← catalogue

The Squire's Daughter

by Silas K. Hocking · English · Gutenberg #36384 · 626,922 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Squire's Daughter
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Squire's Daughter

Author: Silas K. Hocking

Illustrator: Arthur Twidle


        
Release date: June 11, 2011 [eBook #36384]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36384

Credits: Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER ***




Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









                         THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER

                          BY SILAS K. HOCKING

AUTHOR OF "PIONEERS" "THE FLAMING SWORD" "THE WIZARD'S LIGHT" "THE
SCARLET CLUE" ETC.


    _WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS_
    BY ARTHUR TWIDLE

    Fourth Edition

    LONDON
    FREDERICK WARNE & CO.
    AND NEW YORK
    1906

    (_All Rights Reserved_)




[Illustration: "IF YOU CAN ONLY BRING YOURSELF TO SAY YES, I WILL DO MY
BEST TO MAKE YOU THE HAPPIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD."]




CONTENTS


I. AN IMPERIOUS MAIDEN

II. APPREHENSIONS

III. A NEW SENSATION

IV. A BITTER INTERVIEW

V. THE CHANCES OF LIFE

VI. WAITING FOR THE BLOW TO FALL

VII. DAVID SPEAKS HIS MIND

VIII. CONFLICTING EMOTIONS

IX. PREPARING TO GO

X. RALPH SPEAKS HIS MIND

XI. UNCONSCIOUS SPEECH

XII. DOROTHY SPEAKS HER MIND

XIII. GATHERING CLOUDS

XIV. THE STORM BURSTS

XV. SIR JOHN GETS ANGRY

XVI. THE BIG HOUSE

XVII. DEVELOPMENTS

XVIII. A CONFESSION

XIX. A SILENT WELCOME

XX. WILLIAM MENIRE'S RED-LETTER DAY

XXI. A GOOD NAME

XXII. A FRESH START

XXIII. THE ROAD TO FORTUNE

XXIV. LAW AND LIFE

XXV. IN LONDON TOWN

XXVI. TRUTH WILL OUT

XXVII. HOME AGAIN

XXVIII. A TRYING POSITION

XXIX. A QUESTION OF MOTIVES

XXX. SELF AND ANOTHER

XXXI. A PARTNERSHIP

XXXII. FOOD FOR REFLECTION

XXXIII. A PROPOSAL

XXXIV. A FRESH PAGE

XXXV. FAILURE OR FORTUNE

XXXVI. THE PENALTY OF PROSPERITY

XXXVII. LIGHT AND SHADOW

XXXVIII. LOVE AND LIFE

XXXIX. PERPLEXING QUESTIONS

XL. LOVE OR FAREWELL

XLI. THE TABLES TURNED

XLII. COALS OF FIRE

XLIII. SIR JOHN ATONES




List of Illustrations


"IF YOU CAN ONLY BRING YOURSELF TO SAY YES, I WILL DO MY BEST TO MAKE
YOU THE HAPPIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD."

"SIR JOHN RAISED HIS HUNTING-CROP, AND STRUCK AT RALPH WITH ALL HIS
MIGHT."

"RUTH THREW HER ARMS ABOUT HER MOTHER'S NECK AND BURST INTO A PASSION OF
TEARS."

"WILLIAM, BREATHLESS AND EXCITED, BURST IN UPON HIM."




THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER




CHAPTER I

AN IMPERIOUS MAIDEN


The voice was soft and musical, but the tone was imperative.

"I say, young man, open that gate."

The young man addressed turned slowly from the stile on which he had
been leaning, and regarded the speaker attentively. She was seated on a
high-stepping horse with that easy grace born of long familiarity with
the saddle, and yet she seemed a mere girl, with soft round cheeks and
laughing blue eyes.

"Come, wake up," she said, in tones more imperious than before, "and
open the gate at once."

He resented the tone, though he was charmed with the picture, and
instead of going toward the gate to do her bidding he turned and began
to climb slowly over the stile.

She trotted her horse up to him in a moment, her eyes flashing, her
cheeks aflame. She had been so used to command and to prompt obedience
that this insubordination on the part of a country yokel seemed nothing
less than an insult.

"You dare disobey me?" she said, her voice thrilling with anger.

"Of course I dare," he answered, without turning his head. "I am not
your servant."

The reply seemed to strike her dumb for a moment, and she reined back
her horse several paces.

He turned again to look at her, then deliberately seated himself on one
of the posts of the stile.

There was no denying that she made a pretty picture. With one foot on
the top rung of the stile he was almost on a level with her, and he was
near enough to see her bosom heave and the colour come and go upon her
rounded cheeks.

His heart began to beat uncomfortably fast. He feared that he had played
a churlish part. She looked so regal, and yet so sweet, that it seemed
almost as if Nature had given her the right to command. And who was he
that he should resent her imperious manner and refuse to do her bidding?

He had gone too far, however, to retreat. Moreover, his dignity had been
touched. She had flung her command at him as though he were a serf. Had
she asked him to open the gate, he would have done so gladly. It was the
imperious tone that he resented.

"I did not expect such rudeness and incivility here of all places," she
said at length in milder tones.

His cheeks flamed at that, and an angry feeling stole into his heart.
Judged by ordinary standards, he had no doubt been rude, and her words
stung him all the more on that account. He would have played a more
dignified part if he had pocketed the affront and opened the gate; but
he was in no mood to go back on what he had done.

"If I have been rude and uncivil, you are to blame as much as I--and
more," he retorted angrily.

"Indeed?" she said, in a tone of lofty disdain, and an amused smile
played round the corners of her mouth. She was interested in the young
man in spite of his incivility. Now that she had an opportunity of
looking more closely at him, she could not deny that he had no common
face, while his speech was quite correct, and not lacking in dignity.

"I hope I am not so churlish as not to be willing to do a kindness to
anybody," he went on rapidly, "but I resent being treated as dirt by
such as you."

"Indeed? I was not aware----" she began, but he interrupted her.

"If you had asked me to open the gate I would have done so gladly, and
been proud to do it," he went on; "but because I belong to what you are
pleased to call the lower orders, you cannot ask; you command, and you
expect to be obeyed."

"Of course I expect to be obeyed," she said, arching her eyebrows and
smiling brightly, "and I am surprised that you----"

"No doubt you are," he interrupted angrily. "But if we are lacking in
good manners, so are you," and he turned and leaped off the stile into
the field.

"Come back, you foolish young man."

But if he heard, he did not heed; with his eyes fixed on a distant
farmhouse, he stalked steadily on, never turning his head either to the
right or the left.

For a moment or two she looked after him, an amused smile dimpling her
cheeks; then she turned her attention to the gate.

"I wonder what I am to do now?" she mused. "I cannot unfasten it, and if
I get off, I shall never be able to mount again; on the other hand, I
hate going back through the village the way I came. I wonder if Jess
will take it?" and she rode the mare up to the gate and let her smell at
the rungs.

It was an ordinary five-barred gate, and the ground was soft and
springy. The road was scarcely more than a track across a heathery
common. Beyond the gate the road was strictly private, and led through a
wide sweep of plantation, and terminated at length, after a circuit of a
mile or two, somewhere near Hamblyn Manor.

Jess seemed to understand what was passing through her mistress's mind,
and shook her head emphatically.

"You can do it, Jess," she said, wheeling the mare about, and trotting
back a considerable distance. "I know you can," and she struck her
across the flank with her riding crop.

Jess pricked up her ears and began to gallop toward the gate; but she
halted suddenly when within a few feet of it, almost dislodging her
rider.

The young lady, however, was not to be defeated. A second time she rode
back, and then faced the gate once more.

Jess pricked up her ears, and shook her head as if demanding a loose
rein, and then sprang forward with the swiftness of a panther. But she
took the gate a moment too soon; there was a sharp crash of splintered
wood, a half-smothered cry of pain, and horse and rider were rolling on
the turf beyond.

Ralph Penlogan caught his breath and turned his head suddenly. The sound
of breaking wood fell distinctly on his ear, and called him back from
his not over-pleasant musings. He was angry with himself, angry with the
cause of his anger. He had stood up for what he believed to be his
rights, had asserted his opinions with courage and pertinacity; and yet,
for some reason, he was anything but satisfied. The victory he had
won--if it was a victory at all--was a barren one. He was afraid that he
had asserted himself at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and before
the wrong person.

The girl to whom he had spoken, and whose command he had defied, was not
responsible for the social order against which he chafed, and which
pressed so hardly on the class to which he belonged. She was where
Providence had placed her just as much as he was, and the tone of
command she had assumed was perhaps more a matter of habit than any
assumption of superiority.

So within three minutes of leaving the stile he found himself excusing
the fair creature to whom he had spoken so roughly. That she had a sweet
and winning face there was no denying, while the way she sat her horse
seemed to him the embodiment of grace.

Who she was he had not the remotest idea. To the best of his
recollection he had never seen her before. That she belonged to what was
locally termed the gentry there could be no doubt--a visitor most likely
at one or other of the big houses in the neighbourhood.

Once the thought flashed across his mind that she might be the daughter
of Sir John Hamblyn, but he dismissed it at once. In the first place,
Sir John's daughter was old enough to be married--in fact, the wedding
day had already been fixed--while this young lady was a mere girl. She
did not look more than seventeen if she looked a day. And in the second
place, it was inconceivable that such a mean, grasping, tyrannical
curmudgeon as Sir John could be the father of so fair a child.

He had seen Dorothy Hamblyn when she was a little girl in short frocks,
and his recollection of her was that she was a disagreeable child. If he
remembered aright, she was about his own age--a trifle younger.

"Why, I have turned twenty," he mused. "I am a man. She's only a girl."

So he dismissed the idea that she was Sir John's daughter who returned
from school only about six months ago, and who was going to marry Lord
Probus forthwith.

Suddenly he was recalled from his musings by the crash of the breaking
gate. Was that a cry also he heard? He was not quite sure. A dozen vague
fears shot through his mind in a moment. For a second only he hesitated,
then he turned swiftly on his heel and ran back the way he had come.

The field was a wide one, wider than he had ever realised before. He was
out of breath by the time he reached the stile, while his fears had
increased with every step he took.

He leaped over the stile at a bound, and then stood still. Before him
was the broken gate, and beyond it----

For a moment a mist swam before his eyes, and the ground seemed to be
slipping away from beneath his feet. Vague questions respecting his
responsibility crowded in upon his brain; the harvest of his
churlishness had ripened with incredible swiftness. The word "guilty"
seemed to stare at him from every point of the compass.

With a strong effort he pulled himself together, and advanced toward the
prostrate figure. The horse stood a few paces away, trembling and
bleeding from the knees.

He was almost afraid to look at the girl's face, and when he did so he
gave a loud groan. There was no movement, nor any sign of life. The eyes
were closed, the cheeks ghastly pale, while from underneath the soft
brown hair there ran a little stream of blood.




CHAPTER II

APPREHENSIONS


Sir John Hamblyn was walking up and down in front of his house, fuming,
as usual, and with a look upon his face that betokened acute anxiety.
Why he should be so anxious he hardly knew. There seemed to be no
special reason for it. Everything appeared to be moving along
satisfactorily, and unless the absolutely unexpected happened, there was
no occasion for a moment's worry.

But it was just the off-chance of something happening that irritated
him. The old saying, "There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip," kept
flitting across his brain with annoying frequency. If he could only get
another month over without accident of any kind he would have peace; at
least, so he believed.

Lord Probus was not the man to go back on his word, and Lord
Probus had promised to stand by him, provided he became his--Sir
John's--son-in-law.

It seemed a little ridiculous, for Lord Probus was the older man of the
two, and to call a man his son-in-law who was older than himself was not
quite in harmony with the usual order of things. But then, what did it
matter? There were exceptions to every rule, and such exceptions were of
constant occurrence.

When once the marriage knot was tied, a host of worries that had
harassed him of late would come to an end. He had been foolish, no
doubt. He ought to have lived within his income, and kept out of the way
of the sharks of the Turf and the Stock Exchange. He had a handsome
rent-roll, quite sufficient for his legitimate wants; and if things
improved, he might be able to raise rents all round. Besides, if he had
luck, some of the leases might fall in, which would further increase his
income. But the off-chance of these things was too remote to meet his
present needs. He wanted immediate help, and Lord Probus was his only
hope.

Fortunately for him, Dorothy was not old enough to see the tragedy of
such an alliance. She saw only the social side--the gilt and glitter and
tinsel. The appeal had been made to her vanity and to her love of pretty
and costly things. To be the mistress of Rostrevor Castle, to bear a
title, to have a London house, to have any number of horses and
carriages, to go to State functions, to be a society dame before she was
twenty--all these things appealed to her girlish pride and vanity, and
she accepted the offer of Lord Probus with alacrity, and with scarcely a
moment's serious thought.

No time was lost in hurrying forward arrangements for the wedding. The
sooner the contract was made secure the better. Any unnecessary delay
might give her an excuse for changing her mind. Sir John felt that he
would not breathe freely again until the wedding had taken place.

Now and then, when he looked at his bright-eyed, happy, imperious girl,
his heart smote him. She had turned eighteen, but she was wonderfully
girlish for her years, not only in appearance but in manner, and in her
outlook upon life. She knew nothing as yet of the ways of the world,
nothing of its treachery and selfishness. She had only just escaped from
the seclusion of school and the drudgery of the classroom. She felt free
as a bird, and the outlook was just delightful. She was going to have
everything that heart could desire, and nothing would be too expensive
for her to buy.

She was almost as eager for the wedding to take place as was her father;
for directly the wedding was over she was going out to see the
world--France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Egypt. They were going to
travel everywhere, and travel in such luxury as even Royalty might envy.
Lord Probus had already given her a foretaste of what he would do for
her by presenting her with a beautiful mare. Jess was the earnest of
better things to come.

If Dorothy became imperious and slightly dictatorial, it was not to be
wondered at. Nothing was left undone or unsaid that would appeal to her
vanity. She was allowed her own way in everything.

Sir John was desperately afraid that the illusions might fade before the
wedding day arrived. Financially he was in the tightest corner he had
ever known, and unless he could tap some of Lord Probus's boundless
wealth, he saw before him long years of mean economies and humiliating
struggles with poverty. He saw worse--he saw the sale of his personal
effects to meet the demands of his creditors, he saw the lopping off of
all the luxuries that were as the breath of life to him.

Hence, though deep down in his heart he loathed the thought of his
little girl marrying a man almost old enough to be her grandfather, he
was sufficiently cornered in other ways to be intensely anxious that the
wedding should take place. Lord Probus was the head of a large brewery
and distilling concern. His immense and yearly increasing revenues came
mainly from beer. How rich he was nobody knew. He hardly knew himself.
He had as good as promised Sir John that if the wedding came off he
would hand over to him sufficient scrip in the great company of which he
was head to qualify him--Sir John--for a directorship. The scrip could
be paid for at Sir John's convenience. The directorship should be
arranged without undue delay. The work of a director was not exacting,
while the pay was exceedingly generous.

Sir John had already begun to draw the salary in imagination, and to
live up to it. Hence, if anything happened now to prevent the wedding,
it would be like knocking the bottom out of the universe.

In the chances of human life, it did not seem at all likely that
anything would happen to prevent what he so much desired. It seemed
foolish to worry himself for a single moment. And yet he did worry.
There was always that off-chance. Nobody could ward off accidents or
disease.

Dorothy had gone out riding alone. She refused to have a groom with her,
and, of course, she had to have her own way; but he was always more or
less fidgety when she was out on these expeditions.

And yet it was not the fear of accidents that really troubled him. What
he feared most was that she might become disillusioned. As yet she had
not awakened to the meaning and reality of life. She was like a child
asleep, wandering through a fairyland of dreams and illusions. But she
might awake at any moment--awake to the passion of love, awake to the
romance as well as the reality of life.

The appeal as yet had been to her vanity--to her sense of
self-importance. There had been no appeal to her heart or affections.
She did not know what love was, and if she married Lord Probus it would
be well for her if she never knew. But love might awake when least
expected; her heart might be stirred unconsciously. Some Romeo might
cross her path, and with one glance of his eyes might change all her
life and all her world; and a woman in love was more intractable than a
comet.

Sir John would not like to be brought into such a position that he would
have to coerce his child. Spendthrift that he was, and worse, with a
deep vein of selfishness that made him intensely unpopular with all his
tenants, he nevertheless loved Dorothy with a very genuine affection.
Geoffrey, his son and heir, had never appealed very strongly to his
heart. Geoffrey was too much like himself, too indolent and selfish. But
Dorothy was like her mother, whose passing was as the snapping of a
rudder chain in a storm.

The gritting of wheels on the gravel caused Sir John to turn suddenly on
his heel, and descending the steps at the end of the terrace, he walked
a little distance to meet the approaching carriage.

Lord Probus was not expected, but he was not the less welcome on that
account.

"The day is so lovely that I thought I would drive across to have a peep
at you all," Lord Probus said, stepping nimbly out of the landau.

He was a dapper man, rather below the medium height, with a bald head
and iron-grey, military moustache. He was sixty years of age, but looked
ten years younger.

"I am delighted to see you," Sir John said, with effusion, "and I am
sure Dorothy will be when she returns."

"She is out, is she?"

"She is off riding as usual. Since you presented her with Jess, she has
spent most of her time in the saddle."

"She is a good horsewoman?"

"Excellent. She took to riding as a duck takes to water. She rode with
the hounds when she was ten."

"I wish I could ride!" Lord Probus said, reflectively. "I believe horse
exercise would do me good; but I began too late in life."

"Like skating and swimming, one must start young if he is to excel," Sir
John answered.

"Yes, yes; and youth passes all too quickly." And his lordship sighed.

"Well, as to that, one is as young as one feels, you know." And Sir John
led the way into the house.

Lord Probus followed with a frown. Sir John had unwittingly touched him
on a sore spot. If he was no younger than he felt, he was unmistakably
getting old. He tried to appear young, and with a fair measure of
success; tried to persuade himself that he was still in his prime; but
every day the fact was brought painfully home to him that he had long
since turned the brow of the hill, and was descending rapidly the other
side. Directly he attempted to do what was child's play to him ten years
before, he discovered that the spring had gone out of his joints and the
nerve from his hand.

He regretted this not only for his own sake, but in some measure for
Dorothy's. He never looked into her fresh young face without wishing he
was thirty years younger. She seemed very fond of him at present. She
would sit on the arm of his chair and pat his bald head and pull his
moustache, and call him her dear, silly old boy; and when he turned up
his face to be kissed, she would kiss him in the most delightful
fashion.

But he could not help wondering at times how long it would last. That
she was fond of him just now he was quite sure. She told him in her
bright, ingenuous way that she loved him; but he was not so blind as not
to see that there was no passion in her love. In truth, she did not know
what love was.

He was none the less anxious, however, on that account, to make her his
wife, but rather the more. The fact that the best part of his life was
gone made him all the more eager to fill up what remained with delight.
He might reckon upon another ten years of life, at least, and to possess
Dorothy for ten years would be worth living for--worth growing old for.

"You expect Dorothy back soon?" Lord Probus questioned, dropping into an
easy-chair.

"Any minute, my lord. In fact, I expected her back before this."

"Jess has been well broken in. I was very careful on that point." And
his lordship looked uneasily out of the window.

"And then, you know, Dorothy could ride an antelope or a giraffe. She is
just as much at ease in a saddle as you are in that easy-chair."

"Do you know, I get more and more anxious as the time draws near," his
lordship said absently. "It would be an awful blow to me if anything
should happen now to postpone the wedding."

"Nothing is likely to happen," Sir John said grimly, but with an
apprehensive look in his eyes. "Dorothy is in the best of health, and so
are you."

"Well, yes, I am glad to say I am quite well. And Dorothy, you think,
shows no sign of rueing her bargain?"

"On the contrary, she has begun to count the days." And Sir John walked
to the window and raised the blind a little.

"I shall do my best to make her happy," his lordship said, with a smile.
"And, bachelor as I am, I think I know what girls like."

"There's no doubt about that," was the laughing answer. "But who comes
here?" And Sir John ran to the door and stepped out on the terrace.

A boy without coat, and carrying his cap in his hand, ran eagerly up to
him. His face was streaming with perspiration, and his eyes ready to
start out of their sockets.

"If you please, sir," he said, in gasps, "your little maid has been and
got killed!"

"My little maid?" Sir John questioned. "Which maid? I did not know any
of the servants were out."

"No, not any servant, sir; but your little maid, Miss Dorothy."

"My daughter!" he almost screamed. And he staggered up against the porch
and hugged one of the pillars for support.

"Thrown from her horse, sir, down agin Treliskey Plantation," the boy
went on. "Molly Udy says she reckons her neck's broke."

