← catalogue

Fallen Fortunes

by unknown · English · Gutenberg #45201 · 459,983 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fallen Fortunes
    
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: Fallen Fortunes

Creator: Evelyn Everett-Green


        
Release date: March 24, 2014 [eBook #45201]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45201

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALLEN FORTUNES ***




Produced by Al Haines.





[Illustration: The scheming kinsman (page 46).]




                                 FALLEN
                                FORTUNES


                            E. EVERETT-GREEN



                      THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
                    LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
                                  1906




                              *CONTENTS.*

      I. On the Field of Ramillies
     II. Hartsbourne
    III. The Scheming Kinsman
     IV. On the Road
      V. A High-born Dame
     VI. The Pastimes of the Town
    VII. A Fair Face
   VIII. A Startling Discovery
     IX. "A Mad World, my Masters"
      X. "The Old Lion"
     XI. The Lion's Den
    XII. Triumph
   XIII. The Hero of the Hour
    XIV. Fickle Fortune
     XV. Dark Days
    XVI. A Night Adventure
   XVII. In the House of the Duke
  XVIII. "Good Queen Anne"
    XIX. Love's Triumphing
     XX. Merry as a Marriage Bell




                        *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.*

The scheming kinsman. . . . . . . Frontispiece

The old garden was another favourite haunt of hers.

He stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the fair
Geraldine.

The hero of the hour.




                           *FALLEN FORTUNES.*


                              *CHAPTER I.*

                      *ON THE FIELD OF RAMILLIES.*


"By the beard of the Prophet, we are in luck's way at last, Dicon; for
if that be not the armies of the French and the Allies drawn up in
battle array, my name is not Grey Dumaresq!"

The speaker had just pushed his horse over the brow of a slope which he
and his servant had for some time been mounting, through the steamy
warmth of a foggy May morning.  The thick haze which lay heavy in this
region of marshy ground had hidden the surrounding country from them
hitherto; but as they reached the summit of the gradual rise they had
been ascending, the cloud wreaths suddenly drifted away, and the sun
began to shine out upon the undulating plain stretched before their
eyes; and lo, the plain was alive with squadrons of soldiers--infantry,
cavalry, artillery--drawn up in battle array; and the note of the bugle
rang through the air, whilst away in the distance, on the opposite side
of the plain, there was a movement which told that already the battle
had begun.  A sullen roar from the guns boomed forth, and the whole
plain shook with the reverberation.  Great masses of smoke rolled along
and slowly dispersed after each salvo; but it was upon the evolutions of
the bodies of horsemen and footmen that the keen eyes of the youthful
traveller were intently fixed.

"Dicon," he cried, "this is in all sooth a battle; and where the battle
rages, there will the great victor of Blenheim be.  We have not chanced
upon this route in vain.  Men warned us of the perils of seeking passage
through a country which has become the theatre of war; but fortune's
star has befriended us thus far, and now, if I mistake me not, we stand
within sight of the greatest warrior of the age.  For greatly shall I be
astonished if the Duke of Marlborough himself be not conducting the
evolutions of yonder squadrons."

The brilliant dark eyes of the young man lighted with a great glow of
excitement and admiration.  He shaded them with his hand, and intently
followed the evolutions of the moving masses in the plain stretched
before his eyes.  He was looking upon the village of Tavieres and the
mound of Ottomond, and the waters of the Mehaign rolled below at his
feet.  The right wing of the French army rested here, as he quickly saw;
but for the moment the main activity lay over in the distance beyond
Ramillies and Offuz, in the direction of Anderkirk.  Yet as the
traveller stood intently gazing, he saw a movement in the line of the
allied army on this nearer side, and he exclaimed aloud in his
excitement,--

"See, Dicon, see!  That attack yonder is but a feint.  The key of the
position lies here beneath us at Tavieres, with its Tomb of Ottomond.
See yonder those regiments of marching soldiers creeping round beneath
the shelter of that rising ground!  They will fling themselves upon the
enemy's right, whilst the French general is diverting his available
forces to protect his left.  Villeroi, my friend, you did not well to
dispose your forces in concave lines.  You lose time in passing from
place to place; and with such a general as our English Duke pitted
against you, you cannot afford to lose any point in the game. Ha!  See
that?  The Dutch and English soldiers are charging down upon Tavieres!
Watch how they come on--a great resistless tide of well-drilled
veterans.  See how they sweep all before them!  See how the French fly
forth!  Ha, Villeroi, what think you now?  Yes, you see your error; fain
would you hurry back your reserves from left to right.  But the time has
gone by.  They are miles away, and here are the Allies carrying all
before them!  Hurrah for old England! hurrah for the great Duke!  Dicon,
have you stomach for the fight?  Do you remember Barcelona and
Mountjuich?  If we were men enough to help there, why not here too?"

The fellow thus addressed grinned from ear to ear, and looked to the
pistols in his holsters and the sabre slung at his side.  It would not
have been easy to define by a glance the nationality of this pair, who
evidently stood to each other in the relation of master and man.  Their
faces were tanned by sun and wind, their dress, which was somewhat
travel-stained and worse for wear, had plainly been purchased as need
suggested--a piece here, and a piece there, and not all in the same
land.

The speaker wore upon his fair curling hair--which was his own, and not
one of the immense periwigs then in vogue at home and abroad--a Spanish
sombrero of picturesque shape.  His faded doublet, with its gold
lacings, might have been English made, and was well cut, showing off the
graceful lines of the slender, well-proportioned figure; but he wore
buskins of soft Spanish leather with gold eyelets, and the short cloak
slung across the saddle-bow had been purchased in Italy.  He rode a
strong, mettlesome barb, whose glossy bay coat shone like satin in the
sunlight.  The horse of the servant looked somewhat jaded, but that of
the master might have just been taken from the stable. He was one of
those splendid chargers, half Irish, half Spanish by blood, whose
sureness of foot, untiring energy, and unquenchable spirit and mettle,
made them at once the pride and joy of their owners. Young Dumaresq
might have cut a finer figure in his own person, had he not elected to
spend so large a portion of his remaining fortune upon the beast he now
bestrode.  But he had never for a moment regretted the purchase; and he
boasted that Don Carlos had saved his life on more occasions than one.

The young man's eyes were full of fire; his hand was upon the hilt of
his sword, which lay loose in its scabbard; the horse was pawing the
ground and pulling on the rein, for the sound of battle was in his ears,
and he was snorting with eagerness to hurl himself into the ranks of the
combatants.  The blare of the bugles, the roar of the guns, the shouts,
screams, cheers of soldiers, the clash of sabres and the rattle of
musketry, were as music to his ears.  Suddenly flinging up his head, and
uttering something between a snort and a neigh, the creature was off
like an arrow from a bow, heading wildly, yet with a restraint and
self-control which spoke worlds for his training, towards the
hurly-burly raging through the battlefield below. Grey Dumaresq cast a
half-laughing glance in the direction of his servant behind, who had set
spurs to his steed and was following.

"Needs must, where the devil drives!" he said with a laugh.  "Don Carlos
will make soldiers of us, whether we will or no."

The battle of Ramillies was now raging.  Marlborough's generalship had
already made its mark. Tavieres was in his hands; the right wing of the
enemy was shaken, and the Dutch and English soldiers were preparing to
charge the closely-serried lines of the French, even before the
travellers had reached the scene of action.  They heard whilst they were
yet half a mile away the concussion of that charge, the yells of the
soldiers, the cheers of the Allies as they felt the wavering of their
foes.  But the French, though the first line had been broken, were not
vanquished yet.  The second line was composed of the pick of the young
nobility--men careless of personal peril, disdainful of death, desirous
only of glory and of victory.  Upon these picked troops the Allies flung
themselves in fury; but they stood their ground and hurled back the
attacking lines, as the rocks of an iron-bound coast fling back the
oncoming waves of the ocean.  It was now impossible for the traveller to
gauge what was happening.  He was too near the scene of the tumult; but
he was in the very nick of time to bear a share in one of the minor
incidents of the day, which might have proved one of infinite disaster
to the cause of his country.

