilmore made his formal offer.




CHAPTER II.

FLO'S RED BALL.


"You should give him an answer, dear, one way or the other." These
wise words were spoken by Mrs. Fenwick to her friend as they sat
together, with their work in their hands, on a garden seat under a
cedar tree. It was an August evening after dinner, and the Vicar was
out about his parish. The two elder children were playing in the
garden, and the two young women were alone together.


[Illustration: "You should give him an answer, dear, one way
or the other."]


"Of course I shall give him an answer. What answer does he wish?"

"You know what answer he wishes. If any man was ever in earnest he
is."

"Am I not doing the best I can for him then in waiting--to see
whether I can say yes?"

"It cannot be well for him to be in suspense on such a matter; and,
dear Mary, it cannot be well for you either. One always feels that
when a girl bids a man to wait, she will take him after a while. It
always comes to that. If you had been at home at Loring, the time
would not have been much; but, being so near to him, and seeing him
every day, must be bad. You must both be in a state of fever."

"Then I will go back to Loring."

"No; not now, till you have positively made up your mind, and given
him an answer one way or the other. You could not go now and leave
him in doubt. Take him at once, and have done with it. He is as good
as gold."

In answer to this, Mary for a while said nothing, but went sedulously
on with her work.

"Mamma," said a little girl, running up, followed by a nursery-maid,
"the ball's in the water!"

The child was a beautiful fair-haired little darling about
four-and-a-half years old, and a boy, a year younger, and a little
shorter, and a little stouter, was toddling after her.

"The ball in the water, Flo! Can't Jim get it out?"

"Jim's gone, mamma."

Then Jane, the nursery-maid, proceeded to explain that the ball had
rolled in and had been carried down the stream to some bushes, and
that it was caught there just out of reach of all that she, Jane,
could do with a long stick for its recovery. Jim, the gardener, was
not to be found; and they were in despair lest the ball should become
wet through and should perish.

Mary at once saw her opportunity of escape,--her opportunity for that
five minutes of thought by herself which she needed. "I'll come, Flo,
and see what can be done," said Mary.

"Do; 'cause you is so big," said the little girl.

"We'll see if my long arms won't do as well as Jim's," said Mary;
"only Jim would go in, perhaps, which I certainly shall not do." Then
she took Flo by the hand, and together they ran down to the margin of
the river.

There lay the treasure, a huge red inflated ball, just stopped in its
downward current by a short projecting stick. Jim could have got it
certainly, because he could have suspended himself over the stream
from a bough, and could have dislodged the ball, and have floated it
on to the bank.

"Lean over, Mary,--a great deal, and we'll hold you," said Flo, to
whom her ball was at this moment worth any effort. Mary did lean
over, and poked at it, and at last thought that she would trust
herself to the bough, as Jim would have done, and became more
and more venturous, and at last touched the ball, and then, at
last,--fell into the river! Immediately there was a scream and a
roar, and a splashing about of skirts and petticoats, and by the
time that Mrs. Fenwick was on the bank, Mary Lowther had extricated
herself, and had triumphantly brought out Flo's treasure with her.

"Mary, are you hurt?" said her friend.

"What should hurt me? Oh dear, oh dear! I never fell into a river
before. My darling Flo, don't be unhappy. It's such good fun. Only
you mustn't fall in yourself, till you're as big as I am." Flo was in
an agony of tears, not deigning to look at the rescued ball.

"You do not mean that your head has been under?" said Mrs. Fenwick.

"My face was, and I felt so odd. For about half a moment I had a
sound of Ophelia in my ears. Then I was laughing at myself for being
such a goose."

"You'd better come up and go to bed, dear; and I'll get you something
warm."

"I won't go to bed, and I won't have anything warm; but I will change
my clothes. What an adventure! What will Mr. Fenwick say?"

"What will Mr. Gilmore say?" To this Mary Lowther made no answer, but
went straight up to the house, and into her room, and changed her
clothes.

While she was there Fenwick and Gilmore both appeared at the open
window of the drawing-room in which Mrs. Fenwick was sitting. She had
known well enough that Harry Gilmore would not let the evening pass
without coming to the vicarage, and at one time had hoped to persuade
Mary Lowther to give her verdict on this very day. Both she and her
husband were painfully anxious that Harry might succeed. Fenwick had
loved the man dearly for many years, and Janet Fenwick had loved him
since she had known him as her husband's friend. They both felt that
he was showing more of manhood than they had expected from him in the
persistency of his love, and that he deserved his reward. And they
both believed also that for Mary herself it would be a prosperous and
a happy marriage. And then, where is the married woman who does not
wish that the maiden friend who comes to stay with her should find a
husband in her house? The parson and his wife were altogether of one
mind in this matter, and thought that Mary Lowther ought to be made
to give herself to Harry Gilmore.

"What do you think has happened?" said Mrs. Fenwick, coming to the
window, which opened down to the ground. "Mary Lowther has fallen
into the river."

"Fallen where?" shouted Gilmore, putting up both his hands, and
seeming to prepare himself to rush away among the river gods in
search of his love.

"Don't be alarmed, Mr. Gilmore, she's upstairs, quite safe,--only she
has had a ducking." Then the circumstances were explained, and the
papa declared magisterially that Flo must not play any more with her
ball near the river,--an order to which it was not probable that much
close attention would ever be paid.

"I suppose Miss Lowther will have gone to bed?" said Gilmore.

"On the contrary, I expect her every moment. I suggested bed, and
warm drinks, and cossetting; but she would have none of it. She
scrambled out all by herself, and seemed to think it very good fun."

"Come in at any rate and have some tea," said the Vicar. "If you
start before eleven, I'll walk half the way back with you."

In the mean time, in spite of her accident, Mary had gained the
opportunity that she had required. The point for self-meditation was
not so much whether she would or would not accept Mr. Gilmore now,
as that other point;--was she or was she not wrong to keep him in
suspense. She knew very well that she would not accept him now. It
seemed to her that a girl should know a man very thoroughly before
she would be justified in trusting herself altogether to his hands,
and she thought that her knowledge of Mr. Gilmore was insufficient.
It might however be the case that in such circumstances duty required
her to give him at once an unhesitating answer. She did not find
herself to be a bit nearer to knowing him and to loving him than she
was a month since. Her friend Janet had complained again and again of
the suspense to which she was subjecting the man;--but she knew on
the other hand that her friend Janet did this in her intense anxiety
to promote the match. Was it wrong to say to the man--"I will wait
and try?" Her friend told her that to say that she would wait and
try, was in truth to say that she would take him at some future
time;--that any girl who said so had almost committed herself to
such a decision;--that the very fact that she was waiting and trying
to love a man ought to bind her to the man at last. Such certainly
had not been her own idea. As far as she could at present look into
her own future feelings, she did not think that she could ever
bring herself to say that she would be this man's wife. There was a
solemnity about the position which had never come fully home to her
before she had been thus placed. Everybody around her told her that
the man's happiness was really bound up in her reply. If this were
so,--and she in truth believed that it was so,--was she not bound
to give him every chance in her power? And yet because she still
doubted, she was told by her friend that she was behaving badly! She
would believe her friend, would confess her fault, and would tell her
lover in what most respectful words of denial she could mould, that
she would not be his wife. For herself personally, there would be no
sorrow in this, and no regret.

Her ducking had given her time for all this thought; and then, having
so decided, she went downstairs. She was met, of course, with various
inquiries about her bath. Mr. Gilmore was all pity, as though the
accident were the most serious thing in the world. Mr. Fenwick
was all mirth, as though there had never been a better joke. Mrs.
Fenwick, who was perhaps unwise in her impatience, was specially
anxious that her two guests might be left together. She did not
believe that Mary Lowther would ever say the final No; and yet she
thought also that, if it were so, the time had quite come in which
Mary Lowther ought to say the final Yes.

"Let us go down and look at the spot," she said, after tea.

So they went down. It was a beautiful August night. There was no
moon, and the twilight was over; but still it was not absolutely
dark; and the air was as soft as a mother's kiss to her sleeping
child. They walked down together, four abreast, across the lawn, and
thence they reached a certain green orchard path that led down to the
river. Mrs. Fenwick purposely went on with the lover, leaving Mary
with her husband, in order that there might be no appearance of a
scheme. She would return with her husband, and then there might be a
ramble among the paths, and the question would be pressed, and the
thing might be settled.

They saw through the gloom the spot where Mary had scrambled, and
the water which had then been bright and smiling, was now black and
awful.

"To think that you should have been in there!" said Harry Gilmore,
shuddering.

"To think that she should ever have got out again!" said the parson.

"It looks frightful in the dark," said Mrs. Fenwick. "Come away,
Frank. It makes me sick." And the charming schemer took her husband's
arm, and continued the round of the garden. "I have been talking to
her, and I think she would take him if he would ask her now."

The other pair of course followed them. Mary's mind was so fully made
up, at this moment, that she almost wished that her companion might
ask the question. She had been told that she was misusing him; and
she would misuse him no longer. She had a firm No, as it were, within
her grasp, and a resolution that she would not be driven from it. But
he walked on beside her talking of the water, and of the danger, and
of the chance of a cold, and got no nearer to the subject than to
bid her think what suffering she would have caused had she failed
to extricate herself from the pool. He also had made up his mind.
Something had been said by himself of a certain day when last he had
pleaded his cause; and that day would not come round till the morrow.
He considered himself pledged to restrain himself till then; but on
the morrow he would come to her.

There was a little gate which led from the parsonage garden through
the churchyard to a field path, by which was the nearest way to
Hampton Privets.

"I'll leave you here," he said, "because I don't want to make Fenwick
come out again to-night. You won't mind going up through the garden
alone?"

"Oh dear, no."

"And, Miss Lowther,--pray, pray take care of yourself. I hardly think
you ought to have been out again to-night."

"It was nothing, Mr. Gilmore. You make infinitely too much of it."

"How can I make too much of anything that regards you? You will be at
home to-morrow?"

"Yes, I fancy so."

"Do remain at home. I intend to come down after lunch. Do remain at
home." He held her by the hand as he spoke to her, and she promised
him that she would obey him. He clearly was entitled to her obedience
on such a point. Then she slowly made her way round the garden, and
entered the house at the front door, some quarter of an hour after
the others.

Why should she refuse him? What was it that she wanted in the world?
She liked him, his manners, his character, his ways, his mode of
life, and after a fashion she liked his person. If there was more of
love in the world than this, she did not think that it would ever
come in her way. Up to this time of her life she had never felt any
such feeling. If not for her own sake, why should she not do it for
him? Why should he not be made happy? She had risked a plunge in the
water to get Flo her ball, and she liked him better than she liked
Flo. It seemed that her mind had been altogether changed by that
stroll through the dark alleys.

"Well," said Janet, "how is it to be?"

"He is to come to-morrow, and I do not know how it will be," she
said, turning away to her own room.




CHAPTER III.

SAM BRATTLE.


It was about eleven o'clock when Gilmore passed through the wicket
leading from the vicarage garden to the churchyard. The path he was
about to take crossed simply a corner of the church precincts, as it
came at once upon a public footway leading from the fields through
the churchyard to the town. There was, of course, no stopping the
public path, but Fenwick had been often advised to keep a lock on his
own gate, as otherwise it almost seemed that the vicarage gardens
were open to all Bullhampton. But the lock had never been put on. The
gate was the way by which he and his family went to the church, and
the parson was accustomed to say that however many keys there might
be provided, he knew that there would never be one in his pocket
when he wanted it. And he was wont to add, when his wife would tease
him on the subject, that they who desired to come in decently were
welcome, and that they who were minded to make an entrance indecently
would not be debarred by such rails and fences as hemmed in the
vicarage grounds. Gilmore, as he passed through the corner of the
churchyard, clearly saw a man standing near to the stile leading from
the fields. Indeed, this man was quite close to him, although, from
the want of light and the posture of the man, the face was invisible
to him. But he knew the fellow to be a stranger to Bullhampton. The
dress was strange, the manner was strange, and the mode of standing
was strange. Gilmore had lived at Bullhampton all his life, and,
without much thought on the subject, knew Bullhampton ways. The
jacket which the man wore was a town-made jacket, a jacket that had
come farther a-field even than Salisbury; and the man's gaiters had a
savour which was decidedly not of Wiltshire. Dark as it was, he could
see so much as this. "Good night, my friend," said Gilmore, in a
sharp cheery voice. The man muttered something, and passed on as
though to the village. There had, however, been something in his
position which made Gilmore think that the stranger had intended
to trespass on his friend's garden. He crossed the stile into the
fields, however, without waiting,--without having waited for half a
moment, and immediately saw the figure of a second man standing down,
hidden as it were in the ditch; and though he could discover no more
than the cap and shoulders of the man through the gloom, he was sure
he knew who it was that owned the cap and shoulders. He did not speak
again, but passed on quickly, thinking what he might best do. The
man whom he had seen and recognised had latterly been talked of as a
discredit to his family, and anything but an honour to the usually
respectable inhabitants of Bullhampton.

On the further side of the church from the town was a farmyard, in
the occupation of one of Lord Trowbridge's tenants,--a man who had
ever been very keen at preventing the inroads of trespassers, to
which he had, perhaps, been driven by the fact that his land was
traversed by various public pathways. Now a public pathway through
pasture is a nuisance, as it is impossible to induce those who use
it to keep themselves to one beaten track; but a pathway through
cornfields is worse, for, let what pains may be taken, wheat,
beans, and barley will be torn down and trampled under foot. And
yet in apportioning his rents, no landlord takes all this into
consideration. Farmer Trumbull considered it a good deal, and was
often a wrathful man. There was at any rate no right of way across
his farmyard, and here he might keep as big a dog as he chose,
chained or unchained. Harry Gilmore knew the dog well, and stood for
a moment leaning on the gate.

"Who be there?" said the voice of the farmer.

"Is that you, Mr. Trumbull? It is I,--Mr. Gilmore. I want to get
round to the front of the parson's house."

"Zurely, zurely," said the farmer, coming forward and opening the
gate. "Be there anything wrong about, Squire?"

"I don't know. I think there is. Speak softly. I fancy there are men
lying in the churchyard."

"I be a-thinking so, too, Squire. Bone'm was a growling just now like
the old 'un." Bone'm was the name of the bull-dog as to which Gilmore
had been solicitous as he looked over the gate. "What is't t'ey're up
to? Not bugglary?"

"Our friend's apricots, perhaps. But I'll just move round to the
front. Do you and Bone'm keep a look-out here."

"Never fear, Squire; never fear. Me and Bone'm together is a'most too
much for 'em, bugglars and all." Then he led Mr. Gilmore through the
farmyard, and out on to the road, Bone'm growling a low growl as he
passed away.

The Squire hurried along the high road, past the church, and in at
the Vicarage front gate. Knowing the place well, he could have made
his way round into the garden; but he thought it better to go to
the front door. There was no light to be seen from the windows; but
almost all the rooms of the house looked out into the garden at the
back. He knocked sharply, and in a minute or two the door was opened
by the parson in person.

"Frank," said the Squire.

"Halloo! is that you? What's up now?"

"Men who ought to be in bed. I came across two men hanging about your
gate in the churchyard, and I'm not sure there wasn't a third."

"They're up to nothing. They often sit and smoke there."

"These fellows were up to something. The man I saw plainest was a
stranger, and just the sort of man who won't do your parishioners any
good to be among them. The other was Sam Brattle."

"Whew--w--w," said the parson.

"He has gone utterly to the dogs," said the Squire.

"He's on the road, Harry; but nobody has gone while he's still going.
I had some words with him in his father's presence last week, and
he followed me afterwards, and told me he'd see it out with me. I
wouldn't tell you, because I didn't want to set you more against
them."

"I wish they were out of the place,--the whole lot of them."

"I don't know that they'd do better elsewhere than here. I suppose
Mr. Sam is going to keep his word with me."

"Only for the look of that other fellow, I shouldn't think they meant
anything serious," said Gilmore.

"I don't suppose they do, but I'll be on the look-out."

"Shall I stay with you, Frank?"

"Oh, no; I've a life-preserver, and I'll take a round of the gardens.
You come with me, and you can pass home that way. The chances
are they'll mizzle away to bed, as they've seen you, and heard
Bone'm,--and probably heard too every word you said to Trumbull."

He then got his hat and the short, thick stick of which he had
spoken, and turning the key of the door, put it in his pocket. Then
the two friends went round by the kitchen garden, and so through to
the orchard, and down to the churchyard gate. Hitherto they had seen
nothing, and heard nothing, and Fenwick was sure that the men had
made their way through the churchyard to the village.

"But they may come back," said Gilmore.

"I'll be about if they do," said the parson.

"What is one against three? You had better let me stay."

Fenwick laughed at this, saying that it would be quite as rational to
propose that they should keep watch every night.

"But, hark!" said the Squire, with a mind evidently perturbed.

"Don't you be alarmed about us," said the parson.

"If anything should happen to Mary Lowther!"

"That, no doubt, is matter of anxiety, to which may, perhaps, be
added some trifle of additional feeling on the score of Janet and the
children. But I'll do my best. If the women knew that you and I were
patrolling the place, they'd be frightened out of their wits."