Sir John did not reply, however. He could only stand and stare at the
boy, half wondering whether he was awake or dreaming.




CHAPTER III

A NEW SENSATION


Ralph Penlogan's first impulse was to rush off into St. Goram and rouse
the village; but on second thoughts he dropped on his knees by the side
of the prostrate girl, and placed his ear close to her lips. For a
moment or two he remained perfectly still, with an intent and anxious
expression in his eyes; then his face brightened, and something like a
smile played round the corners of his lips.

"No, she is not dead," he said to himself. And he heaved a great sigh of
relief.

But he still felt doubtful as to the best course to take. To leave the
unconscious girl lying alone by the roadside seemed to him, for some
reason, a cruel thing to do. She might die, or she might return to
consciousness, and find herself helpless and forsaken, without a human
being or even a human habitation in sight.

"Oh, I hope she will not die," he said to himself, half aloud, "for if
she does I shall feel like a murderer." And he put his ear to her lips a
second time.

No, she still breathed, but the rivulet of blood seemed to be growing
larger.

He raised her gently and let her head rest against his knee while he
examined the wound underneath her auburn hair. He tried his best to
repress a shudder, but failed. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his
pocket, and proceeded to bind it tightly round her head. How pale her
face was, and how beautiful! He had never seen, he thought, so lovely a
face before.

He wondered who she was and where she lived.

The horse whinnied a little distance away, and again the question darted
through his mind, What was he to do? If he waited for anyone to pass
that way he might wait a week. The road was strictly private, and there
was a notice up that trespassers would be prosecuted. It had been a
public road once--a public road, indeed, from time immemorial--but Sir
John had put a stop to that. In spite of protests and riots, and
threatened appeals to law, he had won the day, and no man dared walk
through the plantation now without first asking his consent.

"She can't be very heavy," Ralph thought, as he looked down into her
sweet, colourless face. "I'll have to make the attempt, anyhow. It's
nearly two miles to St. Goram; but perhaps I shall be able to manage
it."

A moment or two later he had gathered her up in his strong arms, and,
with her bandaged head resting on his shoulder, and her heart beating
feebly against his own, he marched away back over the broken gate in the
direction of St. Goram. Jess gave a feeble whinny, then followed slowly
and dejectedly, with her nose to the ground.

Half a mile away the ground dipped into a narrow valley, with a clear
stream of water meandering at the bottom.

Ralph laid down his burden very gently and tenderly close to the stream,
with her head pillowed on a bank of moss. He was at his wits' end, but
he thought it possible that some ice-cold water sprinkled on her face
might revive her.

Jess stood stock-still a few yards away and watched the operation. Ralph
sprinkled the cold water first on her face, then he got a large leaf,
and made a cup of it, and tried to get her to drink; but the water
trickled down her neck and into her bosom.

She gave a sigh at length and opened her eyes suddenly. Then she tried
to raise her head, but it fell back again in a moment.

Ralph filled the leaf again and raised her head.

"Try to drink this," he said. "I'm sure it will do you good." And she
opened her lips and drank.

He filled the leaf a third time, and she followed him with her eyes, but
did not attempt to speak.

"Now, don't you feel better?" he questioned, after she had swallowed the
second draught.

"I don't know," she answered, in a whisper. "But who are you? And where
am I?"

"You have had an accident," he said. "Your horse threw you. Don't you
remember?"

She closed her eyes and knitted her brows as if trying to recall what
had happened.

"It was close to Treliskey Plantation," he went on, "and the gate was
shut. You told me to open it, and I refused. I was a brute, and I shall
never forgive myself so long as I live."

"Oh yes; I remember," she said, opening her eyes slowly, and the
faintest suggestion of a smile played round her ashen lips. "You took
offence because----"

"I was a brute!" he interjected.

"I ought not to have spoken as I did," she said, in a whisper. "I had no
right to command you. Do--do you think I shall die?"

"No, no!" he cried, aghast. "What makes you ask such a question?"

"I feel so strange," she answered, in the same faint whisper, "and I
have no strength even to raise my head."

"But you will get better!" he said eagerly. "You must get better--you
must! For my sake, you must!"

"Why for your sake?" she whispered.

"Because if you die I shall feel like a murderer all the rest of my
life. Oh, believe me, I did not mean to be rude and unkind! I would die
for you this very moment if I could make you better! Oh, believe me!"
And the tears came up and filled his eyes.

She looked at him wonderingly. His words were so passionate, and rang
with such a deep note of conviction, that she could not doubt his
sincerity.

"It was all my fault," she whispered, after a long pause; then the light
faded from her eyes again. Ralph rushed to the stream and fetched more
water, but she was quite unconscious when he returned.

For a moment or two he looked at her, wondering whether her ashen lips
meant the approach of death; then he gathered her up in his arms again
and marched forward in the direction of St. Goram.

The road seemed interminable, while his burden hung a dead weight in his
arms, and grew heavier every step he took. He was almost ready to drop,
when a feeble sigh sounded close to his ear, followed by a very
perceptible shudder.

He was afraid to look at her. He had heard that people shuddered when
they died. A moment or two later he was reassured. A soft voice
whispered--

"Are you taking me home?"

"I am taking you to St. Goram," he answered "I don't know where your
home is."

She raised herself suddenly and locked her arms about his neck, and at
the touch of her hands the blood leaped in his veins and his face became
crimson. He no longer felt his burden heavy, no longer thought the way
long. A new chord had been struck somewhere, which sang through every
fibre of his being. A new experience had come to him, unlike anything he
had ever before felt or imagined.

He raised her a little higher in his arms, and pressed her still closer
to his heart. He was trembling from head to foot; his head swam with a
strange intoxication, his heart throbbed at twice its normal rate. He
had suddenly got into a world of enchantment. Life expanded with a new
meaning and significance.

It did not matter for the moment who this fair creature was or where she
lived. He had got possession of her; her arms were about his neck, her
head rested on his shoulder, her face was close to his, her breath
fanned his cheek, he could feel the beating of her heart against his
own.

He marched over the brow of the hill and down the other side in a kind
of ecstasy.

He waited for her to speak again, but for some reason she kept silent.
He felt her fingers clutch the back of his neck, and every now and then
a feeble sigh escaped her lips.

"Are you in pain?" he asked at length.

"I think I can bear it," she answered feebly.

"I wish I could carry you more gently," he said, "but the ground is very
rough."

"Oh, but you are splendid!" she replied. "I wish I had not been rude to
you."

He gave a big gulp, as though a lump had risen in his throat.

"Don't say that again, please," he said at length. "I feel bad enough to
drown myself."

She did not reply again, and for a long distance he walked on in
silence. He was almost ready to drop, and yet he was scarcely conscious
of fatigue. It seemed to him as though the strength of ten men had been
given to him.

"We shall be in the high road in a few minutes now," he said at length;
but she did not reply. Her hands seemed to be relaxing their hold about
his neck again; her weight had suddenly increased.

He staggered hurriedly forward to the junction of the roads, and then
sat down suddenly on a bank, still holding his precious charge in his
arms. He shifted her head a little, so that he could look at her face.
She did not attempt to speak, though he saw she was quite conscious.

"There's some kind of vehicle coming along the road," he said at length,
lifting his head suddenly.

She did not reply, but her eyes seemed to search his face as though
something perplexed her.

"Are you easier resting?" he questioned.

She closed her eyes slowly by way of reply; she was too spent to speak.

"You have not yet told me who you are," he said at length. All thought
of rank and station had passed out of his mind. They were on an equality
while he sat there folding her in his arms.

She opened her eyes again, and her lips moved, but no sound escaped
them.

In the distance the rattle of wheels sounded more and more distinct.

"Help is coming," he whispered. "I'm sure it is."

Her eyes seemed to smile into his, but no other answer was given.

He looked eagerly toward the bend of the road, and after a few minutes a
horse and carriage appeared in sight.

"It's Dr. Barrow's carriage," he said half aloud. "Oh, this is
fortunate!"

He raised a shout as the carriage drew near. The coachman saw that
something had happened, and pulled up suddenly. The doctor pushed his
head out of the window, then turned the door-handle and stepped out on
to the roadside.

"Hello, Ralph Penlogan!" he said, rushing forward, "what is the meaning
of this?"

"She got thrown from her horse up against Treliskey Plantation," he
answered. "Do you know who she is?"

"Of course I know who she is!" was the quick reply. "Don't you know?"

"No. I never saw her before. Do you think she will recover?"

"Has she been unconscious all the time?" the doctor asked, placing his
fingers on her wrist.

"No; she's come to once or twice. I thought at first she was dead.
There's a big cut on her head, which has bled a good deal."

"She must be got home instantly," was the reply. "Help me to get her
into the carriage at once!"

It was an easy task for the two men. Dorothy had relapsed into complete
unconsciousness again. Very carefully they propped her up in a corner of
the brougham, while the doctor took his place by her side.

Ralph would have liked to ride with them. He rather resented Dr. Barrow
taking his place. He had a notion that nobody could support the
unconscious girl so tenderly as himself.

There was no help for it, however. He had to get out of the carriage and
leave the two together.

"Tell William," said the doctor, "to drive round to the surgery before
going on to Hamblyn Manor."

"To Hamblyn Manor?" Ralph questioned, with a look of perplexity in his
eyes as he stood at the carriage door.

"Why, where else should I take her?"

"Is she from up the country?"

"From up the country--no. Do you mean to say you've lived here all your
life and don't know Miss Hamblyn?"

"But she is only a girl," Ralph said, looking at the white face that was
leaning against the doctor's shoulder.

"Well?"

"Miss Hamblyn is going to be married!"

The doctor's face clouded in a moment.

"I fear this will mean the postponement of the marriage," he said.

Ralph groaned inwardly and turned away.

"The doctor says you must drive round to the surgery before going on to
Hamblyn Manor," he said, speaking to the coachman, and then he stood
back and watched the carriage move away.

It seemed to him like a funeral, with Jess as the mourner, limping
slowly behind. The doctor hoped to avoid attracting attention in St.
Goram. He did not know that Jess was following the carriage all the way.

It was the sight of the riderless horse that attracted people's
attention. Then, when the carriage pulled up at the doctor's door,
someone bolder than the rest looked in at the window and caught a
glimpse of the unconscious figure.

The doctor's anger availed him nothing. Other people came and looked,
and the news spread through St. Goram like wildfire, and in the end an
enterprising lad took to his heels and ran all the distance to Hamblyn
Manor that he might take to Sir John the evil tidings.




CHAPTER IV

A BITTER INTERVIEW


Dr. Barrow remained at the Manor House most of the night. It was clear
from his manner, as well as from the words he let fall, that he regarded
Dorothy's case as serious. Sir John refused to go to bed.

"I shall not sleep in any case," he said. "And I prefer to remain
downstairs, so that I can hear the latest news."

Lord Probus remained with him till after midnight, though very few words
passed between them. Now and then they looked at each other in a dumb,
despairing fashion, but neither had the courage to talk about what was
uppermost in their thoughts.

Just as the daylight was struggling into the room, the doctor came in
silently, and dropped with a little sigh into an easy-chair.

"Well?" Sir John questioned, looking at him with stony eyes.

"She is a little easier for the moment," was the quiet, unemotional
answer.

"You think she will pull through?"

"I hope so, but I shall be able to speak with more confidence later."

"The wound in her head is a bad one?"

The doctor smiled. "If that were all, we would soon have her on her feet
again."

"But what other injuries has she sustained?"

"It is impossible to say just at present. She evidently fell under the
horse. The wonder is she's alive at all."

"I suppose nobody knows how it happened?" Sir John questioned after a
pause.

"Well, I believe nobody saw the accident, though young Ralph Penlogan
was near the spot at the time--and a fortunate thing too, or she might
have remained where she fell till midnight."

"You have seen the young man?"

"He had carried her in his arms from Treliskey Plantation to the
junction of the high road."

"Without assistance?"

"Without assistance. What else could he do? There was not a soul near
the spot. Since you closed the road through the plantation, it is never
used now, except by the few people to whom you have granted the right of
way."

"So young Penlogan was in the plantation, was he?"

"I really don't know. He may have been on the common."

Sir John frowned. "Do you know," he said, after a pause, "that I dislike
that young man exceedingly."

"Indeed?"

"He is altogether above his station. I believe he is clever, mind you,
and all that, but what does a working-man's son want to bother himself
with mechanics and chemistry for?"

"Why not?" the doctor asked, with slightly raised eyebrows.

"Why? Because this higher education, as it is called, is bringing the
country to the dogs. Get an educated proletariat, and the reign of the
nobility and gentry is at an end. You see the thin end of the wedge
already. Your Board-school boys and girls are all cursed with notions;
they are too big for their jackets, too high for their station; they
have no respect for squire or parson, and they are too high and mighty
to do honest work."

"I cannot say that has been my experience," the doctor said quietly; and
he rose from his chair and began to pull on his gloves.

"You are not going?" Sir John questioned anxiously.

"For an hour or two. I should like, with your permission, to telegraph
to Dr. Roscommon. You know he is regarded now as the most famous surgeon
in the county."

"But surely, doctor----" Sir John began, with a look of consternation in
his eyes.

"I should like to have his opinion," the doctor said quietly.

"Of course--of course! Get the best advice you can. No expense must be
spared. My child must be saved at all costs."

"Rest assured we shall do our best," the doctor answered, and quietly
left the room.

For the best part of another hour Sir John paced restlessly up and down
the room, then he dropped into an easy-chair and fell fast asleep.

He was aroused at length by a timid knock at the door.

"Come in!" he answered sleepily, fancying for a moment that he was in
bed, and that his servant had brought him his shaving-water.

The next moment he was on his feet, with an agitated look in his eyes.

A servant entered, followed by Ralph Penlogan, who looked as if he had
not slept for the night.

Instead of waiting to know if Sir John would see him, Ralph had stalked
into the room on the servant's heels. He was too anxious to stand on
ceremony, too eager to unburden his mind. He had never had a moment's
peace since his meeting with Dorothy Hamblyn the previous afternoon. He
felt like a criminal, and would have given all he possessed if he could
have lived over the previous afternoon again.

Sir John recognised him in a moment, and drew himself up stiffly. He
never felt altogether at ease in the presence of the Penlogans. He knew
that he had "done" the father, driven a most unfair bargain with him,
and it is said a man never forgives a fellow-creature he has wronged.

"I have come to speak to you about the accident to your daughter," Ralph
said, plunging at once into the subject that filled his mind.

"Yes, yes; I am glad you have called," Sir John said, walking to the
mantelpiece and leaning his elbow on it.

"I hope she is better?" Ralph went on. "You think she will recover?"

"I am sorry to say she is very seriously injured," Sir John answered
slowly; "but, naturally, we hope for the best."

Ralph dropped his eyes to the floor, and for a moment was silent.

"Dr. Barrow tells me that you were near the spot at the time of the
accident," Sir John went on; "for that reason I am glad you have
called."

"There isn't much to tell," Ralph answered, without raising his eyes,
"but I am anxious to tell what there is."

"Ah!" Sir John gasped, glancing across at his visitor suspiciously.

"After what has happened, you can't blame me more than I blame myself,"
Ralph went on; "though, of course, I never imagined for a moment that
she would attempt to leap the gate."

"I don't quite understand," Sir John said stiffly.

"Well, it was this way. I was leaning on the stile leading down into
Dingley Bottom, when someone rode up and ordered me to open the gate
leading into Treliskey Plantation. If the lady had asked me to open the
gate I should have done it in a minute."

"So you refused to do a neighbourly act, did you?"

"I told her I was not her servant, at which she got very indignant, and
ordered me to do as I was told."

"And you refused a second time?"

"I did. In fact, I felt very bitter. People in our class suffer so many
indignities from the rich that we are apt to be soured."

"Soured, indeed! Your accursed Board-school pride not only makes cads of
you, but criminals!" And Sir John's eyes blazed with passion.

"I am not going to defend myself any further," Ralph said, raising his
eyes and looking him full in the face. "I am sorry now that I did not
open the gate--awfully sorry. I would give anything if I could live over
yesterday afternoon again!"

"I should think so, indeed!" Sir John said, in his most biting tones.
"And understand this, young man, if my daughter dies I shall hold you
responsible for her death!"

Ralph's face grew very white, but he did not reply.

Sir John, however, was in no mood to be silent. He had a good many
things bottled up in his mind, and Ralph's visit gave him an excuse for
pulling the cork out.

"I want to say this also to you," he said, "now that you have given me
an opportunity of opening my mind--that I consider young men of your
stamp a danger and a menace to the neighbourhood!"

Ralph looked at him without flinching, but he did not speak.

"There was a time," Sir John went on, "when people knew how to respect
their betters, when the working classes kept their place and did not
presume, and when such as you would never have ventured into this house
by the front door!"

"I came by the nearest way," Ralph answered, "and did not trouble to
inquire which door it was."

"Your father no doubt thinks he has been doing a wise thing in keeping
himself on short commons to give you what he foolishly imagines is an
education."

"Excuse me, but we are all kept on short commons because you took
advantage of my father's ignorance. If he had had a little better
education he would not have allowed himself to be duped by you!" And he
turned and made for the door.

But Sir John intercepted him, with flashing eyes and passion-lined face.

"Have you come here to insult me?" he thundered. "By Heaven, I've a good
mind to call my servants in and give you a good horsewhipping!"

Ralph stood still and scowled angrily.

"I neither came here to insult you nor to be insulted by you! I came
here to express my regret that I did not pocket my pride and open the
gate for your daughter. I have made the best amends in my power, and
now, if you will let me, I will go home."

"I am not sure that I will let you!" Sir John said angrily. "It seems to
me the proper thing would be to send for the police and get you locked
up. How do I know that you did not put something in the way to prevent
my daughter's horse clearing the gate? I know that you hate your
betters--like most of your class, alas! in these times----"

"We should not hate you if you dealt justly by us!" Ralph retorted.

"Dealt justly, indeed!" Sir John sneered. "It makes me ill to hear such
as you talking about justice! You ought to be thankful that you are
allowed to live in the parish at all!"

"We are. We are grateful for the smallest mercies--grateful for room to
walk about."

"That's more than some of you deserve," Sir John retorted angrily. "Now
go home and help your father on the farm. And, by Jove, tell him if he's
behind with his ground rent this year I'll make him sit up."

Ralph's eyes blazed in a moment. That ground rent was to him the sum of
all iniquity. It represented to him the climax of greed and injustice.
The bitterness of it had eaten out all the joy of his father's life and
robbed his mother of all the fruits of her thrift and economy.

Ralph's face was toward the door; but he turned in a moment, white with
passion.

"I wonder you are not ashamed to speak of that ground rent," he said
slowly, and with biting emphasis. "You, who took advantage of my
father's love for his native place, and of his ignorance of legal
phraseology--you, who robbed a poor man of his savings, and cheated his
children out of their due. Ground rent, indeed! I wonder the word does
not stick in your throat and choke you." And before Sir John could reply
he had pulled open the door and passed out into the hall.

He walked home by the forbidden path through the plantation, feeling
more reckless and defiant than he had ever felt before. He was in the
mood to run his head against any brick wall that might stand in his way;
he almost hoped that a keeper would cross his path and arrest him. He
wanted to have another tilt with Sir John, and show him how lightly he
regarded his authority.

No keeper, however, showed his face. He was left in undisturbed
possession of field and fell. He whistled loudly and defiantly, as he
strutted through the dim aisles of the plantation, and tried to persuade
himself that he was not a bit sorry that Sir John at that moment was
suffering all the tortures of suspense. He would have persuaded himself,
if he could, that he did not care whether Dorothy Hamblyn lived or died;
but that was altogether beyond his powers. He did care. Every fibre of
his being seemed to plead for her recovery.

He came at length upon the scene of the previous day's accident. To all
appearances no one had visited it. The broken gate had not been touched.
On the ground was a dark stain which had been crimson the day before,
but no one would notice it unless it were pointed out; for the rest,
Nature showed no regard for human pain or grief.

It was a glorious morning in late summer. The woods were at their best;
the fields were yellowing in all directions to the harvest. High in the
blue heavens the larks were trilling their morning song, while in the
banks and hedges the grasshoppers were whirring and chattering with all
their might. It was a morning to inspire the heart with confidence and
hope, to cleanse the eyes from the dust of doubt, and to uplift the
spirit from the fogs of pessimism and despair.

And yet Ralph Penlogan heard no song that morning, nor even saw the
sunshine. A dull weight was pressing on his heart which he had no power
to lift. Anger and regret struggled within him for the mastery, while
constantly a new emotion--which he did not understand as yet--ran
through his veins like liquid fire.