The Duke of Marlborough, who had been directing the attack upon the
French right, saw that this second charge was less successful than the
first, and giving orders for reinforcements to be hurried up, he himself
galloped in the direction of the fight, to encourage with his own
presence the wavering soldiers, and direct the next critical operations
in person. He was exceedingly well mounted, and his horse, wild with
excitement, and feeling all that sympathy with his master's mood which
is natural to these noble creatures, carried him so swiftly forward,
that after he had galloped along the lines, giving orders here, there,
and everywhere as he passed, he overshot his position, and without
noting it in the confusion, was almost alone and at some small distance
from his own lines.  Before he could pull up his excited horse, there
was a sudden rush from the French lines.  Several young nobles and
gentlemen had recognized the Duke, had taken in the accidental isolation
of his position, and galloping forward with one consent, surrounded him
before he was well aware what had happened.

It was just at this critical moment that the two travellers, half
stunned by the noise of the battle, ignorant of what was happening, but
eager for a share in the fray, topped a little rise in the ground which
hid the plain from them, and came full upon the scene of the Duke's
danger.  The great General never lacked presence of mind, was never
daunted by personal peril.  He had realized his position, and setting
his horse at a furious gallop, he had already broken through the ring of
would-be captors, and was charging furiously for his own lines.  At the
very moment when Grey Dumaresq and his servant took in the meaning of
what they saw, he had put his horse at a wide ditch which lay across his
path, and the animal was rising to the leap.

"Zounds! but the beast is down!  They will have him again!"

This shout rose from Dicon's throat.  Grey set his teeth hard.

"It is the Duke himself; they shall never take him.  Don Carlos shall
save him from that!"

The Duke's horse had fallen heavily, throwing his rider over his head.
Others besides his foes were heading wildly for the spot.  All who saw
it knew how much hung upon the turn of the next few seconds.  First of
all came the young stranger, who flung himself from his splendid horse,
just as Marlborough rose to his feet, bruised and shaken, but with every
faculty alert.

"Mount, sire, mount!" cried the traveller, holding the horse by the head
to still his excited plunging. "The enemy are closing round; but only
mount, and he will carry you safely.  I will stake my last ducat upon
it!"

The Duke had hold of the saddle by now; one of his own officers sprang
forward to hold the stirrup. Next instant the General was in the saddle;
but the head of the Colonel who stood at the stirrup was rolling upon
the ground.  A cannon ball had carried it off.  How the Duke had escaped
was a marvel and a mystery.

Excitement and lust of battle had fast hold of Grey Dumaresq and his
horse.  The gallant animal carried the Duke safely back to his own
lines, amid the cheers of his soldiers.  The young man swung himself
upon the back of the riderless horse belonging to the killed Colonel,
and followed him, scarce thinking what he was doing.  None forbade him.
Many had seen his prompt and timely action; many watched him as the tide
of battle raged this way and that, and saw that, whether a trained
soldier or not, this young stranger was no novice in the art of war.
The Duke himself turned more than once to watch him, as he joined in
some headlong charge, and turned and wheeled, or gave thrust or parry
with the ease of practice and the skill which only comes through
experience.  Once in a pause he beckoned the young man to his side, and
said,--

"I would speak with you, sir, when I am at leisure.  Come to my
quarters, wherever they may be, when the battle is over.  I have
somewhat to say to you."

The young man bowed low, and promised compliance with this request; but
it was many long hours before he and the victorious General stood face
to face.  The battle itself had been won in less than four hours, but
the pursuit had been long, lasting far into the night; and the dawn was
well-nigh breaking in the eastern sky when Grey received a message that
the Duke desired speech of him in the house at Meklert, where he had
stopped short, whilst his soldiers continued the pursuit of the flying
foe almost up to the walls of Louvain.

Marlborough was sitting at a table, whereon stood the remains of a hasty
meal; and from the writing materials before him, it was plain that he
had been penning one of those dispatches to his wife without which he
could never rest, even after the most arduous day's campaigning.  He had
changed some of his clothes, and though pale and somewhat jaded,
preserved that air of elegance and distinction which was always one of
his most marked characteristics.  But even without spotless linen and
fine array, there was something in the high-bred courtesy of
Marlborough's manner, and in the singular beauty of his face and person,
which always won the hearts of those about him, and particularly so
during those years when the magnificence of his military genius was
making him the man of greatest mark in Europe.

He rose as the young stranger was ushered in, and offered his hand with
a frank and gracious courtesy free from any alloy of condescension or
patronage.

"I wish to thank you in person, sir, for the great service you this day
rendered me with such timely promptitude.  I have never bestridden a
better horse, and owe you much for the loan.  I would fain learn the
name of the gentleman to whom I am so deeply indebted."

"My name, your Grace, is Grey Dumaresq; and that of my horse, Don
Carlos.  I thank you for your gracious words.  We shall feel honoured
for all time in that kind Fortune gave us the chance of rendering you
some small aid in a moment of peril.  The world would have been terribly
the poorer by this day's work, had mischance touched the Duke of
Marlborough!"

The General smiled, and motioned the young man to be seated.  He himself
took a seat opposite, and studied him with some attention.

"If you and your good horse are in any sort disposed to put your
strength and skill at the service of your country, Mr. Dumaresq, I think
I can promise you a position not far from my own person, which will not
be without opportunities of profit, and will give scope to your prowess
with sword and lance, which I have had the opportunity of observing more
than once this day."

The young man's face flushed with pleasure.  He looked eagerly into the
face of the great man.

"Were I a free agent, your Grace, most gladly would I take advantage of
your offer, asking nothing better at Fortune's hands than to serve you
faithfully.  But I am on my way to England to learn news of my father.
For three years I have been absent from my native shores.  For three
years I have been a wanderer, and, I fear me, a spendthrift to boot.  I
have spent or squandered the fortune with which I started forth.  Rumour
has reached me that my father's health has given way, and that I am
needed at home.  I fear me I have not been a good son to him heretofore.
I must therefore seek to be the solace of his declining years, if the
reports I have heard concerning him be true."

Marlborough mused awhile with a slight smile upon his lips.  He had a
good memory for names, and had an idea that Sir Hugh Dumaresq, the
probable father of the youth before him, had not been a man to inspire
any very deep affection in the heart of his son.  He bore the reputation
of being a rake of the first order.  It was said that he had broken his
wife's heart, and cared nothing for the boy who would succeed him.

"That is a pious resolution on your part, my friend.  I trust you may be
rewarded, and I will not seek to stay you.  Methinks your mother was a
good and gentle woman.  Her son will live to do her credit yet."

The young man's eyes lighted, and his face softened.

"My mother was an angel upon this earth.  Would God I had not lost her
so soon!  Did you know her, my lord?  She was kinswoman to the hapless
Lord Grey, who took up the cause of the Duke of Monmouth twenty years
since, and whom your Grace defeated and routed on the field of
Sedgemoor, fatal to so many.  She gave me her name, and she bequeathed
to me the small fortune which passed into my keeping three years ago,
when I came of age.  Since then I have been a wanderer in many lands.  I
have seen hard blows given and taken; I have been in many perils and
battles.  I was with Lord Peterborough when he fell upon the fort of
Mountjuich, and made himself master of Barcelona, just when all hope of
taking it seemed at an end.  I have fought in the ranks of the Duke of
Savoy against the veterans of France.  I have been a soldier of fortune
for this year or more, and though often in peril and hard pressed, have
never received aught but a scratch now and again.  I did hope that I
should not travel northwards without seeing something of the campaign
under the great Duke, whose name is in all men's mouths; but I did not
dare to ask or hope for the honour which has been mine to-day."