Then Gilmore, who never liked that there should be a laugh against
himself, took his leave and walked home across the fields. Fenwick
passed up through the garden, and, when he was near the terrace which
ran along the garden front of the house, he thought that he heard
a voice. He stood under the shade of a wall dark with ivy, and
distinctly heard whispering on the other side of it. As far as he
could tell there were the voices of more than two men. He wished now
that he had kept Gilmore with him,--not that he was personally afraid
of the trespassers, for his courage was of that steady settled kind
which enables the possessor to remember that men who are doing deeds
of darkness are ever afraid of those whom they are injuring; but had
there been an ally with him his prospect of catching one or more of
the ruffians would have been greatly increased. Standing where he was
he would probably be able to interrupt them, should they attempt to
enter the house; but in the mean time they might be stripping his
fruit from the wall. They were certainly, at present, in the kitchen
garden, and he was not minded to leave them there at such work as
they might have in hand. Having paused to think of this, he crept
along under the wall, close to the house, towards the passage by
which he could reach them. But they had not heard him, nor had they
waited among the fruit. When he was near the corner of the wall, one
leading man came round within a foot or two of the spot on which he
stood; and, before he could decide on what he would do, the second
had appeared. He rushed forward with the loaded stick in his hand,
but, knowing its weight, and remembering the possibility of the
comparative innocence of the intruders, he hesitated to strike. A
blow on the head would have brained a man, and a knock on the arm
with such an instrument would break the bone. In a moment he found
his left hand on the leading man's throat, and the man's foot behind
his heel. He fell, but as he fell he did strike heavily, cutting
upwards with his weapon, and bringing the heavy weight of lead at the
end of it on to the man's shoulder. He stumbled rather than fell, but
when he regained his footing, the man was gone. That man was gone,
and two others were following him down towards the gate at the bottom
of the orchard. Of these two, in a few strides, he was able to catch
the hindermost, and then he found himself wrestling with Sam Brattle.

"Sam," said he, speaking as well as he could with his short breath,
"if you don't stand, I'll strike you with the life-preserver."

Sam made another struggle, trying to seize the weapon, and the parson
hit him with it on the right arm.

"You've smashed that anyway, Mr. Fenwick," said the man.

"I hope not; but do you come along with me quietly, or I'll smash
something else. I'll hit you on the head if you attempt to move away.
What were you doing here?"

Brattle made no answer, but walked along towards the house at the
parson's left hand, the parson holding him the while by the neck of
his jacket, and swinging the life-preserver in his right hand. In
this way he took him round to the front of the house, and then began
to think what he would do with him.

"That, after all, you should be at this work, Sam!"

"What work is it, then?"

"Prowling about my place, after midnight, with a couple of strange
blackguards."

"There ain't so much harm in that, as I knows of."

"Who were the men, Sam?"

"Who was the men?"

"Yes;--who were they?"

"Just friends of mine, Mr. Fenwick. I shan't say no more about 'em.
You've got me, and you've smashed my arm, and now what is it you're
a-going to do with me? I ain't done no harm,--only just walked about,
like."

To tell the truth, our friend the parson did not quite know what he
meant to do with the Tartar he had caught. There were reasons which
made him very unwilling to hand over Sam Brattle to the village
constable. Sam had a mother and sister who were among the Vicar's
first favourites in the parish; and though old Jacob Brattle, the
father, was not so great a favourite, and was a man whom the Squire,
his landlord, held in great disfavour, Mr. Fenwick would desire, if
possible, to spare the family. And of Sam, himself, he had had high
hopes, though those hopes, for the last eighteen months had been
becoming fainter and fainter. Upon the whole, he was much averse to
knocking up the groom, the only man who lived on the parsonage except
himself, and dragging Sam into the village. "I wish I knew," he said,
"what you and your friends were going to do. I hardly think it has
come to that with you, that you'd try to break into the house and cut
our throats."

"We warn't after no breaking in, nor no cutting of throats, Mr.
Fenwick. We warn't indeed!"

"What shall you do with yourself, to-night, if I let you off?"

"Just go home to father's, sir; not a foot else, s'help me."

"One of your friends, as you call them, will have to go to the
doctor, if I am not very much mistaken; for the rap I gave you was
nothing to what he got. You're all right?"

"It hurt, sir, I can tell ye;--but that won't matter."

"Well, Sam,--there; you may go. I shall be after you to-morrow, and
the last word I say to you, to-night, is this;--as far as I can see,
you're on the road to the gallows. It isn't pleasant to be hung, and
I would advise you to change your road." So saying, he let go his
hold, and stood waiting till Sam should have taken his departure.

"Don't be a-coming after me, to-morrow, parson, please," said the
man.

"I shall see your mother, certainly."

"Dont'ee tell her of my being here, Mr. Fenwick, and nobody shan't
ever come anigh this place again,--not in the way of prigging
anything."

"You fool, you!" said the parson. "Do you think that it is to save
anything that I might lose, that I let you go now? Don't you know
that the thing I want to save is you,--you,--you; you helpless, idle,
good-for-nothing reprobate? Go home, and be sure that I shall do the
best I can according to my lights. I fear that my lights are bad
lights, in that they have allowed me to let you go."

When he had seen Sam take his departure through the front gate, he
returned to the house, and found that his wife, who had gone to bed,
had come down-stairs in search of him.

"Frank, you have frightened me so terribly! Where have you been?"

"Thief-catching. And I'm afraid I've about split one fellow's back. I
caught another, but I let him go."

"What on earth do you mean, Frank?"

Then he told her the whole story,--how Gilmore had seen the men, and
had come up to him; how he had gone out and had a tussle with one
man, whom he had, as he thought, hurt; and how he had then caught
another, while the third escaped.

"We ain't safe in our beds, then," said the wife.

"You ain't safe in yours, my dear, because you chose to leave it; but
I hope you're safe out of it. I doubt whether the melons and peaches
are safe. The truth is, there ought to be a gardener's cottage on
the place, and I must build one. I wonder whether I hurt that fellow
much. I seemed to hear the bone crunch."

"Oh, Frank!"

"But what could I do? I got that thing because I thought it safer
than a pistol, but I really think it's worse. I might have murdered
them all, if I'd lost my temper,--and just for half-a-dozen
apricots!"

"And what became of the man you took?"

"I let him go."

"Without doing anything to him?"

"Well; he got a tap too."

"Did you know him?"

"Yes, I knew him,--well."

"Who was he, Frank?"

The parson was silent for a moment, and then he answered her. "It was
Sam Brattle."

"Sam Brattle, coming to rob?"

"He's been at it, I fear, for months, in some shape."

"And what shall you do?"

"I hardly know as yet. It would about kill her and Fanny, if they
were told all that I suspect. They are stiff-necked, obstinate,
ill-conditioned people--that is, the men. But I think Gilmore has
been a little hard on them. The father and brother are honest men.
Come;--we'll go to bed."




CHAPTER IV.

THERE IS NO ONE ELSE.


On the following morning there was of course a considerable amount
of conversation at the Vicarage as to the affairs of the previous
evening. There was first of all an examination of the fruit; but as
this was made without taking Jem the gardener into confidence, no
certain conclusion could be reached. It was clear, however, that no
robbery for the purpose of sale had been made. An apricot or two
might have been taken, and perhaps an assault made on an unripe
peach. Mr. Fenwick was himself nearly sure that garden spoliation was
not the purpose of the assailants, though it suited him to let his
wife entertain that idea. The men would hardly have come from the
kitchen garden up to the house and round the corner at which he had
met them, if they were seeking fruit. Presuming it to have been their
intention to attempt the drawing-room windows, he would have expected
to meet them as he did meet them. From the garden the Vicar and the
two ladies went down to the gate, and from thence over the stile to
Farmer Trumbull's farmyard. The farmer had not again seen the men,
after the Squire had left him, nor had he heard them. To him the
parson said nothing of his encounter, and nothing of that blow on
the man's back. From thence Mr. Fenwick went on to the town, and the
ladies returned to the Vicarage.

The only person whom the parson at once consulted was the
surgeon,--Dr. Cuttenden, as he was called. No man with an injured
shoulder-blade had come to him last night or that morning. A man, he
said, might receive a very violent blow on his back, in the manner
in which the fellow had been struck, and might be disabled for days
from any great personal exertion, without having a bone broken.
If the blade of his shoulder were broken, the man--so thought the
doctor--could not travel far on foot, would hardly be able to get
away to any of the neighbouring towns unless he were carried. Of
Sam Brattle the parson said nothing to the doctor; but when he had
finished his morning's work about the town, he walked on to the mill.

In the mean time the two ladies remained at home at the Parsonage.
The excitement occasioned by the events of the previous night was
probably a little damaged by the knowledge that Mr. Gilmore was
coming. The coming of Mr. Gilmore on this occasion was so important
that even the terrible idea of burglars, and the sensation arising
from the use of that deadly weapon which had been produced at the
breakfast table during the morning, were robbed of some of their
interest. They did not keep possession of the minds of the two ladies
as they would have done had there been no violent interrupting cause.
But here was the violent interrupting cause, and by the time that
lunch was on the table, Sam Brattle and his comrades were forgotten.

Very little was said between the two women on that morning respecting
Mr. Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick, who had allowed herself to be convinced
that Mary would act with great impropriety if she did not accept
the man, thought that further speech might only render her friend
obstinate. Mary, who knew the inside of her friend's mind very
clearly, and who loved and respected her friend, could hardly fix her
own mind. During the past night it had been fixed, or nearly fixed,
two different ways. She had first determined that she would refuse
her lover,--as to which resolve, for some hours or so, she had been
very firm; then that she would accept him,--as to which she had
ever, when most that way inclined, entertained some doubt as to the
possibility of her uttering that word "Yes."

"If it be that other women don't love better than I love him, I
wonder that they ever get married at all," she said to herself.

She was told that she was wrong to keep the man in suspense, and she
believed it. Had she not been so told, she would have thought that
some further waiting would have been of the three alternatives the
best.

"I shall be upstairs with the bairns," said Mrs. Fenwick, as she left
the dining-room after lunch, "so that if you prefer the garden to the
drawing-room, it will be free."

"Oh dear, how solemn and ceremonious you make it."

"It is solemn, Mary; I don't know how anything can be more solemn,
short of going to heaven or the other place. But I really don't see
why there should be any doubt or difficulty."

There was something in the tone in which these words were said which
almost made Mary Lowther again decide against the man. The man had a
home and an income, and was Squire of the parish; and therefore there
need be no difficulty! When she compared Mr. Fenwick and Mr. Gilmore
together, she found that she liked Mr. Fenwick the best. She thought
him to be the more clever, the higher spirited, the most of a man of
the two. She certainly was not the least in love with her friend's
husband; but then she was just as little in love with Mr. Gilmore.

At about half-past two Mr. Gilmore made his appearance, standing at
the open window.

"May I come in?" he said.

"Of course you may come in."

"Mrs. Fenwick is not here?"

"She is in the house, I think, if you want her."

"Oh no. I hope you were not frightened last night. I have not seen
Frank this morning; but I hear from Mr. Trumbull that there was
something of a row."

"There was a row, certainly. Mr. Fenwick struck some of the men, and
he is afraid that he hurt one of them."

"I wish he had broken their heads. I take it there was a son of one
of my tenants there, who is about as bad as he can be. Frank will
believe me now. I hope you were not frightened here."

"I heard nothing of it till this morning."

After that there was a pause. He had told himself as he came along
that the task before him could not be easy and pleasant. To declare a
passion to the girl he loves may be very pleasant work to the man who
feels almost sure that his answer will not be against him. It may be
an easy task enough even when there is a doubt. The very possession
of the passion,--or even its pretence,--gives the man a liberty which
he has a pleasure and a pride in using. But this is the case when the
man dashes boldly at his purpose without preconcerted arrangements.
Such pleasure, if it ever was a pleasure to him,--such excitement at
least, was come and gone with Harry Gilmore. He had told his tale,
and had been desired to wait. Now he had come again at a fixed hour
to be informed--like a servant waiting for a place--whether it was
thought that he would suit. The servant out of place, however, would
have had this advantage, that he would receive his answer without the
necessity of further eloquence on his own part. With the lover it was
different. It was evident that Mary Lowther would not say to him, "I
have considered the matter, and I think that, upon the whole, you
will do." It was necessary that he should ask the question again, and
ask it as a suppliant.

"Mary," he said, beginning with words that he had fixed for himself
as he came up the garden, "it is six weeks, I think, since I asked
you to be my wife; and now I have come to ask you again."

She made him no immediate answer, but sat as though waiting for some
further effort of his eloquence.

"I do not think you doubt my truth, or the warmth of my affection. If
you trust in them--"

"I do; I do."

"Then I don't know that I can say anything further. Nothing that
I can say now will make you love me. I have not that sort of power
which would compel a girl to come into my arms."

"I don't understand that kind of power,--how any man can have it with
any girl."

"They say that it is so; but I do not flatter myself that it is so
with me; and I do not think that it would be so with any man over
you. Perhaps I may assure you that, as far as I know myself at
present, all my future happiness must depend on your answer. It will
not kill me--to be refused; at least, I suppose not. But it will make
me wish that it would." Having so spoken he waited for her reply.

She believed every word that he said. And she liked him so well that,
for his own sake, she desired that he might be gratified. As far as
she knew herself, she had no desire to be Harry Gilmore's wife. The
position was not even one in which she could allow herself to look
for consolation on one side, for disappointments on the other. She
had read about love, and talked about love; and she desired to be
in love. Certainly she was not in love with this man. She had begun
to doubt whether it would ever be given to her to love,--to love as
her friend Janet loved Frank Fenwick. Janet loved her husband's very
footsteps, and seemed to eat with his palate, hear with his ears, and
see with his eyes. She was, as it were, absolutely a bone from her
husband's rib. Mary thought that she was sure that she could never
have that same feeling towards Henry Gilmore. And yet it might come;
or something might come which would do almost as well. It was likely
that Janet's nature was softer and sweeter than her own,--more prone
to adapt itself, like ivy to a strong tree. For herself, it might be,
that she could never become as the ivy; but that, nevertheless, she
might be the true wife of a true husband. But if ever she was to be
the true wife of Harry Gilmore, she could not to-day say that it
should be so.

"I suppose I must answer you," she said, very gently.

"If you tell me that you are not ready to do so I will wait, and come
again. I shall never change my mind. You may be sure of that."

"But that is just what I may not do, Mr. Gilmore."

"Who says so?"

"My own feelings tell me so. I have no right to keep you in suspense,
and I will not do it. I respect and esteem you most honestly. I have
so much liking for you that I do not mind owning that I wish that it
were more. Mr. Gilmore, I like you so much that I would make a great
sacrifice for you; but I cannot sacrifice my own honesty or your
happiness by making believe that I love you."

For a few moments he sat silent, and then there came over his face a
look of inexpressible anguish,--a look as though the pain were almost
more than he could bear. She could not keep her eyes from his face;
and, in her woman's pity, she almost wished that her words had been
different.

"And must that be all?" he asked.

"What else can I say, Mr. Gilmore?"

"If that must be all, it will be to me a doom that I shall not know
how to bear. I cannot live here without you. I have thought about you
till you have become mixed with every tree and every cottage about
the place. I did not know of myself that I could become such a slave
to a passion. Mary, say that you will wait again. Try it once more.
I would not ask for this, but that you have told me that there was no
one else."

"Certainly, there is no one else."

"Then let me wait again. It can do you no harm. If there should come
any man more fortunate than I am, you can tell me, and I shall know
that it is over. I ask no sacrifice from you, and no pledge; but I
give you mine. I shall not change."

"There must be no such promise, Mr. Gilmore."

"But there is the promise. I certainly shall not change. When three
months are over I will come to you again."

She tried to think whether she was bound to tell him that her answer
must be taken as final, or whether she might allow the matter to
stand as he proposed, with some chance of a result that might be good
for him. On one point she was quite sure,--that if she left him now,
with an understanding that he should again renew his offer after a
period of three months, she must go away from Bullhampton. If there
was any possibility that she should learn to love him, such feeling
would arise within her more quickly in his absence than in his
presence. She would go home to Loring, and try to bring herself to
accept him.

"I think," she said, "that what we now say had better be the last of
it."

"It shall not be the last of it. I will try again. What is there that
I can do, so that I may make myself worthy of you?"

"It is no question of worthiness, Mr. Gilmore. Who can say how his
heart is moved,--and why? I shall go home to Loring; and you may be
sure of this, that if there be anything that you should hear of me, I
will let you know."

Then he took her hand in his own, held it for a while, pressed it to
his lips, and left her. She was by no means contented with herself,
and, to tell the truth, was ashamed to let her friend know what she
had done. And yet how could she have answered him in other words? It
might be that she could teach herself to be contented with the amount
of regard which she entertained for him. It might be that she could
persuade herself to be his wife; and if so, why should he not have
the chance,--the chance which he professed that he was so anxious to
retain? He had paid her the greatest compliment which a man can pay a
woman, and she owed him everything,--except herself. She was hardly
sure even now that if the proposition had come to her by letter the
answer might not have been of a different nature.

As soon as he was gone she went upstairs to the nursery, and thence
to Mrs. Fenwick's bedroom. Flo was there, but Flo was soon dismissed.
Mary began her story instantly, before a question could be asked.

"Janet," she said, "I am going home--at once."

"Why so?"

"Because it is best. Nothing more is settled than was settled before.
When he asks me whether he may come again, how can I say that he may
not? What can I say, except that as far I can see now, I cannot be
his wife?"

"You have not accepted him, then?"

"No."

"I believe that you would, if he had asked you last night."

"Most certainly I should not. I may doubt when I am talking behind
his back; but when I meet him face to face I cannot do it."

"I think you have been wrong,--very wrong and very foolish."

"In not taking a man I do not love?" said Mary.

"You do love him; but you are longing for you do not know what; some
romance,--some grand passion,--something that will never come."

"Shall I tell you what I want?"

"If you please."

"A feeling such as you have for Frank. You are my model; I want
nothing beyond that."