When he reached the stile he rested for a few moments, and recalled the
scene of the previous day. It was not difficult. The face of the fair
horsewoman he would never forget; the soft, imperious voice rang through
his brain like the sound of evening bells. Her smile was like sunshine
on waving corn.

Then in his fancy he saw Jess dart forward, and then came the sickening
sound of splintering wood. What happened after that he knew all too
well.

It would be a cruel thing for death to blot out a smile so sweet, and
the grave to hide a face so fair. While there were so many things in the
world that were neither lovely nor useful nor inspiring, it would seem
like a sin against Nature to blot out and destroy so sweet a presence.
Let the weeds be plucked up, let the thorns be burned; but the flowers
should be allowed to remain to brighten the world and gladden the hearts
of men.

He sprang over the stile at length, and strode away in the direction of
Dingley Bottom with a scowl upon his face.

What right had he to be thinking about the squire's daughter? Did he not
despise the class to which she belonged? Did he not hate her father
because, having a giant's strength, he used it like a giant? Had not the
justice of the strong become a byword and a loathing? Had he not sworn
eternal enmity to the oppressor and all who shared his gains?

On the brow of the next low hill he paused again. Before him, in a
little hollow, lay the homestead his father had built; and spread out on
three sides were the fields he had reclaimed from the wilderness.

It had been a hard and almost heartbreaking task, for when he commenced
the enterprise he had but a faint idea what it would cost. It seemed
easy enough to root up the furze bushes and plough down the heather, and
the soil looked so loamy and rich that he imagined a heavy crop would be
yielded the first year.

And yet it was not to make money that David Penlogan had leased a
portion of Polskiddy Downs, and built a house thereon. It was rather
that he might have a quiet resting-place in the evening of his life, and
be able to spend his days in the open air--in the wind and sunshine--and
be set free from the perils that beset an underground captain in a
Cornish mine.

With what high hopes he embarked upon the enterprise none but David
knew. It was his one big investment. All the savings of a lifetime went
into it. He took his hoarded sovereigns out of the bank without
misgiving, and felt as happy as a king, while he toiled like a slave.

His neighbours stared and shook their heads when it leaked out on what
terms he had taken the lease.

"Sir John has been too many for you, David," an old farmer said to him
one day. "You might as well empty your purse in his pocket right off.
You'll not have money enough to buy a coffin with when he's finished
with you."

But David knew better, or fancied he did, which is much the same thing.

He hired horses and ploughs and stubbers and hedgers and ditchers, and
masons and carpenters, and for a year that corner of Polskiddy Downs was
alive with people.

The house was built from plans David prepared himself. Barn and cowsheds
were erected at a convenient distance. Hedges were carried in straight
lines across the newly cultivated fields. A small orchard was planted
beyond the kitchen garden, and everything, to David's hopeful eyes,
looked promising for the future.

That was twelve years ago, and in those years David had grown to be an
old man. He had spent his days in the open air, it is true--in the wind
and sunshine, and in the rain and snow--and he had contracted rheumatism
and bronchitis, and all the heart had gone out of him in the hopeless
struggle.

As Ralph looked out over the not too fruitful fields which his father
had reclaimed from the waste with such infinite toil, and at the
sacrifice of all his savings, he forgot the fair face of Dorothy
Hamblyn, which had been haunting him all the way back, and remembered
only the iron hand of her father.




CHAPTER V

THE CHANCES OF LIFE


Ralph had started so early that morning that he had had no time to get
breakfast. Now he began to feel the pangs of hunger most acutely.

"I expect mother will have kept something for me," he said to himself,
as he descended the slope. "I hope she is not worrying about what has
become of me."

He looked right and left for his father, expecting to find him at work
in the fields, but David was nowhere in evidence.

Ralph made a bee-line across the fields, and was soon in the shelter of
the little homestead. He found his father and mother and his sister Ruth
still seated at the breakfast-table. Ruth pushed back her chair at the
sound of his footsteps and rose to her feet.

"Why, Ralph," she said, "where have you been? Mother's been quite
worried about you."

"If that's all she has to worry her, she needn't worry much," he said,
with a laugh. "But has anything happened? You all look desperately
sober."

"We've heard some news that has made us all feel very anxious," David
answered wearily. "We've sat here talking about it for the last
half-hour."

"Then the news concerns us all?" Ralph questioned, with a catch in his
voice.

"Very closely, my boy--very closely. The truth is, Julian Seccombe has
got wounded out in Egypt."

"And he's the last life on the farm?" Ralph questioned, with a gasp.

"That is so, my boy. It seems strange that I should be so unfortunate in
the choice of lives, and yet I could not have been more careful. Who
could have thought that the parson's boy would become a soldier?"

"Life is always uncertain," Ralph answered, with a troubled look in his
eyes, "whether a man is a soldier or a farmer."

"That is so," David answered reflectively. "Yet my father held his
little place on only two lives, and one of them lived to be
seventy-five."

"But, even then, I've heard you say the lease ran only a little over
sixty years. It's a wicked gamble, is this leasehold system, with the
chances in favour of the landlord."

"Why a gamble in favour of the landlord, my boy?" David questioned,
lifting his mild eyes to his son's face.

"Why, because if all the 'lives' live out their threescore years and
ten, the lease is still a short one; for you don't start with the first
year of anyone's life."

"That is true," David answered sadly. "The parson's boy was ten, which I
thought would be balanced by the other two."

"And the other two did not live ten years between them."

"Of course, nobody could foresee that," David answered sadly. "They were
both healthy children. Our little Billy was three, and the healthiest
baby of the lot."

"But with all the ailments of children in front of him?"

"Well, no. He had had whooping-cough, and got through it easily. It was
the scarlet fever that carried him off. Poor little chap, he was gone in
no time."

"And so, within a year, and after you had spent the greater part of your
money, your farm hung upon two lives," Ralph said bitterly.

"But, humanly speaking, they were good lives. Not lives that would be
exposed to much risk. Lawyer Doubleday told me that he intended to bring
up his boy to the same profession, and Parson Seccombe told me he had
dedicated Julian to the Church in his infancy. What better lives,
humanly speaking, could you get? Neither parsons nor lawyers run any
risks to speak of."

"Yes; that's true enough. The system being what it is, you did the best
you could, no doubt."

"Nobody could foresee," David said sadly, "that Doubleday's boy would go
and get drowned. I nearly fainted when I heard the news."

"And now you say that young Seccombe has got shot out in Egypt."

"I don't know as to his being shot; but Tom Dyer, who was here this
morning, said that he had just seen the parson, who was in great
trouble, news having reached him last evening that Julian was wounded."

"Then if the parson's in great trouble, the chances are he's badly
wounded."

"I don't know. I thought of walking across to St. Goram directly, and
seeing the parson for myself; but I'm almost afraid to do so, lest the
worst should be true."

"We shall have to face it, whatever it is," Ralph said doggedly.

"But think of what it would mean to us if the parson's son should die!
Poor mother is that troubled that she has not been able to eat a
mouthful of breakfast!"

"She seems scarcely able to talk about it," Ralph said, glancing at the
door through which his mother and Ruth had disappeared.

"She's a little bit disposed to look on the dark side of things
generally," David said slowly. "For myself, I keep hoping for the best.
It doesn't seem possible that God can strip us of everything at a blow."

"It doesn't seem to me as though God had any hand in the business,"
Ralph answered doggedly.

"Hush, Ralph, my boy! The issues of life and death are in His hands."

"And you believe also that He is the author of the leasehold system that
obtains in this country?"

"I did not say that, Ralph; but He permits it."

"Just as He permits lying and theft, and murder and war, and all the
other evil things there are in the world. But that is nothing to the
point. You can't make me believe that the Almighty ever meant a few
people to parcel out the world among themselves, and cheat all the rest
out of their rights."

"The world is what it is, my boy, and neither you nor I can alter it."

"And you think it is our duty to submit quietly and uncomplainingly to
whatever wrong or injustice is heaped upon us?"

"We must submit to the law, my boy, however hardly it presses upon us."

"But we ought to try, all the same, to get bad laws mended."

"You can't ladle the sea dry with a limpet-shell, Ralph, nor carry off a
mountain in your pocket. No, no; let us not talk about the impossible,
nor give up hope until we are forced to. Perhaps young Seccombe will
recover."

"But if he should die, father. What would happen then?"

"I don't know, my boy, and I can't bear to think."

"But we'd better face the possibility," Ralph answered doggedly, "so
that, if the worst should come to the worst, we may know just where we
are."

"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" David answered, with a
far-away look in his eyes. And he got up from his seat and walked slowly
out of the house.

Ralph sat looking out of the window for several minutes, and then he
went off in search of his mother and Ruth.

"Do you know, mother," he said, as cheerily as he could, "that I have
had no breakfast yet? And, in spite of the bad news, I am too hungry for
words."

"Had no breakfast?" she said, lifting up her hands in surprise. "I made
sure you got something to eat before you went out."

"Well, then, you were wrong for once," he said, laughing. "Now, please
put me out of my misery as quickly as possible."

"Ah, Ralph," she answered, with a sigh, "if we had no worse misery than
hunger, how happy we should be!"

"That is so, mother," he said, with a laugh. "Hunger is not at all bad
when you have plenty to eat."

She sighed again.

"It is well that you young people don't see far ahead of you," she said
plaintively. "But come here and get your breakfast."

Two hours later, when in the home close hoeing turnips, he lifted his
head and saw his father coming across the fields from the direction of
St. Goram, he straightened his back at once and waited. He knew that he
had been to see the parson to get the latest and fullest news. David
came slowly on with his eyes upon the ground, as if buried in profound
thought.

"Well, father, what news?" Ralph questioned, when his father came within
speaking distance.

David started as though wakened out of a reverie, and came to a full
stop. Then a pathetic smile stole over his gentle face, and he came
forward with a quickened step.

"I waited for the parson to get a reply from the War Office, or I should
have been home sooner," he said, bringing out the words slowly and
painfully.

"Well?" Ralph questioned, though he felt sure, from his father's manner,
what the answer would be.

"The parson fears the worst," David answered, bringing out the words in
jerks. "Poor man! He's in great trouble. I almost forgot my own when I
thought of his."

"But what was the news he got from the War Office?" Ralph questioned.

"Not much. He's on the list of the dangerously wounded, that's all."

"But he may recover," Ralph said, after a pause.

"Yes, he may," David answered, with a sigh. "God alone knows, but the
parson gave me no comfort at all."

"How so?"

"He says that the swords and spears of the dervishes are often poisoned;
then, you see, water is scarce, and the heat is terrible, so that a sick
man has no chance like he has here."

Ralph did not reply. For a moment or two he looked at his father, then
went on with his hoeing. David walked by his side between the rows of
turnips. His face was drawn and pale, and his lips twitched incessantly.

"The world seems terribly topsy-turvy," he said at length, as if
speaking to himself. "I oughtn't to be idling here, but all the heart's
gone out of me somehow."

"We must hope for the best," Ralph said, without raising his head.

"The parson's boy is the last 'life,'" David went on, as though he had
not heard what Ralph had said. "The last life. Just a thread, a feeble
little thread. One little touch, and then----"

"Well, and what then?" Ralph questioned.

"If the boy dies, this little farm is no longer ours. Though I have
reclaimed it from the waste, and spent on it all my savings, and toiled
from dawn to dark for twelve long years, and built the house and the
barn and the cowsheds, and gone into debt to stock it; if that boy dies
it all goes."

"You mean that the squire will take possession?"

"I mean that Sir John will claim it as his."

Ralph did not speak again for several moments, but he felt his blood
tingling to his finger-tips.

"It's a wicked, burning shame," he jerked out at length.

"It is the law, my boy," David said sadly, "and you see there's no going
against the law."

Ralph hung his head, and began hoeing vigorously his row.

"Besides," David went on, "you see I was party to the arrangement--that
is, I accepted the conditions; but the luck has been on Sir John's
side."

"He took a mean advantage of you, father, and you know it, and he knows
it," Ralph snapped.

"He knew that I had set my heart on a bit of land that I could call my
own; that I wanted a sort of resting-place in my old age, and that I
desired to end my days in the parish in which I was born."

"And so he put the screw on. It's always been a wonder to me, since I
could think about it at all, that you accepted the conditions. I would
have seen Sir John at the bottom of the sea first."

"I did try to get better terms," David answered, looking wistfully
across the fields, "and I mentioned ninety-nine years as the term of the
lease, and he nearly turned me out of his office. 'Three lives or
nothing,' he snarled, 'and be quick about it.' So I had to make up my
mind there and then."

"You'd have been better off, father, if you'd dropped all your money
down a mine shaft, and gone to work on a farm as a day labourer," Ralph
said bitterly.

"I shouldn't have had to work so hard," David assented.

"And you would have got more money, and wouldn't have had a hundredth
part of the anxiety."

"You see, I thought the land was richer than it has turned out to be,
and the furze roots have kept sprouting year after year, and that has
meant ploughing the fields afresh. And the amount of manure I have had
to put in has handicapped me terribly. But I have kept hoping to get
into smooth waters by and by. The farm is looking better now than ever
it did before."

"But the ground rent, father, is an outrage. Did you really understand
how much you were paying?"

"He wouldn't consent to any less," David said wistfully. "You see things
were good with farmers at the time, and rents were going up. And then I
thought I should be allowed to work the quarry down in the delf, and
make some money out of the stone."

"And you were done in that as in other things?"

"Well, yes. There's no denying it. When I got to understand the
deed--and it took me a goodish time to riddle it out--I found out that I
had no right to the stone or the mineral, or the fish in the stream, or
to the trees, or to the game. Do you know he actually charged me for the
stone dug out of my own farm to build the house with?"

"And ever since has been working the quarry at a big profit, which would
never have been unearthed but for you, and destroying one of your fields
in the process?"

"I felt that about the quarry almost more than anything," David went on.
"But he's never discovered the tin lode, and I shall never tell him."

"Is there a tin lode on the farm?" Ralph questioned eagerly.

"Ay, a beauty! It must be seven years ago since I discovered it, and
I've kept it to myself. You see, it would ruin the farm to work it, and
I should not get a penny of the dues; they'd all go to the squire."

"Everything gets back to the rich in the long-run," Ralph said bitterly.
"There's no chance for the poor man anywhere."

"Oh, well, in a few years' time it won't matter to any of us," David
said, looking with dreamy eyes across the valley to the distant range of
hills. "In the grave we shall all be equal, and we shall never hear
again the voice of the oppressor."

"That does not seem to me anything to the point," Ralph said, flashing
out the words angrily. "We've got as good a right to live as anybody
else. I don't ask favours from anybody, but I do want justice and fair
play."

"It's difficult to know what justice is in this world," David said
moodily. "But there, I've been idling long enough. It's time I went back
and fetched my hoe and did a bit of work." And he turned slowly on his
heel and walked away toward the house.

Ralph straightened his back and looked after him, and as he did so the
moisture came into his eyes.

"Poor old father!" he said to himself, with a sigh. "He's feeling this
much more deeply than anyone knows. I do hope for all our sakes that
Julian Seccombe will recover."

For the rest of the day Ralph's thoughts hovered between the possible
loss of their farm and the chances of Dorothy Hamblyn's recovery. He
hardly knew why he should worry himself about the squire's daughter so
much. Was it solely on the ground that he had refused to open the gate,
or was it because she was so pretty?

He felt almost vexed with himself when this thought suggested itself to
his mind. What did it matter to him whether she was fair or plain? She
was Sir John Hamblyn's daughter, and that ought to be sufficient for
him. If there was any man on earth he hated and despised it was John
Hamblyn; hence to concern himself about the fate of his daughter because
she was good to look upon seemed the most ridiculous folly.

It must surely be the other consideration that worried him. If he had
opened the gate the accident would not have happened; but neither would
it if she had ridden home the other way. She was paying the penalty of
her own wilfulness and her own imperiousness. He was not called on to be
the hack of anybody.

But from whatever cause his anxiety might spring, it was there,
deep-rooted and persistent.

He was glad when night came, so that he might forget himself, forget the
world, and forget everybody in it in the sweet oblivion of sleep.

He hoped that the new day would bring better news, but in that he was
disappointed. The earlier part of the day brought no news at all, and
neither he nor his father went to seek it. But as the afternoon began to
wane, a horse-dealer from St. Goram left word that the parson's son was
dead, and that the squire's daughter was not likely to get better.




CHAPTER VI

WAITING FOR THE BLOW TO FALL


David Penlogan was not the man to cry out when he was hurt. He went
about his work in dumb resignation. The calamity was too great to be
talked about, too overwhelming to be shaped into words. He could only
shut his teeth and endure. To discuss the matter, even with his wife,
would be like probing a wound with a red-hot needle. Better let it be.
There are times when words are like a blister on a burn.

What the future had in store for him he did not know, and he had not the
courage to inquire. One text of Scripture he repeated to himself
morning, noon, and night, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,"
and to that he held. It was his one anchor. The rope was frayed, and the
anchor out of sight--whether hooked to a rock or simply embedded in the
sand he did not know--but it steadied him while the storm was at its
worst. It helped him to endure.

Harvest was beginning, and the crop had to be gathered in--gathered in
from fields that were no longer his, and that possibly he would never
plant again. It was all very pathetic. He seemed sometimes like a man
preparing for his own funeral.

"When next year comes----" he would say to himself, and then he would
stop short. He had not courage enough yet to think of next year; his
business was with the present. His first, and, as far as he could see,
his only duty was to gather in the crops. Sir John had not spoken to him
yet. He was too concerned about his daughter to think of so small a
matter as the falling-in of a lease. Strange that what was a mere trifle
to one man should be a matter of life and death to another.

It was a sad and silent harvest-tide for the occupants of Hillside Farm.
The impending calamity, instead of drawing them more closely together,
seemed to separate them. Each was afraid of betraying emotion before the
rest. So they avoided each other. Even at meal-times they all pretended
to be so busy that there was no time to talk. The weather was
magnificent, and all the cornfields were growing ripe together. This was
true of nearly every other farm in the parish. Hence hired labour could
not be had for love or money. The big farmers had picked up all the
casual harvesters beforehand. The small farmers would have to employ
their womenfolk and children.

Ralph and his father got up each morning at sunrise, and, armed with
reaping-hooks, went their ways in different directions. Ralph undertook
to cut down the barley-field, David negotiated a large field of oats.
They could not talk while they were in different fields. Moreover,
neither was in the mood for company. Later on they might be able to talk
calmly and without emotion, but at present it would be foolish to make
the attempt.

Every day they expected that Sir John Hamblyn or his steward would put
in an appearance; that would bring things to a head, and put an end to
the little conspiracy of silence that had now lasted nearly a week. But
day after day passed away, and the solemn gloom of the farm remained
unbroken.

Ralph kept doggedly to his work. Work was the best antidote against
painful thoughts. Since the morning he walked across to Hamblyn Manor,
in order to ease his conscience by making a clean breast of it, he had
never ventured beyond his own homestead. He tried to persuade himself it
was no concern of his what happened, and that if Dorothy Hamblyn died it
would be a just judgment on Sir John for his grasping and oppressive
ways.

But his heart always revolted against such reasoning. Deep down in his
soul he knew that, for the moment, he was more concerned about the fate
of Dorothy than anything else, and that it would be an infinite relief
to him to hear that she was out of danger. Try as he would, he could not
shake off the feeling that he was more or less responsible for the
accident.

But day by day the news found its way across to the farm that "the
squire's little maid," as the villagers called her, was no better.
Sometimes, indeed, the news was that she was a good deal worse, and that
the doctors held out very little hope of her recovery.

Ralph remained as silent on this as on the other subject. He had never
told anyone but Sir John that he had refused to open the gate. It had
seemed to him, while he sat on the stile and faced the squire's
daughter, a brave and courageous part to take, but he was ashamed of it
now. It would have been a far more heroic thing to have pocketed the
affront and overcome arrogance by generosity.

But vision often comes too late. We see the better part when we are no
longer able to take it.

Sunday brought the family together, and broke the crust of silence that
had prevailed so long.

It was David's usual custom on a Sunday morning to walk across the
fields to his class-meeting, held in the little Methodist Chapel at
Veryan. But this particular Sunday morning he had not the courage to go.
If he could not open his heart before the members of his own family, how
could he before others? Besides, his experience would benefit no one. He
had no tale to tell of faith triumphing over despondency, and hope
banishing despair. He had come nearer being an infidel than ever before
in his life. It is not every man who can see that Providence may be as
clearly manifested in calamity as in prosperity.

So instead of going to his meeting, David went out for a quiet walk in
the fields. He could talk to himself, if he had not the courage to talk
to others. Besides, Nature was nearly always restful, if not inspiring.