Marlborough's eyes lighted as the young man spoke, and he asked many
quick and pertinent questions of the traveller anent those lands of
Spain and Italy, in whose politics and disposition of parties he was so
keenly interested.  He had desired above all things to prosecute this
summer an Italian campaign.  Difficulties with the Dutch field-deputies
alone hindered the more dashing and offensive policy which he would so
gladly have adopted.  He listened with keen interest to Grey's account
of his journey through Savoy, his interview with Victor Amadeus, and his
successful feat of carrying important dispatches into Turin, though
hemmed in by the French, and waiting sorrowfully for relief; and his
escape thence, and journey to the camp or Prince Eugene, who was seeking
to carry relief to the Duke of Savoy, and eventually to drive the French
back over their own borders.

All this was intensely interesting to Marlborough, and he more than ever
felt a desire to keep in his service a youth who seemed to possess so
many of the qualifications which he most prized.  But he was a man, too,
who never undervalued the domestic side of life, or willingly interfered
with the duties engendered by filial or conjugal ties.  So he checked
the words which had well-nigh risen once again to his lips, and only
said graciously,--

"You have indeed been smiled upon by Dame Fortune, Mr. Dumaresq.  Many a
young blood would give half his fortune for the chances you have had.
Methinks the world will hear of you yet.  The brow of a poet, the thews
of a warrior, a head calm and well-balanced, and a soul that shrinks not
in the hour of peril--"

He paused a moment, and the young man's cheek glowed.

"Your Grace thinks too highly of my poor merits, I fear me.  I trust I
have not spoken as a braggart; for, in sooth, it is little I have to
boast me of.  A good horse beneath me, a faithful comrade by my side, a
keen Toledo blade in mine hand, and all else came of itself.  I have
been happy in my days of peril and adventure; but now I must lay aside
my weapons and my roving habits, and strive to show myself a good son,
and take up my duties as my father's right hand and helper, if it be
true that he is laid aside from active life, and needs me with him
henceforth."

Marlborough had taken up a pen, and was writing a few lines upon a sheet
of paper which lay upon the table.  When he had finished, he handed it
open to the young man.

"A pass for yourself and your servant, Mr. Dumaresq; you may find it
useful in passing through a disturbed country.  But you will be wise to
avoid the French frontier, and all cities where they have garrisons, and
to confine yourself to the Dutch Netherlands, to make your way to the
Hague, and thence to England.  With this pass in your possession, you
should then have small difficulty in travelling without molestation.
And let me ask you if you have funds sufficient for your needs, since it
is dear work at times travelling through a country devastated by war,
and I would not have my benefactor crippled for lack of a few pieces of
gold."

The young man's face flushed slightly, but his eyes were frank and
smiling.  He laid his hand upon an inner breast pocket, and tapped it
significantly.

"I thank your Grace from my heart; but, albeit I have squandered my
fortune something too lavishly, I have yet enough and to spare to take
me home. Were it otherwise," he added, with a very engaging look upon
his handsome features, "there is nobody to whom I would be more gladly
indebted than to his Grace of Marlborough."

The Duke's face was pleasant to see.  He had taken a great liking for
this young man.  He hesitated a moment, and said,--

"You would not care to sell your horse?  I would give a goodly price for
such a charger."

"My lord, if I loved him less, most gladly would I beg your Grace's
acceptance of him, and would rejoice that Don Carlos should be thus
honoured.  As it is, he is the greatest friend and best comrade I
possess in the world.  I trow I must needs take him home with me."

"You are right, boy, you are right.  And it is better so; for he might
meet a bloody end any moment in these rough campaigning days.  But you
must not go hence without some token of the good will and gratitude John
Churchill bears you.  Take this ring, and wear it for my sake.  And
should ever trouble, or loss, or misfortune fall upon you, and you be in
need, in my absence abroad, of a friend at home, take it and show it to
my wife.  I shall write to her of this day's peril, and how I was saved
in the nick of time; and when she sees that ring in your hands, she will
know who was her husband's deliverer, and will know, too, how to receive
and reward him."

The ring held out was a large amethyst of great brilliance and beauty,
with a curious oriental-looking head engraved upon it, with what might
be a legend in some Eastern tongue.  It was a trinket which, once seen,
would not easily be forgotten, and Grey Dumaresq slipped it upon his
finger with a smile of gratification.  It was no small thing to feel
himself thus honoured by Europe's greatest general.

He rose to his feet and bowed low; but Marlborough held out his hand and
pressed his fingers warmly. "I shall not forget you, my friend.  I trust
that yours will be one of the faces that will greet me first, when I
shall return home to England after the close of the campaign."

The young man's face lighted with pleasure at these words.

"I think your Grace may rely upon that," he said. "I thank you with all
my heart for this most gracious reception."

"The thanks are mine to give--yours to receive," spoke the Duke with his
winning graciousness. "Farewell, my friend.  May Dame Fortune continue
to smile upon your career; and may you live to be prosperous and famous,
and find one to love and be loved by faithfully--for, believe me,
without true conjugal love, a man's life is desolate and empty, and
nothing can fill the ache of a heart that has no loving ones at home to
rejoice with him in his joy and weep at his misfortunes.  Ambition may
go far, success may be sweet; but it is love which is the true elixir of
life.  A man who loves and is loved can defy misfortune, poverty, even
age and sickness and death; for love alone is eternal."

He spoke like one inspired, and his whole face kindled.  Grey Dumaresq
never forgot the smile upon the face of the great victorious General, as
he saw it in that little room at Meldert on the morrow of the victory of
Ramillies.




                             *CHAPTER II.*

                             *HARTSBOURNE.*


The soft June dusk was falling with dewy freshness over smiling meadow
and forest glade, and the long, long shadows were melting away in the
dimness of a night that would never be dark, when Grey Dumaresq halted
upon the brow of a little hill, and gazed before and around him with
eager pleasure, not untinged with wistfulness.

Somewhere amid those swelling woodlands lying to the south-west lay his
childhood's home.  He had hoped to make this spot ere the sun sank; and
then he knew he could have traced the gleam of the shining streamlet,
slipping like a silver streak between masses of sombre green.  He might
even, if the leaves had not made too thick a screen, have descried the
twisted chimneys and timbered gables of the old house itself.  His heart
beat and his throat swelled as he gazed out over the darkening prospect.
How he had loved that home of his so long as it had been blessed by his
mother's presence there!  With what proud delight had he sometimes
pictured to himself the time when it might be his own, his very own!
From childhood he had been called "the little master--the little heir."
If his mother had not dubbed him so, the servants had.  For Sir Hugh
Dumaresq, alas, had not been a man to inspire either affection or
respect in the hearts of servants or of son, and the child had dreamed
dreams of the golden days which he and his mother might some day enjoy,
when he should be lord of all, and live to wipe away tears from her
eyes, and ensure that nothing should trouble or harass her again.

That fond dream had died its own death when the mother was laid to sleep
beneath the churchyard sod, and the boy, broken-hearted and indifferent
to his fate, had gone forth first to school and then to college, and had
known the sweet word "home" no longer.

It was years now since he had seen Hartsbourne. At first he could not
bear the idea of revisiting it, to find it empty of the one loved
presence which had made it what it was to him.  Afterwards his father
had ceased to dwell there, had lived more and more in London, had even
let the old Manor, as Grey heard before he quitted England for the
roving life of the past three years.

He had been somewhat hurt and angry when this was told him; for he had
planned to go and bid the old place farewell, and he no longer cared to
do so then.  True, it was a kinsman who dwelt there now. His father had
spoken of him with a cynical smile.