"That comes after marriage. Frank was very little to me till we were
man and wife. He'll tell you the same. I don't know whether I didn't
almost dislike him when I married him."

"Oh, Janet!"

"Certainly the sort of love you are thinking of comes
afterwards;--when the interests of two people are the same. Frank was
very well as a lover."

"Don't I remember it?"

"You were a child."

"I was fifteen; and don't I remember how all the world used to change
for you when he was coming? There wasn't a ribbon you wore but you
wore it for him; you dressed yourself in his eyes; you lived by his
thoughts."

"That was all after I was engaged. If you would accept Harry Gilmore,
you would do just the same."

"I must be sure that it would be so. I am now almost sure that it
would not."

"And why do you want to go home?"

"That he may not be pestered by having me near him. I think it will
be better for him that I should go."

"And he is to ask you again?"

"He says that he will--in three months. But you should tell him
that it will be better that he should not. I would advise him to
travel,--if I were his friend, like you."

"And leave all his duties, and his pleasures, and his house, and his
property, because of your face and figure, my dear! I don't think any
woman is worth so much to a man."

Mary bit her lips in sorrow for what she had said. "I was thinking
of his own speech about himself, Janet, not of my worth. It does not
astonish you more than it does me that such a man as Mr. Gilmore
should be perplexed in spirit for such a cause. But he says that he
is perplexed."

"Of course he is perplexed, and of course I was in joke. Only it does
seem so hard upon him! I should like to shake you till you fell into
his arms. I know it would be best for you. You will go on examining
your own feelings and doubting about your heart, and waiting for
something that will never come till you will have lost your time.
That is the way old maids are made. If you married Harry, by the time
your first child was born you would think that he was Jupiter,--just
as I think that Frank is."

Mrs. Fenwick owned, however, that as matters stood at present, it
would be best that Mary should return home; and letters were written
that afternoon to say that she would be at Loring by the middle of
next week.

The Vicar was not seen till dinner-time, and then he came home in
considerable perplexity of spirit. It was agreed between the two
women that the fate of Harry Gilmore, as far as it had been decided,
should be told to Mr. Fenwick by his wife; and she, though she was
vexed, and almost angry with Mary, promised to make the best of it.

"She'll lose him at last; that'll be the end of it," said the parson,
as he scoured his face with a towel after washing it.

"I never saw a man so much in love in my life," said Mrs. Fenwick.

"But iron won't remain long at red heat," said he. "What she says
herself would be the best for him. He'll break up and go away for a
time, and then, when he comes back, there'll be somebody else. She'll
live to repent it."

"When she's away from him there may be a change."

"Fiddlestick!" said the parson.

Mary, when she met him before dinner, could see that he was angry
with her, but she bore it with the utmost meekness. She believed of
herself that she was much to blame in that she could not fall in love
with Harry Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick had also asked a question or two
about Sam Brattle during the dressing of her husband; but he had
declined to say anything on that subject till they two should be
secluded together for the night.




CHAPTER V.

THE MILLER.


Mr. Fenwick reached Brattle's mill about two o'clock in the day.
During the whole morning, while saying comfortable words to old
women, and gently rebuking young maidens, he had been thinking of Sam
Brattle and his offences. He had not been in the parish very long,
not over five or six years, but he had been there long enough to see
Sam grow out of boyhood into manhood; and at his first coming to
the parish, for the first two or three years, the lad had been a
favourite with him. Young Brattle could run well, leap well, fish
well, and do a good turn of work about his father's mill. And he
could also read and write, and cast accounts, and was a clever
fellow. The parson, though he had tried his hand with energy at
making the man, had, perhaps, done something towards marring him; and
it may be that some feeling of this was on Mr. Fenwick's conscience.
A gentleman's favourite in a country village, when of Sam Brattle's
age, is very apt to be spoiled by the kindness that is shown to him.
Sam had spent many a long afternoon fishing with the parson, but
those fishing days were now more than two years gone by. It had been
understood that Sam was to assist his father at the mill; and much
good advice as to his trade the lad had received from Mr. Fenwick.
There ought to be no more fishing for the young miller, except
on special holiday occasions,--no more fishing, at least, during
the hours required for milling purposes. So Mr. Fenwick had said
frequently. Nevertheless the old miller attributed his son's idleness
in great part to the parson's conduct, and he had so told the
parson more than once. Of late Sam Brattle had certainly not been
a good son, had neglected his work, disobeyed his father, and
brought trouble on a household which had much suffering to endure
independently of that which he might bring upon it.

Jacob Brattle was a man at this time over sixty-five years of age,
and every year of the time had been spent in that mill. He had never
known another occupation or another home, and had very rarely slept
under another roof. He had married the daughter of a neighbouring
farmer, and had had some twelve or fourteen children. There were at
this time six still living. He himself had ever been a hardworking,
sober, honest man. But he was cross-grained, litigious, moody, and
tyrannical. He held his mill and about a hundred acres of adjoining
meadow land at a rent in which no account was taken either of the
building or of the mill privileges attached to it. He paid simply for
the land at a rate per acre, which, as both he and his landlord well
knew, would make it acceptable on the same terms to any farmer in the
parish; and neither for his mill, nor for his land, had he any lease,
nor had his father or his grandfather had leases before him. Though
he was a clever man in his way, he hardly knew what a lease was.
He doubted whether his landlord could dispossess him as long as he
paid his rent, but he was not sure. But of this he thought he was
sure,--that were Mr. Gilmore to attempt to do such a thing, all
Wiltshire would cry out against the deed, and probably the heavens
would fall and crush the doer. He was a man with an unlimited love
of justice; but the justice which he loved best was justice to
himself. He brooded over injuries done to him,--injuries real or
fancied,--till he taught himself to wish that all who hurt him might
be crucified for the hurt they did to him. He never forgot, and never
wished to forgive. If any prayer came from him, it was a prayer that
his own heart might be so hardened that when vengeance came in his
way he might take it without stint against the trespasser of the
moment. And yet he was not a cruel man. He would almost despise
himself, because when the moment for vengeance did come, he would
abstain from vengeance. He would dismiss a disobedient servant with
curses which would make one's hair stand on end, and would hope
within his heart of hearts that before the end of the next week the
man with his wife and children might be in the poorhouse. When the
end of the next week came, he would send the wife meat, and would
give the children bread, and would despise himself for doing so.
In matters of religion he was an old Pagan, going to no place of
worship, saying no prayer, believing in no creed,--with some vague
idea that a supreme power would bring him right at last, if he worked
hard, robbed no one, fed his wife and children, and paid his way. To
pay his way was the pride of his heart; to be paid on his way was its
joy.

In that matter of his quarrel with his landlord he was very bitter.
The Squire's father some fifteen years since had given to the miller
a verbal promise that the house and mill should be repaired. The old
Squire had not been a good man of business, and had gone on with his
tenants very much as he had found them, without looking much into the
position of each. But he had, no doubt, said something that amounted
to a promise on his own account as to these repairs. He had died soon
after, and the repairs had not been effected. A year after his death
an application,--almost a demand,--was made upon our Squire by the
miller, and the miller had been wrathful even when the Squire said
that he would look into it. The Squire did look into it, and came to
the conclusion that as he received no rent at all for the house and
mill, and as his own property would be improved if the house and
mill were made to vanish, and as he had no evidence whatever of any
undertaking on his father's part, as any such promise on his father's
part must simply have been a promise of a gift of money out of his
own pocket, and further as the miller was impudent, he would not
repair the mill. Ultimately he offered £20 towards the repairs, which
the miller indignantly refused. Readers will be able to imagine how
pretty a quarrel there would thus be between the landlord and his
tenant. When all this was commencing,--at the time, that is, of the
old Squire's death,--Brattle had the name of being a substantial
person; but misfortune had come upon him; doctors' bills had been
very heavy, his children had drained his resources from him, and it
was now known that it set him very hard to pay his way. In regard to
the house and the mill, some absolutely essential repairs had been
done at his own costs; but the £20 had never been taken.

In some respects the man's fortune in life had been good. His wife
was one of those loving, patient, self-denying, almost heavenly human
beings, one or two of whom may come across one's path, and who, when
found, are generally found in that sphere of life to which this woman
belonged. Among the rich there is that difficulty of the needle's
eye; among the poor there is the difficulty of the hardness of their
lives. And the miller loved this woman with a perfect love. He hardly
knew that he loved her as he did. He could be harsh to her and
tyrannical. He could say cutting words to her. But at any time in his
life he would have struck over the head, with his staff, another man
who should have said a word to hurt her. They had lost many children;
but of the six who remained, there were four of whom they might be
proud. The eldest was a farmer, married and away, doing well in a far
part of the county, beyond Salisbury, on the borders of Hampshire.
The father in his emergencies had almost been tempted to ask his son
for money; but hitherto he had refrained. A daughter was married to
a tradesman at Warminster, and was also doing well. A second son who
had once been sickly and weak, was a scholar in his way, and was now
a schoolmaster, also at Warminster, and in great repute with the
parson of the parish there. There was a second daughter, Fanny, at
home, a girl as good as gold, the glory and joy and mainstay of her
mother, whom even the miller could not scold,--whom all Bullhampton
loved. But she was a plain girl, brown, and somewhat hard-visaged;--a
morsel of fruit as sweet as any in the garden, but one that the eye
would not select for its outside grace, colour, and roundness. Then
there were the two younger. Of Sam, the youngest of all, who was now
twenty-one, something has already been said. Between him and Fanny
there was,--perhaps it will be better to say there had been,--another
daughter. Of all the flock Carry had been her father's darling. She
had not been brown or hard-visaged. She was such a morsel of fruit
as men do choose, when allowed to range and pick through the whole
length of the garden wall. Fair she had been, with laughing eyes,
and floating curls; strong in health, generous in temper, though now
and again with something of her father's humour. To her mother's eye
she had never been as sweet as Fanny; but to her father she had been
as bright and beautiful as the harvest moon. Now she was a thing,
somewhere, never to be mentioned! Any man who would have named her
to her father's ears, would have encountered instantly the force of
his wrath. This was so well known in Bullhampton that there was not
one who would dare to suggest to him even that she might be saved.
But her mother prayed for her daily, and her father thought of her
always. It was a great lump upon him, which he must bear to his
grave; and for which there could be no release. He did not know
whether it was his mind, his heart, or his body that suffered. He
only knew that it was there,--a load that could never be lightened.
What comfort was it to him now, that he had beaten a miscreant to
death's door--that he, with his old hands, had nearly torn the wretch
limb from limb--that he had left him all but lifeless, and had walked
off scatheless, nobody daring to put a finger on him? The man had
been pieced up by some doctor, and was away in Asia, in Africa, in
America--soldiering somewhere. He had been a lieutenant in those
days, and was probably a lieutenant still. It was nothing to old
Brattle where he was. Had he been able to drink the fellow's blood to
the last drop, it would not have lightened his load an ounce. He knew
that it was so now. Nothing could lighten it;--not though an angel
could come and tell him that his girl was a second Magdalen. The
Brattles had ever held up their heads. The women, at least, had
always been decent.

Jacob Brattle, himself, was a low, thickset man, with an appearance
of great strength, which was now submitting itself, very slowly, to
the hand of time. He had sharp green eyes, and shaggy eyebrows, with
thin lips, and a square chin, a nose which, though its shape was
aquiline, protruded but little from his face. His forehead was low
and broad, and he was seldom seen without a flat hat upon his head.
His hair and very scanty whiskers were gray; but, then too, he was
gray from head to foot. The colour of his trade had so clung to him,
that no one could say whether that grayish whiteness of his face came
chiefly from meal or from sorrow. He was a silent, sad, meditative
man, thinking always of the evil things that had been done to him.




CHAPTER VI.

BRATTLE'S MILL.


When Mr. Fenwick reached the mill, he found old Brattle sitting alone
on a fixed bench in front of the house door with a pipe in his mouth.
Mary Lowther was quite right in saying that the mill, in spite of its
dilapidations,--perhaps by reason of them,--was as pretty as anything
in Bullhampton. In the first place it was permeated and surrounded by
cool, bright, limpid little streams. One of them ran right through
it, as it were, passing between the dwelling-house and the mill, and
turning the wheel, which was there placed. This course was, no doubt,
artificial, and the water ran more rapidly in it than it did in the
neighbouring streamlets. There were sluice-gates, too, by which it
could be altogether expelled, or kept up to this or that height; and
it was a river absolutely under man's control, in which no water-god
could take delight. But there were other natural streams on each
side of the building, the one being the main course of the Avon,
and the other some offspring of a brooklet, which joined its parent
two hundred yards below, and fifty yards from the spot at which
the ill-used working water was received back into its mother's
idle bosom. Mill and house were thatched, and were very low. There
were garrets in the roof, but they were so shaped that they could
hardly be said to have walls to them at all, so nearly were they
contained by the sloping roof. In front of the building there ran a
road,--which after all was no more than a private lane. It crossed
the smaller stream and the mill-run by two wooden bridges; but the
river itself had been too large for the bridge-maker's efforts, and
here there was a ford, with stepping-stones for foot passengers. The
banks on every side were lined with leaning willows, which had been
pollarded over and over again, and which with their light-green wavy
heads gave the place, from a distance, the appearance of a grove.
There was a little porch in front of the house, and outside of that a
fixed seat, with a high back, on which old Brattle was sitting when
the parson accosted him. He did not rise when Mr. Fenwick addressed
him; but he intended no want of courtesy by not doing so. He was on
his legs at business during nearly the whole of the day, and why
should he not rest his old limbs during the few mid-day minutes which
he allowed himself for recreation?

"I thought I should catch you idle just at this moment," said the
clergyman.


[Illustration: "I thought I should catch you idle just at
this moment," said the clergyman.]


"Like enough, Muster Fenwick," said the miller; "I be idle at times,
no doubt."

"It would be a bad life if you did not,--and a very short one too.
It's hot walking, I can tell you, Mr. Brattle. If it goes on like
this, I shall want a little idle time myself, I fear. Is Sam here?"

"No, Muster Fenwick, Sam is not here."

"Nor has been this morning, I suppose?"

"He's not here now, if you're wanting him."

This the old man said in a tone that seemed to signify some offence,
or at least a readiness to take offence if more were said to him
about his son. The clergyman did not sit down, but stood close over
the father, looking down upon him; and the miller went on with his
pipe gazing into the clear blue sky.

"I do want him, Mr. Brattle." Then he stopped, and there was a pause.
The miller puffed his pipe, but said not a word. "I do want him. I
fear, Mr. Brattle, he's not coming to much good."

"Who said as he was? I never said so. The lad'd have been well enough
if other folks would have let him be."

"I know what you mean, Mr. Brattle."

"I usually intend folks to know what I mean, Muster Fenwick. What's
the good o' speaking else? If nobody hadn't a meddled with the lad,
he'd been a good lad. But they did, and he ain't. That's all about
it."

"You do me a great injustice, but I'm not going to argue that with
you now. There would be no use in it. I've come to tell you I fear
that Sam was at no good last night."

"That's like enough."

"I had better tell you the truth at once. He was about my place with
two ruffians."

"And you wants to take him afore the magistrate?"

"I want nothing of the kind. I would make almost any sacrifice
rather. I had him yesterday night by the collar of the coat, and I
let him go free."

"If he couldn't shake himself free o' you, Muster Fenwick, without
any letting in the matter, he ain't no son of mine."

"I was armed, and he couldn't. But what does that matter? What does
matter is this;--that they who were with him were thoroughly bad
fellows. Was he at home last night?"

"You'd better ax his mother, Muster Fenwick. The truth is, I don't
care much to be talking of him at all. It's time I was in the mill, I
believe. There's no one much to help me now, barring the hired man."
So saying, he got up and passed into the mill without making the
slightest form of salutation.

Mr. Fenwick paused for a minute, looking after the old man, and then
went into the house. He knew very well that his treatment from the
women would be very different to that which the miller had vouchsafed
to him; but on that very account it would be difficult for him to
make his communication. He had, however, known all this before he
came. Old Brattle would, quite of course, be silent, suspicious, and
uncivil. It had become the nature of the man to be so, and there was
no help for it. But the two women would be glad to see him,--would
accept his visit as a pleasure and a privilege; and on this account
he found it to be very hard to say unpleasant words to them. But the
unpleasant words must be spoken. Neither in duty nor in kindness
could he know what he had learned last night, and be silent on this
matter to the young man's family. He entered the house, and turned
into the large kitchen or keeping-room on the left, in which the
two women were almost always to be found. This was a spacious,
square, low apartment, in which there was a long grate with
various appurtenances for boiling, roasting, and baking. It was an
old-fashioned apparatus, but Mrs. Brattle thought it to be infinitely
more commodious than any of the newer-fangled ranges which from time
to time she had been taken to see. Opposite to the fire-place there
was a small piece of carpet, without which the stone floor would
hardly have looked warm and comfortable. On the outer corner of this,
half facing the fire, and half on one side of it, was an old oak
arm-chair, made of oak throughout, but with a well-worn cushion on
the seat of it, in which it was the miller's custom to sit when the
work of the day was done. In this chair no one else would ever sit,
unless Sam would do so occasionally, in bravado, and as a protest
against his father's authority. When he did so his mother would be
wretched, and his sister lately had begged him to desist from the
sacrilege. Close to this was a little round deal table, on which
would be set the miller's single glass of gin and water, which would
be made to last out the process of his evening smoking, and the
candle, by the light of which, and with the aid of a huge pair of
tortoise-shell spectacles, his wife would sit and darn her husband's
stockings. She also had her own peculiar chair in this corner, but
she had never accustomed herself to the luxury of arms to lean on,
and had no cushion for her own comfort. There were various dressers,
tables, and sideboards round the room, and a multiplicity of dishes,
plates, and bowls, all standing in their proper places. But though
the apartment was called a kitchen,--and, in truth, the cookery for
the family was done here,--there was behind it, opening out to the
rear, another kitchen in which there was a great boiler, and a huge
oven never now used. The necessary but unsightly doings of kitchen
life were here carried on, out of view. He, indeed, would have been
fastidious who would have hesitated, on any score of cleanliness or
niceness, to sit and eat at the long board on which the miller's
dinner was daily served, or would have found it amiss to sit at that
fire and listen to the ticking of the great mahogany-cased clock,
which stood in the corner of the room. On the other side of the broad
opening passage Mrs. Brattle had her parlour. Doubtless this parlour
added something to the few joys of her life; though how it did so,
or why she should have rejoiced in it, it would be very difficult
to say. She never entered it except for the purpose of cleaning and
dusting. But it may be presumed that it was a glory to her to have a
room carpeted, with six horsehair chairs, and a round table, and a
horsehair sofa, and an old mirror over the fireplace, and a piece of
worsted-work done by her daughter and framed like a picture, hanging
up on one of the walls. But there must have come from it, we should
say, more of regret than of pleasure; for when that room was first
furnished, under her own auspices, and when those horsehair chairs
were bought with a portion of her own modest dowry, doubtless she had
intended that these luxuries should be used by her and hers. But they
never had been so used. The day for using them had never come. Her
husband never, by any chance, entered the apartment. To him probably,
even in his youth, it had been a woman's gewgaw, useless, but
allowable as tending to her happiness. Now the door was never even
opened before his eye. His last interview with Carry had been in
that room,--when he had laid his curse upon her, and bade her begone
before his return, so that his decent threshold should be no longer
polluted by her vileness.