Ralph came down to breakfast an hour later than was his custom. He was
so weary with the work of the week that he was half disposed to lie in
bed till the following morning. He found his breakfast set for him in
what was called the "living-room," but neither Ruth nor his mother was
visible. He ate his food without tasting it. His mind was too full of
other things to trouble himself about the quality of his victuals. When
he had finished he rose slowly from his chair, took a cloth cap from a
peg, and went through the open door into the garden. Plucking a sprig of
lad's-love, he stuck it into the buttonhole of his jacket, then climbed
over the hedge into an adjoining field.

He came face to face with his father ten minutes later, and stared at
him in surprise.

"Why, I thought you had gone to your meeting!" he said, in a tone of
wonderment.

"I don't feel in any mood for meetings," David answered gloomily. "I
reckon I'm best by myself."

"I fancy we've all been thinking the same thing these last few days,"
Ralph answered, with a smile. "I'm not sure, however, that we're right.
We've got to talk about things sooner or later."

"Yes; I suppose that is so," David answered wearily. "But, to tell you
the truth, I haven't got my bearings yet."

"I reckon our first business is to try to keep afloat," Ralph answered.
"If we can do that, we may find our bearings later on."

"You will find no difficulty, Ralph, for you are young, and have all the
world before you. Besides, I've given you an education. I knew it was
all I could give you."

"I'm afraid it won't be of much use to me in a place like this," Ralph
answered, with a despondent look in his eyes.

"There's no knowing, my boy. Knowledge, they say, is power. If you are
thrown overboard you will swim; but with mother and me it is different.
We're too old to start again, and all our savings are swallowed up."

"Not all, surely, father! There are the crops and cattle and
implements."

David shook his head.

"Over against the crops," he said, "are the seed bills, and the manure
bills, and the ground rent, and over against the cattle is the mortgage.
I never thought of telling you, Ralph, for I never reckoned on this
trouble coming. But when I started I thought the money I had would be
quite enough not only to build the house and outbuildings, and bring the
farm under cultivation, but to stock it as well. But it was a much more
expensive business than I knew."

"And so you had to mortgage the farm?"

"No, my lad. Nobody would lend money on a three-life lease."

"And yet you risked your all on it?"

"Ah, my boy, I did it for the best. God knows I did! I wanted to provide
a nest for our old age."

"No one will blame you on that score," Ralph answered, with tears in his
eyes; "but the best ships founder sometimes."

"Yes. I have kept saying to myself ever since the news came that I am
not the only man who has come to grief, and yet I don't know, my boy,
that that helps me very much."

Ralph was silent for several minutes; then he said--

"Is this mortgage or note of hand or bill of sale--or whatever it
is--for a large amount?"

"Well, rather, Ralph. I'm afraid, if we have to shift from here,
there'll be little or nothing left."

"But if you are willing to remain as tenant, Sir John will make no
attempt to move you?"

"I'm not so sure, my son. Sir John is a hard man and a bitter, and he
has no liking for me. At the last election I was not on his side, as you
may remember, and he never forgets such things."

Ralph turned away and bit his lip. The memory of what the squire said to
him a few days previously swept over him like a cold flood.

"I'm inclined to think, father," he said at length, "that we'd better
prepare for the worst. It'll be better than building on any
consideration we may receive from the squire."

"I think you are right, my boy." And they turned and walked toward the
house side by side.

They continued their talk in the house, and over the dinner-table. Now
that the ice was broken the stream of conversation flowed freely. Ruth
and Mrs. Penlogan let out the pent-up feelings of their hearts, and
their tears fell in abundance.

It did the women good to cry. It eased the pain that was becoming
intolerable. Ralph talked bravely and heroically. All was not lost. They
had each other, and they had health and strength, and neither of them
was afraid of hard work.

By tea-time they had talked each other into quite a hopeful frame of
mind. Mrs. Penlogan was inclined to the belief that Sir John would
recognise the equity of the case, and would let them remain as tenants
at a very reasonable rent.

"Don't let us build on that, mother," Ralph said. "If he foregoes the
tiniest mite of his pound of flesh, so much the better; but to reckon on
it might mean disappointment. We'd better face the worst, and if we do
it bravely we shall win."

In this spirit they went off to the evening service at the little chapel
at Veryan. The building was plain--four walls with a lid, somebody
described it--the service homely in the extreme, the singing decidedly
amateurish, but there were warmth and emotion and conviction, and
everybody was pleased to see the Penlogans in their places.

At the close of the service a little crowd gathered round them, and
manifested their sympathy in a dozen unspoken ways. Of course, everybody
knew what had happened, and everybody wondered what the squire would do
in such a case. The law was on his side, no doubt, but there ought to be
some place for equity also. David Penlogan had scarcely begun yet to
reap any of the fruit of his labour, and it would be a most unfair
thing, law or no law, that the ground landlord should come in and take
everything.

"Oh, he can't do it," said an old farmer, when discussing the matter
with his neighbour. "He may be a hard man, but he'd never be able to
hold up his head again if he was to do sich a thing."

"It's my opinion he'll stand on the law of the thing," was the reply. "A
bargain's a bargain, as you know very well, an' what's the use of a
bargain ef you don't stick to 'un?"

"Ay, but law's one thing and right's another, and a man's bound to have
some regard for fair play."

"He ought to have, no doubt; but the squire's 'ard up, as everybody
knows, and is puttin' on the screw on every tenant he's got. My opinion
is he'll stand on the law."

No one said anything to David, however, about what had happened, except
in the most indirect way. Sunday evening was not the time to discuss
secular matters. Nevertheless, David felt the unspoken sympathy of his
neighbours, and returned home comforted.

The next week passed as the previous one had done, and the week after
that. The squire had not come across, nor sent his steward. David began
to fear that the long silence was ominous. Mrs. Penlogan held to the
belief that Sir John meant to deal generously by them. Ralph kept his
thoughts to himself, but on the whole he was not hopeful.

The weather continued beautifully fine, and all hands were kept busy in
the fields. Except on Sundays they scarcely ever caught a glimpse of
their neighbours. No one had any time to pay visits or receive them. The
harvest must be got in, if possible, before the weather broke, and to
that end everyone who could help--little and big, young and old--was
pressed into the service.

On the big farms there was a good deal of fun and hilarity. The village
folk--lads and lasses alike--who knew anything about harvest work, and
were willing to earn an extra sixpence, were made heartily welcome.
Consequently there was not a little horse-play, and no small amount of
flirtation, especially after night came on, and the harvest moon began
to climb up into the heavens.

Then, when the field was safely sheafed and shocked, they repaired to
the farm kitchen, where supper was laid, and where ancient jokes were
trotted out amid roars of laughter, and where the hero of the evening
was the man who had a new story to tell. Supper ended, they made their
way home through the quiet lanes or across the fields. That, to some of
the young people, seemed the best part of the day. They forgot the
weariness engendered by a dozen hours in the open air while they
listened to a story old as the human race, and yet as new to-day as when
syllabled by the first happy lover.

But on the small farms, where no outside help was employed, there was
very little mirth or hilarity. All the romance of harvest was found
where the crowd was gathered. Young people sometimes gave their services
of an evening, so that they could take part in the fun.

As David Penlogan and his family toiled in the fields in the light of
the harvest moon they sometimes heard sounds of merry-making and
laughter floating across the valley from distant farmsteads, and they
wondered a little bit sadly where the next harvest-time would find them.

On the third Saturday night they stood still to listen to a familiar
sound in that part of the country.

"Listen, Ralph," Ruth said, "they're cutting neck at Treligga."

Cutting neck means cutting the last shock of the year's corn, and is
celebrated by a big shout in the field, and a special supper in the
farmer's kitchen.

Ralph raised himself from his stooping posture, and his father did the
same. Ruth took her mother's hand in hers, and all four stood and
listened. Clear and distinct across the moonlit fields the words rang--

"What have 'ee? What have 'ee?"

"A neck! A neck!"

"Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!"

Slowly the echoes died over the hills, and then silence reigned again.

Ralph and David had also cut neck, but they raised no shout over it.
They were in no mood for jubilation.

Sir John Hamblyn had not spoken yet, nor had his steward been across to
see them. Why those many days of grace, neither David nor Ralph could
surmise.

It was reported that the squire's daughter was slowly recovering from
her accident, but that many months would elapse before she was quite
well and able to ride again.

"We shall not have to wait much longer, depend upon it," David said, on
Monday morning, as he and Ralph went out in the fields together; and so
it proved. About ten o'clock a horseman was seen riding up the lane
toward the house. David was the first to catch sight of him.

"It's the squire himself," he said.




CHAPTER VII

DAVID SPEAKS HIS MIND


Sir John alighted from his horse and threw the reins over the garden
gate, then he walked across the stockyard, and looked at the barn and
the cowsheds, taking particular notice of the state of repair they were
in. After awhile he returned to the dwelling-house and walked round it
deliberately, looking carefully all the time at the roof and windows,
but he did not attempt to go inside.

David and Ralph watched him from the field, but neither attempted to go
near him.

"He'll come to us when he has anything to say," David said, with a
little catch in his voice.

Ralph noticed that his father trembled a good deal, and that he was pale
even to the lips.

The squire came hurrying across the fields at length, slapping his leg
as he walked with his riding-crop. His face was hard and set, like a man
who had braced himself to do an unpleasant task, and was determined to
carry it through. Ralph watched his face narrowly as he drew near, but
he got no hope or inspiration from it. The squire did not notice him,
but addressed himself at once to David.

"Good-morning, Penlogan!" he said. "I see you have got down all your
corn."

"Yes, sir, we cut neck on Saturday night."

"And not a bad crop either, by the look of it."

"No, sir, it's pretty middling. The farm is just beginning to show some
fruit for all the labour and money that have been spent on it."

"Exactly so. Labour and manure always tell in the end. You know, of
course, that the lease has fallen in?"

"I do, sir. It's hard on the parson at St. Goram, and it's harder lines
on me."

"Yes, it's rough on you both, I admit. But we can't be against these
things. When the Almighty does a thing, no man can say nay."

"I'm not so sure that the Almighty does a lot of those things that
people say He does."

"You're not?"

"No, sir. I don't see that the parson's son had any call to go out to
Egypt to shoot Arabs, particularly when he knew that my farm hung on his
life."

"He went at the call of duty," said the squire unctuously; "went to
defend his Queen and country."

"Don't believe it," said David doggedly. "Neither the Queen nor the
country was in any danger. He went because he had a roving disposition
and no stomach for useful ways."

"Well, anyhow, he's dead," said the squire, "and naturally we are all
sorry--sorry for his father particularly."

"I suppose you are not sorry for me?" David questioned.

"Well, yes; in some respects I am. The luck has gone against you,
there's no denying, and one does not like to see a fellow down on his
luck."

"Then in that case I presume you do not intend to take advantage of my
bad luck?"

The squire raised his eyebrows, and his lip curled slightly.

"I don't quite understand what you mean," he said.

"Well, it's this way," David said mildly. "According to law this little
farm is now yours."

"Exactly."

"But according to right it is not yours--it is mine."

"Oh, indeed?"

"You need not say, 'Oh, indeed.' You can see it as clearly as I do. I've
made the farm. I reclaimed it from the waste. I've fenced it and manured
it, and built houses upon it. And what twelve years ago was a furzy down
is now a smiling homestead, and you have not spent a penny piece on it,
and yet you say it is yours."

"Of course it is mine."

"Well, I say it isn't yours. It's mine by every claim of equity and
justice."

"I'm not talking about the claims of equity and justice," the squire
said, colouring violently. "I take my stand on the law of the country;
that's good enough for me. And what's good enough for me ought to be
good enough for you," he added, with a snort.

"That don't by any means follow," David answered quietly. "The laws of
the land were made by the rich in the interests of the rich. That
they're good for you there is no denying; but for me they're cruel and
oppressive."

"I don't see it," the squire said, with an impatient shrug of his
shoulders. "You live in a free country, and have all the advantages of
our great institutions."

"I suppose you call the leasehold system one of our great institutions?"
David questioned.

"Well, and what then?"

"I don't see much advantage in living under it," was the reply.

"You might have something a great deal worse," the squire said angrily.
"The high-and-mighty airs some of you people take on are simply
outrageous."

"We don't ask for any favours," David said meekly. "But we've a right to
live as well as other people."

"Nobody denies your right, that I know of."

"But what am I to do now that my little farm is gone? All the savings of
a lifetime, and all the toil of the last dozen years, fall into your
pocket."

"I grant that the luck has been against you in this matter. But we have
no right to complain of the ways of Providence. The luck might just as
easily have gone against me as against you."

"I don't believe in mixing luck and Providence up in that way," David
answered, with averted eyes. "But, as far as I can see, what you call
luck couldn't possibly have gone against you."

"Why not?"

"Because you laid down the conditions, and however the thing turned out
you would stand to win."

"I don't see it."

"You don't?" And David gave a loud sniff. "Why, if all the 'lives' had
lived till they were eighty, I and mine would not have got our own
back."

"Stuff and nonsense!" the squire said angrily. "Besides, you agreed to
the conditions."

"I know it," David answered sadly. "You would grant me no better, and I
was hopeful and ignorant, and looked at things through rose-coloured
glasses."

"I'm sure the farm has turned out very well," the squire replied, with a
hurried glance round him.

"It's just beginning to yield some little return," David said, looking
off to the distant fields. "For years it's done little more than pay the
ground rent. But this year it seems to have turned the corner. It ought
to be a good little farm in the future." And David sighed.

"Yes, it ought to be a good farm, and what is more, it is a good farm,"
the squire said fiercely. "Upon my soul, I believe I've let it too
cheap!"

"You've done what, sir?" David questioned, lifting his head suddenly.

"I said I believed I had let it too cheap. It's worth more than I am
going to get for it."

"Do you mean to say you have let it?" David said, in a tone of
incredulity.

"Of course I have let it. I could have let it five times over, for
there's no denying it's an exceedingly pretty and compact little farm."

At this point Ralph came forward with white face and trembling lips.

"Did I hear you tell father that you had let this farm?" he questioned,
bringing the words out slowly and with an effort.

"My business is with your father only," the squire said stiffly, and
with a curl of the lip.

"What concerns my father concerns me," Ralph answered quietly, "for my
labour has gone into the farm as well as his."

"That's nothing to the point," the squire answered stiffly. And he
turned again to David, who stood with blanched face and downcast eyes.

"I want to make it as easy and pleasant for you as possible," the squire
went on. "So I have arranged that you can stay here till Michaelmas
without paying any rent at all."

David looked up with an expression of wonder in his eyes, but he did not
reply.

"Between now and Michaelmas you will be able to look round you," the
squire continued, "and, in case you don't intend to take a farm anywhere
else, you will be able to get your corn threshed and such things as you
don't want to take with you turned into money. William Jenkins, I
understand, is willing to take the root crops at a valuation, also the
straw, which, by the terms of your lease, cannot be taken off the farm."

"So William Jenkins is to come here, is he?" David questioned suddenly.

"I have let the farm to him," the squire replied pompously, "and, as I
have before intimated, he will take possession at Michaelmas."

"It is an accursed and a cruel shame!" Ralph blurted out vehemently.

The squire started and looked at him.

"And why could you not have let the farm to me?" David questioned
mildly, "or, at any rate, given me the refusal of it? You said just now
that you were sorry for me. Is this the way you show your sorrow? Is
this doing to others as you would be done by?"

"I have surely the right to let my own farm to whomsoever I please," the
squire said, in a tone of offended dignity.

"This farm was not yours to start with," Ralph said, flinging himself in
front of the squire. "Before you enclosed it, it was common land, and
belonged to the people. You had no more right to it than the man in the
moon. But because you were strong, and the poor people had no power to
oppose you, you stole it from them."

"What is that, young man?" Sir John said, stepping back and striking a
defiant attitude.

"I said you stole Polskiddy Downs from the people. It had been common
land from time immemorial, and you know it." And Ralph stared him
straight in the eyes without flinching. "You took away the rights of the
people, shut them out from their own, let the land that did not belong
to you, and pocketed the profits."

"Young man, I'll make you suffer for this insult," Sir John stammered,
white with passion.

"And God will make you suffer for this insult and wrong to us," Ralph
replied, with flashing eyes. "Do you think that robbing the poor, and
cheating honest people out of their rights, will go unpunished?"

Sir John raised his riding-crop suddenly, and struck at Ralph with all
his might. Ralph caught the crop in his hand, and wrenched it from his
grasp, then deliberately broke it across his knee and flung the pieces
from him.

[Illustration: "SIR JOHN RAISED HIS HUNTING-CROP, AND STRUCK AT RALPH
WITH ALL HIS MIGHT."]

For several moments the squire seemed too astonished either to speak or
move. In all his life before he had never been so insulted. He glowered
at Ralph, and looked him up and down, but he did not go near him. He was
no match for this young giant in physical strength.

David seemed almost as much astonished as the squire. He looked at his
son, but he did not open his lips.

The squire recovered his voice after a few moments.

"If I had been disposed to deal generously with you----" he began.

"You never were so disposed," Ralph interposed bitingly. "You did your
worst before you came. We understand now why you kept away so long. I
wonder you are not ashamed to show your face here now."

"Cannot you put a muzzle on this wild beast?" the squire said, turning
to David.

"He has not spoken to you very respectfully," David replied slowly, "but
there's no denying the truth of much that he has said."

"Indeed! Then let me tell you I am glad you will have to clear out of
the parish."

"You would have been glad if I could have been cleared out of the parish
before the last election," David said insinuatingly.

"I have never interfered with your politics since you came."

"You had no right to; but you've intimidated a great many others, as
everybody in the division knows."

Sir John grew violently red again, and turned on his heel. He had meant
to be conciliatory when he came, and to prove to David, if possible,
that he had dealt by him very considerately, and even generously. But
the tables had been turned on him unexpectedly, and he had been insulted
to his face.

"This is the result of the Board schools," he reflected to himself
angrily. "I always said that education would be the ruin of the working
classes. They learn enough to make them impertinent and discontented,
and then they are flung adrift to insult their betters and undermine our
most sacred institutions. That young fellow will be a curse to society
if he's allowed to go on. If I could have my way, I'd lock him up for a
year. He's evidently infected his father with his notions, and he'll go
on infecting other people." And he faced round again, with an angry look
in his eyes.

"I'm sorry I took the trouble to come and speak to you at all," he said.
"I did it in good part, and with the best intentions. I wanted to show
you that my action is strictly within the law, and that in letting you
remain till Michaelmas I was doing a generous thing. But clearly my good
feeling and good intentions are thrown away."

"Good feelings are best shown in kind deeds," David said quietly. "If
you had come to me and said, 'David, you are unfortunate, but as your
loss is my gain, I won't insist on the pound of flesh the law allows me,
but I'll let you have the farm for another eight or ten years on the
ground rent alone, so that you can recoup yourself a little for all your
expenditure'--if you had said that, sir, I should have believed in your
good feelings. But since you have let the little place over my head, and
turned me out of the house I built and paid for out of my own earnings,
I think, sir, the less said about your good feelings the better."

"As you will," the squire replied stiffly, and in a hurt tone. "As you
refuse to meet me in a friendly spirit, you must not be surprised if I
insist upon my own to the full. My agent will see you about putting the
place in proper repair. I notice that one of the sheds is slated only
about half-way up, the remainder being covered with corrugated iron. You
will see to it that the entire roof is properly slated. The stable door
is also worn out, and will have to be replaced by a new one. I noticed,
also, as I rode along, that several of the gates are sadly out of
repair. These, by the terms of the lease, you will be required to make
good. If I mistake not, also the windows and doors of the dwelling-house
are in need of a coat of paint. I did not go inside, but my agent will
go over the place and make an inventory of the things requiring to be
done."

"He may make out twenty inventories if he likes," David said angrily,
"but I shan't do a stitch more to the place than I've done already."

"Oh, well, that is not a point we need discuss," the squire said, with a
cynical smile. "The man who attempts to defy the law soon discovers
which is the stronger." And with a wave of the hand, he turned on his
heel and strode away.

David stood still and stared after him, and after a few moments Ralph
stole up to his side.

"Well, Ralph, my boy," David said at length, with a little shake in his
voice, "he's done his worst."

"It's only what I expected," Ralph answered. "Now, we've got to do our
best."

David shook his head.

"There's no more best in this world for me," he said.

"Don't say that, father. Wherever we go we shan't work harder than we've
done on the farm."

"Ah, but here I've worked for myself. I've been my own master, with no
one to hector me. And I've loved the place and I've loved the work. And
I've put so much of my life into it that it seems like part of myself.
Boy, it will break my heart!" And the tears welled suddenly up into his
eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

Ralph did not reply. He felt that he had no word of comfort to offer.
None of them as yet felt the full weight of the blow. They would only
realise how much they had lost when they had to wander forth to a
strange place, and see strangers occupying the home they loved.