"He is next of kin, after you, my son; and he has a greater gift of
thrift than will ever be mine or yours, I take it.  If anything should
befall you on these wanderings upon which your heart is set, he would be
the one to come after me, and take title and estates in his own right.
If he like now to pay me my price, he may share the old house with the
rats and the bats, for all I care.  I love not to spend good money upon
leaking roofs and bowing walls.  Give me the parks and the
coffee-houses, the Mall and the play-house!  The devil may fly away with
that rotten old house, for all I care!"

This sentiment, rapped out with a good many of the fashionable oaths of
the time, had been Grey's first intimation that his beloved old home was
falling into decay.  As a child it had seemed all the more perfect from
that lack of newness or primness, the wildness of the garden, the
encroachments of weed and woodland, which mark the first stages of
decay. These words had opened his eyes to the fact that his father was
letting the old place take care of itself, without regard to the future,
and even then he had been conscious of the stirrings of a certain vague
resentment.  But he had been powerless to act; for although he had just
received a small fortune which his mother had hoarded for him, and which
had been nursed for him by a kinsman on the Grey side, he had no power
to take over Hartsbourne and expend his wealth upon the old home;
moreover, by that time the longing for travel and adventure was keen
upon him, and he had made every arrangement for a tour of the then known
world.  His father rather encouraged than lamented his proposed absence;
and the youth longed to be his own master, and to feel the strength of
his wings.

Yet now, after three years' wandering about the world, Grey found
himself gazing with a swelling heart upon the familiar outlines of the
region of his childhood's home, and the voices of the past seemed
calling him aloud--tender, sweet-toned voices, which had been silent for
long, but which awoke now to cry aloud with strange insistence.

The solemn moon rose over the tree-tops as Grey gazed breathlessly upon
the dim panorama before him, and instantly the world became flooded with
a mystic radiance.  A church spire stood suddenly out like a silver
beacon, and Grey caught his breath as he watched; for his mother's grave
lay beneath the walls of that little church, and the cross upon its apex
seemed like a finger beckoning to him to come.

"Yonder is our goal, Dicon," spoke the young man, as his servant, whom
he had outridden in his eager haste, spurred up the ridge to his side.
"You cannot see the house in this uncertain light; but it lies in yon
deep hollow, away to the right from the church. The river winds about
it, guarding it from ill, as I used to think in my boyish fantasy.  I
have seen the harts and does come down from the forest to drink at its
waters.  Hartsbourne was the name they gave the house, and methinks it
was well named.  Ah me!--to think how many years have passed since I
beheld it all!  Hark!  Can you not hear the old familiar voices calling
the wanderer home?"

The honest servant nodded his head with a smile upon his rugged
features.  He loved his young master devotedly, and was not unaccustomed
to share his musings, whether they were dashed with poetic melancholy or
were full of reckless daring. Whatever his master's mood, honest Dick
admired him with equal fervour.  As their horses picked a way down the
descent in the darkness, he hazarded a question.

"You think you will find your noble father there, sir?"

"Why, surely yes, Dicon.  Where should a man be when failing in health
and strength, if not at his own home?"

"As for that, sir, I know nothing.  But you have told me how that he
loved not his own house, but gave it over into the hands of his kinsman,
that he might take his pleasure elsewhere."

"Very true, Dicon; but that was when he was hale and strong.  When
ill-health and feebleness overtook him, I doubt not that all was
changed. True, I have not heard from him these many months; but that is
no marvel, since I myself have been a very wandering Jew.  But the
gentleman who brought me news of him unawares did say that he was about
to quit London, for whose giddy round he had no longer strength or
inclination.  I have never doubted but that Hartsbourne would be the
place of his choice; and hither have I come.  I might have learned news
of him by going straight to London; but why turn aside from our way for
that, when I feel so sure that it is here we shall find him?  Doth not
nature call every man home to his bed at night, and to his own home at
the close of his life?  My father is not old--Heaven send he may live
long yet; but if disease has crippled his powers and robbed him of his
zest of life, I doubt not but that it is here we shall surely find him."

Two days previously the travellers had landed safely at the port of
Harwich, having had a safe and speedy crossing from the Hague.  The pass
given them by the Duke of Marlborough had rendered their journey from
Louvain an easy one. From the seaport, Grey had taken the direct road
into Hertfordshire, feeling certain that here, and not in London, would
he now find his father.  He had hoped to arrive ere set of sun; but a
few mischances along the road, and the sultry heat of the midday hours,
had delayed them.  Nevertheless, being now so near, he pressed on
steadily.  He could not rest so near to home, save beneath the old
roof-tree.  As the windings of the path grew more familiar, his heart
throbbed in his breast.  Here they passed the boundary of his father's
estate.  That broken cross marked the spot.  And yonder, sleeping in the
moonlight, hoary and beautiful, lay the ruined fragments of what had
once been an old priory.  He could see that the walls had crumbled away
during his years of absence; but one beautiful arch still stood as of
old, the delicate tracery showing clear in the moonlight.  White owls
flitted from the thick wreaths of ivy, and hooted weirdly as they sailed
by on noiseless wing.  A wild cat leaped out with a menacing yell, and
both horses snorted and plunged at the sight and sound.  Dick's hand was
on his pistol stock; but seeing what it was, he uttered a half uneasy
laugh.

"A bad omen, my master," he spoke, as he quieted his horse.  "That wild
black thing was liker some witch or devil than aught I have clapped eyes
on this many a day.  Saints preserve us from spell or charm!"

For Dick, albeit a good Protestant by profession, had caught some of the
phrases of the people in whose lands he had dwelt, and he was by no
means free from superstition, though a bold enough rogue to meet any
peril that he could combat with sword or bullet.

"Tush, Dicon!  Dost fear a cat, man?  For my part, I love all the wild
things of the woods, and would be the friend of all.  See yonder!  There
should be a tangled path leading down through the forest glade, and
across the stream by a ford to the house itself.  Methinks I cannot lose
the way, though the path be overgrown, and the light
treacherous.--Onward, good Carlos!  Fodder and rest are nigh at hand.
Within the space of half an hour you and I should both be installed
safely at home."

Home!  The word was as music to his ears.  It seemed to set itself to
the beat of the horses' hoofs along the tangled path, which Grey had
some trouble in finding.  But once found, he was able to trace it
without difficulty; and soon the soft whisper of the water fell upon his
ears, and the stream lay before him shining in the moonlight.

How beautiful it was upon this still June night! The young green of the
trees could not shut out the silvery beams of the moon.  The forest was
full of whispering voices, and every voice seemed to be welcoming back
the stranger-son.  The warblers amid the sedges and the fringe of alders
along the course of the winding stream filled the air with soft music,
not less sweet, if less powerful, than that of the nightingale pouring
out his heart in song a little farther away.  Sometimes a sleeping deer
in some deep hollow sprang up almost from beneath their feet, and
dashed, phantom-like, away into the dim aisles of the wood.

And now the wall loomed up before them which separated the house and its
precincts from the wilderness of wood and water beyond.  Grey well knew
this mouldering wall, from which the coping had fallen in many places,
and which showed more than one ill-repaired breach in the once sound
masonry. The ivy had grown into a tangled mass upon it, and was helping
to drag it down.  Any active marauder could have scaled it easily.  But
Grey turned his horse, and skirted round it for some distance.  For he
knew that a door at the angle gave entrance into the stable-yard, and
from thence to the courtyard and entrance-hall of the old house; and as
it was already past midnight, he preferred to take this way rather than
approach by the avenue to the front of the house.

He turned the angle of the wall, and there was the entrance he was
making for.  But how desolate it all looked!  The double doors had
rusted from off their hinges, and stood open, none seeming to care to
close them at night.  The courtyard was so grass-grown that the feet of
the horses scarcely sounded as they entered.  A range of stables stood
half open, some mouldy straw rotting in the stalls, but no signs of life
either in the stables below or the living-rooms above.  Grey directed
Dicon to the forage store, and bade him look if there were not something
to be found there for the horses; and whilst the man was thus engaged,
finding enough odds and ends to serve for a meal for the beasts, the
master passed through an inner door into a second courtyard, and gazed
upward at a range of lancet windows which, in former days, had belonged
to the rooms occupied by the servants.