On this side of the house there was a cross passage, dividing the
front rooms from the back. At the end of this, looking to the front
so as to have the parlour between it and the house-door, was the
chamber in which slept Brattle and his wife. Here all those children
had been born who had brought upon the household so many joys and so
much sorrow. And behind, looking to the back on to the little plot of
vegetables which was called the garden,--a plot in which it seemed
that cabbages and gooseberry bushes were made to alternate,--there
was a large store-room, and the chamber in which Fanny slept,--now
alone, but which she had once shared with four sisters. Carry was the
last one that had left her; and now Fanny hardly dared to name the
word sister above her breath. She could speak, indeed, of Sister Jay,
the wife of the prosperous ironmonger at Warminster; but of sisters
by their Christian names no mention was ever made.

Upstairs there were garrets, one of which was inhabited by Sam, when
he chose to reside at home; and another by the red-armed country
lass, who was maid-of-all-work at Brattle Mill. When it has also been
told that below the cabbage-plot there was an orchard, stretching
down to the junction of the waters, the description of Brattle Mill
will have been made.




CHAPTER VII.

THE MILLER'S WIFE.


When Mr. Fenwick entered the kitchen, Mrs. Brattle was sitting there
alone. Her daughter was away, disposing of the remnants and utensils
of the dinner-table. The old lady, with her spectacles on her nose,
was sitting as usual with a stocking over her left arm. On the round
table was a great open Bible, and, lying on the Bible, were sundry
large worsted hose, which always seemed to Mr. Fenwick as though
they must have undarned themselves as quickly as they were darned.
Her Bible and her stockings furnished the whole of Mrs. Brattle's
occupation from her dinner to her bed. In the morning, she would
still occupy herself in matters of cookery, would peel potatoes, and
prepare apples for puddings, and would look into the pot in which
the cabbage was being boiled. But her stockings and her Bible shared
together the afternoons of her week-days. On the Sundays there would
only be the Bible, and then she would pass many hours of the day
asleep. On every other Sunday morning she still walked to church and
back,--going there always alone. There was no one now to accompany
her. Her husband never went,--never had gone,--to church, and her son
now had broken away from his good practices. On alternate mornings
Fanny went, and also on every Sunday afternoon. Wet or dry, storm
or sunshine, she always went; and her father, who was an old Pagan,
loved her for her zeal. Mrs. Brattle was a slight-made old woman,
with hair almost white peering out modestly from under her clean cap,
dressed always in a brown stuff gown that never came down below her
ankle. Her features were still pretty, small, and débonnaire, and
there was a sweetness in her eyes that no observer could overlook.
She was a modest, pure, high-minded woman,--whom we will not call
a lady, because of her position in life, and because she darned
stockings in a kitchen. In all other respects she deserved the name.

"I heard your voice outside with the master," she said, rising from
her chair to answer the parson's salutation, and putting down her
stockings first, and then her spectacles upon the book, so that the
Bible was completely hidden; "and I knew you would not go without
saying a word to the old woman."

"I believe I came mostly to see you to-day, Mrs. Brattle."

"Did you then? It's kind of you, I'm sure, Mr. Fenwick, this hot
weather,--and you with so many folk to mind too. Will you take an
apple, Mr. Fenwick? I don't know that we've anything else to offer,
but the quarantines are rare this year, they say;--though, no doubt,
you have them better at the Vicarage?"

Fenwick took a large, red apple from the dresser, and began to munch
it, declaring that they had none such in their orchard. And then,
when the apple was finished, he had to begin his story.

"Mrs. Brattle, I'm sorry that I have something to say that will vex
you."

"Eh, Mr. Fenwick! Bad news? 'Deed and I think there's but little good
news left to us now,--little that comes from the tongues of men. It's
bad news that is always coming here. Mr. Fenwick,--what is it, sir?"

Then he repeated the question he had before put to the miller about
Sam. Where was Sam last night?--She only shook her head. Did he sleep
at home?--She shook her head again. Had he breakfasted at home?

"'Deed no, sir. I haven't set eyes on him since before yesterday."

"But how does he live? His father does not give him money, I
suppose?"

"There's little enough to give him, Mr. Fenwick. When he is at the
mill his father do pay him a some'at over and above his keep. It
isn't much, sir. Young men must have a some'at in their pockets at
times."

"He has too much in his pockets, I fear. I wish he had nothing, so
that he needs must come home for his meals. He works at the mill,
doesn't he?"

"At times, sir; and there isn't a lad in all Bullumpton,"--for so the
name was ordinarily pronounced,--"who can do a turn of work to beat
him."

"Do he and his father agree pretty well?"

"At times, sir. Times again his father don't say much to him. The
master ain't given to much talking in the mill, and Sam, when he's
there, works with a will. There's times when his father softens down
to him, and then to see 'em, you'd think they was all in all to each
other. There's a stroke of the master about Sam hisself, at times,
Mr. Fenwick, and the old man's eyes gladden to see it. There's none
so near his heart now as poor Sam."

"If he were as honest a man as his father, I could forgive all the
rest," said Mr. Fenwick slowly, meaning to imply that he was not
there now to complain of church observances neglected, or of small
irregularities of life. The paganism of the old miller had often been
the subject of converse between the parson and Mrs. Brattle, it being
a matter on which she had many an unhappy thought. He, groping darkly
among subjects which he hardly dared to touch in her presence lest
he should seem to unteach that in private which he taught in public,
had subtlely striven to make her believe that though she, through her
faith, would be saved, he, the husband, might yet escape that doom
of everlasting fire, which to her was so stern a reality that she
thought of its fury with a shudder whenever she heard of the world's
wickedness. When Parson Fenwick had first made himself intimate
at the mill Mrs. Brattle had thought that her husband's habits of
life would have been to him as wormwood and gall,--that he would be
unable not to chide, and well she knew that her husband would bear no
chiding. By degrees she had come to understand that this new parson
was one who talked more of life with its sorrows, and vices, and
chances of happiness, and possibilities of goodness, than he did
of the requirements of his religion. For herself inwardly she had
grieved at this, and, possibly, also for him; but, doubtless, there
had come to her some comfort, which she did not care to analyse, from
the manner in which "the master," as she called him, Pagan as he was,
had been treated by her clergyman. She wondered that it should be so,
but yet it was a relief to her to know that God's messenger should
come to her, and yet say never a word of his message to that hard
lord, whom she so feared and so loved, and who was, as she well knew,
too stubborn to receive it. And Fenwick had spoken,--still spoke
to her, so tenderly of her erring, fallen child, never calling her
a castaway, talking of her as Carry, who might yet be worthy of
happiness here and of all joy hereafter; that when she thought
of him as a minister of God, whose duty it was to pronounce God's
threats to erring human beings, she was almost alarmed. She could
hardly understand his leniency,--his abstinence from reproof; but
entertained a vague, wandering, unformed wish that, as he never
opened the vials of his wrath on them, he would pour it out upon
her,--on her who would bear it for their sake so meekly. If there was
such a wish it was certainly doomed to disappointment. At this moment
Fanny came in and curtseyed as she gave her hand to the parson.

"Was Sam at home last night, Fan?" asked the mother, in a sad, low
voice.

"Yes, mother. He slept in his bed."

"You are sure?" said the parson.

"Quite sure. I heard him this morning as he went out. It was about
five. He spoke to me, and I answered him."

"What did he say?"

"That he must go over to Lavington, and wouldn't be home till
nightfall. I told him where he would find bread and cheese, and he
took it."

"But you didn't see him last night?"

"No, sir. He comes in at all hours, when he pleases. He was at dinner
before yesterday, but I haven't seen him since. He didn't go nigh the
mill after dinner that day."

Then Mr. Fenwick considered how much he would tell to the mother and
sister, and how much he would keep back. He did not in his heart
believe that Sam Brattle had intended to enter his house and rob
it; but he did believe that the men with whom Sam was associated
were thieves and housebreakers. If these men were prowling about
Bullhampton it was certainly his duty to have them arrested if
possible, and to prevent probable depredations, for his neighbours'
sake as well as for his own. Nor would he be justified in neglecting
this duty with the object of saving Sam Brattle. If only he could
entice Sam away from them, into his own hands, under the power of his
tongue,--there might probably be a chance.

"You think he'll be home to-night?" he asked.

"He said he would," replied Fanny, who knew that she could not answer
for her brother's word.

"If he does, bid him come to me. Make him come to me! Tell him that
I will do him no harm. God knows how truly it is my object to do him
good."

"We are sure of that, sir," said the mother.

"He need not be afraid that I will preach to him. I will only talk to
him, as I would to a younger brother."

"But what is it that he has done, sir?"

"He has done nothing that I know. There;--I will tell you the whole.
I found him prowling about my garden at near midnight, yesterday. Had
he been alone I should have thought nothing of it. He thinks he owes
me a grudge for speaking to his father; and had I found him paying it
by filling his pockets with fruit, I should only have told him that
it would be better that he should come and take it in the morning."

"But he wasn't--stealing?" asked the mother.

"He was doing nothing; neither were the men. But they were
blackguards, and he was in bad hands. He could not have been in
worse. I had a tussle with one of them, and I am sure the man was
hurt. That, however, has nothing to do with it. What I desire is to
get a hold of Sam, so that he may be rescued from the hands of such
companions. If you can make him come to me, do so."

Fanny promised, and so did the mother; but the promise was given in
that tone which seemed to imply that nothing should be expected from
its performance. Sam had long been deaf to the voices of the women
of his family, and, when his father's anger would be hot against him,
he would simply go, and live where and how none of them knew. Among
such men and women as the Brattles, parental authority must needs lie
much lighter than it does with those who are wont to give much and to
receive much. What obedience does the lad owe who at eighteen goes
forth and earns his own bread? What is it to him that he has not yet
reached man's estate? He has to do a man's work, and the price of it
is his own, in his hands, when he has earned it. There is no curse
upon the poor heavier than that which comes from the early breach
of all ties of duty between fathers and their sons, and mothers and
their daughters.

Mr. Fenwick, as he passed out of the miller's house, saw Jacob
Brattle at the door of the mill. He was tugging along some load,
pulling it in at the door, and prevailing against the weakness of his
age by the force of his energy. The parson knew that the miller saw
him, but the miller took no notice,--looked rather as though he did
not wish to be observed,--and so the parson went on. When at home he
postponed his account of what had taken place till he should be alone
with his wife; but at night he told her the whole story.

"The long and the short of it is, Master Sam will turn to
housebreaking, if somebody doesn't get hold of him."

"To housebreaking, Frank?"

"I believe that he is about it."

"And were they going to break in here?"

"I don't think he was. I don't believe he was so minded then. But he
had shown them the way in, and they were looking about on their own
scores. Don't you frighten yourself. What with the constable and
the life-preserver, we'll be safe. I've a big dog coming, a second
Bone'm. Sam Brattle is in more danger, I fear, than the silver
forks."

But, in spite of the cheeriness of his speech, the Vicar was anxious,
and almost unhappy. After all that occurred in reference to himself
and to Sam Brattle,--their former intimacies, the fish they had
caught together, the rats they had killed together, the favour which
he, the parson of the parish, had shown to this lad, and especially
after the evil things which had been said of himself because of this
friendship on his part for one so much younger than himself, and
so much his inferior in rank,--it would be to him a most grievous
misfortune should he be called upon to acknowledge publicly Sam
Brattle's iniquity, and more grievous still, if the necessity should
be forced upon him of bringing Sam to open punishment. Fenwick knew
well that diverse accusations had been made against him in the
parish regarding Sam. The Marquis of Trowbridge had said a word. Mr.
Puddleham had said many words. The old miller himself had growled.
Even Gilmore had expressed disapprobation. The Vicar, in his pride,
had turned a deaf ear to them all. He began to fear now that possibly
he had been wrong in the favours shown to Sam Brattle.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE LAST DAY.


[Illustration]

The parson's visit to the mill was on a Saturday. The next Sunday
passed by very quietly, and nothing was seen of Mr. Gilmore at the
Vicarage. He was at church, and walked with the two ladies from the
porch to their garden gate, but he declined Mrs. Fenwick's invitation
to lunch, and was not seen again on that day. The parson had sent
word to Fanny Brattle during the service to stop a few minutes for
him, and had learned from her that Sam had not been at home last
night. He had also learned, before the service that morning, that
very early on the Saturday, probably about four o'clock, two men
had passed through Paul's Hinton with a huxter's cart and a pony.
Now Paul's Hinton, or Hinton Saint Paul's as it should be properly
called, was a long straggling village, six miles from Bullhampton,
and half-way on the road to Market Lavington, to which latter place
Sam had told his sister that he was going. Putting these things
together, Mr. Fenwick did not in the least doubt but the two men in
the cart were they who had been introduced to his garden by young
Brattle.

"I only hope," said the parson, "that there's a good surgeon at
Market Lavington. One of the gentlemen in that cart must have wanted
him, I take it." Then he thought that it might, perhaps, be worth his
while to trot over to Lavington in the course of the week, and make
inquiries.

On the Wednesday Mary Lowther was to go back to Loring. This seemed
like a partial break-up of their establishment, both to the parson
and his wife. Fenwick had made up his mind that Mary was to be his
nearest neighbour for life, and had fallen into the way of treating
her accordingly, telling her of things in the parish as he might have
done to the Squire's wife, presuming the Squire's wife to have been
on the best possible terms with him. He now regarded Mary as being
almost an impostor. She had taken him in and obtained his confidence
under false pretences. It was true that she might still come and
fill the place that he had appointed for her. He rather thought
that at last she would do so. But he was angry with her because she
hesitated. She was creating an unnecessary disturbance among them.
She had, he thought, been now wooed long enough, and, as he told his
wife more than once, was making an ass of herself. Mrs. Fenwick was
not quite so hard in her judgment, but she also was tempted to be a
little angry. She loved her friend Mary a great deal better than she
loved Mr. Gilmore, but she was thoroughly convinced that Mary could
not do better than accept a man whom she owned that she liked,--whom
she, at any rate, liked so well that she had not as yet rejected him.
Therefore, although Mary was going, they were, both of them, rather
savage with her.

The Monday passed by, also very quietly, and Mr. Gilmore did not come
to them, but he had sent a note to tell them that he would walk down
on the Tuesday evening to say good-bye to Miss Lowther. Early on
the Wednesday Mr. Fenwick was to drive her to Westbury, whence the
railway would take her round by Chippenham and Swindon to Loring. On
the Tuesday morning she was very melancholy. Though she knew that it
was right to go away, she greatly regretted that it was necessary.
She was angry with herself for not having better known her own mind,
and though she was quite sure that were Mr. Gilmore to repeat his
offer to her that moment, she would not accept it, nevertheless she
thought ill of herself because she would not do so. "I do believe,"
she said to herself, "that I shall never like any man better." She
knew well enough that if she was never brought to love any man, she
never ought to marry any man; but she was not quite sure whether
Janet was not right in telling her that she had formed erroneous
notions of the sort of love she ought to feel for the man whom she
should resolve to accept. Perhaps it was true that that kind of
adoration which Janet entertained for her husband was a feeling which
came after marriage--a feeling which would spring up in her own heart
as soon as she was the man's own wife, the mistress of his house, the
mother of his children, the one human being for whose welfare he was
solicitous beyond that of all others. And this man did love her. She
had no doubt about that. And she was unhappy, too, because she felt
that she had offended his friends, and that they thought that she was
not treating their friend well.

"Janet," she said, as they were again sitting out on the lawn, on
that Tuesday afternoon, "I am almost sorry that I came here at all."

"Don't say that, dear."

"I have spent some of the happiest days of my life here, but the
visit, on the whole, has been unfortunate. I am going away in
disgrace. I feel that so acutely."

"What nonsense! How are you in disgrace?"