CHAPTER VIII

CONFLICTING EMOTIONS


Two days later Sir John's agent came across to Hillside Farm, and made a
careful inspection of the premises, after which he made out a list of
repairs that needed doing, and handed it to David.

"What is this?" David asked, taking the paper without looking at it.

"It is a list of repairs that you will have to execute before leaving
the place."

"Oh, indeed!" And David deliberately tore the paper in half, then threw
the pieces on the ground and stamped upon them.

"That's foolish," the agent said, "for you'll have to do the repairs
whether you like it or no."

"I never will," David answered vehemently. And he turned on his heel and
walked away.

In the end, the agent got the repairs done himself, and distrained upon
David's goods for the amount.

By Michaelmas Day David was ready to take his departure. Since his
interview with the squire he had never been seen to smile. He made no
complaint to anyone, neither did he sit in idleness and mope. There was
a good deal to be done before the final scene, and he did his full share
of it. The corn was threshed and sold. The cattle were disposed of at
Summercourt Fair. The root crops and hay were taken at a valuation by
the incoming tenant. The farm implements were disposed of at a public
auction, and when all the accounts had been squared, and the mortgage
cleared off, and the ground rent paid, David found himself in possession
of his household furniture and thirty pounds in hard cash.

David's neighbours sympathised with him greatly, but none of them gave
any more for what they bought than they could help. They admitted that
things went dirt cheap, that the cattle and implements were sold for a
great deal less than their real value; but that was inevitable in a
forced sale. When the seller was compelled to sell, and there was no
reserve, and the buyers were not compelled to buy, and there was very
little competition, the seller was bound to get the worst of it.

David looked sadly at the little heap of sovereigns--all that was left
out of the savings of a lifetime. He had spent a thousand pounds on the
farm, and, in addition, had put in twelve years of the hardest work of
his life, and this was all that was left. What he thought no one knew,
not even his wife, for he kept his thoughts and his feelings to himself.

The day before their departure, David took Ralph for a walk to the
extreme end of the farm.

"I have something to tell you, my boy, and something to show you."

Ralph wondered what there was to see that he had not already seen, but
he asked no questions.

"You may remember, Ralph," David said, when they had got some distance
from the house, "that I told you once that I had discovered a tin lode
running across the farm?"

"Yes, I remember well," Ralph answered, looking up with an interested
light in his eyes.

"I want to show it to you, my boy."

"Why, what's the use?" Ralph questioned, after a momentary pause. "If it
were a reef of gold it would be of no value to us."

"Yes, that seems true enough now," David answered sadly, "but there's no
knowing what may happen in the future."

"I don't see how we can ever benefit by it, whatever may happen."

"I am not thinking of myself, Ralph. My day's work is nearly over. But
new conditions may arise, new discoveries may be made, and if you know,
you may be able to sell your knowledge for something."

Ralph shook his head dubiously, and for several minutes they tramped
along side by side in silence.

Then David spoke again.

"It is farewell to-day, my boy. We shall toil in these fields no more."

"That fact by itself does not trouble me," Ralph said.

"You do not like farming," his father answered. "You never did; and
sometimes I have felt sorry to keep you here, and yet I could not spare
you. You have done the work of two, and you have done it for your bare
keep."

"I have done it for the squire," Ralph answered, with a cynical laugh.

"Ah, well, it is over now, my boy, and we know the worst. In a few years
nothing will matter, for we shall all be asleep."

Ralph glanced suddenly at his father, but quickly withdrew his eyes.
There was a look upon his face that hurt him--a look as of some hunted
creature that was appealing piteously for life.

For weeks past Ralph had wished that his father would get angry. If he
would only storm and rave at fortune generally, and at the squire in
particular, he believed that it would do him good. Such calm and quiet
resignation did not seem natural or healthy. Ralph sometimes wondered if
what his father predicted had come true--that the loss had broken his
heart.

They reached the outer edge of the farm at length, and David paused in
the shadow of a tree.

"Come here, my boy," he said. And Ralph went and stood by his side. "You
see the parlour chimney?" David questioned.

"Yes."

"Well, now draw a straight line from this tree to the parlour chimney,
and what do you strike?"

"Well, nothing except a gatepost over there in Stone Close."

"That's just it. It was while I was digging a pit to sink that post in
that I struck the back of the lode."

"And you say it's rich in tin?"

"Very. It intersects the big Helvin lode at that point, and the junction
makes for wealth. There'll be a fortune made out of this little farm
some day--not out of what grows on the surface, but out of what is dug
up from underground."

"And in which direction does the lode run?"

"Due east and west. We are standing on it now, and it passes under the
house."

"Then it passes under Peter Ladock's farm also?" Ralph questioned. And
he turned and looked over the boundary hedge across their neighbour's
farm.

"Ay; but the lode's no use out there," David said.

"Why?"

"Well, you see, 'tisn't mineral-bearing strata, that's all. I dug a pit
just where you are standing, and came upon the lode two feet below the
surface. But there's no tin in it here scarcely. It's the same lode that
the spring comes out of down in the delf, and I've sampled it there. But
all along that high ridge where it cuts through the Helvin it's richer
than anything I know in this part of the county."

"But the tin might give out as you sink."

"It might, but it would be something unheard of, if it did. If I know
anything about mining--and I think I know a bit--that lode will be
twenty per cent. richer a hundred fathoms down than it is at the
surface."

"Oh, well!" Ralph said, with a sigh, "rich or poor, it can make no
difference to us."

"Perhaps not--perhaps not," David said wistfully. "But it may be
valuable to somebody some day. I have passed the secret to you. Some day
you may pass it on to another. The future is with God," and he drew a
long breath, and turned his face toward home, which in a few hours would
be his home no more.

Ralph turned his face in another direction.

"I think I will go on to St. Goram," he said, "and see how they are
getting on with the cottage. You see we have to move into it to-morrow."

"As you will," David answered, and he strode away across the stubble.

Ralph struck across the fields into Dingley Bottom, and then up the
gentle slant toward Treliskey Plantation. When he reached the stile he
rested for several minutes, and recalled the meeting and conversation
between Dorothy Hamblyn and himself. How long ago it seemed, and how
much had happened since then.

Though he loathed the very name of Hamblyn, he was, nevertheless,
thankful that the squire's daughter was getting slowly better. She had
been seen once or twice in St. Goram in a bath-chair, drawn by a donkey.
"Looking very pale and so much older," the villagers said.

By all the rules of logic and common sense, Ralph felt that he ought not
only to hate the squire, but everybody belonging to him. Sir John was
the tyrant of the parish, the oppressor of the poor, the obstructor of
everything that was for the good of the people, and no doubt his
daughter had inherited his temper and disposition; while as for the son,
people said that he gave promise of being worse than his father.

But for some reason Ralph was never able to work up any angry feeling
against Dorothy. He hardly knew why. She had given evidence of being as
imperious and dictatorial as any autocrat could desire. She had spoken
to him as if he were her stable boy.

And yet----

He recalled how he had rested her fair head upon his lap, how he had
carried her in his arms and felt her heart beating feebly against his,
how he had given her to drink down in the hollow, and when he lifted her
up again she clasped her arms feebly about his neck, and he felt her
cheek almost close to his.

It is true he did not know then that she was the squire's daughter, and
so he let his sympathies go out to her unawares. But the curious thing
was he had not been able to recall his sympathy, though he had
discovered directly after that she was the daughter of the man he hated
above all others.

As he made his way across the broad and billowy common towards the high
road, he found himself wondering what Lord Probus was like. By all the
laws and considerations of self-interest, he ought to have been
wondering how he and his father were to earn their living--for, as yet,
that was a problem that neither of them had solved. But for a moment it
was a relief to forget the sorrowful side of life, and think of
something else. And, as he had carried Dorothy Hamblyn in his arms every
step of the way down the high road, it was the most natural thing in the
world that his thoughts should turn in her direction, and from her to
the man she had promised to marry.

For some reason or other he felt a little thrill of satisfaction that
the wedding had not taken place, and that there was no prospect of its
taking place for several months to come.

Not that it could possibly make any difference to him; only he did not
see why the rich and strong should always have their heart's desire,
while others, who had as much right to live as they had, were cheated
all along the line.

Who Lord Probus was Ralph had not the slightest idea. He was a
comparatively new importation. He had bought Rostrevor Castle from the
Penwarricks, who had fallen upon evil times, and had restored it at
great expense. But beyond that Ralph knew nothing.

That he was a young man Ralph took for granted. An elderly bachelor
would not want to marry, and a young girl like Dorothy Hamblyn would
never dream of marrying an elderly man.

To Ralph Penlogan it seemed almost a sin that a mere child, as Dorothy
seemed to be, should think of marriage at all. But since she was going
to get married, it was perfectly natural to assume that she was going to
marry a young man.

He reached the high road at length, and then hurried forward with long
strides in the direction of St. Goram.

The cottage they had taken was at the extreme end of the village, and,
curiously enough, was in the neighbouring parish of St. Ivel.




CHAPTER IX

PREPARING TO GO


Almost close to St. Goram were the lodge gates of Hamblyn Manor. The
manor itself was at the end of a long and winding avenue, and behind a
wide belt of trees. As Ralph reached the lodge gates he walked a little
more slowly, then paused for a moment and looked at the lodge with its
quaint gables, its thatched roof and overhanging eaves. Beyond the gates
the broad avenue looked very majestic and magnificently rich in colour.
The yellow leaves were only just beginning to fall, while the evergreens
looked all the greener by contrast with the reds and browns.

He turned away at length, and came suddenly face to face with "the
squire's little maid." She was seated in her rubber-tyred bath-chair,
which was drawn by a white donkey. By the side of the donkey walked a
boy in buttons. Ralph almost gasped. So great a change in so short a
time he had never witnessed before. Only eight or nine weeks had passed
since the accident, and yet they seemed to have added years to her life.
She was only a girl when he carried her from Treliskey Plantation down
to the high road. Now she was a woman with deep, pathetic eyes, and
cheeks hollowed with pain.

Ralph felt the colour mount to his face in a moment, and his heart
stabbed him with a sudden poignancy of regret. He wished again, as he
had wished many times during the last two months, that he had pocketed
his pride and opened the gate. It might be quite true that she had no
right to speak to him as she did, quite true also that it was the most
natural and human thing in the world to resent being spoken to as though
he were a serf. Nevertheless, the heroic thing--the divine thing--would
have been to return good for evil, and meet arrogance with generosity.

He would have passed on without presuming to recognise her, but she
would not let him.

"Stop, James," she called to the boy; and then she smiled on Ralph ever
so sweetly, and held out her hand.

For a moment a hot wave of humiliation swept over him from head to foot.
He seemed to realise for the first time in his life what was meant by
heaping coals of fire on one's head. He had the whole contents of a
burning fiery furnace thrown over him. He was being scorched through
every fibre of his being.

At first he almost resented the humiliation. Then another feeling took
possession of him, a feeling of admiration, almost of reverence. Here
was nobleness such as he himself had failed to reach. Here was one high
in the social scale, and higher still in grace and goodness,
condescending to him, who had indirectly been the cause of all her
suffering. Then in a moment his mood changed again to resentment. This
was the daughter of the man who had broken his father's heart. But a
moment ago he had looked into his father's hopeless, suffering eyes, and
felt as though it would be the sweetest drop of his life if he could
make John Hamblyn and all his tribe suffer as he had made them suffer.

But even as he reached out his hard brown hand to take the pale and
wasted one that was extended to him, the pendulum swung back once more;
the better and nobler feeling came back. The large sad eyes that looked
up into his had in them no flash of pride or arrogance. The smile that
played over her wan, pale face seemed as richly benevolent as the
sunshine of God. Possibly she knew nothing of the calamity that had
overtaken him and his, a calamity that her father might have so
wonderfully lightened, and at scarcely any cost to himself, had he been
so disposed. But it was not his place to blame the child for what her
father had done or left undone.

The soft, thin fingers were enveloped in his big strong palm, and then
his eyes filled. A lump came up into his throat and prevented him from
speaking. Never in all his life before had he seemed so little master of
himself.

Then a low, sweet voice broke the silence, and all his self-possession
came back to him.

"I am so glad I have met you."

"Yes?" he questioned.

"I wanted to thank you for saving my life."

He dropped his eyes slowly, and a hot wave swept over him from head to
foot.

"Dr. Barrow says if you had not found me when you did I should have
died." And she looked at him as if expecting an answer. But he did not
reply or even raise his head.

"And you carried me such a long distance, too," she went on, after a
pause; "and I heard Dr. Barrow tell the nurse that you bound up my head
splendidly."

"You were not much to carry," he said, raising his head suddenly.
"But--but you are less now." And his voice sank almost to a whisper.

"I have grown very thin," she said, with a wan smile. "But the doctor
says I shall get all right again with time and patience."

"I hoped you would have got well much sooner," he said, looking timidly
into her face. "I have suffered a good deal during your illness."

"You?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows. "Why?"

"Because if I had not been surly and boorish, the accident would not
have happened. If you had died, I should never have forgiven myself."

"No, no; it was not your fault at all," she said quickly. "I have
thought a good deal about it while I have been ill, and I have learnt
some things that I might never have learnt any other way, and I see now
that--that----" And she dropped her eyes to hide the moisture that had
suddenly gathered. "I see now that it was very wrong of me to speak to
you as I did."

"You were reared to command," he said, ready in a moment to champion her
cause, "and I ought to have considered that. Besides, it isn't a man's
place to be rude to a girl--I beg your pardon, miss, I mean to a----"

"No, no," she interrupted, with a laugh; "don't alter the word, please.
If I feel almost an old woman now, I was only a girl then. How much we
may live in a few weeks! Don't you think so?"

"You have found that out, have you?" he questioned. And a troubled look
came into his eyes.

"You see, lying in bed, day after day and week after week, gives one
time to think----"

"Yes?" he questioned, after a brief pause.

She did not reply for several seconds; then she went on as if there had
been no break. "I don't think I ever thought seriously about anything
before I was ill. I took everything as it came, and as most things were
good, I just enjoyed myself, and there seemed nothing else in the world
but just to enjoy one's self----"

"There's not much enjoyment for most people," he said, seeing she
hesitated.

"I don't think enjoyment ought to be the end of life," she replied
seriously. Then, suddenly raising her eyes, she said--

"Do you ever get perplexed about the future?"

"I never get anything else," he stammered. "I'm all at sea this very
moment."

"You? Tell me about it," she said eagerly.

He shrugged his shoulders, and looked along the road toward the village.
Should he tell her? Should he open her eyes to the doings of her own
father? Should he point out some of the oppressive conditions under
which the poor lived?

For a moment or two there was silence. He felt that her eyes were fixed
intently on his face, that she was waiting for him to speak.

"I suppose your father has never told you that we have lost our little
farm?" he questioned abruptly, turning his head and looking hard at her
at the same time.

"No. How have you lost it? I do not understand."

"Well, it was this way." And he went on to explain the nature of the
tenure on which his father leased his farm, but he was careful to avoid
any mention of her father's name.

"And you say that in twelve years all the three 'lives' have died?"

"That is unfortunately the case."

"And you have no longer any right to the house you built, nor to the
fields you reclaimed from the downs?"

"That is so."

"And the lord of the manor has taken possession?"

"He has let it to another man, who takes possession the day after
to-morrow."

"And the lord of the manor puts the rent into his own pocket?"

"Yes."

"And your father has to go out into the world and start afresh?"

"We leave Hillside to-morrow. I'm going to St. Goram now, to see if the
little cottage is ready. After to-morrow father starts life afresh, in
his old age, having lost everything."

"But wasn't your father very foolish to risk his all on such a chance?
Life is always such an uncertain thing."

"I think he was very foolish; and he thinks so now. But at the time he
was very hopeful. He thought the cost of bringing the land under
cultivation would be much less than it has proved to be. He hoped, too,
that the crops would be much heavier. Then, you see, he was born in the
parish, and he wanted to end his days in it--in a little home of his
own."

"It seems very hard," she said, with a distant look in her eyes.

"It's terribly hard," he answered; "and made all the harder by the
landlord letting the farm over father's head."

"He could have let you remain?"

"Of course he could, if he had been disposed to be generous, or even
just."

"I've often heard that Lord St. Goram is a very hard man."

He started, and looked at her with a questioning light in his eyes.

"He needn't have claimed all his pound of flesh," she went on. "Law
isn't everything. Nobody would have expected that all three 'lives'
would have died in a dozen years."

"I believe the law of average works out to about forty-seven years," he
said.

"In which case your father ought to have his farm another thirty-five
years."

"He ought. In fact, no lease ought to be less than ninety-nine years.
However, the chances of life have gone against father, and so we must
submit."

"I don't understand any man exacting all his rights in such a case," she
said sympathetically. "If only people would do to others as they would
be done unto, how much happier the world would be!"

"Ah, if that were the case," he said, with a smile, "soldiers and
policemen and lawyers would find all their occupations gone."

"But, all the same, what's religion worth if we don't try to put it into
practice? The lord of the manor has, no doubt, the law on his side. He
can legally claim his pound of flesh, but there's no justice in it."

"It seems to me the strong do not often know what justice means," he
said, with an icy tone in his voice.

"No; don't say that," she replied, looking at him reproachfully. "I
think most people are really kind and good, and would like to help
people if they only knew how."

"I'm afraid most people think only of themselves," he answered.

"No, no; I'm sure----" Then she paused suddenly, while a look of
distress or of annoyance swept over her face. "Why, here comes Lord
Probus," she said, in a lower tone of voice, while the hot blood flamed
up into her pale cheeks in a moment.

Ralph turned quickly round and looked towards the park gates.

"Is that Lord Probus?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good----" But he did not finish the sentence. She looked up into his
face, and saw that it was dark with anger or disgust. Then she glanced
again at the approaching figure of her affianced husband, then back
again to the tall, handsome youth who stood by her side, and for a
moment she involuntarily contrasted the two men. The lord and the
commoner; the rich brewer and the poor, ejected tenant.

"Please pardon me for detaining you so long," he said hurriedly.

"You have not detained me at all," she replied. "It has been a pleasure
to talk to you, for the days are very long and very dull."

"I hope you will soon be as well as ever," he answered; and he turned
quickly on his heel and strode away.

"And I hope your father will soon----" But the end of the sentence did
not reach his ears. For the moment he was not concerned about himself.
The tragedy of his own life seemed of small account. It was the tragedy
of her life that troubled him. It seemed a wicked thing that this
fragile girl--not yet out of her teens--should marry a man old enough
almost to be her grandfather.

What lay behind it, he wondered? What influences had been brought to
bear upon her to win her consent? Was she going of her own free will
into this alliance, or had she been tricked or coerced?

He recalled again the picture of her when she sat on her horse in the
glow of the summer sunshine. She was only a girl then--a heedless,
thoughtless, happy girl, who did not know what life meant, and who in
all probability had never given five minutes' serious thought to its
duties and responsibilities. But eight or nine weeks of suffering had
wrought a great change in her. She was a woman now, facing life
seriously and thoughtfully. Did she regret, he wondered, the promise she
had made? Was she still willing to be the wife of this old man?

Ralph felt the blood tingling to his finger-tips. It was no business of
his. What did it matter to him what Sir John Hamblyn or any of his tribe
did, or neglected to do? If Dorothy Hamblyn chose to marry a Chinaman or
a Hindoo, that was no concern of his. He had no interest in her, and
never would have.

He pulled himself up again at that point. He had no interest in her, it
was true, and yet he was interested--more interested than in any other
girl he had ever seen. So interested, in fact, that nothing could happen
to her without it affecting him.

He reached the cottage at length at the far end of the village. It was
but a tiny crib, but it was the best they could get at so short a
notice, and they would not have got that if Sir John Hamblyn could have
had his way.

Ralph could hardly repress a groan when he stepped over the threshold.
It was so painfully small after their roomy house at Hillside. The
whitewashers and paperhangers had just finished, and were gathering up
their tools, and a couple of charwomen were scouring the floors.

A few minutes later there was a patter on the uncarpeted stairs, and
Ruth appeared, with red eyes and dishevelled hair.

"There seems nothing that I can do," he said, without appearing to
notice that she had been crying.

"Not to-day," she answered, looking past him; "but there will be plenty
for you to do to-morrow."

Half an hour later they walked away together toward Hillside Farm, but
neither was in the mood for conversation. Ralph looked up the drive
towards Hamblyn Manor as they passed the park gates, but no one was
about, and the name of Hamblyn was not mentioned.

During the rest of the day all the Penlogans were kept busy getting
things ready for the carts on the morrow. To any bystander it would have
been a pathetic sight to see how each one tried to keep his or her
trouble from the rest, and even to wear a cheerful countenance.