Not a light glimmered in any casement; not a dog barked challenge or
welcome.  It was not wonderful that the house should be dark and silent
at such an hour; but it was more than darkness which reigned here.
There was a look of utter desolation and neglect brooding over the
place.  Broken casements hung crazily, and swung creaking in the night
air. Tiles had slipped from the roof, chimney stacks seemed tottering to
their fall.  True, the great nail-studded oaken door, which Grey well
remembered as leading through a long arched passage past the servants'
quarters and into the front entrance-hall, was closed and locked; but
rust had eaten deep into all the iron work, and cobwebs hung in festoons
from the eaves of the dilapidated porch.

In vain Grey beat upon the door with the pommel of his sword.  Not a
sound from within betokened the presence of living creature.  A sudden
fear shook him lest he had come too late.  This idea had never troubled
him before.  His father was still young in years.  Dissipation might
have weakened him, made him an easy prey to disease; but surely, surely
had aught worse than that befallen, he would have heard it--he would
have been summoned back.  It was not any very tender bond that had
existed betwixt father and son; but after all, they had no one else.
Grey felt his heart grow suddenly cold within him.

Then a new idea entered his head.  He turned away from the door, and
passed hastily through the courtyard into a walled enclosure beyond,
which had plainly once been a fine kitchen-garden, where giant espaliers
still lined the paths, and masses of apple blossom glimmered ghostly in
the moonlight.  Striding along one of the paths under the house wall,
where shuttered windows, looking like blind eyes, gave back a stony
stare, he reached at last a quaint little offshoot of the house, set in
an angle where house and garden wall joined; and he uttered a short
exclamation of satisfaction as he saw that here there were traces of
habitation in clean, bright window panes, flowers in a strip of border
beneath, and a door that looked as though it could move upon its hinges.
Upon this door he thumped with hearty good will.

"Jock!  Jock!  Wake up, man--wake up!  Don't tell me that you are a
ghost too--that the old house is peopled only with ghosts of the
past.--A dog's bark!  Good!  Where there is dog, there is man.--Wake up,
Jock!  Wake up and open the door. Have no fear.  It is I--the young
master."

"God bless my soul!  Ye don't say so!" cried a cracked voice from
within.--"Quiet, Ruff; be still, man!--Yes, yes, I'm comin', I'm
comin'."

The sound of a bolt slipped back gave evidence of this, and next moment
the door was opened from within, a shaggy head was thrust forth, and an
old man, evidently just risen from his bed, gazed for a moment at the
intruder, who stood plainly revealed in the moonlight and uttered a
heartfelt exclamation.

"Heaven be praised!--it is Sir Grey himself!"

The young man fell back as though before a blow. "Sir Grey!  What mean
you by that, Jock?  Sir Grey!"

"Why, master dear, you surely have heard the news!  You have been Sir
Grey since the week after Christmas."

"You mean--my father--nay, Jock--how can I speak the words?"

"He died two days after Christmas, Sir Grey.  He had me with him to the
last.  He never trusted that knave of a kinsman, not he, though he had
let himself get fast into his clutches.  Ah, if you had but been with us
then!  Woe is me! for we wanted you sorely.  It was hard upon All
Saints' Day that the old master came back.  He was sick; he had lost the
use of his limbs.  The leeches said they could do naught for him, but
that he might live to be an old man yet.  He made light of it at first.
He vowed he would cheat them all.  But we all saw death in his face.  In
two months he lay over yonder by the side of our sweet lady."

Jock, though no great speaker at ordinary times, had made, for him, a
long speech, because the young master said not a word, but stood leaning
against the angle of the wall as though overcome by the news he had
heard.

"And why was I not sent for?"  The words were a whisper.

"You were, Sir Grey, you were--leastways the master told me so.  He said
that Mr. Barty had written many letters, and sent them after you by
trusty messengers.  But Lord, if 'twere only what that rogue said,
belike the trusty messenger was nothing better than the fire, into which
he dropped his own letters after satisfying the master by writing them."

"What mean you, Jock?" asked Grey, with dry lips.  "And who is this Mr.
Barty of whom you speak?"

"Faith, none other but him as hopes one day to style himself Sir
Bartholomew Dumaresq--your father's cousin, Sir Grey, and next of kin
after you. 'Tis he as has got his grip so fast upon Hartsbourne that
it'll be a tough bit of work to shake it off.  He's got mortgages on the
place, the old master told me at the last, and he's been squeezing it
like a sponge these many years--cutting the timber, grinding the
tenants, living like a miser in one corner of the house, letting all
else go to wrack and ruin, that there may be nothing for the heir to
come into.  Oh, the master saw through him at the last, that he did; but
'twas too late then.  Here he is, stuck fast like a leech to the old
place, and sucking its life-blood dry, and protected by the law, so that
even you can't touch him; the master told me that before he died.  He'd
got him to sign papers when he was merry with wine, and knew not nor
cared what he signed.  So long as Mr. Barty supplied him with money, he
cared for naught else; and now he's got such a grip on house and lands
that it'll be a matter of years before ever he can be got out, if ever
that day come at all."

A numb feeling began to creep over Grey.  He felt like one walking in a
bad dream.  The blow of hearing of his father's death was a heavy one.
It seemed to shake the foundations of his life to their very base.  And
now his home was lost to him! Little as he understood the machinations
of his kinsman, he grasped that he had come into nothing but a barren
title and nominal possession of a ruinous and dilapidated old house, the
revenues of which were in some way alienated to another.  He had heard
such tales before.  He did not discredit old Jock's recital. It fitted
in only too well with what he knew of his father's recklessness and
selfish expenditure, and his kinsman's artful grasping policy.  So,
after all, he had come to a home that was not his; and he would have to
face the world again as something very like a beggar.

Old Jock's hand upon his arm aroused him to a sense of outward things.
Dicon had come up, and was listening with wide eyes and falling jaw to
the recital of the same story as had been told in outline to Grey.  The
fuller details only made it sound more true and lifelike.

"Come in, Sir Grey, come in.  There's bite and sup for you in the
cupboard.  The old master didn't forget me, and I can make shift to earn
my bread by hook or by crook even without regular wage.  Come in, come
in, and I'll give ye what I've got for ye. 'Twas all the old master had
left from his hoard; but he said it would give you a start in life, and
that your wits must do the rest.  He gave it me private like, when Mr.
Barty was off the place, and I buried it beneath the hearthstone that
same day.  'Tis all safe for you, Sir Grey; and you won't go penniless
into the world, for all that this villain of a kinsman reigns at
Hartsbourne, where you should be."




                             *CHAPTER III.*

                        *THE SCHEMING KINSMAN.*


They sat face to face in a room which Grey well remembered.  It had been
lined with folios in those days--great tomes in which he had dug with
breathless delight, for the treasures of wood-cuts and the strange
stories they possessed--and illuminated missals, where, amid a mass of
gilding and wonderful colours, the story of saint or martyr could be
traced. Other and more modern works had been also there, specimens of
the art of printing as carried on through the days of the Stuarts.  But
where were all these tomes and scrolls and books now?  Grey swept the
empty shelves with quick, indignant glances.  A motion of his hands
seemed to ask the question his lips were too proud to speak.