"Mr. Fenwick and you think that I have behaved badly. I know you do,
and I feel it so strongly! I think so much of him, and believe him to
be so good, and so wise, and so understanding,--he knows what people
should do, and should be, so well,--that I cannot doubt that I have
been wrong if he thinks so."

"He only wishes that you could have made up your mind to marry a most
worthy man, who is his friend, and who, by marrying you, would have
fixed you close to us. He wishes it still, and so do I."

"But he thinks that I have been--have been mopish, and
lack-a-daisical, and--and--almost untrue. I can hear it in the tone
of his voice, and see it in his eye. I can tell it from the way he
shakes hands with me in the morning. He is such a true man that I
know in a moment what he means at all times. I am going away under
his displeasure, and I wish I had never come."

"Return as Mrs. Gilmore, and all his displeasure will disappear."

"Yes, because he would forgive me. He would say to himself that, as
I had repented, I might be taken back to his grace; but as things are
at present he condemns me. And so do you."

"If you ask me, Mary, I must tell the truth. I don't think you know
your own mind."

"Suppose I don't, is that disgraceful?"

"But there comes a time when a girl should know her own mind. You are
giving this poor fellow an enormous deal of unnecessary trouble."

"I have known my own mind so far as to tell him that I could not
marry him."

"As far as I understand, Mary, you have always told him to wait a
little longer."

"I have never asked him to wait, Janet;--never. It is he who says
that he will wait; and what can I answer when he says so? All the
same I don't mean to defend myself. I do believe that I have been
wrong, and I wish that I had never come here. It sounds ungrateful,
but I do. It is so dreadful to feel that I have incurred the
displeasure of people that I love so dearly."

"There is no displeasure, Mary; the word is a good deal too strong.
I wonder what you'll think of all this when the parson and his wife
come up on future Sundays to dine with the Squire and his lady. I
have long since made up my mind that when afternoon service is over,
we ought to go up and be made much of at the Privets; and you're
putting all this off till I'm an old woman--for a chimera. It's about
our Sunday dinners that I'm angry. Flo, my darling, what a face you
have got. Do come and sit still for a few minutes, or you'll be in a
fever." While Mrs. Fenwick was wiping her girl's brow, and smoothing
her ringlets, Mary walked off to the orchard by herself. There was a
broad green path which made the circuit of it, and she took the round
twice, pausing at the bottom to look at the spot from which she had
tumbled into the river. What a trouble she had been to them all! She
was thoroughly dissatisfied with herself; especially so because she
had fallen into those very difficulties which from early years she
had resolved that she would avoid. She had made up her mind that she
would not flirt, that she would never give a right to any man--or to
any woman--to call her a coquette; that if love and a husband came
in her way she would take them thankfully, and that if they did not,
she would go on her path quietly, if possible, feeling no uneasiness,
and certainly showing none, because the joys of a married life did
not belong to her. But now she had gotten herself into a mess, and
she could not tell herself that it was not her own fault. Then she
resolved again that in future she would go right. It could not but
be that a woman could keep herself from floundering in these messes
of half-courtship,--of courtship on one side, and doubt on the
other,--if she would persistently adhere to some safe rule. Her
rejection of Mr. Gilmore ought to have been unhesitating and certain
from the first. She was sure of that now. She had been guilty of
an absurdity in supposing that because the man had been in earnest,
therefore she had been justified in keeping him in suspense, for his
own sake. She had been guilty of an absurdity, and also of great
self-conceit. She could do nothing now but wait till she should hear
from him,--and then answer him steadily. After what had passed she
could not go to him and declare that it was all over. He was coming
to-night, and she was nearly sure that he would not say a word to her
on the subject. If he did,--if he renewed his offer,--then she would
speak out. It was hardly possible that he should do so, and therefore
the trouble which she had created must remain.

As she thus resolved, she was leaning over the gate looking into the
churchyard, not much observing the graves or the monuments or the
beautiful old ivy-covered tower, or thinking of the dead that were
lying there, or of the living who prayed there; but swearing to
herself that for the rest of her life she would keep clear of, what
she called, girlish messes. Like other young ladies she had read much
poetry and many novels; but her sympathies had never been with young
ladies who could not go straight through with their love affairs,
from the beginning to the end, without flirtation of either an inward
or an outward nature. Of all her heroines, Rosalind was the one she
liked the best, because from the first moment of her passion she knew
herself and what she was about, and loved her lover right heartily.
Of all girls in prose or poetry she declared that Rosalind was
the least of a flirt. She meant to have the man, and never had a
doubt about it. But with such a one as Flora MacIvor she had no
patience;--a girl who did and who didn't, who would and who wouldn't,
who could and who couldn't, and who of all flirts was to her the most
nauseous! As she was taking herself to task, accusing herself of
being a Flora without the poetry and romance to excuse her, Mr.
Fenwick came round from Farmer Trumbull's side of the church, and got
over the stile into the churchyard.


[Illustration: Mr. Fenwick came round from Farmer Trumbull's
side of the church, and got over the stile into the churchyard.]


"What, Mary, is that you gazing in so intently among your brethren
that were?"

"I was not thinking of them," she said, with a smile. "My mind was
intent on some of my brethren that are." Then there came a thought
across her, and she made a sudden decision. "Mr. Fenwick," she said,
"would you mind walking up and down the churchyard with me once or
twice? I have something to say to you, and I can say it now so well."
He opened the gate for her, and she joined him. "I want to beg your
pardon, and to get you to forgive me. I know you have been angry with
me."

"Hardly angry,--but vexed. As you ask me so frankly and prettily, I
will forgive you. There is my hand upon it. All evil thoughts against
you shall go out of my head. I shall still have my wishes, but I will
not be cross with you."

"You are so good, and so clearly honest. I declare I think Janet the
happiest woman that I ever heard of."

"Come, come; I didn't bargain for this kind of thing when I allowed
myself to be brought in here."

"But it is so. I did not stop you for that, however, but to
acknowledge that I have been wrong, and to ask you to pardon me."

"I will. I do. If there has been anything amiss, it shall not be
looked on again as amiss. But there has been only one thing amiss."

"And, Mr. Fenwick, will you do this for me? Will you tell him that I
was foolish to say that he might wait? Why should he wait? Of course
he should not wait. When I am gone, tell him so, and beg him to make
an end of it. I had not thought of it properly, or I would not have
allowed him to be tormented."

There was a pause after this, during which they walked half the
length of the path in silence. "No, Mary," he said, after a while; "I
will not tell him that."

"Why not, Mr. Fenwick?"

"Because it will not be for his good, or for mine, or for Janet's,
or, as I believe, for yours."

"Indeed, it will, for the good of us all."

"I think, Mary, you do not quite understand. There is not one among
us who does not wish that you should come here and be one of us;
a real, right down Bullompton 'ooman, as they say in the village.
I want you to be my wife's dearest friend, and my own nearest
neighbour. There is no man in the world whom I love as I do Harry
Gilmore, and I want you to be his wife. I have said to myself and
to Janet a score of times that you certainly would be so sooner or
later. My wrath has not come from your bidding him to wait, but from
your coldness in not taking him without waiting. You should remember
that we grow gray very quickly, Mary."

Here was the old story again,--the old story as she had heard it from
Harry Gilmore, but told as she had never expected to hear it from
the lips of Frank Fenwick. It amounted to this; that even he, Frank
Fenwick, bade her wait and try. But she had formed her resolution,
and she was not going to be turned aside, even by Frank Fenwick; "I
had thought that you would help me," she said, very slowly.

"So I will, with all my heart, towards the keys of the store closets
of the Privets, but not a step the other way. It has to be, Mary. He
is too much in earnest, and too good, and too fit for the place to
which he aspires, to miss his object. Come, we'll go in. Mind, you
and I are one again, let it go how it may. I will own that I have
been vexed for the last two days,--have been in a humour unbecoming
your departure to-morrow. I throw all that behind me. You and I are
dear friends,--are we not?"

"I do hope so, Mr. Fenwick?"

"There shall be no feather moulted between us. But as to operating
between you and Harry, with the view of keeping you apart, I decline
the commission. It is my assured belief that sooner or later he will
be your husband. Now we will go up to Janet, who will begin to think
herself a Penelope, if we desert her much longer."

Immediately after this Mary went up to dress for dinner. Should she
make up her mind to give way, and put on the blue ribbons which he
loved so well? She thought that she could tell him at once, if she
made up her mind in that direction. It would not, perhaps, be very
maidenly, but anything would be better than suspense,--than torment
to him. Then she took out her blue ribbons, and tried to go through
that ceremony of telling him. It was quite impossible. Were she to do
so, she would know no happiness again in this world, or probably in
the other. To do the thing, it would be necessary that she should lie
to him.

She came down in a simple white dress, without any ribbons, in
just the dress which she would have worn had Mr. Gilmore not been
coming. At dinner they were very merry. The word of command had gone
forth from Frank that Mary was to be forgiven, and Janet of course
obeyed. The usual courtesies of society demand that there shall be
civility--almost flattering civility--from host to guest, and from
guest to host; and yet how often does it occur that in the midst
of these courtesies there is something that tells of hatred, of
ridicule, or of scorn! How often does it happen that the guest knows
that he is disliked, or the host knows that he is a bore! In the last
two days Mary had felt that she was not cordially a welcome guest.
She had felt also that the reason was one against which she could not
contend. Now all that, at least, was over. Frank Fenwick's manner had
never been pleasanter to her than it was on this occasion, and Janet
followed the suit which her lord led.

They were again on the lawn between eight and nine o'clock when Harry
Gilmore came up to them. He was gracious enough in his salutation to
Mary Lowther, but no indifferent person would have thought that he
was her lover. He talked chiefly to Fenwick, and when they went in to
tea did not take a place on the sofa beside Mary. But after a while
he said something which told them all of his love.

"What do you think I've been doing to-day, Frank?"

"Getting your wheat down, I should hope."

"We begin that to-morrow. I never like to be quite the earliest at
that work, or yet the latest."

"Better be a day too early than a day too late, Harry."

"Never mind about that. I've been down with old Brattle."

"And what have you been doing with him?"

"I'm half ashamed, and yet I fancy I'm right."

As he said this he looked across to Mary Lowther, who no doubt was
watching every turn of his face from the corner of her eye. "I've
just been and knocked under, and told him that the old place shall be
put to rights."

"That's your doing, Mary," said Mrs. Fenwick, injudiciously.

"Oh, no; I'm sure it is not. Mr. Gilmore would only do such a thing
as that because it is proper."

"I don't know about it's being proper," said he. "I'm not quite sure
whether it is or not. I shall never get any interest for my money."

"Interest for one's money is not everything," said Mrs. Fenwick.

"Nevertheless, when one builds houses for other people to live in,
one has to look to it," said the parson.

"People say it's the prettiest spot in the parish," continued Mr.
Gilmore, "and as such it shouldn't be let go to ruin." Janet remarked
afterwards to her husband that Mary Lowther had certainly declared
that it was the prettiest spot in the parish, but that, as far as
her knowledge went, nobody else had ever said so. "And then, you see,
when I refused to spend money upon it, old Brattle had money of his
own, and it was his business to do it."

"He hasn't much now, I fear," said Mr. Fenwick.

"I fear not. His family has been very heavy on him. He paid money
to put two of his boys into trade who died afterwards, and then for
years he had either doctors or undertakers about the place. So I just
went down to him and told him I would do it."

"And how did he take it?"

"Like a bear, as he is. He would hardly speak to me, but went away
into the mill, telling me that I might settle it all with his wife.
It's going to be done, however. I shall have the estimate next week,
and I suppose it will cost me two or three hundred pounds. The mill
is worse than the house, I take it."

"I am so glad it is to be done," said Mary. After that Mr. Gilmore
did not in the least begrudge his two or three hundred pounds. But he
said not a word to Mary, just pressed her hand at parting, and left
her subject to a possibility of a reversal of her sentence at the end
of the stated period.

On the next morning Mr. Fenwick drove her in his little open phaeton
to the station at Westbury. "You are to come back to us, you know,"
said Mrs. Fenwick, "and remember how anxiously I am waiting for my
Sunday dinners." Mary said not a word, but as she was driven round
in front of the church she looked up at the dear old tower, telling
herself that, in all probability, she would never see it again.

"I have just one thing to say, Mary," said the parson, as he walked
up and down the platform with her at Westbury; "you are to remember
that, whatever happens, there is always a home for you at Bullhampton
when you choose to come to it. I am not speaking of the Privets now,
but of the Vicarage."

"How very good you are to me!"

"And so are you to us. Dear friends should be good to each other.
God bless you, dear." From thence she made her way home to Loring by
herself.




CHAPTER IX.

MISS MARRABLE.


Whatever may be the fact as to the rank and proper calling of
Bullhampton, there can be no doubt that Loring is a town. There is a
market-place, and a High Street, and a Board of Health, and a Paragon
Crescent, and a Town Hall, and two different parish churches, one
called St. Peter Lowtown, and the other St. Botolph's Uphill, and
there are Uphill Street, and Lowtown Street, and various other
streets. I never heard of a mayor of Loring, but, nevertheless, there
is no doubt as to its being a town. Nor did it ever return members
to Parliament; but there was once, in one of the numerous bills that
have been proposed, an idea of grouping it with Cirencester and
Lechlade. All the world of course knows that this was never done; but
the transient rumour of it gave the Loringites an improved position,
and justified that little joke about a live dog being better than a
dead lion, with which the parson at Bullhampton regaled Miss Lowther
at the time.

All the fashion of Loring dwelt, as a matter of course, at Uphill.
Lowtown was vulgar, dirty, devoted to commercial and manufacturing
purposes, and hardly owned a single genteel private house. There was
the parsonage, indeed, which stood apart from its neighbours, inside
great tall slate-coloured gates, and which had a garden of its own.
But except the clergyman, who had no choice in the matter, nobody
who was anybody lived at Lowtown. There were three or four factories
there,--in and out of which troops of girls would be seen passing
twice a day, in their ragged, soiled, dirty mill dresses, all of
whom would come out on Sunday dressed with a magnificence that
would lead one to suppose that trade at Loring was doing very well.
Whether trade did well or ill, whether wages were high or low,
whether provisions were cheap in price, whether there were peace
or war between capital and labour, still there was the Sunday
magnificence. What a blessed thing it is for women,--and for men too
certainly,--that there should be a positive happiness to the female
sex in the possession, and in exhibiting the possession, of bright
clothing! It is almost as good for the softening of manners, and the
not permitting of them to be ferocious, as is the faithful study of
the polite arts. At Loring the manners of the mill hands, as they
were called, were upon the whole good,--which I believe was in a
great degree to be attributed to their Sunday magnificence.

The real West-end of Loring was understood by all men to lie in
Paragon Crescent, at the back of St. Botolph's Church. The whole of
this Crescent was built, now some twenty years ago, by Mrs. Fenwick's
father, who had been clever enough to see that as mills were made to
grow in the low town, houses for wealthy people to live in ought to
be made to grow in the high town. He therefore built the Paragon,
and a certain small row of very pretty houses near the end of the
Paragon, called Balfour Place,--and had done very well, and had made
money; and now lay asleep in the vaults below St. Botolph's Church.
No inconsiderable proportion of the comfort of Bullhampton parsonage
is due to Mr. Balfour's success in that achievement of Paragon
Crescent. There were none of the family left at Loring. The widow had
gone away to live at Torquay with a sister, and the only other child,
another daughter, was married to that distinguished barrister on the
Oxford circuit, Mr. Quickenham. Mr. Quickenham and our friend the
parson were very good friends; but they did not see a great deal of
each other, Mr. Fenwick not going up very often to London, and Mr.
Quickenham being unable to use the Vicarage of Bullhampton when on
his own circuit. As for the two sisters, they had very strong ideas
about their husbands' professions; Sophia Quickenham never hesitating
to declare that one was life, and the other stagnation; and Janet
Fenwick protesting that the difference to her seemed to be almost
that between good and evil. They wrote to each other perhaps once a
quarter. But the Balfour family was in truth broken up.

Miss Marrable, Mary Lowther's aunt, lived, of course, at Uphill; but
not in the Crescent, nor yet in Balfour Place. She was an old lady
with very modest means, whose brother had been rector down at St.
Peter's, and she had passed the greatest part of her life within
those slate-coloured gates. When he died, and when she, almost
exactly at the same time, found that it would be expedient that she
should take charge of her niece, Mary, she removed herself up to a
small house in Botolph Lane, in which she could live decently on her
£300 a year. It must not be surmised that Botolph Lane was a squalid
place, vile, or dirty, or even unfashionable. It was narrow and old,
having been inhabited by decent people long before the Crescent, or
even Mr. Balfour himself, had been in existence; but it was narrow
and old, and the rents were cheap, and here Miss Marrable was able
to live, and occasionally to give tea-parties, and to provide a
comfortable home for her niece, within the limits of her income. Miss
Marrable was herself a lady of very good family, the late Sir Gregory
Marrable having been her uncle; but her only sister had married a
Captain Lowther, whose mother had been first cousin to the Earl of
Periwinkle; and therefore on her own account, as well as on that of
her niece, Miss Marrable thought a good deal about blood. She was
one of those ladies,--now few in number,--who within their heart
of hearts conceive that money gives no title to social distinction,
let the amount of money be ever so great, and its source ever so
stainless. Rank to her was a thing quite assured and ascertained,
and she had no more doubt as to her own right to pass out of a
room before the wife of a millionaire than she had of the right of
a millionaire to spend his own guineas. She always addressed an
attorney by letter as Mister, raising up her eyebrows when appealed
to on the matter, and explaining that an attorney is not an esquire.
She had an idea that the son of a gentleman, if he intended to
maintain his rank as a gentleman, should earn his income as a
clergyman, or as a barrister, or as a soldier, or as a sailor. Those
were the professions intended for gentlemen. She would not absolutely
say that a physician was not a gentleman, or even a surgeon; but she
would never allow to physic the same absolute privileges which, in
her eyes, belonged to law and the church. There might also possibly
be a doubt about the Civil Service and Civil Engineering; but she had
no doubt whatever that when a man touched trade or commerce in any
way he was doing that which was not the work of a gentleman. He might
be very respectable, and it might be very necessary that he should do
it; but brewers, bankers, and merchants, were not gentlemen, and the
world, according to Miss Marrable's theory, was going astray, because
people were forgetting their landmarks.