Neither talked of the past, nor uttered any word of regret, but they
planned where this piece of furniture should be placed in the new house,
and where that, and speculated as to how the wardrobe should be got up
the narrow stairs, and in which room the big chest of drawers should be
placed.

David seemed the least interested of the family. He sat for the most
part like one dazed, and watched the others in a vague, unseeing way.
Ruth and her mother bustled about the house, pretending to do a dozen
things, and talked all the while about the fittings and curtains and
pictures.

When evening came on, and there was no longer any room for pretence,
they sat together in the parlour before a fire of logs, for the air was
chilly, and the wind had risen considerably. No one attempted to break
the silence, but each one knew what the others were thinking about. The
wind rumbled in the chimney and whispered through the chinks of the
window, but no one heeded it.

This was to be their last evening together in the old home, which they
had learned to love so much, and the pathos of the situation was too
deep for words. They were silent, and apparently calm, not because they
were resigned, but because they were helpless. They had schooled
themselves not to resignation, but to endurance. They could be silent,
but they could never approve. The loathing they felt for John Hamblyn
grew hour by hour. They could have seen him gibbeted with a sense of
infinite satisfaction.

The day faded quickly in the west, and the firelight alone illumined the
room. Ralph, from his corner by the chimney-breast, could see the faces
of all the others. Ruth looked sweeter and almost prettier than he had
ever seen her. The chastening hand of sorrow had softened the look in
her dark-brown eyes and touched with melancholy the curves of her rich,
full lips. His mother had aged rapidly. She looked ten years older than
she did ten weeks ago. Trouble had ploughed its furrows deep, and all
the light of hope had gone out of her eyes. But his father was the most
pathetic figure of all. Ralph looked across at him every now and then,
and wondered if he would ever rouse himself again. He looked so worn, so
feeble, so despairing, it would have been a relief to see him get angry.

Ruth had got up at length and lighted the lamp and drew the blind; then,
without a word, sat down again. The wind continued to rumble in the
chimney and sough in the trees outside; but, save for that, no sound
broke the silence. There were no sheep in the pens, no cows in the
shippen, no horses in the stable, and no neighbour came in to say
good-bye.

The evening wore away until it grew late. Then David rose and got the
family Bible and laid it on the table, so that the light of the lamp
fell upon its pages.

Drawing up his chair, he sat down and began to read--

"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.'"

His voice did not falter in the least. Quietly, and without emphasis, he
read the psalm through to the end; then he knelt on the floor, with his
hands on the chair, the others following his example. His prayer was
very simple that night. He made no direct allusion to the great trouble
that was eating at all their hearts. He gave thanks for the mercies of
the day, and asked for strength to meet the future.

"Now, my dears," he said, as he rose from his knees, "we had better get
off to bed." And he smiled with great sweetness, and Ruth recalled
afterwards how he kissed her several times.

But if he had any premonition of what was coming, he did not betray it
by a single word.




CHAPTER X

RALPH SPEAKS HIS MIND


It was toward the dawn when Ralph was roused out of a deep sleep by a
violent knocking at his bedroom door.

"Yes," he called, springing up in bed and staring into the
semi-darkness.

"Come quickly; your father is very ill!" It was his mother who spoke,
and her voice was vibrant and anxious.

He sprang out of bed at once, and hurriedly got into his clothes. In a
few moments he was by his father's bedside.

At first he thought that his mother had alarmed herself and him
unnecessarily. David lay on his side as if asleep.

"I cannot rouse him," she said in gasps. "I've tried every way, but he
doesn't move."

Ralph laid his hand on his father's shoulder and shook him, but there
was no response of any kind.

"He must be dead," his mother said.

"No, no. He breathes quite regularly," Ralph answered, and he took the
candle and held it where the light fell full on his father's eyelids.
For a moment there was a slight tremor, then his eyes slowly opened, and
a look of infinite appeal seemed to dart out of them.

"He has had a stroke," Ralph answered, starting back. "He is paralysed.
Call Ruth, and I will go for the doctor at once."

Twenty-four hours later David was sufficiently recovered to scrawl on a
piece of paper with a black lead pencil the words--

"I shall die at home. Praise the Lord!"

He watched intently the faces of his wife and children as they read the
words, and a smile played over his own. It seemed to be a smile of
triumph. He was not going to live in the cottage after all. He was going
to end his days where he had always hoped to do, and no one could cheat
him out of that victory.

Ralph sat down by the bedside and took his father's hand. The affection
between the two was very tender. They had been more than father and son,
they had been friends and comrades. Ruth and her mother ran out of the
room to hide their tears. They did not want to distress the dying man by
obtruding their grief.

For several minutes Ralph was unable to speak. David never took his eyes
from his face. He seemed waiting for some assurance that his message was
understood.

"We understand, father," Ralph said at length. "No one can turn you out
now."

David smiled again. Then the tears filled his eyes and rolled down his
cheeks.

"You always wanted to end your days here," Ralph went on, "and it looks
as if you were going to do it."

David raised the hand that was not paralysed and pointed upward.

"There are no leasehold systems there, at any rate," Ralph said, with a
gulp. "The earth is the landlord's, but heaven is God's."

David smiled again, and then closed his eyes. Three hours later a second
stroke supervened, and stilled his heart for ever.

Ralph walked slowly out of the room and into the open air. He felt
thankful for many reasons that his father was at rest. And yet, in his
heart the feeling grew that John Hamblyn had killed him, and there
surged up within him an intense and burning passion to make John Hamblyn
suffer something of what he himself was suffering. Why should he go scot
free? Why should he live unrebuked, and his conscience be left
undisturbed?

For a moment or two Ralph stood in the garden and looked up at the
clouds that were scudding swiftly across the sky. Then he flung open the
gate and struck out across the fields. The wind battered and buffeted
him and almost took his breath away, but it did not weaken his resolve
for a moment. He would go and tell John Hamblyn what he had done--tell
him to his face that he had killed his father; ay, and tell him that as
surely as there was justice in the world he would not go unpunished.

Over the brow of the hill he turned, and down into Dingley Bottom, and
then up the long slant toward Treliskey Plantation. He scarcely heeded
the wind that was blowing half a gale, and appeared to be increasing in
violence every minute.

The gate that Dorothy's horse had broken had been mended long since, and
the notice board repainted:

"Trespassers will be Prosecuted."

He gritted his teeth unconsciously as the white letters stared him in
the face. He had heard his father tell that from time immemorial here
had been a public thoroughfare, till Sir John took the law into his own
hands, and flung a gate across it and warned the public off with a
threat of prosecution.

But what cared he about the threat? John Hamblyn could prosecute him if
he liked. He was going to tell him what he thought of him, and he was
going the nearest way.

He vaulted lightly over the gate, and hurried along without a pause. In
the shadow of the trees he scarcely felt the violence of the wind, but
he heard it roaring in the branches above him, like the sound of an
incoming tide.

He reached the manor, and pulled violently at the door bell.

"Is your master at home?" he said to the boy in buttons who opened the
door.

"Yes----"

"Then tell him I want to see him at once," he went on hurriedly, and he
followed the boy into the hall.

A moment later he was standing before Sir John in his library.

The baronet looked at him with a scowl. He disliked him intensely, and
had never forgiven him for being the cause--as he believed--of his
daughter's accident. Moreover, he had no proper respect for his betters,
and withal possessed a biting tongue.

"Well, young man, what brought you here?" he said scornfully.

"I came on foot," was the reply, and Ralph threw as much scorn into his
voice as the squire had done.

"Oh, no doubt--no doubt!" the squire said, bridling. "But I have no time
to waste in listening to impertinences. What is your business?"

"I came to tell you that my father is dead."

"Dead!" Sir John gasped. "No, surely? I never heard he was ill!"

"He was taken with a stroke early yesterday morning, and he died an hour
ago."

"Only an hour ago? Dear me!"

"I came straight away from his deathbed to let you know that you had
killed him."

"That I had killed him!" Sir John exclaimed, with a gasp.

"You might have seen it in his face, when you told him that you had let
the farm over his head, and that he was to be turned out of the little
home he had built with his own hands."

"I gave him fair notice, more than he could legally claim," Sir John
said, looking very white and distressed.

"I am not talking about the law," Ralph said hurriedly. "If you had
behaved like a Christian, my father would have been alive to-day. But
the blow you struck him killed him. He never smiled again till this
morning, when he knew he was dying. I am glad he is gone. But as surely
as you punished us, God will punish you."

"What, threatening, young man?" Sir John replied, stepping back and
clenching his fists.

"No, I am not threatening," Ralph said quietly. "But as surely as you
stand there, and I stand here, some day we shall be quits," and he
turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Outside the wind was roaring like an angry lion and snapping tree
branches like matchwood. A little distance from the house he met a
gardener, who told him there was no road through the plantation. But
Ralph only smiled at him and walked on.

He was feeling considerably calmer since his interview with Sir John. It
had been a relief to him to fling off what was on his mind. He was
conscious that his heart was less bitter and revengeful. He only thought
once of Dorothy, and he quickly dismissed her from his mind. He wished
that he could dismiss her so effectually that the thought of her would
never come back. It was something of a humiliation that constantly, and
in the most unexpected ways, her face came up before him, and her sweet,
winning eyes looked pleadingly and sometimes reproachfully into his.

But he was master of himself to-day. At any rate he was so far master of
himself that no thought of the squire's "little maid" could soften his
heart toward the squire. He hurried back home at the same swinging pace
as he came. It was a house of mourning to which he journeyed, but his
mother and Ruth would need him. He was the only one now upon whom they
could lean, and he would have to play the man, and make the burden for
them as light as possible.

He scarcely heeded the wind. His thoughts were too full of other things.
In the heart of the plantation the branches were still snapping as the
trees bent before the fury of the gale. He rather liked the sound.
Nature was in an angry mood, and it accorded well with his own temper.
It would have been out of place if the wind had slept on the day his
father died.

He was hardly able to realise yet that his father was dead. It seemed
too big and too overwhelming a fact to be comprehended all at once. It
seemed impossible that that gentle presence had gone from him for ever.
He wondered why he did not weep. Surely no son ever loved a father more
than he did, and yet no tear had dimmed his eyes as yet, no sob had
gathered in his throat.

Over his head the branch of a tree flew past that had been ripped by the
gale from its moorings.

"Hallo," he said, with a smile. "This is getting serious," and he turned
into the middle of the road and hurried on again.

A moment or two later a sudden blow on the head struck him to the earth.
For several seconds he lay perfectly still just where he fell. Then a
sharp spasm of pain caused him to sit up and stare about him with a
bewildered expression in his eyes. What had happened he did not know. He
raised his right hand to his head almost mechanically--for the seat of
the pain was there--then drew it slowly away and looked at it. It was
dyed red and dripping wet.

He struggled to his feet after a few moments, and tried to walk. It was
largely an unconscious effort, for he did not know where he was, or
where he wanted to go to; and when he fell again and struck the hard
ground with his face, he was scarcely aware that he had fallen.

In a few minutes he was on his feet again, but the world was dark by
this time. Something had come up before his eyes and shut out
everything. A noise was in his ears, but it was not the roaring of the
wind in the trees; he reeled and stumbled heavily with his head against
a bank of heather. Then the noise grew still, and the pain vanished, and
there was a sound in his ears like the ringing of St. Goram bells, which
grew fainter till oblivion wrapped him in its folds.




CHAPTER XI

UNCONSCIOUS SPEECH


Ralph had scarcely left the house when Dorothy sought her father in the
library. He was walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, and a
troubled expression in his eyes. He was much more distressed than he
liked to own even to himself. To be told to his face that he had caused
the death of one of his tenants would, under some circumstances, have
simply made him angry. But in the present case he felt, much more
acutely than was pleasant, that there was only too much reason for the
contention.

That David Penlogan had loved his little homestead there was no doubt
whatever. He had poured into it not only the savings of a lifetime and
the ungrudging labour of a dozen years, but he had poured into it the
affection of a generous and confiding nature. There was something almost
sentimental in David's affection for his little farm, and to have to
leave it was a heavier blow than he was able to bear. That his
misfortune had killed him seemed not an unreasonable supposition.

"But I am not responsible for that," Sir John said to himself angrily.
"I had no hand in killing off the 'lives.' That was a decree of
Providence."

But in spite of his reasoning, he could not shake himself free from an
uneasy feeling that he was in some way responsible.

Legally, no doubt, he had acted strictly within his rights. He had
exacted no more than in point of law was his due, but might there not be
a higher law than the laws of men? That was the question that troubled
him, and it troubled him for the first time in his life.

He was a very loyal citizen. He had been taught to regard Acts of
Parliament as something almost as sacred as the Ark of the Covenant, and
the authority of the State as supreme in all matters of human conduct.
Now for the first time a doubt crept into his mind, and it made him feel
decidedly uncomfortable. Man-made laws might, after all, have little or
no moral force behind them. Selfish men might make laws just to protect
their own selfish interests.

Legally, man's law backed him up in the position he had taken. But where
did God's law come in? He knew his Bible fairly well. He was a regular
church-goer, and followed the lessons Sunday by Sunday with great
diligence. And he felt, with a poignant sense of alarm, that Jesus
Christ would condemn what he had done. There was no glimmer of the
golden rule to be discerned in his conduct. He had not acted generously,
nor even neighbourly. He had extorted the uttermost farthing, not
because he had any moral claim to it, but because laws which men had
made gave him the right.

He was so excited that his mind worked much more rapidly than was usual
with him. He recalled again Ralph Penlogan's words about God punishing
him and their being quits. He disliked that young man. He ought to have
kicked him out of the house before he had time to utter his insults. But
he had not done so, and somehow his words had stuck. He wished it was
the son who had died instead of the father. David Penlogan, in spite of
his opinions and politics, was a mild and harmless individual; he would
not hurt his greatest enemy if he had the chance. But he was not so sure
of the son. He had a bolder and a fiercer nature, and if he had the
chance he might take the law into his own hands.

The door opened while these thoughts were passing through his mind, and
his daughter stood before him. He stopped suddenly in his walk, and his
hard face softened.

"Oh, father, I've heard such a dreadful piece of news," she said, "that
I could not help coming to tell you!"

"Dreadful news, Dorothy?" he questioned, in a tone of alarm.

"Well, it seems dreadful to me," she went on. "You heard about the
Penlogans being turned out of house and home, of course?"

"I heard that he had to leave his farm," he said shortly.

"Well, the trouble has killed him--broken his heart, people say. He had
a stroke yesterday morning, and now he's dead."

"Well, people must die some day," he said, with averted eyes.

"Yes, that is true. But I think if I were in Lord St. Goram's place I
should feel very unhappy."

"Why should Lord St. Goram feel unhappy?"

"Well, because he profited by the poor man's misfortune."

"What do you know about it?" he snapped almost angrily.

"Only what Ralph Penlogan told me."

"What, that young rascal who refused to open the gate for you?"

"That was just as much my fault as his, and he has apologised very
handsomely since."

"I am surprised, Dorothy, that you condescend to speak to such people,"
he said severely.

"I don't know why you should, father. He is well educated, and has been
brought up, as you know, quite respectably."

"Educated beyond his station. It's a mistake, and will lead to trouble
in the long-run. But what did he say to you?"

"I met him as he was walking into St. Goram, and he told me how they had
taken a little cottage, and were going to move into it next day--that
was yesterday. Then, of course, all the story came out, how the vicar's
son was the last 'life' on their little farm, and how, when he died, the
farm became the ground landlord's."

"And what did he say about the ground landlord?" he questioned.

"I don't remember his words very well, but he seemed most bitter,
because he had let the farm over their heads, without giving them a
chance of being tenants."

"Well?"

"I told him I thought it was a very cruel thing to do. Law is not
everything. David Penlogan had put all his savings into the farm, had
reclaimed the fields from the wilderness, and built the house with his
own money, and the lord of the manor had done nothing, and never spent a
penny-piece on it, and yet, because the chances of life had gone against
David, he comes in and takes possession--demands, like Shylock, his
pound of flesh, and actually turns the poor man out of house and home! I
told Ralph Penlogan that it was wicked--at least, if I did not tell him,
I felt it--and, I am sure, father, you must feel the same."

Sir John laughed a short, hard laugh.

"What is the use of the law, Dorothy," he said, "unless it is kept? It
is no use getting sentimental because somebody is hanged."

"But surely, father, our duty to our neighbour is not to get all we can
out of him?"

"I'm inclined to think that is the general practice, at any rate," he
said, with a laugh.

She looked at him almost reproachfully for a moment, and then her eyes
fell. He was quick to see the look of pain that swept over her face, and
hastened to reassure her.

"You shouldn't worry yourself, Dorothy, about these matters," he said,
in gentler tones. "You really shouldn't. You see, we can't help the
world being what it is. Some are rich and some are poor. Some are weak
and some are strong. Some have trouble all the way, and some have a good
time of it from first to last, and nobody's to blame, as far as I know.
If luck's fallen to our lot, we've all the more to be grateful for,
don't you see. But the world's too big for us to mend, and it's no use
trying. Now, run away, that's a good girl, and be happy as long as you
can."

She drew herself up to her full height, and looked him steadily in the
eyes. She had grown taller during her illness, and there was now a look
upon her face such as he had never noticed before.

"I do wish, father," she said slowly, "that you would give over treating
me as though I were a child, and had no mind of my own."

"Tut, tut!" he said sharply. "What's the matter now?"

"I mean what I say," she answered, in the same slow and measured
fashion. "I may have been a child up to the time of my illness, but I
have learned a lot since then. I feel like one who has awaked out of a
sleep. My illness has given me time to think. I have got into a new
world."

"Then, my love, get back into the old world again as quickly as
possible. It's not a bit of use your worrying your little head about
matters you cannot help, and which are past mending. It's your business
to enjoy yourself, and do as you are told, and get all the happiness out
of life that you can."

"There's no getting back, father," she answered seriously. "And there's
no use in pretending that you don't feel, and that you don't see. I
shall never be a little girl again, and perhaps I shall never be happy
again as I used to be; or, perhaps, I may be happy in a better and
larger way--but that is not the point. You must not treat me as a child
any longer, for I am a woman now."

"Oh, nonsense!" he said, in a tone of irritation.

"Why nonsense?" she asked quickly. "If I am old enough to be married, I
am old enough to be a woman----"

"Oh, I am not speaking of age," he interjected, in the same irritable
tone. "Of course you are old enough to be married, but you are not old
enough--and I hope you never will be--to worry yourself over other
people's affairs. I want my little flower to be screened from all the
rough winds of the world, and I am sure that is the desire of Lord
Probus."

"There you go again!" she said, with a sad little smile. "I'm only just
a hothouse plant, to be kept under glass. But that is what I don't want.
I don't want to be treated as though I should crumple up if I were
touched--I want to do my part in the world."

"Of course, my child, and your part is to look pretty and keep the
frowns away from your forehead, and make other folks happy by being
happy yourself."

"But really, father, I'm not a doll," she said, with just a touch of
impatience in her voice. "I'm afraid I shall disappoint you, but I
cannot help it. I've lived in dreamland all my life. Now I am awake, and
nothing can ever be exactly the same again as it has been."

"What do you mean by that, Dorothy?"

"Oh, I mean more than I can put into words," she said, dropping her eyes
slowly to the floor. "Everything is broken up, if you understand. The
old house is pulled down. The old plans and the old dreams are at an
end. What is going to take their place I don't know. Time alone will
tell." And she turned slowly round and walked out of the room.

An hour later she got into her bath-chair, and went out for her usual
airing.

"I think, Billy," she said to her attendant, "we will drive through the
plantation this afternoon. The downs will be too exposed to this wind."

"Yes, miss."

"In the plantation it will be quite sheltered--don't you think so?"

"Most of the way it will," he answered; "but there ain't half as much
wind as there was an hour ago."

"An hour ago it was blowing a gale. If it had kept on like that I
shouldn't have thought of going out at all."

"Which would have been a pity," Billy answered, with a grin, "for the
sun is a-shinin' beautiful."

Two or three times Billy had to stop the donkey, while he dragged large
branches out of the way. They were almost on the point of turning back
again when Dorothy said--

"Is that the trunk of a tree, Billy, lying across the road?"

"Well, miss, I was just a-wonderin' myself what it were. It don't look
like a tree exactly."

"And yet I cannot imagine what else it can be."

"Shall we drive on that far and see, miss?"

"I think we had better, Billy, though I did not intend going quite so
far."

A few minutes later Billy uttered an exclamation.

"Why, miss, it looks for all the world like a man!"

"Drive quickly," she said; "I believe somebody's been hurt!"