A small and wizened man sat before him, his eyes furtively scanning the
young man's face with an unwinking attention.  He could not have been
old, this parchment-faced kinsman--not more than five-and-forty at the
most--and yet he wore the look of an old man, and was fond of speaking
of himself as such. The unhealthy pallor of his face bespoke a life of
inaction, and the lines and wrinkles on the puffy skin, and the
emaciation of the frame and claw-like hands, seemed either to indicate
some wasting disease, or else a miser-like habit of life which denied
its owner the common necessaries of existence.  Grey fancied that
perhaps this latter surmise might be the right one; for he himself would
have fared ill at breakfast that morning, had it not been for the fish
which Dicon had caught and cooked for the pair, ere he presented himself
at the meal to which his kinsman invited him on hearing of his advent to
the old house.  That meal had been so frugal that Grey almost disdained
to partake of it.  And now he and Mr. Dumaresq sat facing each other in
the green light which fell through the big north window, against which
the trees almost brushed, rather like combatants in a duel, each of
which measures the strength and skill of the other before attempting to
strike.

The wizened man made a deprecating gesture with his hand, and answered
the unspoken question.

"Sold, sold--every one of them!  I did my best to keep them in the
family, but it was of no avail. Your father would have money--no matter
at what cost.  I was toiling all I knew for him, as it was. Everything
that could be got out of the estate I squeezed out for him.  Never man
had so faithful a steward as I was to my poor cousin.  But it was like
pouring water through a sieve.  Nay, you need not look so fiercely at
me.  I am not traducing the dead. Ask those with whom he consorted.  Ask
the boon companions he made in gay London town.  Ask his very servants,
an you will.  You will hear the same tale from all.  He spent money like
water.  Never did he trouble his head where it was to come from. I have
papers; I can show them if you have knowledge of the law enough to
understand.  I advanced him sum after sum, on such poor security as this
tumble-down house and impoverished estate has to offer.  I beggared
myself for his sake.  He was the only kinsman left me.  I could deny him
nothing. And when my funds were gone, I must needs squeeze all that
could be squeezed out of the house and land. The books went; the timber
was felled; the pictures were taken away; the best of the furniture went
to adorn the houses of merchants and parvenus.  I argued and entreated
in vain.  When the wild fit was upon him, Hugh would listen to nothing.
I had to content myself with serving him, by seeing that he was not
cheated beyond bearing by the crew of harpies he had around him.  At
least I secured him equitable prices for family heirlooms; but it went
to my heart to see them vanish one by one.  And now, what is left save
the shell of the old house, and an estate burdened and impoverished
well-nigh beyond the power of redemption?"

He heaved a great sigh, looking cunningly at the young man out of the
corners of his ferret-like eyes. Grey's glance was stern and direct.
His words were quietly and coldly spoken.

"We will see about that.  I am here to take up my burden.  I will learn
whether or not Hartsbourne be past redemption."

"You!" cried 'Mr. Dumaresq quickly; "and pray what can you do?"

"I can live here quietly, and see what can be done towards retrieving
the past.  Even if I toil with my own hands, I shall think it no shame,
if it be for the home of my forefathers."

"You live here!" sneered the other, seeking to mask the sneer by a
smile; "and by what right will you do that, pray?"

"I am the owner," answered Grey proudly.  "I presume that I have the
right to live in my own house, and to administer such revenues as may be
left to the estate?"

"Oh yes, fair kinsman, so soon as the mortgages be paid.  I will get
them out for your high mightiness to examine.  Pay them off, and house
and manor are yours to do with as you will.  But till that time come, I,
and not you, am master here.  The revenues are mine; the house I have
the right to occupy, to the exclusion of any other.  It is all writ fair
to see--signed and sealed.  Will you see the papers for yourself?  They
will make pleasant study for a summer morning."

"I will look at the papers anon," answered Grey quietly; "but first I
would know from you what it all means.  It is you, not I, to whom
Hartsbourne belongs, then?  You are the master, and I am the guest?"

"For the present, yes; but a welcome guest, none the less," spoke the
older man with a repulsive leer. "The situation, my bold young cousin,
is easily understood.  Your father loved not the old family house. I did
love it.  Could he have sold it, it would have been mine long since; but
he had not the power to alienate it from the title.  But he did all else
that was possible.  He raised mortgage upon mortgage upon it--first on
the house, then on the land.  I came to live in the house, and paid him
rent for it once. Then I supplied him with money and took up the
mortgages.  He and I had been boys together.  The tie between us was
strong.  I verily believe he was glad to have me here, and when he was
sick and smitten with mortal disease he came hither to die, and I was
with him to the last.  He was grateful for my devoted service.  He was
glad to think that I should live on here afterwards.  'It is no life for
a young man,' he said almost at the last.  'Grey will carve out a career
for himself.  Here he could only rot and starve like a rat in a hole.'
And I pointed out that you were my natural heir, and that you might not
have very long to wait before coming a second time into your
inheritance."

Grey sat silent and baffled.  It was little he knew of the law; but he
had heard before this of men who had left nothing save debts and
troubles for those who came after them.  Many a fair manor and estate
passed into alien hands for years, or even for generations, when trouble
fell upon the owners.  He understood only too well how it had been here
at Hartsbourne--everything squeezed out of the estate, nothing put in,
till at last the house was falling into ruin, and the rights of the lord
of the manor had passed away from the owner.  It was no consolation to
Grey that a Dumaresq had supplanted him.  He was cut to the heart by the
selfish extravagance of his father, and the way in which he had played
into the hands of this schemer.  He saw how impossible it would be to
attempt to live here himself, even if he could establish a legal right
to do so.  He was not certain if his father could have done anything
which should actually hinder him from claiming possession of the house
which was his, but to find money to pay off the mortgages--he might as
well have sought for money to buy the moon!  And even then, how could he
live in a house without money, without servants, without friends?  No;
he must seek to carve out a fortune for himself.  His fair dream of a
peaceful life in England as a country squire was shattered into a
thousand pieces.  Some day perhaps--some day in the dim and distant
future, when fortune and fame were his--he might come back to take
possession of his own.  It should be his dream--the goal of his
ambition--to dwell at Hartsbourne as its lord and master.  But for the
present he could call nothing his own save the good horse cropping the
lush June grass in the paddock, and that casket so carefully hidden
beneath the hearthstone of old Jock's living-room. He would look at the
papers.  He would make careful study of them.  He would take notes as to
the amount necessary to clear the estate and make him master in reality.
And then he would go; he would not be beholden to this kinsman, whose
shifty face he distrusted heart and soul, though his words were smooth
and fair.  He would ride forth into the fair world of an English
midsummer, and would see what the future held there for him.

It was not an exhilarating hour which he spent over the parchments
spread out before his eyes, which were eagerly explained to him by the
lynx-eyed kinsman, who seemed half afraid to trust them out of his own
claw-like clutches.  But Grey perused them with attention, making notes
the while; and after studying these at the close, whilst the deeds were
being locked away, he said,--

"Then when I return with thirty thousand pounds in my pocket, I can take
over Hartsbourne, house and lands and all, and be master of my own
estate in deed as well as in word?"

"And how are you to come by this thirty thousand pounds, fair coz?"
asked Mr. Dumaresq, with something slightly uneasy in his shifty glance.
"Right gladly would I receive mine own, and make way for a gallant
gentleman like you; but where are these riches of Aladdin to come from?"

"Perchance from the same source as yours did come, sir," answered Grey,
looking full at his interlocutor.  "The Dumaresqs have not ranked as a
wealthy family since the days of the Civil War, when they lost so much.
But you seem to have found fortune's golden key; and if you, why not I?"

Did he shrink and cower under these words, or was it only Grey's fancy
that he did so?  The young man could not be sure, though he had his
suspicions.  At any rate he spoke suavely enough.

"Thrift and care, my young friend, care and thrift--these qualities are
better than any golden key of hazard.  My father was a careful, saving
man, and at his death bequeathed me greater wealth than I dreamed he did
possess.  I followed in his footsteps until, for your father's sake, I
elected to prop the falling fortunes of the house rather than live in
selfish affluence on my own revenues.  Well, I did what seemed right;
and my reward shall be the hope of seeing Hartsbourne one day restored
to its former glories.  But for the present I must needs live like a
poor man, though that is no trouble to one who has ever made thrift the
law of life."