As to Miss Marrable herself nobody could doubt that she was a lady;
she looked it in every inch. There were not, indeed, many inches of
her, for she was one of the smallest, daintiest, little old women
that ever were seen. But now, at seventy, she was very pretty, quite
a woman to look at with pleasure. Her feet and hands were exquisitely
made, and she was very proud of them. She wore her own grey hair of
which she showed very little, but that little was always exquisitely
nice. Her caps were the perfection of caps. Her green eyes were
bright and sharp, and seemed to say that she knew very well how
to take care of herself. Her mouth, and nose, and chin, were all
well-formed, small, shapely, and concise, not straggling about her
face as do the mouths, noses, and chins of some old ladies--ay, and
of some young ladies also. Had it not been that she had lost her
teeth, she would hardly have looked to be an old woman. Her health
was perfect. She herself would say that she had never yet known a
day's illness. She dressed with the greatest care, always wearing
silk at and after luncheon. She dressed three times a day, and in the
morning would come down in what she called a merino gown. But then,
with her, clothes never seemed to wear out. Her motions were so
slight and delicate, that the gloss of her dresses would remain on
them when the gowns of other women would almost have been worn to
rags. She was never seen of an afternoon or evening without gloves,
and her gloves were always clean and apparently new. She went to
church once on Sundays in winter, and twice in summer, and she had a
certain very short period of each day devoted to Bible reading; but
at Loring she was not reckoned to be among the religious people.
Indeed, there were those who said that she was very worldly-minded,
and that at her time of life she ought to devote herself to other
books than those which were daily in her hands. Pope, Dryden, Swift,
Cowley, Fielding, Richardson, and Goldsmith, were her authors. She
read the new novels as they came out, but always with critical
comparisons that were hostile to them. Fielding, she said, described
life as it was; whereas Dickens had manufactured a kind of life that
never had existed, and never could exist. The pathos of Esmond was
very well, but Lady Castlemaine was nothing to Clarissa Harlowe. As
for poetry, Tennyson, she said, was all sugar-candy; he had neither
the common sense, nor the wit, nor, as she declared, to her ear the
melody of Pope. All the poets of the present century, she declared,
if put together, could not have written the Rape of the Lock. Pretty
as she was, and small, and nice, and lady-like, I think she liked
her literature rather strong. It is certain that she had Smollett's
novels in a cupboard up-stairs, and it was said that she had been
found reading one of Wycherley's plays.

The strongest point in her character was her contempt of money. Not
that she had any objection to it, or would at all have turned up
her nose at another hundred a year had anybody left to her such
an accession of income; but that in real truth she never measured
herself by what she possessed, or others by what they possessed. She
was as grand a lady to herself, eating her little bit of cold mutton,
or dining off a tiny sole, as though she sat at the finest banquet
that could be spread. She had no fear of economies, either before her
two handmaids or anybody else in the world. She was fond of her tea,
and in summer could have cream for twopence; but when cream became
dear, she saved money and had a pen'north of milk. She drank two
glasses of Marsala every day, and let it be clearly understood that
she couldn't afford sherry. But when she gave a tea-party, as she
did, perhaps, six or seven times a year, sherry was always handed
round with cake before the people went away. There were matters in
which she was extravagant. When she went out herself she never took
one of the common street flies, but paid eighteen pence extra to get
a brougham from the Dragon. And when Mary Lowther,--who had only
fifty pounds a year of her own, with which she clothed herself and
provided herself with pocket-money,--was going to Bullhampton, Miss
Marrable actually proposed to her to take one of the maids with her.
Mary, of course, would not hear of it, and said that she should just
as soon think of taking the house; but Miss Marrable had thought
that it would, perhaps, not be well for a girl so well-born as Miss
Lowther to go out visiting without a maid. She herself very rarely
left Loring, because she could not afford it; but when, two summers
back, she did go to Weston-super-Mare for a fortnight, she took one
of the girls with her.

Miss Marrable had heard a great deal about Mr. Gilmore. Mary, indeed,
was not inclined to keep secrets from her aunt, and her very long
absence,--so much longer than had at first been intended,--could
hardly have been sanctioned unless some reason had been given. There
had been many letters on the subject, not only between Mary and her
aunt, but between Mrs. Fenwick and her very old friend Miss Marrable.
Of course these latter letters had spoken loudly the praises of
Mr. Gilmore, and Miss Marrable had become quite one of the Gilmore
faction. She desired that her niece should marry; but that she should
marry a gentleman. She would have infinitely preferred to see Mary
an old maid, than to hear that she was going to give herself to any
suitor contaminated by trade. Now Mr. Gilmore's position was exactly
that which Miss Marrable regarded as being the best in England.
He was a country gentleman, living on his own acres, a justice of
the peace, whose father and grandfather and great-grandfather had
occupied exactly the same position. Such a marriage for Mary would be
quite safe; and in those days one did hear so often of girls making,
she would not say improper marriages, but marriages which in her
eyes were not fitting! Mr. Gilmore, she thought, exactly filled that
position which entitled a gentleman to propose marriage to such a
lady as Mary Lowther.

"Yes, my dear, I am glad to have you back again. Of course I have
been a little lonely, but I bear that kind of thing better than most
people. Thank God, my eyes are good."

"You are looking so well, Aunt Sarah!"

"I am well. I don't know how other women get so much amiss; but God
has been very good to me."

"And so pretty," said Mary, kissing her.

"My dear, it's a pity you're not a young gentleman."

"You are so fresh and nice, aunt. I wish I could always look as you
do."

"What would Mr. Gilmore say?"

"Oh, Mr. Gilmore, Mr. Gilmore, Mr. Gilmore! I am so weary of Mr.
Gilmore."

"Weary of him, Mary?"

"Weary of myself because of him--that is what I mean. He has behaved
always well, and I am not at all sure that I have. And he is a
perfect gentleman. But I shall never be Mrs. Gilmore, Aunt Sarah."

"Janet says that she thinks you will."

"Janet is mistaken. But, dear aunt, don't let us talk about it at
once. Of course you shall hear everything in time, but I have had so
much of it. Let us see what new books there are. Cast Iron! You don't
mean to say you have come to that?"

"I shan't read it."

"But I will, aunt. So it must not go back for a day or two. I do love
the Fenwicks, dearly, dearly, both of them. They are almost, if not
quite, perfect. And yet I am glad to be at home."




CHAPTER X.

CRUNCH'EM CAN'T BE HAD.


Mr. Fenwick had intended to have come home round by Market Lavington,
after having deposited Miss Lowther at the Westbury Station, with
the view of making some inquiry respecting the gentleman with the
hurt shoulder; but he had found the distance to be too great, and
had abandoned the idea. After that there was not a day to spare till
the middle of the next week; so that it was nearly a fortnight after
the little scene at the corner of the Vicarage garden wall before he
called upon the Lavington constable and the Lavington doctor. From
the latter he could learn nothing. No such patient had been to him.
But the constable, though he had not seen the two men, had heard
of them. One was a man who in former days had frequented Lavington,
Burrows by name, generally known as Jack the Grinder, who had been
in every prison in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, but who had not,--so
said the constable,--honoured Lavington for the last two years, till
this his last appearance. He had, however, been seen there in company
with another man, and had evidently been in a condition very unfit
for work. He had slept one night at a low public-house, and had then
moved on. The man had complained of a fall from the cart, and had
declared that he was black and blue all over; but it seemed to be
clear that he had no broken bones. Mr. Fenwick therefore was all but
convinced that Jack the Grinder was the gentleman with whom he had
had the encounter, and that the grinder's back had withstood that
swinging blow from the life-preserver. Of the Grinder's companions
nothing could be learned. The two men had taken the Devizes road
out of Lavington, and beyond that nothing was known of them. When
the parson mentioned Sam Brattle's name in a whisper, the Lavington
constable shook his head. He knew all about old Jacob Brattle. A very
respectable party was old Mr. Brattle in the constable's opinion.
Nevertheless the constable shook his head when Sam Brattle's name was
mentioned. Having learned so much, the parson rode home.

Two days after this, on a Friday, Fenwick was sitting after breakfast
in his study, at work on his sermon for next Sunday, when he was told
that old Mrs. Brattle was waiting to see him. He immediately got up,
and found his own wife and the miller's seated in the hall. It was
not often that Mrs. Brattle made her way to the Vicarage, but when
she did so she was treated with great consideration. It was still
August, and the weather was very hot, and she had walked up across
the water mead, and was tired. A glass of wine and a biscuit were
pressed upon her, and she was encouraged to sit and say a few
indifferent words, before she was taken into the study and told to
commence the story which had brought her so far. And there was a
most inviting topic for conversation. The mill and the mill premises
were to be put in order by the landlord. Mrs. Brattle affected to
be rather dismayed than otherwise by the coming operations. The
mill would have lasted their time, she thought, "and as for them as
were to come after them,--well! she didn't know. As things was now,
perhaps, it might be that after all Sam would have the mill." But the
trouble occasioned by the workmen would be infinite. How were they to
live in the mean time, and where were they to go? It soon appeared,
however, that all this had been already arranged. Milling must of
course be stopped for a month or six weeks. "Indeed, sir, feyther
says that there won't be no more grinding much before winter."
But the mill was to be repaired first, and then, when it became
absolutely necessary to dismantle the house, they were to endeavour
to make shift, and live in the big room of the mill itself, till
their furniture should be put back again. Mrs. Fenwick, with ready
good nature, offered to accommodate Mrs. Brattle and Fanny at the
Vicarage; but the old woman declined with many protestations of
gratitude. She had never left her old man yet, and would not do so
now. The weather would be mild for awhile, and she thought that they
could get through. By this time the glass of wine had been sipped
to the bottom, and the parson, mindful of his sermon, had led the
visitor into his study. She had come to tell that Sam at last had
returned home.

"Why didn't you bring him up with you, Mrs. Brattle?" Here was a
question to ask of an old lady, whose dominion over her son was
absolutely none! Sam had become so frightfully independent that he
hardly regarded the word of his father, who was a man pre-eminently
capable of maintaining authority, and would no more do a thing
because his mother told him than because the wind whistled.

"I axed him to come up, not just with me, but of hisself, Mr.
Fenwick; but he said as how you would know where to find him if you
wanted him."

"That's just what I don't know. However, if he's there now I'll go to
him. It would have been better far that he should have come to me."

"I told 'un so, Mr. Fenwick, I did, indeed."

"It does not signify. I will go to him; only it cannot be to-day, as
I have promised to take my wife over to Charlicoats. But I'll come
down immediately after breakfast to-morrow. You think he'll be still
there?"

"I be sure he will, Mr. Fenwick. He and feyther have taken on again,
till it's beautiful to see. There was none of 'em feyther ever loved
like he,--only one." Thereupon the poor woman burst out into tears,
and covered her face with her handkerchief. "He never makes half so
much account of my Fan, that never had a fault belonging to her."

"If Sam will stick to that it will be well for him."

"He's taken up extraordinary with the repairs, Mr. Fenwick. He's in
and about and over the place, looking to everything; and feyther says
he knows so much about it, he b'lieves the boy could do it all out o'
his own head. There's nothing feyther ever liked so much as folks to
be strong and clever."

"Perhaps the Squire's tradesmen won't like all that. Is Mitchell
going to do it?"

"It ain't a doing in that way, Mr. Fenwick. The Squire is allowing
£200, and feyther is to get it done. Mister Mitchell is to see that
it's done proper, no doubt."

"And now tell me, Mrs. Brattle, what has Sam been about all the time
that he was away?"

"That's just what I cannot tell you, Mr. Fenwick."

"Your husband has asked him, I suppose?"

"If he has, he ain't told me, Mr. Fenwick. I don't care to come
between them with hints and jealousies, suspecting like. Our Fan says
he's been out working somewhere Lavington way; but I don't know as
she knows."

"Was he decent looking when he came home?"

"He wasn't much amiss, Mr. Fenwick. He has that way with him that he
most always looks decent;--don't he, sir?"

"Had he any money?"

"He had a some'at, because when he was working, moving the big lumber
as though for bare life, he sent one of the boys for beer, and I
see'd him give the boy the money."

"I'm sorry for it. I wish he'd come back without a penny, and with
hunger like a wolf in his stomach, and with his clothes all rags,
so that he might have had a taste of the suffering of a vagabond's
life."

"Just like the Prodigal Son, Mr. Fenwick?"

"Just like the Prodigal Son. He would not have come back to his
father had he not been driven by his own vices to live with the
swine." Then, seeing the tears coming down the poor mother's cheeks,
he added in a kinder voice, "Perhaps it may be all well as it is. We
will hope so at least, and to-morrow I will come down and see him.
You need not tell him that I am coming, unless he should ask where
you have been." Then Mrs. Brattle took her leave, and the parson
finished his sermon.

That afternoon he drove his wife across the county to visit certain
friends at Charlicoats, and, both going and coming, could not keep
himself from talking about the Brattles. In the first place, he
thought that Gilmore was wrong not to complete the work himself.

"Of course he'll see that the money is spent and all that, and no
doubt in this way he may get the job done twenty or thirty pounds
cheaper; but the Brattles have not interest enough in the place to
justify it."

"I suppose the old man liked it best so."

"The old man shouldn't have been allowed to have his way. I am in an
awful state of alarm about Sam. Much as I like him,--or at any rate
did like him,--I fear he is going, or perhaps has gone, to the dogs.
That those two men were housebreakers is as certain as that you sit
there; and I cannot doubt but that he has been with them over at
Lavington or Devizes, or somewhere in that country."

"But he may, perhaps, never have joined them in anything of that
kind."

"A man is known by his companions. I would not have believed it if
I had not found him with the men, and traced him and them about the
county together. You see that this fellow whom they call the Grinder
was certainly the man I struck. I tracked him to Lavington, and there
he was complaining of being sore all over his body. I don't wonder
that he was sore. He must be made like a horse to be no worse than
sore. Well, then, that man and Sam were certainly in our garden
together."

"Give him a chance, Frank."

"Of course, I will give him a chance. I will give him the very best
chance I can. I would do anything to save him,--but I can't help
knowing what I know."

He had made very little to his wife of the danger of the Vicarage
being robbed, but he could not but feel that there was danger.
His wife had brought with her, among other plenishing for their
household, a considerable amount of handsome plate, more than is,
perhaps, generally to be found in country parsonages, and no doubt
this fact was known, at any rate, to Sam Brattle. Had the men simply
intended to rob the garden, they would not have run the risk of
coming so near to the house windows. But then it certainly was true
that Sam was not showing them the way. The parson did not quite know
what to think about it, but it was clearly his duty to be on his
guard.

That same evening he sauntered across the corner of the churchyard
to his neighbour the farmer. Looking out warily for Bone'm, he stood
leaning upon the farm gate. Bone'm was not to be seen or heard, and
therefore he entered, and walked up to the back door, which indeed
was the only door for entrance or egress that was ever used. There
was a front door opening into a little ragged garden, but this was as
much a fixture as the wall. As he was knocking at the back door, it
was opened by the farmer himself. Mr. Fenwick had called to inquire
whether his friend had secured for him,--as half promised,--the
possession of a certain brother of Bone'm's, who was supposed to be
of a very pugnacious disposition in the silent watches of the night.

"It's no go, parson."

"Why not, Mr. Trumbull?"

"The truth is, there be such a deal of talk o' thieves about the
country, that no one likes to part with such a friend as that. Muster
Crickly, over at Imber, he have another big dog it's true, a reg'lar
mastiff, but he do say that Crunch'em be better than the mastiff, and
he won't let 'un go, parson,--not for love nor money. I wouldn't let
Bone'm go, I know; not for nothing." Then Mr. Fenwick walked back to
the Vicarage, and was half induced to think that as Crunch'em was not
to be had, it would be his duty to sit up at night, and look after
the plate box himself.




CHAPTER XI.

DON'T YOU BE AFEARD ABOUT ME.


On the following morning Mr. Fenwick walked down to the mill. There
was a path all along the river, and this was the way he took. He
passed different points as he went, and he thought of the trout he
had caught there, or had wished to catch, and he thought also how
often Sam Brattle had been with him as he had stood there delicately
throwing his fly. In those days Sam had been very fond of him, had
thought it to be a great thing to be allowed to fish with the parson,
and had been reasonably obedient. Now Sam would not even come up to
the Vicarage when he was asked to do so. For more than a year after
the close of those amicable relations the parson had behaved with
kindness and almost with affection to the lad. He had interceded with
the Squire when Sam was accused of poaching,--had interceded with
the old miller when Sam had given offence at home,--and had even
interceded with the constable when there was a rumour in the wind
of offences something worse than these. Then had come the occasion
on which Mr. Fenwick had told the father that unless the son would
change his course evil would come of it; and both father and son had
taken this amiss. The father had told the parson to his face that he,
the parson, had led his son astray; and the son in his revenge had
brought housebreakers down upon his old friend's premises.