It did not take them long to reach the spot where Ralph Penlogan was
lying. Dorothy recognised him in a moment, and forgetting her weakness,
she sprang out of her bath-chair and ran and knelt down by his side.

He presented a rather ghastly appearance. The extreme pallor of his face
was accentuated by large splotches of blood. His eyelids were partly
open, showing the whites of his eyes. His lips were tightly shut as if
in pain.

Dorothy wondered at her own calmness and nerve. She had no disposition
to faint or to cry out. She placed her ear close to Ralph's mouth and
remained still for several seconds. Then she sprang quickly to her feet.

"Unharness the donkey, Billy," she said, in quick, decided tones, "and
ride into St. Goram and fetch Dr. Barrow!"

"Yes, miss." And in a few seconds Billy was galloping away as fast as
the donkey could carry him.

Dorothy watched him until he had passed beyond the gate and was out on
the common. Then she turned her attention again to Ralph. That he was
unconscious was clear, but he was not dead. There were evidences also
that he had scrambled a considerable distance after he was struck.

For several moments she stood and looked at him, then she sat down by
his side. He gave a groan at length and tried to sit up, and she got
closer to him, and made his head comfortable on her lap.

After a while he opened his eyes and looked with a bewildered expression
into her face.

"Who are you?" he asked abruptly, and he made another effort to sit up.

"You had better lie still," she said gently. "You have got hurt, and Dr.
Barrow will be here directly."

"I haven't got hurt," he said, in decided tones, "and I don't want to
lie still. But who are you?"

"Don't you remember me?" she questioned.

"No, I don't," he said, in the same decisive way. "You are not Ruth, and
I don't know who you are, nor why you keep me here."

"I am not keeping you," she answered quietly. "You are unable to walk,
but I have sent for the doctor, and he will bring help."

For a while he did not speak, but his eyes searched her face with a
puzzled and baffled look.

"You are very pretty," he said at length. "But you are not Ruth."

"No; I am Dorothy Hamblyn," she answered.

He knitted his brows and looked at her intently, then he tried to shake
his head.

"Hamblyn?" he questioned slowly. "I hate the Hamblyns--I hate the very
name! All except the squire's little maid," and he closed his eyes, and
was silent for several moments. Then he went on again--

"I wish I could hate the squire's little maid too, but I can't. I've
tried hard, but I can't. She's so pretty, and she's to marry an old man,
old enough to be her grandfather. Oh, it's a shame, for he'll break her
heart. If I were only a rich man I'd steal her."

"Hush, hush!" she said quickly. "Do you know what you are saying?"

He opened his eyes slowly and looked at her again, but there was no
clear light of recognition in them. For several minutes he talked
incessantly on all sorts of subjects, but in the end he got back to the
question that for the moment seemed to dominate all the rest.

"You can't be the squire's little maid," he said, "for she is going to
marry an old man. Don't you think it is a sin?"

"Hush, hush!" she said, in a whisper.

"I think it's a sin," he went on. "And if I were rich and strong I
wouldn't allow it. I wish she were poor, and lived in a cottage; then I
would work and work, and wait and hope, and--and----"

"Yes?" she questioned.

"We would fight the world together," he said, after a long pause.

She did not reply, but a mist came up before her eyes and blotted out
the surrounding belt of trees, and the noise of the wind seemed to die
suddenly away into silence, and a new world opened up before her--a land
where springtime always dwelt, and beauty never grew old.

Ralph lay quite still, with his head upon her lap. He appeared to have
relapsed into unconsciousness again.

She brushed her hand across her eyes at length and looked at him, and as
she did so her heart fluttered strangely and uncomfortably in her bosom.
A curious spell seemed to be upon her. Her nerves thrilled with an
altogether new sensation. She grew almost frightened, and yet she had no
desire to break the spell; the pleasure infinitely exceeded the pain.

She felt like one who had strayed unconsciously into forbidden ground,
and yet the landscape was so beautiful, and the fragrance of the flowers
was so sweet, and the air was so soft and cool, and the music of the
birds and the streams was so delicious, that she had neither the courage
nor the inclination to go away.

She did not try to analyse this new sensation that thrilled her to the
finger-tips. She did not know what it meant, or what it portended.

She took her pocket-handkerchief at length and began to wipe the
bloodstains from Ralph's face, and while she did so the warm colour
mounted to her own cheeks.

There was no denying that he was very handsome, and she had already had
proof of his character. She recalled the day when she lay in his strong
arms, with her head upon his shoulder, and he carried her all the way
down to the cross roads. How strange that she should be performing a
similar service for him now! Was some blind, unthinking fate weaving the
threads of their separate lives into the same piece?

The colour deepened in her cheeks until they grew almost crimson. The
words to which she had just listened from his lips seemed to flash upon
her consciousness with a new meaning, and she found herself wondering
what would happen if she had been only a peasant's child.

A minute or two later the sound of wheels was heard on the grass-grown
road. Ralph turned his head uneasily, and muttered something under his
breath.

"Help is near," she whispered. "The doctor is coming."

He looked up into her eyes wonderingly.

"Don't tell the squire's little maid that I love her," he said slowly.
"I've tried to hate her, but I cannot."

She gave a little gasp, and tried to speak, but a lump rose in her
throat which threatened to choke her.

"But her father," he went on slowly, "he's a--a----" but he did not
finish the sentence.

When the doctor reached his side he was quite unconscious again.




CHAPTER XII

DOROTHY SPEAKS HER MIND


Dorothy--to quote her father's words--had taken the bit between her
teeth and bolted. The squire had coaxed her, cajoled her, threatened
her, got angry with her, but all to no purpose. She stood before him
resolute and defiant, vowing that she would sooner die than marry Lord
Probus.

Sir John was at his wits' end. He saw his brightest hopes dissolving
before his eyes. If Dorothy carried out her threat, and refused to marry
the millionaire brewer, what was to become of him? All his hopes of
extricating himself from his present pecuniary embarrassments were
centred in his lordship. But if Dorothy deliberately broke the
engagement, Lord Probus would see him starve before raising a finger to
help him.

Fortunately, Lord Probus was in London, and knew nothing of Dorothy's
change of front. He had thought her somewhat cool when he went away, but
that he attributed to her long illness. Warmth of affection would no
doubt return with returning health and strength. Sir John had assured
him that she had not changed towards him in the least.

Dorothy's illness had been a great disappointment to both men. All
delays were dangerous, and there was always the off-chance that Dorothy
might awake from her girlish day-dream and discover that not only her
feeling toward Lord Probus, but also her views of matrimony, had
undergone an entire change.

Sir John had received warning of the change on that stormy day when
Ralph Penlogan had visited him to tell him that his father was dead. But
he had put her words out of his mind as quickly as possible. Whatever
else they might mean, he could not bring himself to believe that Dorothy
would deliberately break a sacred and solemn pledge.

But a few weeks later matters came to a head. It was on Dorothy's return
from a visit to the Penlogans' cottage at St. Goram that the truth came
out.

Sir John met her crossing the hall with a basket on her arm.

"Where have you been all the afternoon?" he questioned sharply.

"I have been to see poor Mrs. Penlogan," she said, "who is anything but
well."

"It seems to me you are very fond of visiting the Penlogans," he said
crossly. "I suppose that lazy son is still hanging on to his mother,
doing nothing?"

"I don't think you ought to say he is lazy," she said, flushing
slightly. "He has been to St. Ivel Mine to-day to try to get work,
though Dr. Barrow says he ought not to think of working for another
month."

"Dr. Barrow is an old woman in some things," he retorted.

"I think he is a very clever man," she answered; "and we ought to be
grateful for what he did for me."

"Oh, that is quite another matter. But I suppose you found the Penlogans
full of abuse still of the ground landlord?"

"No, I did not," she answered. "Lord St. Goram's name was never
mentioned."

"Oh!" he said shortly, and turned on his heel and walked away.

"She evidently doesn't know yet that I'm the ground landlord," he
reflected. "I wonder what she will say when she does know? I've half a
mind to tell her myself and face it out. If I thought it would prevent
her going to the Penlogans' cottage, I would tell her, too. Curse them!
They've scored off me by not telling the girl." And he closed the
library door behind him and dropped into an easy-chair.

He came to the conclusion after a while that he would not tell her. All
things considered, it was better that she should remain in ignorance. In
a few weeks, or months at the outside, he hoped she would be Lady
Probus, and then she would forget all about the Penlogans and their
grievance.

He took the poker and thrust it into the fire, and sent a cheerful blaze
roaring up the chimney. Then he edged himself back into his easy-chair
and stared at the grate.

"It's quite time the wedding-day was fixed," he said to himself at
length. "Dorothy is almost as well as ever, and there's no reason
whatever why it should be any longer delayed. I hope she isn't beginning
to think too seriously about the matter. In a case like this, the less
the girl thinks the better."

The short November day was fading rapidly, but the fire filled the room
with a warm and ruddy light.

He touched the bell at length, and a moment or two later a servant stood
at the open door.

"Tell your young mistress when she comes downstairs that I want to see
her."

"Yes, sir." And the servant departed noiselessly from the room.

Sir John edged his chair a few inches nearer the fire. He was feeling
very nervous and ill at ease, but he was determined to bring matters to
a head. He knew that Lord Probus was getting impatient, and he was just
as impatient himself. Moreover, delays were often fatal to the best-laid
plans.

Dorothy came slowly into the room, and with a troubled look in her eyes.

"You wanted to see me, father?" she questioned timidly.

"Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you. Please sit down." And he
continued to stare at the fire.

Dorothy seated herself in an easy-chair on the other side of the
fireplace and waited. If he was nervous and ill at ease, she was no less
so. She had a shrewd suspicion of what was coming, and she dreaded the
encounter. Nevertheless, she had fully made up her mind as to the course
she intended to take, and she was no longer a child to be wheedled into
anything.

Sir John looked up suddenly.

"I have been thinking, Dorothy," he said, "that we ought to get the
wedding over before Christmas. You seem almost as well as ever now, and
there is no reason as far as I can see why the postponed ceremony should
be any longer delayed."

"Are you in such a great hurry to get rid of me?" she questioned, with a
pathetic smile.

"My dear, I do not want to get rid of you at all. You know the old tag,
'A daughter's a daughter all the days of her life,' and you will be none
the less my child when you are the mistress of Rostrevor Castle."

"I shall never be the mistress of Rostrevor Castle," she replied, with
downcast eyes.

"Never be the mistress of--never? What do you mean, Dorothy?" And he
turned hastily round in his chair and stared at her.

"I was only a child when I promised," she said timidly, "and I did not
know anything. I thought it would be a fine thing to have a title and a
house in town, and everything that my foolish heart could desire, and I
did not understand what marriage to an old man would mean."

"Lord Probus is anything but an old man," he said hastily. "He is in his
prime yet."

"But if he were thirty years younger it would be all the same," she
answered quietly. "You see, father, I have discovered that I do not love
him."

"And you fancy that you love somebody else?" he said, with a sneer.

"I did not say anything of the kind," she said, raising her eyes
suddenly to his. "But I know I don't love Lord Probus, and I know I
never shall."

"Oh, this is simple nonsense!" he replied angrily. "You cannot play fast
and loose in this way. You have given your solemn promise to Lord
Probus, and you cannot go back on it."

"But I _can_ go back on it, and I will!"

"You mean that you will defy us both, and defy the law into the
bargain?"

"There is no law to compel me to marry a man against my will," she said,
with spirit.

"If there is no law to compel you, there's a power that can force you to
keep your promise," he said, with suppressed passion.

"What power do you refer to?" she questioned.

"The power of my will," he answered. "Do you think I am going to allow a
scandal of this kind to take place?"

"It would be a greater scandal if I married him," she replied.

"Look here, Dorothy," he said. "We had better look at this matter in the
light of reason and common sense----"

"That is what I am doing," she interrupted. "I had neither when I gave
my promise to Lord Probus. I was just home from school; I knew nothing
of the world; I had scarcely a serious thought in my head. My illness
has given me time to think and reflect; it has opened my eyes----"

"And taken away your moral sense," he snarled.

"No, father, I don't think so at all," she answered mildly. "Feeling as
I do now, it would be wicked to marry Lord Probus."

He rose to his feet and faced her angrily.

"Look here, Dorothy," he said. "I am not the man to be thwarted in a
thing of this kind. My reputation is in a sense at stake. You have gone
too far to draw back now. We should be made the laughing-stock of the
entire county. If you had any personal objection to Lord Probus, you
should have discovered it before you promised to marry him. Now that all
arrangements are made for the wedding, it is too late to draw back."

"No, father, it is not too late; and I am thankful for my illness,
because it has opened my eyes."

"And all this has come about through that detestable young scoundrel who
refused to open a gate for you."

In a moment her face flushed crimson, and she turned quickly and walked
out of the room.

"By Jove, what does this mean?" Sir John said to himself angrily when
the door closed behind her. "What new influences have been at work, I
wonder, or what quixotic or romantic notions has she been getting into
her head? Can it be possible--but no, no, that is too absurd! And yet
things quite as strange have happened. If I find--great Scott, won't we
be quits!" And Sir John paced up and down the room like a caged bear.

He did not refer to the subject again that day, nor the next. But he
kept his eyes and ears open, and he drew one or two more or less
disquieting conclusions.

That a change had come over Dorothy was clear. In fact, she was changed
in many ways. She seemed to have passed suddenly from girlhood into
womanhood. But what lay at the back of this change? Was her illness to
bear the entire responsibility, or had other influences been at work?
Was the romantic notion she had got into her mind due to natural
development, or had some youthful face caught her fancy and touched her
heart?

But during all those long weeks of her illness she had seen no one but
the doctor and vicar and Lord Probus, except--and Sir John gave his
beard an impatient tug.

By dint of careful inquiry, he got hold of the entire story, not merely
of Dorothy's accident, but of the part she had played in Ralph
Penlogan's accident.

"Great Scott!" he said to himself, an angry light coming into his eyes.
"If, knowingly or unknowingly, that young scoundrel is at the bottom of
this business, then he can cry quits with a vengeance."

The more he allowed his mind to dwell on this view of the case, the more
clear it became to him. There was no denying that Ralph Penlogan was
handsome. Moreover, he was well educated and clever. Dorothy, on the
other hand, was in the most romantic period of her life. She had found
him in the plantation badly hurt, and her sympathies would go out to him
in a moment. Under such circumstances, and in her present mood, social
differences would count for nothing. She might lose her heart to him
before she was aware. He, of course, being inherently bad--for Sir John
would not allow that the lower orders, as he termed them, possessed any
sense of honour whatever--would take advantage of her weakness and play
upon the romantic side of her nature to the full, with the result that
she was quite prepared to fling over Lord Probus, or to pose as a
martyr, or to pine for love in a cottage, or do any other idiotic thing
that her silly and sentimental heart might dictate.

As the days passed away Sir John had very great difficulty in being
civil to his daughter. Also, he kept a strict watch himself on all her
movements, and put a stop to her playing my Lady Bountiful among the
sick poor of St. Goram.

He hoped in his quieter moments that it was only a passing madness, and
that it would disappear as suddenly as it came. If she could be kept
away from pernicious and disquieting influences for a week or two she
might get back to her normal condition.

Sir John was debating this view of the question one evening with himself
when the door was flung suddenly open, and Lord Probus stood before him,
looking very perturbed and excited.

The baronet sprang out of his chair in a moment, and greeted his guest
effusively. "My dear Probus," he said, "I did not know you were in the
county. When did you return?"

"I came down to-day," was the answer. "I came in response to a letter I
received from your daughter last night. Where is she? I wish to see her
at once."

"A moment, sir," the baronet said appealingly. "What has she been
writing to you?"

"I hardly know whether I should discuss the matter with you until I have
seen her," was the somewhat chilly answer.

"She has asked to be released from her engagement," Sir John said
eagerly. "I can see it in your face. The truth is, the child is a bit
unhinged."

"Then she has spoken to you?" his lordship interrupted.

"Well, yes, but I came to the conclusion that it was only a passing
mood. She has not picked up her strength as rapidly as I could have
desired, but, given time, and I have little doubt she will be just the
same as ever. I am sorry she has written to you on the matter."

"I noticed a change in her before I went away. In fact, she was
decidedly cool."

"But it will pass, my lord. I am sure it will. We must not hurry her.
Don't take her 'No' as final. Let the matter remain in abeyance for a
month or two. Now I will ring for her and leave you together. But take
my advice and don't let her settle the matter now."

Sir John met Dorothy in the hall, and intimated that Lord Probus was
waiting for her in the library. She betrayed no surprise whatever. In
fact, she expected he would hurry back on receipt of her letter, and so
was quite ready for the interview.

They did not remain long together. Lord Probus saw that, for the present
at any rate, her mind was absolutely made up. But he was not prepared,
nevertheless, to relinquish his prize.

She looked lovelier in his eyes than she had ever done before. He felt
the charm of her budding womanhood. She was no longer a schoolgirl to be
wheedled and influenced by the promise of pretty things. Her eyes had a
new light in them, her manner an added dignity.

"Be assured," he said to her, in his most chivalrous manner, "that your
happiness is more to me than my own. But we will not regard the matter
as settled yet. Let things remain in abeyance for a month or two."

"It is better we should understand each other once for all," she said
decisively, "for I am quite sure time will only confirm me in my
resolution."

"No, no. Don't say that," he pleaded. "Think of all I can give you, of
all that I will do for you, of all the love and care I will lavish upon
you. You owe it to me not to do this thing rashly. Let us wait, say,
till the new year, and then we will talk the matter over again." And he
took her hand and kissed it, and then walked slowly out of the room.




CHAPTER XIII

GATHERING CLOUDS


The following afternoon Sir John went for a walk in the plantation
alone. He was in a very perturbed and anxious condition of mind. Lord
Probus had taken his advice, and refused to accept Dorothy's "No" as
final; but that by no means settled the matter. He feared that at best
it had only postponed the evil day for a few weeks. What if she
continued in the same frame of mind? What if she had conceived any kind
of romantic attachment for young Penlogan, into whose arms she had been
thrown more than once?

Of course, Dorothy would never dream of any alliance with a Penlogan.
She was too well bred for that, and had too much regard for the social
order. But all the same, such an attachment would put an end to Lord
Probus's hopes. She would be eternally contrasting the two men, and she
would elect to remain a spinster until time had cured her of her
love-sickness. In the meanwhile he would be upon the rocks financially,
or in some position even worse than that.

"It is most annoying," he said to himself, with knitted brows and
clenched hands, "most confoundedly annoying, and all because of that
young scoundrel Penlogan. If I could only wring his neck or get him
clear out of the district it would be some satisfaction."

The next moment the sound of snapping twigs fell distinctly on his ear.
He turned suddenly and caught a momentary glimpse of a white face
peering over a hedge.

"By Heaven, it's that scoundrel Penlogan!" was the thought that darted
suddenly through his mind. The next moment there was a flash, a report,
a stinging pain in his left arm and cheek, and then a moment of utter
mental confusion.

He recovered himself in a moment or two and took to his heels. He had
been shot, he knew, but with what effect he could not tell. His left arm
hung limply by his side and felt like a burning coal. His cheek was
smarting intolerably, but the extent of the damage he had no means of
ascertaining. He might be fatally hurt for all he knew. Any moment he
might fall dead in the road, and the young villain who had shot him
might go unpunished.

"I must prevent that if possible," he said to himself, as he kept
running at the top of his speed. "I must hold out till I get home. Oh, I
do hope my strength will not fail me! It's a terrible thing to be done
to death in this way."

The perspiration was running in streams down his face. His breath came
and went in gasps, but he never slackened his pace for a moment; and
still as he ran the conviction grew and deepened in his mind that a
deliberate attempt had been made to murder him.

He came within sight of the house at length, and began to shout at the
top of his voice--

"Help! help! Murder! Be quick----"

The coachman and the stable boy, who happened to be discussing politics
in the yard at the moment, took to their heels and both ran in the same
direction. They came upon their master, hatless and exhausted, and were
just in time to catch him in their arms before he sank to the ground.

"Oh, I've been murdered!" he gasped. "Think of it, murdered in my own
plantation! Carry me home, and then go for the doctor and the police.
That young Penlogan shall swing for this."

"But you can't be murdered, master," the coachman said soothingly, "for
you're alive and able to talk."

"But I'm nearly done for," he groaned. "I feel my life ebbing away fast.
Get me home as quickly as you can. I hope I'll live till the policeman
comes."

The two men locked hands, and made a kind of chair for their master, and
then marched away towards the house.

Sir John talked incessantly all the distance.

"If I die before I get home," he said, "don't forget what I am telling
you. Justice must be done in a case like this. Won't there be a
sensation in the county when people learn that I was deliberately
murdered in my own plantation!"