Grey went forth from the presence of his kinsman with a cloud on his
brow and a fire in his heart.

"Why doth he speak of himself as poor?" he asked of himself.  "He takes
to himself all the revenues of the estate; and when I was a boy, I
always heard that the farms were prosperous, the land fertile, the
timber fine, game and deer plentiful, and the tenants able to pay their
dues.  If all that comes in goes into his pocket, wherefore doth he live
like a miser? wherefore doth he let the house fall into decay? he ruined
himself for my father's sake?  Tush! A man with that face sacrifice
himself for another! Nay; but he is hoarding up gold for himself, or I
greatly mistake me.  Truly do I believe that he is playing some deep
game of his own.  Well, I can but wait and see what time will bring
forth.  It is a shame that the old house should be left to go to ruin
like this, with its revenues falling regularly into the hands of a
Dumaresq!  Why doth he not spend them upon the fine old structure, to
make it what it was before?  Why, now I see.  He thinks it would
stimulate me to fresh desire to make myself master. He may haply think
that I care not for a habitation given up to rats and ghosts and
cobwebs.  He little thinks that every fallen stone seems to cry out
aloud to me, and that the lower falls the old house in ruin and neglect,
the more urgent is the voice with which it urges me to come and save
it."

The young man was walking up and down the grass-grown avenue as he thus
mused.  From thence he could see in perspective the long south front,
with its many mullioned windows, its beautiful oriels, and the terrace
up and down which he had raced in the days of his happy childhood.
Straight in front was the eastern portion of the house, with its great
entrance doors, led up to by a fine double stairway, beneath which a
coach could stand, and its occupants in wet weather enter by a lower
door.  But the stone work was chipped and broken; the balustrade had
lost many of its balls, which lay mouldering in the long grass that grew
up to the very walls.  Moss and lichen and stone-crop clothed all, and
the creepers which clung about the house itself were wild and tangled,
and in many cases had completely overgrown the very windows, so that
scarce a trace of them could be seen.

Yet even in its decay the old house was strangely beautiful, and Grey's
heart was stirred to its depths. He wandered through the tangled garden,
and out towards the fish-ponds beyond and then by a winding pathway he
made his way to the churchyard, and stood bare-headed at his mother's
grave.

"I will win it back, mother; I will win it back!"  He spoke the words
aloud, in a low-toned, earnest voice.  "You loved the place, and you
taught me to love it.  For that alone I would seek to call it one day
mine own.  I will win it back, and methinks your heart will rejoice when
your son is ruling there at last."

Grey had meant to leave that very day; but there was much he longed to
see, and his kinsman had given him an earnest invitation to pass the
night beneath the old roof-tree.  Repugnant as this man was to him, and
bitterly as he resented his conduct and distrusted his motives, it was
not in the young man's nature to be churlish.  Every hour of daylight he
spent wandering about the place, revisiting his boyish haunts, and
chatting with old Jock, who, without being able to give any exact reason
for it, distrusted and despised the present master as heartily as Grey
himself.

"The old master did too, at the last.  I am main sure of it," he said;
"else for why should he have given me yon box, sir?  And why should he
have bidden me hide it and guard it, and let none see it till Sir Grey
should claim it himself?  For years he had thought him a friend; but I
trow he knew him for a false one at the last.  You'll best him yet, Sir
Grey--see if you don't.  A villain always outwits himself in the end.
You'll be master here one day, please God, or my name's not Jock
Jarvis!"

Grey had taken out the casket, and found that it contained three hundred
golden guineas--the remnant of his father's fortune, and all that he had
been able to preserve to his son of what had once been a fine estate.  A
few words cautioned Grey to be careful of the hoard, and let no one know
of its existence--"no one" plainly meaning his kinsman.  It also
contained a few faintly traced words of farewell, and just a plea for
forgiveness--evidently written when mortal weakness was upon the
writer--which brought sudden tears to the eyes of the son, and blotted
out the bitterness of heart which had been growing up as he mused upon
his fallen fortunes and his lost inheritance.

That evening Grey supped with his kinsman in a corner of the despoiled
library, which seemed the only room in the house now lived in.  He had
walked through some of the other state apartments, denuded of their
pictures and the best of the furniture, and looking ghostlike with
closed shutters and overgrown windows.  He had not had heart to pursue
his investigations far; and all that he carried away with him were
saddened memories, and one little mouldering volume of poems, with his
mother's name on the fly leaf, which he had found lying in a corner of
the little room with the sunny oriel, where she had passed the greater
part of her time.  He thought he even remembered the book in her hands;
and he slipped it into his breast as though it were some great treasure.
The sneering smile of his kinsman as he bade him keep the volume, and
saw where he placed it, did not endear him any the more.  He wished he
could get rid of his companionship, but that seemed impossible; and Grey
soon gave up the tour of the house, and let himself be led back to the
library.

"No, I have no plans," he said briefly, as they sat at their frugal
supper, to which, in honour of the occasion, a small flagon of wine had
been added.  "I think I shall remain in England.  I have been a wanderer
something too long.  A homely saying tells us that the rolling stone
gathers no moss.  I have youth and health and strength, and the world
lies before me.  Men have won success with more against them before
this, and why not I?"

"I should have thought the battlefield would have tempted you.  There is
honour and renown to be won there, to say nothing of the spoils of a
vanquished foe," spoke Mr. Dumaresq, looking at him in a peering, crafty
fashion.  "Surely a gallant young gentleman of your birth and training
would not lack for opportunities of distinction amid the perils and
glories of war!"

Suddenly Grey became aware that his kinsman was anxious for him to go
and fight in the cause of the Allies.  It could not be that he had heard
of the happy chance which had made Marlborough his friend, for he had
spoken of that to none; and even if Dicon had boasted to old Jock,
neither cared to have aught to do with the deaf and cross-grained
serving-man who waited upon the master within doors.  A moment more and
Grey had found the clue, and realized that his own death would make
Bartholomew Dumaresq not only absolute master of Hartsbourne, but a
baronet to boot; and in every battle thousands of brave soldiers were
left dead upon the field, whilst many fell victim to wounds and the
ravages of disease caught during the hard weeks of campaigning.

"I think I shall remain in England," he answered quietly.  "I have seen
something of war, but a career of peace has more attractions for me;"
and he smiled to see the look of chagrin which played for a moment over
the crafty face of his kinsman.

Grey did not find it easy to sleep when he had climbed up into the great
canopied bed in the guest chamber allotted to him.  He scarcely
remembered this room.  It was very large, and before he went to rest
Grey drew aside all the mouldering draperies from the windows, and
opened every casement wide to the summer night.  Even so the place felt
musty. There were strange creakings and groanings of the furniture, and
the owls without hooted and hissed in the ivy wreaths.  More than one
bat flew in and out, circling over his head in uncanny flight; and had
it not been that the previous night had been an almost sleepless one,
Grey would scarce have closed an eye. As it was, he grew drowsy
gradually, and felt a strange swimming in his head to which he was a
stranger.  He was just wondering whether the wine he had taken at
supper, the taste of which seemed curious to him at the time, could have
anything to do with this, when sleep suddenly fell upon him like a pall,
and for a space he could not gauge he remained lapped in the
unconsciousness of oblivion.

What was it roused him?  Or was he indeed awake?  The moonlight streamed
into the room, and lay like bars upon the floor.  Its radiance was
sufficient to light every corner of the room, and Grey found himself
lying still as a stone, yet sweeping every corner with his gaze, for
surely he was not alone.  He felt some presence close beside him, yet
where could it be?

Suddenly his gaze travelled upwards, and for a few awful seconds he lay
gazing as the bird before the gaze of the snake.