"One hasn't to do it for thanks," said Mr. Fenwick, as he became a
little bitter while thinking of all this. "I'll stick to him as long
as I can, if it's only for the old woman's sake,--and for the poor
girl whom we used to love." Then he thought of a clear, sweet, young
voice that used to be so well known in his village choir, and of the
heavy curls, which it was a delight to him to see. It had been a
pleasure to him to have such a girl as Carry Brattle in his church,
and now Carry Brattle was gone utterly, and would probably never be
seen in a church again. These Brattles had suffered much, and he
would bear with them, let the task of doing so be ever so hard.

The sound of workmen was to be already heard as he drew near to
the mill. There were men there pulling the thatch off the building,
and there were carts and horses bringing laths, lime, bricks, and
timber, and taking the old rubbish away. As he crossed quickly by
the slippery stones he saw old Jacob Brattle standing before the
mill looking on, with his hands in his breeches pockets. He was
too old to do much at such work as this,--work to which he was not
accustomed--and was looking up in a sad melancholy way, as though it
were a work of destruction, and not one of reparation.

"We shall have you here as smart as possible before long, Mr.
Brattle," said the parson.

"I don't know much about smart, Muster Fenwick. The old place was
a'most tumbling down,--but still it would have lasted out my time,
I'm thinking. If t' Squire would 'a done it fifteen years ago, I'd
'a thanked un; but I don't know what to say about it now, and this
time of year and all, just when the new grist would be coming in.
If t' Squire would 'a thought of it in June, now. But things is
contrary--a'most allays so." After this speech, which was made in a
low, droning voice, bit by bit, the miller took himself off and went
into the house.

At the back of the mill, perched on an old projecting beam, in the
midst of dust and dirt, assisting with all the energy of youth in the
demolition of the roof, Mr. Fenwick saw Sam Brattle. He perceived at
once that Sam had seen him; but the young man immediately averted his
eyes and went on with his work. The parson did not speak at once, but
stepped over the ruins around him till he came immediately under the
beam in question. Then he called to the lad, and Sam was constrained
to answer "Yes, Mr. Fenwick, I am here;--hard at work, as you see."

"I do see it, and wish you luck with your job. Spare me ten minutes,
and come down and speak to me."

"I am in such a muck now, Mr. Fenwick, that I do wish to go on with
it, if you'll let me."

But Mr. Fenwick, having taken so much trouble to get at the young
man, was not going to be put off in this way. "Never mind your muck
for a quarter of an hour," he said. "I have come here on purpose to
find you, and I must speak to you."

"Must!" said Sam, looking down with a very angry lower on his face.

"Yes,--must. Don't be a fool now. You know that I do not wish to
injure you. You are not such a coward as to be afraid to speak to me.
Come down."

"Afeard! Who talks of being afeard? Stop a moment, Mr. Fenwick, and
I'll be with you;--not that I think it will do any good." Then slowly
he crept back along the beam and came down through the interior of
the building. "What is it, Mr. Fenwick? Here I am. I ain't a bit
afeard of you at any rate."

"Where have you been the last fortnight, Sam?"

"What right have you to ask me, Mr. Fenwick?"

"I have the right of old friendship, and perhaps also some right from
my remembrance of the last place in which I saw you. What has become
of that man, Burrows?"

"What Burrows?"

"Jack the Grinder, whom I hit on the back the night I made you
prisoner. Do you think that you were doing well in being in my garden
about midnight in company with such a fellow as that,--one of the
most notorious jailbirds in the county? Do you know that I could have
had you arrested and sent to prison at once?"

"I know you couldn't--do nothing of the kind."

"You know this, Sam,--that I've no wish to do it; that nothing would
give me more pain than doing it. But you must feel that if we should
hear now of any depredation about the county, we couldn't,--I at
least could not,--help thinking of you. And I am told that there will
be depredations, Sam. Are you concerned in these matters?"

"No, I am not," said Sam, doggedly.

"Are you disposed to tell me why you were in my garden, and why those
men were with you?"

"We were down in the churchyard, and the gate was open, and so we
walked up;--that was all. If we'd meant to do anything out of the way
we shouldn't 'a come like that, nor yet at that hour. Why, it worn't
midnight, Mr. Fenwick."

"But why was there such a man as Burrows with you? Do you think he
was fit company for you, Sam?"

"I suppose a chap may choose his own company, Mr. Fenwick?"

"Yes, he may, and go to the gallows because he chooses it, as you are
doing."

"Very well; if that's all you've got to say to me, I'll go back to my
work."

"Stop one moment, Sam. That is not quite all. I caught you the other
night where you had no business to be, and for the sake of your
father and mother, and for old recollections, I let you go. Perhaps I
was wrong, but I don't mean to hark back upon that again."

"You are a-harking back on it, ever so often."

"I shall take no further steps about it."

"There ain't no steps to be taken, Mr. Fenwick."

"But I see that you intend to defy me, and therefore I am bound to
tell you that I shall keep my eye upon you."

"Don't you be afeard about me, Mr. Fenwick."

"And if I hear of those fellows, Burrows and the other, being about
the place any more, I shall give the police notice that they are
associates of yours. I don't think so badly of you yet, Sam, as to
believe you would bring your father's grey hairs with sorrow to the
grave by turning thief and housebreaker; but when I hear of your
being away from home, and nobody knowing where you are, and find
that you are living without decent employment, and prowling about at
nights with robbers and cut-throats, I cannot but be afraid. Do you
know that the Squire recognised you that night as well as I?"

"The Squire ain't nothing to me, and if you've done with me now,
Mr. Fenwick, I'll go back to my work." So saying, Sam Brattle again
mounted up to the roof, and the parson returned discomfited to the
front of the building. He had not intended to see any of the family,
but, as he was crossing the little bridge, meaning to go home round
by the Privets, he was stopped by Fanny Brattle.

"I hope it will be all right now, Mr. Fenwick," the girl said.


[Illustration: "I hope it will be all right now, Mr. Fenwick,"
the girl said.]


"I hope so too, Fanny. But you and your mother should keep an eye
on him, so that he may know that his goings and comings are noticed.
I dare say it will be all right as long as the excitement of these
changes is going on; but there is nothing so bad as that he should be
in and out of the house at nights and not feel that his absence is
noticed. It will be better always to ask him, though he be ever so
cross. Tell your mother I say so."




CHAPTER XII.

BONE'M AND HIS MASTER.


After leaving the mill Mr. Fenwick went up to the Squire, and, in
contradiction, as it were, of all the hard things that he had said
to Sam Brattle, spoke to the miller's landlord in the lad's favour.
He was hard at work now, at any rate; and seemed inclined to stick
to his work. And there had been an independence about him which the
parson had half liked, even while he had been offended at it. Gilmore
differed altogether from his friend. "What was he doing in your
garden? What was he doing hidden in Trumbull's hedge? When I see
fellows hiding in ditches at night, I don't suppose that they're
after much good." Mr. Fenwick made some lame apology, even for these
offences. Sam had, perhaps, not really known the extent of the
iniquity of the men with whom he had associated, and had come up the
garden probably with a view to the fruit. The matter was discussed at
great length, and the Squire at last promised that he would give Sam
another chance in regard to his own estimation of the young man's
character.

On that same evening,--or, rather, after the evening was over, for it
was nearly twelve o'clock at night,--Fenwick walked round the garden
and the orchard with his wife. There was no moon now, and the night
was very dark. They stopped for a minute at the wicket leading into
the churchyard, and it was evident to them that Bone'm, from the
farmyard at the other side of the church, had heard them, for he
commenced a low growl, with which the parson was by this time well
acquainted.

"Good dog, good dog," said the parson, in a low voice. "I wish we had
his brother, I know."

"He would only be tearing the maids and biting the children," said
Mrs. Fenwick. "I hate having a savage beast about."

"But it would be so nice to catch a burglar and crunch him. I feel
almost bloodthirsty since I hit that fellow with the life-preserver,
and find that I didn't kill him."

"I know, Frank, you're thinking about these thieves more than you
like to tell me."

"I was thinking just then, that if they were to come and take all the
silver it wouldn't do much harm. We should have to buy German plate,
and nobody would know the difference."

"Suppose they murdered us all?"

"They never do that now. The profession is different from what it
used to be. They only go where they know they can find a certain
amount of spoil, and where they can get it without much danger. I
don't think housebreakers ever cut throats in these days. They're too
fond of their own." Then they both agreed that if these rumours of
housebreakings were continued, they would send away the plate some
day to be locked up in safe keeping at Salisbury. After that they
went to bed.

On the next morning, the Sunday morning, at a few minutes before
seven, the parson was awakened by his groom at his bedroom door.

"What is it, Roger?" he asked.

"For the love of God, sir, get up! They've been and murdered Mr.
Trumbull."

Mrs. Fenwick, who heard the tidings, screamed; and Mr. Fenwick was
out of bed and into his trousers in half a minute. In another half
minute Mrs. Fenwick, clothed in her dressing-gown, was up-stairs
among her children. No doubt she thought that as soon as the poor
farmer had been despatched, the murderers would naturally pass on
into her nursery. Mr. Fenwick did not believe the tidings. If a man
be hurt in the hunting-field, it is always said that he's killed.
If the kitchen flue be on fire, it is always said that the house is
burned down. Something, however, had probably happened at Farmer
Trumbull's; and down went the parson across the garden and orchard,
and through the churchyard, as quick as his legs would carry him.
In the farmyard he found quite a crowd of men, including the two
constables and three or four of the leading tradesmen in the village.
The first thing that he saw was the dead body of Bone'm, the dog. He
was stiff and stark, and had been poisoned.

"How's Mr. Trumbull?" he asked, of the nearest by-stander.

"Laws, parson, ain't ye heard?" said the man. "They've knocked his
skull open with a hammer, and he's as dead--as dead."

Hearing this, the parson turned round, and made his way into the
house. There was not a doubt about it. The farmer had been murdered
during the night, and his money carried off. Upstairs Mr. Fenwick
made his way to the farmer's bedroom, and there lay the body. Mr.
Crittenden, the village doctor, was there; and a crowd of men, and
an old woman or two. Among the women was Trumbull's sister, the wife
of a neighbouring farmer, who, with her husband, a tenant of Mr.
Gilmore's, had come over just before the arrival of Mr. Fenwick.
The body had been found on the stairs, and it was quite clear that
the farmer had fought desperately with the man or men before he had
received the blow which despatched him.

"I told 'um how it be,--I did, I did, when he would 'a all that money
by 'um." This was the explanation given by Mr. Trumbull's sister,
Mrs. Boddle.

It seemed that Trumbull had had in his possession over a hundred
and fifty pounds, of which the greater part was in gold, and that
he kept this in a money-box in his bedroom. One of the two women
who lived in his service,--he himself had been a widower without
children,--declared that she had always known that at night he took
the box out of his cupboard into bed with him. She had seen it there
more than once when she had taken him up drinks when he was unwell.
When first interrogated, she declared that she did not remember, at
that moment, that she had ever told anybody; she thought she had
never told anybody; at last, she would swear that she had never
spoken a word about it to a single soul. She was supposed to be a
good girl, had come of decent people, and was well known by Mr.
Fenwick, of whose congregation she was one. Her name was Agnes Pope.
The other servant was an elderly woman, who had been in the house all
her life, but was unfortunately deaf. She had known very well about
the money, and had always been afraid about it; had very often spoken
to her master about it, but never a word to Agnes. She had been woken
in the night,--that was, as it turned out, about 2 A.M.,--by the
girl who slept with her, and who declared that she had heard a great
noise, as of somebody tumbling,--a very great noise indeed, as though
there were ever so many people tumbling. For a long time, for perhaps
an hour, they had lain still, being afraid to move. Then the elder
woman had lighted a candle, and gone down from the garret in which
they slept. The first thing she saw was the body of her master, in
his shirt, upon the stairs. She had then called up the only other
human being who slept on the premises, a shepherd, who had lived for
thirty years with Trumbull. This man had thrown open the house, and
had gone for assistance, and had found the body of the dead dog in
the yard.

Before nine o'clock the facts, as they have been told, were known
everywhere, and the Squire was down on the spot. The man,--or, as it
was presumed, men,--had entered by the unaccustomed front door, which
was so contrived as to afford the easiest possible mode of getting
into the house; whereas, the back door, which was used by everybody,
had been bolted and barred with all care. The men must probably have
entered by the churchyard and the back gate of the farmyard, as that
had been found to be unlatched, whereas the gate leading out on to
the road had been found closed. The farmer himself had always been
very careful to close both these gates when he let out Bone'm before
going to bed. Poor Bone'm had been enticed to his death by a piece of
poisoned meat, thrown to him probably some considerable time before
the attack was made.

Who were the murderers? That of course was the first question. It
need hardly be said with how sad a heart Mr. Fenwick discussed this
matter with the Squire. Of course inquiry must be made of the manner
in which Sam Brattle had passed the night. Heavens! how would it be
with that poor family if he had been concerned in such an affair as
this! And then there came across the parson's mind a remembrance that
Agnes Pope and Sam Brattle had been seen by him together, on more
Sundays than one. In his anxiety, and with much imprudence, he went
to the girl and questioned her again.

"For your own sake, Agnes, tell me, are you sure you never mentioned
about the money-box to--Sam Brattle?"

The girl blushed and hesitated, and then said that she was quite sure
she never had. She didn't think she had ever said ten words to Sam
since she knew about the box.

"But five words would be sufficient, Agnes."

"Then them five words was never spoke, sir," said the girl. But still
she blushed, and the parson thought that her manner was not in her
favour.

It was necessary that the parson should attend to his church; but the
Squire, who was a magistrate, went down with the two constables to
the mill. There they found Sam and his father, with Mrs. Brattle and
Fanny. No one went to the church from the mill on that day. The news
had reached them of the murder, and they all felt,--though no one
of them had so said to any other,--that something might in some way
connect them with the deed that had been done. Sam had hardly spoken
since he had heard of Mr. Trumbull's death; though when he saw that
his father was perfectly silent, as one struck with some sudden
dread, he bade the old man hold up his head and fear nothing. Old
Brattle, when so addressed, seated himself in his arm-chair, and
there remained without a word till the magistrate with the constables
were among them.

There were not many at church, and Mr. Fenwick made the service very
short. He could not preach the sermon which he had prepared, but said
a few words on the terrible catastrophe which had occurred so near
to them. This man who was now lying within only a few yards of them,
with his brains knocked out, had been alive among them, strong and
in good health, yesterday evening! And there had come into their
peaceful village miscreants who had been led on from self-indulgence
to idleness, and from idleness to theft, and from theft to murder! We
all know the kind of words which the parson spoke, and the thrill of
attention with which they would be heard. Here was a man who had been
close to them, and therefore the murder came home to them all, and
filled them with an excitement which, alas! was not probably without
some feeling of pleasure. But the sermon, if sermon it could be
called, was very short; and when it was over, the parson also hurried
down to the mill.

It had already been discovered that Sam Brattle had certainly been
out during the night. He had himself denied this at first, saying,
that though he had been the last to go to bed, he had gone to bed
about eleven, and had not left the mill-house till late in the
morning;--but his sister had heard him rise, and had seen his body
through the gloom as he passed beneath the window of the room in
which she slept. She had not heard him return, but, when she arose at
six, had found out that he was then in the house. He manifested no
anger against her when she gave this testimony, but acknowledged that
he had been out, that he had wandered up to the road, and explained
his former denial frankly,--or with well-assumed frankness,--by
saying that he would, if possible, for his father's and mother's
sake, have concealed the fact that he had been away,--knowing that
his absence would give rise to suspicions which would well-nigh break
their hearts. He had not, however,--so he said,--been any nearer
to Bullhampton than the point of the road opposite to the lodge of
Hampton Privets, from whence the lane turned down to the mill. What
had he been doing down there? He had done nothing, but sat and smoked
on a stile by the road side. Had he seen any strangers? Here he
paused, but at last declared that he had seen none, but had heard
the sound of wheels and of a pony's feet upon the road. The vehicle,
whatever it was, must have passed on towards Bullhampton just before
he reached the road. Had he followed the vehicle? No;--he had thought
of doing so, but had not. Could he guess who was in the vehicle? By
this time many surmises had been made aloud as to Jack the Grinder
and his companion, and it had become generally known that the
parson had encountered two such men in his own garden some nights
previously. Sam, when he was pressed, said that the idea had come
into his mind that the vehicle was the Grinder's cart. He had no
knowledge, he said, that the man was coming to Bullhampton on that
night;--but the man had said in his hearing, that he would like to
strip the parson's peaches. He was asked also about Farmer Trumbull's
money. He declared that he had never heard that the farmer kept money
in the house. He did know that the farmer was accounted to be a very
saving man,--but that was all that he knew. He was as much surprised,
he said, as any of them at what had occurred. Had the men turned the
other way and robbed the parson he would have been less surprised. He
acknowledged that he had called the parson a turn-coat and a meddling
tell-tale, in the presence of these men.

All this ended of course in Sam's arrest. He had himself seen from
the first that it would be so, and had bade his mother take comfort
and hold up her head. "It won't be for long, mother. I ain't got any
of the money, and they can't bring it nigh me." He was taken away
to be locked up at Heytesbury that night, in order that he might be
brought before the bench of magistrates which would sit at that place
on Tuesday. Squire Gilmore for the present committed him.

The parson remained for some time with the old man and his wife after
Sam was gone, but he soon found that he could be of no service by
doing so. The miller himself would not speak, and Mrs. Brattle was
utterly prostrated by her husband's misery.

"I do not know what to say about it," said Mr. Fenwick to his wife
that night. "The suspicion is very strong; but I cannot say that
I have an opinion one way or the other." There was no sermon in
Bullhampton Church on that Sunday afternoon.