"But why should Ralph Penlogan want to murder you?" the coachman
queried.

"Why? Don't ask me. He came to the house the day his father died and
threatened me. I saw murder in his eyes then. I believe he would have
murdered me in my own library if he had had the chance. But make haste,
for my strength is ebbing out rapidly."

"I don't think you are going to die yet, sir," the coachman said
cheerfully.

"Oh, I don't know! I feel very strange. I keep praying that I may live
to get home and give evidence before the proper authorities. It seems
very strange that I should come to my end this way."

"But you may recover, sir," the stable boy interposed. "There's never no
knowing what may happen in this world."

"Please don't talk to me," he said petulantly. "You are wasting time
while you talk. I want to compose my mind. It's an awfully solemn thing
to be murdered, but he shall swing for it as sure as I'm living at this
moment! Don't you think you can hurry a little faster?"

Sir John had considerably recovered by the time they reached the house,
and was able to walk upstairs and even to undress with assistance.

While waiting for the doctor, Dorothy came and sat by his side. She was
very pale, but quite composed. Hers was one of those natures that seemed
to gather strength in proportion to the demands made upon it. She never
fainted or lost her wits or became hysterical. She met the need of the
moment with a courage that rarely failed her.

"Ah, Dorothy," he said, in impressive tones, "I never thought I should
come to this, and at the hands of a dastardly assassin."

"But are you sure it was not an accident, father?" she questioned
gently.

"Accident?" he said, and his eyes blazed with anger. "Has it come to
this, that you would screen the man who has murdered your father?"

"Let us not use such a word until we are compelled," she replied, in the
same gentle tones. "You may not be hurt as much as you fear."

"Whether I am hurt much or little," he said, "the intention was there.
If I am not dead, the fault is not his."

"But are you sure it was he who fired at you?"

"As sure as I can be of anything in this world. Besides, who else would
do it? He threatened me the day his father died."

"Threatened to murder you?"

"Not in so many words, but he had murder in his eyes."

"But why should he want to do you any harm? You never did any harm to
him."

For a moment or two Sir John hesitated. Should he clench his argument by
supplying the motive? He would never have a better opportunity for
destroying at a single blow any romantic attachment that she may have
cherished. Destroy her faith in Ralph Penlogan--the handsome youth with
pleasant manners--and her heart might turn again to Lord Probus.

But while he hesitated the door opened, and Dr. Barrow came hurriedly
into the room, followed by a nurse.

Dorothy raised a pair of appealing eyes to the doctor's face, and then
stole sadly down to the drawing-room to await the verdict.

As yet her faith in Ralph Penlogan remained unshaken. She had seen a
good deal of him during the last few weeks, and the more she had seen of
him the more she had admired him. His affection for his mother and
sister, his solicitude for their comfort and welfare, his anxiety to
take from their shoulders every burden, his impatience to get well so
that he might step into his dead father's place and be the bread-winner
of the family, had touched her heart irresistibly. She felt that a man
could not be bad who was so good to his mother and so kind and
chivalrous to his sister.

Whether or no she had done wisely in going to the Penlogans' cottage was
a question she was not quite able to answer. Ostensibly she had gone to
see Mrs. Penlogan, who had not yet recovered from the shock caused by
her husband's death, and yet she was conscious of a very real sense of
disappointment if Ralph was not visible.

That she should be interested in him was the most natural thing in the
world. They had been thrown together in no ordinary way. They had
succoured each other in times of very real peril--had each been the
other's good angel. Hence it would be folly to pretend the indifference
of absolute strangers. Socially, their lives lay wide as the poles
asunder, and yet there might be a very true kinship between them. The
only drawback to any sort of friendship was the confession she had
unwittingly listened to while he lay dazed and unconscious in the
plantation.

How much it amounted to she did not know. Probably nothing. It was said
that people in delirium spoke the exact opposite of what they meant.
Ralph had reiterated that he hated her father. Probably he did nothing
of the kind. Why should he hate him? At any rate, since he began to get
better he had said nothing, as far as she was aware, that would convey
the remotest impression of such a feeling. His words respecting herself
probably had no more meaning or value, and she made an honest effort to
forget them.

She had questioned him as to what he could remember after the branch of
the tree struck him. But he remembered nothing till the following day.
For twenty-four hours his mind was a complete blank, and he was quite
unsuspicious that he had spoken a single word to anyone. And yet, try as
she would, whenever she was in his presence, his words kept recurring to
her. There might be a worse tragedy in his life than that which had
already occurred.

These thoughts kept chasing each other like lightning through her brain,
as she sat waiting for the verdict of the doctor.

He came at length, and she rose at once to meet him.

"Well, doctor?" she questioned. "Let me know the worst."

She saw that there was a perplexed and even troubled look in his eyes,
and she feared that her father was more seriously hurt than she had
imagined.

"There is no immediate danger," he said, taking her hands and leading
her back to her seat. They were great friends, and she trusted him
implicitly.

She gave a little sigh of relief and waited for him to speak again.

"The main volume of the charge just missed him," he went on, after a
pause. "Had he been an inch or two farther to the left, the chances are
he would never have spoken again."

"But you think that he will get better?"

"Well, yes. I see no cause for apprehension. His left shoulder and arm
are badly speckled, no doubt, but I don't think any vital part has been
touched."

Dorothy sighed again, and for a moment or two there was silence. Then
she said, with evident effort--

"But what about--about--young Penlogan?"

"Ah, that I fear is a more serious matter," he answered, with averted
eyes. "I sincerely trust that your father is mistaken."

"You are not sure that he is?"

"It seems as if one can be sure of nothing in this world," he answered
slowly and evasively, "and yet I could have trusted Ralph Penlogan with
my life."

"Does father still persist that it was he?"

"He is quite positive, and almost gets angry if one suggests that he may
have been mistaken."

"Well, doctor, and what will all this lead to?" she questioned, making a
strong effort to keep her voice steady.

"For the moment I fear it must lead to young Penlogan's arrest. There
seems no way of escaping that. Your father's depositions will be taken
as soon as Mr. Tregonning arrives. Then, of course, a warrant will be
issued, and most likely Penlogan will spend to-night in the
police-station--unless----" Then he paused suddenly and looked out of
the window.

"Unless what, doctor?"

"Well, unless he has tried to get away somewhere. It will be dark
directly, and under cover of darkness he might get a long distance."

"But that would imply that he is guilty?"

"Well--yes. I am assuming, of course, that he deliberately shot at your
father."

"Which I am quite sure he did not do."

"I have the same conviction myself, and yet he made no secret of the
fact that he hated your father."

"But why should he hate my father?"

"You surely know----" Then he hesitated.

"I know nothing," she answered. "What is the ground of his dislike?"

"Ah, here is Mr. Tregonning's carriage," he said, in a tone of relief.
"Now I must run away. Keep your heart up, and don't worry any more than
you can help."

For several moments she walked up and down the room with a restless yet
undecided step. Then she made suddenly for the door, and three minutes
later she might have been seen hurrying along the drive in the swiftly
gathering darkness as fast as her feet could carry her.

"I'll see him for myself," she said, with a resolute light in her eyes.
"I'll get the truth from his own lips. I'm sure he will not lie to me."

It was quite dark when she reached the village, save for the twinkling
lights in cottage windows.

She met a few people, but no one recognised her, enveloped as she was in
a heavy cloak. For a moment or two she paused before the door of the
Penlogans' cottage. Her heart was beating very fast, and she felt like a
bird of evil omen. If Ralph was innocent, then he knew nothing of the
trouble that was looming ahead, and she would be the petrel to announce
the coming storm.

She gave a timid rat-tat at the door, and after a moment or two it was
opened by Ruth.

"Why, Miss Dorothy!" And Ruth started back in surprise.

"Is your brother at home?" Dorothy questioned, with a little gasp.

"Why, yes. Won't you come in?"

"Would you mind asking him to come to the door. I have only a moment or
two to spare."

"You had better come into the passage," Ruth said, "and I will go at
once and tell him you are here."

Dorothy stepped over the threshold and stood under the small lamp that
lighted the tiny hall.

In a few moments Ralph stood before her, his cheeks flushed, and an
eager, questioning light in his eyes.

She looked at him eagerly for a moment before she spoke, and could not
help thinking how handsome he looked.

"I have come on a strange errand," she said, speaking rapidly, "and I
fear there is more trouble in store for you. But tell me first, have you
ever lifted a finger against my father?"

"Never, Miss Dorothy! Why do you ask?"

"And you have never planned, or purposed, or attempted to do him harm?"

"Why, no, Miss Dorothy. Why should you think of such a thing?"

"My father was shot this afternoon in Treliskey Plantation. He saw a
face for a moment peering over a hedge; the next moment there was a
flash and a report, and a part of the charge entered his left arm and
shoulder. He is in bed now, and Mr. Tregonning is taking his
depositions. He vows that it was your face that he saw peering over the
hedge--that it was you who shot him."

Ralph's face grew ashen while she was speaking, and a look almost of
terror crept into his eyes. The difficulty and peril of his position
revealed themselves in a moment. How could he prove that Sir John
Hamblyn was mistaken?

"But you do not believe it, Miss Dorothy?" he questioned.

"You tell me that you are innocent?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"I am as innocent as you are," he said; and he looked frankly and
appealingly into her eyes.

For a moment or two she looked at him in silence, then she said in the
same low tone--

"I believe you." And she held out her hand to him, and then turned
towards the door.

He had a hundred things to say to her, but somehow the words would not
come. He watched her cross the threshold and pass out into the darkness,
and he stood still and had not the courage to follow her. It would have
been at least a neighbourly thing to see her to the lodge gates, for the
night was unillumined by even a star, but his lips refused to move. He
stood stock-still, as if riveted to the ground.

How long he remained there staring into the darkness he did not know.
Time and place were swallowed up and lost. He was conscious only of the
steady approach of an overwhelming calamity. It was gathering from every
point of the compass at the same time. It was wrapping him round like a
sable pall. It was obliterating one by one every star of hope and
promise.

Ruth came to look for him at length, and she uttered a little cry when
she saw him, for his face was like the face of the dead.




CHAPTER XIV

THE STORM BURSTS


"Why, Ralph, what is the matter?" And Ruth seized one of his hands and
stared eagerly and appealingly into his face.

He shook himself as if he had been asleep, then closed the door quietly
and followed her into the living-room.

"Are you not well, Ralph?" Ruth persisted, as she drew up his chair a
little nearer the fire. Mrs. Penlogan laid her knitting in her lap, and
her eyes echoed Ruth's inquiry.

"I've heard some bad news," he said, speaking with an effort, and he
dropped into his chair and stared at the fire.

"Bad news!" both women echoed. "What has happened, Ralph?"

He hesitated for a moment, then he told them the story as Dorothy had
told it to him.

"But why should you worry?" Ruth questioned quickly. "You were nowhere
near the plantation."

"But how am I to prove it?" he questioned.

"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"

"Absolutely."

"But you have surely seen someone?"

"As bad luck would have it, I have not seen a soul."

"But some people may have seen you."

"That is likely enough. Twenty people in the village looking from behind
their curtains may have seen me walk out with a gun under my arm."

"And it's the first time you've carried a gun since we left Hillside."

"The very first time, and it looks as if it will be the last."

"But surely, Ralph, no one would believe for a moment that you could do
such a thing?" his mother interposed. "It's been some awkward accident,
you may depend. It will all come out right in the morning."

"I'm very sorry for you, mother," he said slowly. "You've had trouble
enough lately, God knows. We all have, for that matter. But it is of no
use shutting our eyes to the fact that this is a very awkward business,
and while we should hope for the best, we should prepare for the worst."

"What worst do you refer to, Ralph?" she asked, a little querulously.
"You surely do not think----"

"I hardly know what to think, mother," he interrupted, for it was quite
clear she did not realise yet the gravity of the situation. "It may mean
imprisonment and the loss of my good name, which would mean the loss of
everything and the end of the world for me."

"Oh no; surely not," and the tears began to gather in her eyes.

"The trouble lies here," he went on. "Everybody knows that I hate the
squire. We all do, for that matter, and for very good reasons. As it
happens, I have been out with a gun this afternoon, and have brought
home a couple of rabbits. I shot them in Dingley Bottom, but no one saw
me. Somebody trespassing in the plantation came upon the squire. He was
climbing over a hedge, and very likely in drawing back suddenly
something caught the trigger and the gun went off. Now unless that man
confesses, what is to become of me?"

"But he will confess. Nobody would let you be wrongfully accused," she
interrupted.

He shook his head dubiously. "Most people are so anxious to save their
own skin," he said, "that they do not trouble much about what becomes of
other people."

"But if the worst should come to the worst, Ralph," Ruth questioned
timidly, "what would it mean?"

"Transportation," he said gloomily.

Mrs. Penlogan began to cry. It seemed almost as if God had forsaken
them, and her faith in Providence was in danger of going from her. She
and Ruth had been bewailing the hardness of their lot that afternoon
while Ralph was out with his gun. The few pounds saved from the general
wreck were nearly exhausted. When the funeral expenses had been paid,
and the removal accounts had been squared, there was very little left.
To make matters worse, Ralph's accident had to be added to their
calamities. He was only just beginning to get about again, and when the
doctor's bill came in they would be worse than penniless, they would be
in debt.

And now suddenly, and without warning, this new trouble threatened them.
A trouble that was worse than poverty--worse even than death. Their good
name, they imagined, was unassailable, and if that went by the board,
everything would be lost.

Ralph sat silent, and stared into the fire. In the main his thoughts
were very bitter, but one sweet reflection came and went in the most
unaccountable fashion. One pure and almost perfect face peeped at him
from between the bars of the grate and vanished, but always came back
again after a few minutes and smiled all the more sweetly, as if to
atone for its absence.

Why had Dorothy Hamblyn taken the trouble to interview him? Why was she
so interested in his fate? How was it that she was so ready to accept
his word? To give any rational answer to these questions seemed
impossible. If she felt what he felt, the explanation would be simple
enough; but since by no exercise of his fancy or imagination could he
bring himself to that view of the case, her conduct--her apparent
solicitude--remained inexplicable.

Nevertheless, the thought of Dorothy was the one sweet drop in his
bitter cup. The why and wherefore of her interest might remain a
mystery, yet the fact remained that of her own free will she had come to
see him that she might get the truth from his own lips, and without any
hesitation she had told him that she believed his word. Sir John might
hunt him down with all the venom of a sleuth hound, but he would always
have this crumb of consolation, that the Squire's daughter believed in
him still.

He had given up trying to hate her. Nay, he accepted it as part of the
irony of fate that he should do the other thing. He could not understand
why destiny should be so relentlessly cruel to him, why every
circumstance and every combination of circumstances should unite to
crush him. But he had to accept life as he found it. The world seemed to
be ruled by might, not by justice. The strong worked their will upon the
weak. It was the fate of the feeble to go under; the helpless cried in
vain for deliverance, the poor were daily oppressed.

He found his youthful optimism a steadily diminishing quantity. His
father's fate seemed to mock the idea of an over-ruling Providence. If
there was ever a good man in the parish, his father was that man. No
breath of slander had ever touched his name. Honest, industrious,
pure-minded, God-fearing, he lived and wrought with all his might, doing
to others as he would they should do to him. And yet he died of a broken
heart, defeated and routed in the unequal contest, victimised by the
uncertain chances of life, ground to powder by laws he did not make, and
had no chance of escaping. And in that hour of overwhelming disaster
there was no hand to deliver him save the kindly hand of death.

"And what is there before me?" he asked himself bitterly. "What have I
to live for, or hope for? The very springs of my youth seem poisoned. My
love is a cruel mockery, my ambitions are frost-nipped in the bud."

For the rest of the evening very little was said. Supper was a sadly
frugal meal, and they ate it in silence. Ruth and her mother could not
help wondering how long it would be ere they would have no food to eat.

Ralph kept listening with keen apprehension for the sound of a measured
footstep outside the door. At any moment he might be arrested. Sir John
was one of the most important men in St. Goram, hence the law would be
swift to take its course. The policemen would be falling over each other
in their eagerness to do their duty.

The tall grandfather's clock in the corner beat out the moments with
loud and monotonous click. The fire in the grate sank lower and lower.
All the village noises died down into silence. Mrs. Penlogan's chin, in
spite of her anxiety, began to droop upon her bosom.

"I think we shall be left undisturbed to-night," Ralph said, with a
pathetic smile. "Perhaps we had better get off to bed."

Mrs. Penlogan rose at once and fetched the family Bible and handed it on
to Ruth. It fell open at the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want."

Ruth read it in a low, even voice. It was her father's favourite
portion--his sheet-anchor when the storms of life raged most fiercely.
Now he was beyond the tempest and beyond the strife.

For the first time Ralph felt thankful that he was dead.

"Dear old father," he said to himself. "He has got beyond the worry and
the pain. His heart will ache no more for ever."

They all knelt down when the psalm ended; but no one prayed aloud.

Ralph remained after the others had gone upstairs. It seemed of little
use going to bed, he felt too restless to sleep.

Ever since Dorothy went away he had been expecting Policeman Budda to
call with a warrant for his arrest. Why he had not come he could not
understand. He wondered if Dorothy had interceded with her father, and
his eyes softened at the thought.

He did not blame himself for loving her in a restrained and far-off way.
She was so fair and sweet and generous. That she was beyond his reach
was no fault of his--that he had carried her in his arms and pressed her
to his heart was the tragedy as well as the romance of his life. That
she had watched by him and succoured him in the plantation was only
another cord that bound his heart to her. That he should love her was
but the inevitable sequence of events.

It was foolish to blame himself. He would be something less than man if
he did not love her. He had tried his hardest not to--had struggled with
all his might to put the memory of her out of his heart. But he gave up
the struggle weeks ago. It was of no use fighting against fate. It was
part of the burden he had been called upon to bear, and he would have to
bear it as bravely and as patiently as he knew how.

He was not so vain as to imagine that she cared for him in the smallest
degree--or ever could care. Moreover, she was engaged to be married, and
would have been married months ago but for her accident.

Ralph got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. Dorothy
Hamblyn was not for him, he knew well enough, and yet whenever he
thought of her marrying Lord Probus his whole soul revolted. It seemed
to him like sacrilege, and sacrilege in its basest form.

It was nearly midnight when he stole silently and stealthily to his
little room, and soon after he fell fast asleep.

When he opened his eyes again the light of a new day filled the room,
and a harsh and unfamiliar voice was speaking rapidly in the room below.
Ralph leaned over the side of his bed for a moment or two and listened.

"It's Budda's voice," he said to himself at length, and he gave a little
gasp. If Dorothy had interceded for him, her intercession had failed.
The law would now have to take its course.

He dressed himself carefully and with great deliberation. He would not
show the white feather if he could help it. Besides, it was just
possible he might be able to clear himself. He would not give up hope
until he was compelled to.

Budda was very civil and even sympathetic. He sat by the fire while
Ralph ate his breakfast, and retailed a good deal of the gossip of the
village so as to lessen the strain of the situation. Ralph replied to
him with an air of well-feigned indifference and unconcern. He would
rather die than betray weakness before a policeman.

Mrs. Penlogan and Ruth moved in and out of the room with set faces and
dry eyes. They knew how to endure silently. So many storms had beaten
upon them that it did not seem to matter much what came to them now.
Also they knew that the real bitterness would come when Ralph's place
was empty.

Budda appeared to be in no hurry. It was all in his day's work, and
since Ralph showed no disposition to bolt, an hour sooner or later made
no difference. He read the terms of the warrant with great deliberation
and in his most impressive manner. Ralph made no reply. This was neither
the time nor the place to protest his innocence.

Breakfast over, Ralph stretched his feet for a few moments before the
fire. Budda talked on; but Ralph said nothing. He sprang to his feet at
length and got on his hat and overcoat, while his mother and Ruth were
out of the room.

"Now I am ready," he said; and Budda at once led the way.

He met his mother and sister in the passage and kissed them a hurried
good-morning, and almost before they knew what had happened the door
closed, and Ralph and the policeman had disappeared.

On the following morning he was brought before the magistrates and
remanded for a week, bail being refused.

It was fortunate for him that in the solitude of his cell he had no
conception of the tremendous sensation his arrest produced. There had
been nothing like it in St. Goram for more than a generation, and for a
week or two little else was talked about.

Of course, opinions varied as to the measure of his guilt or innocence.
But, in the main, the current of opinion went strongly against him. When
a man is down, it is surprising how few his friends are. The bulk of the
St. Goramites were far more ready to kick him than defend him. Wiseacres
and busybodies told all who cared to listen how they had predicted some
such catastrophe. David Penlogan was a good man, but he had not trained
his

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/36384