CHAPTER XIII.

CAPTAIN MARRABLE AND HIS FATHER.


Only that it is generally conceived that in such a history as is this
the writer of the tale should be able to make his points so clear
by words that no further assistance should be needed, I should be
tempted here to insert a properly illustrated pedigree tree of the
Marrable family. The Marrable family is of very old standing in
England, the first baronet having been created by James I., and there
having been Marrables,--as is well known by all attentive readers of
English history,--engaged in the Wars of the Roses, and again others
very conspicuous in the religious persecutions of the children of
Henry VIII. I do not know that they always behaved with consistency;
but they held their heads up after a fashion, and got themselves
talked of, and were people of note in the country. They were
cavaliers in the time of Charles I. and of Cromwell,--as became men
of blood and gentlemen,--but it is not recorded of them that they
sacrificed much in the cause; and when William III. became king they
submitted with a good grace to the new order of things. A certain Sir
Thomas Marrable was member for his county in the reigns of George I.
and George II., and enjoyed a lucrative confidence with Walpole. Then
there came a blustering, roystering Sir Thomas, who, together with a
fine man and gambler as a heir, brought the property to rather a low
ebb; so that when Sir Gregory, the grandfather of our Miss Marrable,
came to the title in the early days of George III. he was not a rich
man. His two sons, another Sir Gregory and a General Marrable, died
long before the days of which we are writing,--Sir Gregory in 1815,
and the General in 1820. That Sir Gregory was the second of the
name,--the second at least as mentioned in these pages. He had been
our Miss Marrable's uncle, and the General had been her father, and
the father of Mrs. Lowther,--Mary's mother. A third Sir Gregory
was reigning at the time of our story, a very old gentleman with
one single son,--a fourth Gregory. Now the residence of Sir
Gregory was at Dunripple Park, just on the borders of Warwickshire
and Worcestershire, but in the latter county. The property was
small,--for a country gentleman with a title,--not much exceeding
£3000 a year; and there was no longer any sitting in Parliament, or
keeping of race-horses, or indeed any season in town for the present
race of Marrables. The existing Sir Gregory was a very quiet man, and
his son and only child, a man now about forty years of age, lived
mostly at home, and occupied himself with things of antiquity. He
was remarkably well read in the history of his own country, and it
had been understood for the last twenty years by the Antiquarian,
Archæological, and other societies that he was the projector of a new
theory about Stonehenge, and that his book on the subject was almost
ready. Such were the two surviving members of the present senior
branch of the family. But Sir Gregory had two brothers,--the younger
of the two being Parson John Marrable, the present rector of St.
Peter's Lowtown and the occupier of the house within the heavy
slate-coloured gates, where he lived a bachelor life, as had done
before him his cousin the late rector;--the elder being a certain
Colonel Marrable. The Colonel Marrable again had a son, who was a
Captain Walter Marrable,--and after him the confused reader shall be
introduced to no more of the Marrable family. The enlightened reader
will have by this time perceived that Miss Mary Lowther and Captain
Walter Marrable were second cousins; and he will also have perceived,
if he has given his mind fully to the study, that the present Parson
John Marrable had come into the living after the death of a cousin of
the same generation as himself,--but of lower standing in the family.
It was so; and by this may be seen how little the Sir Gregory of the
present day had been able to do for his brother, and perhaps it may
also be imagined from this that the present clergyman at Loring
Lowtown had been able to do very little for himself. Nevertheless,
he was a kindly-hearted, good, sincere old man,--not very bright,
indeed, nor peculiarly fitted for preaching the gospel, but he was
much liked, and he kept a curate, though his income out of the
living was small. Now it so happened that Captain Marrable,--Walter
Marrable,--came to stay with his uncle the parson about the same time
that Mary Lowther returned to Loring.

"You remember Walter, do you not?" said Miss Marrable to her niece.

"Not the least in the world. I remember there was a Walter when I was
at Dunripple. But that was ten years ago, and boy cousins and girl
cousins never fraternise."

"I suppose he was nearly a young man then, and you were a child?"

"He was still at school, though just leaving it. He is seven years
older than I am."

"He is coming to stay with Parson John."

"You don't say so, aunt Sarah? What will such a man as Captain
Marrable do at Loring?"

Then aunt Sarah explained all that she knew, and perhaps suggested
more than she knew. Walter Marrable had quarrelled with his father,
the Colonel,--with whom, indeed, everybody of the name of Marrable
had always been quarrelling, and who was believed by Miss Marrable to
be the very--mischief himself. He was a man always in debt, who had
broken his wife's heart, who lived with low company and disgraced the
family, who had been more than once arrested, on whose behalf all
the family interest had been expended, so that nobody else could get
anything, and who gambled and drank and did whatever wicked things
a wicked old colonel living at Portsmouth could do. And indeed,
hitherto, Miss Marrable had entertained opinions hardly more
charitable respecting the son than she had done in regard to
the father. She had disbelieved in this branch of the Marrables
altogether. Captain Marrable had lived with his father a good
deal,--at least, so she had understood,--and therefore could not but
be bad. And, moreover, our Miss Sarah Marrable had, throughout her
whole life, been somewhat estranged from the elder branches of the
family. Her father, Walter, had been,--so she thought,--injured by
his brother Sir Gregory, and there had been some law proceedings, not
quite amicable, between her brother the parson, and the present Sir
Gregory. She respected Sir Gregory as the head of the family, but she
never went now to Dunripple, and knew nothing of Sir Gregory's heir.
Of the present Parson John she had thought very little before he had
come to Loring. Since he had been living there she had found that
blood was thicker than water,--as she would say,--and they two were
intimate. When she heard that Captain Marrable was coming, because
he had quarrelled with his father, she began to think that perhaps
it might be as well that she should allow herself to meet this new
cousin.

"What do you think of your cousin, Walter?" the old clergyman said to
his nephew, one evening, after the two ladies, who had been dining at
the Rectory, had left them. It was the first occasion on which Walter
Marrable had met Mary since his coming to Loring.

"I remember her as well as if it were yesterday, at Dunripple. She
was a little girl then, and I thought her the most beautiful little
girl in the world."

"We all think her very beautiful still."

"So she is; as lovely as ever she can stand. But she does not seem to
have much to say for herself. I remember when she was a little girl
she never would speak."

"I fancy she can talk when she pleases, Walter. But you mustn't fall
in love with her."

"I won't, if I can help it."

"In the first place I think she is as good as engaged to a fellow
with a very pretty property in Wiltshire, and in the next place she
hasn't got--one shilling."

"There is not much danger. I am not inclined to trouble myself about
any girl in my present mood, even if she had the pretty property
herself, and wasn't engaged to anybody. I suppose I shall get over it
some day, but I feel just at present as though I couldn't say a kind
word to a human being."

"Psha! psha! that's nonsense, Walter. Take things coolly. They're
more likely to come right, and they won't be so troublesome, even if
they don't." Such was the philosophy of Parson John,--for the sake
of digesting which the captain lit a cigar, and went out to smoke it,
standing at one of the open slate-coloured gates.

It was said in the first chapter of this story that Mr. Gilmore was
one of the heroes whose deeds the story undertakes to narrate, and
a hint was perhaps expressed that of all the heroes he was the
favourite. Captain Marrable is, however, another hero, and, as such,
some word or two must be said of him. He was a better-looking man,
certainly, than Mr. Gilmore, though perhaps his personal appearance
did not at first sight give to the observer so favourable an idea of
his character as did that of the other gentleman. Mr. Gilmore was
to be read at a glance as an honest, straightforward, well-behaved
country squire, whose word might be taken for anything, who might,
perhaps, like to have his own way, but who could hardly do a cruel
or an unfair thing. He was just such a man to look at as a prudent
mother would select as one to whom she might entrust her daughter
with safety. Now Walter Marrable's countenance was of a very
different die. He had served in India, and the naturally dark colour
of his face had thus become very swarthy. His black hair curled round
his head, but the curls on his brow were becoming very thin, as
though age were already telling on them, and yet he was four or five
years younger than Mr. Gilmore. His eyebrows were thick and heavy,
and his eyes seemed to be black. They were eyes which were used
without much motion; and when they were dead set, as they were not
unfrequently, it would seem as though he were defying those on whom
he looked. Thus he made many afraid of him, and many who were not
afraid of him, disliked him because of a certain ferocity which
seemed to characterise his face. He wore no beard beyond a heavy
black moustache, which quite covered his upper lip. His nose was long
and straight, his mouth large, and his chin square. No doubt he was
a handsome man. And he looked to be a tall man, though in truth he
lacked two full inches of the normal six feet. He was broad across
the chest, strong on his legs, and was altogether such a man to look
at that few would care to quarrel with him, and many would think that
he was disposed to quarrel. Of his nature he was not quarrelsome; but
he was a man who certainly had received much injury. It need not be
explained at length how his money affairs had gone wrong with him. He
should have inherited, and, indeed, did inherit, a fortune from his
mother's family, of which his father had contrived absolutely to rob
him. It was only within the last month that he had discovered that
his father had succeeded in laying his hands on certainly the bulk of
his money, and it might be upon all. Words between them had been very
bitter. The father, with a cigar between his teeth, had told his son
that this was the fortune of war, that if justice had been done him
at his marriage, the money would have been his own, and that by G----
he was very sorry, and couldn't say anything more. The son had called
the father a liar and a swindler,--as, indeed, was the truth, though
the son was doubtless wrong to say so to the author of his being. The
father had threatened the son with his horsewhip; and so they had
parted, within ten days of Walter Marrable's return from India.

Walter had written to his two uncles, asking their advice as to
saving the wreck, if anything might be saved. Sir Gregory had written
back to say that he was an old man, that he was greatly grieved at
the misunderstanding, and that Messrs. Block and Curling were the
family lawyers. Parson John invited his nephew to come down to Loring
Lowtown. Captain Marrable went to Block and Curling, who were by no
means consolatory, and accepted his uncle's invitation.

It was but three days after the first meeting between the two
cousins, that they were to be seen one evening walking together along
the banks of the Lurwell, a little river which at Loring sometimes
takes the appearance of a canal, and sometimes of a natural stream.
But it is commercial, having connection with the Kennet and Avon
navigation; and long, slow, ponderous barges, with heavy, dirty,
sleepy bargemen, and rickety, ill-used barge-horses, are common in
the neighbourhood. In parts it is very pretty, as it runs under the
chalky downs, and there are a multiplicity of locks, and the turf
of the sheep-walks comes up to the towing path; but in the close
neighbourhood of the town the canal is straight and uninteresting;
the ground is level, and there is a scattered community of small,
straight-built light-brick houses, which are in themselves so ugly
that they are incompatible with anything that is pretty in landscape.

Parson John, always so called to distinguish him from the late
parson, his cousin, who had been the Rev. James Marrable, had taken
occasion, on behalf of his nephew, to tell the story of his wrong to
Miss Marrable, and by Miss Marrable it had been told to Mary. To both
these ladies the thing seemed to be so horrible,--the idea that a
father should have robbed his son,--that the stern ferocity of the
slow-moving eyes was forgiven, and they took him to their hearts, if
not for love, at least for pity. Twenty thousand pounds ought to have
become the property of Walter Marrable, when some maternal relative
had died. It had seemed hard that the father should have none of it,
and, on the receipt in India of representations from the Colonel,
Walter had signed certain fatal papers, the effect of which was that
the father had laid his hands on pretty nearly the whole, if not on
the whole, of the money, and had caused it to vanish. There was now a
question whether some five thousand pounds might not be saved. If so,
Walter would stay in England; if not, he would exchange and go back
to India; "or," as he said himself, "to the Devil."

"Don't speak of it in that way," said Mary.

"The worst of it is," said he "that I am ashamed of myself for being
so absolutely cut up about money. A man should be able to bear that
kind of thing; but this hits one all round."

"I think you bear it very well."

"No, I don't. I didn't bear it well when I called my father a
swindler. I didn't bear it well when I swore that I would put him in
prison for robbing me. I don't bear it well now, when I think of it
every moment. But I do so hate India, and I had so absolutely made
up my mind never to return. If it hadn't been that I knew that this
fortune was to be mine, I could have saved money, hand over hand."

"Can't you live on your pay here?"

"No!" He answered her almost as though he were angry with her. "If I
had been used all my life to the strictest economies, perhaps I might
do so. Some men do, no doubt; but I am too old to begin it. There is
the choice of two things,--to blow my brains out, or go back."

"You are not such a coward as that."

"I don't know. I ain't sure that it would be cowardice. If there were
anybody I could injure by doing it, it would be cowardly."

"The family," suggested Mary.

"What does Sir Gregory care for me? I'll show you his letter to me
some day. I don't think it would be cowardly at all to get away from
such a lot."

"I am sure you won't do that, Captain Marrable."

"Think what it is to know that your father is a swindler. Perhaps
that is the worst of it all. Fancy talking or thinking of one's
family after that. I like my uncle John. He is very kind, and has
offered to lend me £150, which I'm sure he can't afford to lose, and
which I am too honest to take. But even he hardly sees it. He calls
it a misfortune, and I've no doubt would shake hands with his brother
to-morrow."

"So would you, if he were really sorry."

"No, Mary; nothing on earth shall ever induce me to set my eyes on
him again willingly. He has destroyed all the world for me. He should
have had half of it without a word. When he used to whine to me in
his letters, and say how cruelly he had been treated, I always made
up my mind that he should have half the income for life. It was
because he should not want till I came home that I enabled him to do
what he has done. And now he has robbed me of every cursed shilling!
I wonder whether I shall ever get my mind free from it."

"Of course you will."

"It seems now that my heart is wrapped in lead." As they were coming
home she put her hand upon his arm, and asked him to promise her to
withdraw that threat.

"Why should I withdraw it? Who cares for me?"

"We all care. My aunt cares. I care."

"The threat means nothing, Mary. People who make such threats don't
carry them out. Of course I shall go on and endure it. The worst of
all is, that the whole thing makes me so unmanly,--makes such a beast
of me. But I'll try to get over it."

Mary Lowther thought that, upon the whole, he bore his misfortune
very well.




CHAPTER XIV.

COUSINHOOD.


Mary Lowther and her cousin had taken their walk together on Monday
evening, and on the next morning she received the following letter
from Mrs. Fenwick. When it reached her she had as yet heard nothing
of the Bullhampton tragedy.


   Vicarage, Monday, Sept. 1, 186--.

   DEAREST MARY,

   I suppose you will have heard before you get this of the
   dreadful murder that has taken place here, and which has
   so startled and horrified us, that we hardly know what we
   are doing even yet. It is hard to say why a thing should
   be worse because it is close, but it certainly is so. Had
   it been in the next parish, or even further off in this
   parish, I do not think that I should feel it so much, and
   then we knew the old man so well; and then, again,--which
   makes it worst of all,--we all of us are unable to get rid
   of a suspicion that one whom we knew, and was liked, has
   been a participator in the crime.

   It seems that it must have been about two o'clock on
   Sunday morning that Mr. Trumbull was killed. It was, at
   any rate, between one and three. As far as they can judge,
   they think that there must have been three men concerned.
   You remember how we used to joke about poor Mr. Trumbull's
   dog. Well, he was poisoned first,--probably an hour before
   the men got into the house. It has been discovered that
   the foolish old man kept a large sum of money by him in a
   box, and that he always took this box into bed with him.
   The woman, who lived in the house with him, used to see it
   there. No doubt the thieves had heard of this, and both
   Frank and Mr. Gilmore think that the girl, Agnes Pope,
   whom you will remember in the choir, told about it. She
   lived with Mr. Trumbull, and we all thought her a very
   good girl,--though she was too fond of that young man, Sam
   Brattle.

   They think that the men did not mean to do the murder, but
   that the old man fought so hard for his money that they
   were driven to it. His body was not in the room, but on
   the top of the stairs, and his temple had been split open
   with a blow of a hammer. The hammer lay beside him, and
   was one belonging to the house. Mr. Gilmore says that
   there was great craft in their using a weapon which they
   did not bring with them. Of course they cannot be traced
   by the hammer.

   They got off with £150 in the box, and did not touch
   anything else. Everybody feels quite sure that they knew
   all about the money, and that when Mr. Gilmore saw them
   that night down at the churchyard corner, they were
   prowling about with a view of seeing how they could get
   into the farmer's house, and not into the Vicarage. Frank
   thinks that when he afterwards found them in our place,
   Sam Brattle had brought them in with a kind of wild idea
   of taking the fruit, but that the men, of their own
   account, had come round to reconnoitre the house. They
   both say that there can be no doubt about the men having
   been the same. Then comes the terrible question whether
   Sam Brattle, the son of that dear woman at the mill, has
   been one of the murderers. He had been at home all the
   previous day working very hard at the works,--which are
   being done in obedience to your orders, my dear; but he
   certainly was out on the Saturday night.

   It is very hard to get at any man's belief in such
   matters, but, as far as I can understand them, I don't
   think that either Frank or Mr. Gilmore do really believe
   that he was there. Frank says that it will go very
   hard with him, and Mr. Gilmore has committed him. The
   magistrates are to sit to-morrow at Heytesbury, and Mr.
   Gilmore will be there. He has, as you may be sure, behaved
   as well as possible, and has quite altered in his manner
   to the old people. I was at the mill this morning. Brattle
   himself would not speak to me, but I sat for an hour
   with Mrs. Brattle and Fanny. It makes it almost the more
   melancholy having all the rubbish and building things
   about, and yet the work stopped.

   Fanny Brattle has behaved so well! It was she who told
   that her brother had been out at night. Mr. Gilmore says
   that when the question was asked i

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