A shining poniard hung, as it were, over his head. He saw the gleaming
silver of the blade.  Its haft was grasped by a hand--a lean, claw-like
hand.  Its point was aimed at his own heart.

For a few endless seconds Grey lay staring up helplessly.  Then the
blade moved swiftly downwards. With a motion as swift, the young man
threw himself sidewise out of bed and upon the floor, and turning,
sprang to his feet to meet the murderous foe.

Behold there was nothing!  He was alone in the great moonlit room.  The
curtains behind the bed's head were slightly shaken--nothing more.

Horrified and bewildered, Grey dashed them aside. Behind was a wall
panelled like the rest of the room in black oak.  Was it his fancy, or
had he heard just as he sprang to his feet the click as of a closing
spring? Grey passed his hand over and over the woodwork, but could find
nothing to give a clue.  Old memories of secret sliding panels, unknown
passages to hiding-places, and ghostly visitants to sleeping guests,
rose in succession before him.  But this was something more than an
ordinary ghostly visitor.  Grey saw again the murderous gleam of cold
steel over his head--saw the claw-like hand in its faded russet sleeve,
the fierce downward sweep of the weapon.

"It was my kinsman, and he sought to do me to death--here in the haunted
chamber, where perhaps some infernal machinery exists whereby the corpse
could have been quickly and quietly removed and heard of no more.  Who
would care save Dicon, and what could a poor varlet like that do if the
master of Hartsbourne were to assert that his kinsman had ridden off in
the early hours of the morning, he knew not whither?  Did he drug the
wine?  Was this in his head all the while?  Or was the idea suggested
only by my refusal to place my neck in peril at the wars?  O Barty,
Barty Dumaresq, a pretty villain art thou!  Before this I might perhaps
have been tempted to return to the Duke, and seek to win my spurs at his
side; but now--no.  I will take the safer, if the slower, path to fame
and fortune, and I will live to make you rue the day you sought to rid
yourself, by secret assassination, of the man in whose shoes you hope
some day to stand."




                             *CHAPTER IV.*

                             *ON THE ROAD.*


With the first streak of midsummer dawn Grey Dumaresq was in the
paddock, looking well to the condition of his horse, and grooming the
soft, satin coat lovingly with his own hands.

"We must be up and away, my beauty, ere the sun be high.  This is no
place for either you or me, albeit every foot of ground is mine own, and
it will go hard if I let that weasel-faced scoundrel filch it altogether
from me.  I know him now in his true colours.  Heaven send the day may
come when I shall repay with interest that which I owe him."

The horse tossed his head and neighed as though in response; and perhaps
Dicon heard the sound from where he slept, for almost at once he was at
his master's side; and old Jock came cautiously out by the doorway
leading towards the house, and looked relieved and gratified to see the
young master abroad.

"Eh, but I have been sore troubled with bad dreams this night," he said,
as he shambled up.  "Yon house is full of such, I take it.  How slept
you, my master? and how fare you this morn?  It is good to see you
looking so spruce and sound.  Bad luck to the dreams that drove sleep
from my pillow at last."

"I had my dreams too, Jock, and I have not slept since," answered Grey,
with a significant glance at the old man.  "Tell me, good fellow, what
know you of the panelled guest-chamber, with the row of windows looking
south over the park?  Ha! why look you so, man?  What know you of the
chamber?"

"Did he put you there, my master?  Then Peter lied to me, the
false-tongued knave.  If I had known that!  No wonder the dreams were
bad that came to me.  The haunted room!  Tush! it is not ghosts that
hurt, but men who come and go at will and leave no trace behind."

"I thought so," spoke Grey composedly.  "Then there is a secret way of
entrance into that room?"

"Ay, behind the bed.  I do not know the trick, but I have heard of it.
Men have been done to death in that room ere this, and none the wiser
for it.  Oh if I had but known!"

Grey's eyes were fixed full upon the pallid face of the old man.  He put
the next question gravely and almost sternly.

"Tell me truly, my friend.  Think you that this kinsman of mine would
plot to do me hurt?  He made profession of friendship."

"He made the same to Sir Hugh," answered Jock in a trembling voice, "and
for long the master believed in him.  But methinks he never would have
died as he did, had he not come to live here with Mr. Barty at
Hartsbourne."

Grey started and changed colour, clinching his hand,

"You think that this kinsman of ours compassed his death?"

Jock looked over his shoulder as though fearful of listening ears.  He
drew a step nearer; and Dicon, with fallen jaw and staring eyes, came up
close to listen.

"How can I tell?  I was seldom in the house.  I work in the garden, and
because I am a cheap servant, asking no money, but making a pittance by
what I can sell, Mr. Barty has kept me here where he found me.  But when
the old master came, he often sent for me.  Before he became too ill, he
sometimes crawled to my little cottage yonder for a bit of chat. He told
me the doctors and leeches told him he had but to rest and live simply
in the country for a few years to be a sound man again.  But for all
that he dwindled and dwindled away, and was gone in two months."

"Did no leech attend him here?" asked Grey breathlessly.

"Not till the very last, when they sent me to Edgeware to fetch one who
could do naught.  Mr. Barty professed to know many cures, and the master
believed in him.  He eased his pain, but he sank into an
ever-increasing, ever-mastering drowsiness, and he shrank away to skin
and bone.  It went to my heart to see him.  Many's the time when I have
wondered whether it would have ended so if he had not taken Mr. Barty's
simples and draughts."

"Was he poisoned, then?" asked Grey, between his shut teeth.

Jock looked nervously over his shoulder; the word seemed to frighten
him.  He shook his old head from side to side.

"Nay, nay, how can I tell--a poor old ignorant man like me?  But he used
to say that you would likely never come home again (travellers met such
a deal of peril, he would say), and then his eyes would gleam and
glisten, for there was but the old master's life and yours betwixt him
and the title and all."

Grey ground his teeth, and his eyes flashed. Somehow he did not doubt
for a moment that foul play had been used to compass his father's death.
Had he not escaped assassination himself that night only by the skin of
his teeth?

"Could any man living throw light upon this matter?" he asked.  "The
leech from Edgeware, or any other?"

"I misdoubt me if any could, save wall-eyed Peter, Mr. Barty's man; and
I trow his master makes it worth while for him to hold his tongue and
know nothing."

"Gold will sometimes unloose a miscreant's tongue."

"Ay, ay, maybe; but Mr. Barty's purse is longer than yours, Sir Grey,
and his mind is crookeder and his ways more artful.  Don't you go for to
anger him yet: hurt might come to you an you did.  Get you gone from the
place, and that right soon; for the sooner you leave Hartsbourne behind
you, the safer it will be for you."

"Yes, my master; let us indeed be gone," pleaded Dicon earnestly.  "This
is a God-forsaken hole, not fit for you to dwell in.  Take the store of
gold pieces, and let us begone, for I trow that harm will come to you if
you linger longer here."

It took little to persuade Grey to be off and away. Old Jock provided
them with a meal, and they could break their fast at the old inn at
Edgeware, through which they would pass.  He had no desire to go through
the farce of a farewell to his kinsman.  He only desired to shake off
the dust of his feet against him; and ere the chimes of the church rang
out the hour of six, Grey was turning on the crest of a ridge of rising
ground, to look his last for the nonce upon the old home he had dreamed
of so many a time, and round which so many loving thoughts centred.

"Let kind Fortune but smile upon me, Dicon, and show me the way to
affluence and fame, and I will yet be lord and master there, and the
manor of Hartsbourne shall be one of the fairest in the land!"

"Why, so you shall, Sir Grey, and that right speedily!" cried honest
Dick, who had an unbounded admiration for his young master, and an
immense confidence in his luck, albeit no special good fortune had
befallen him since he had taken service with him.

Dick had led a seafaring life during his earlier years, and Grey had
picked him up in a shipwrecked, ragged, and starving condition on the
coast of Spain some two years previously.  In those days ship-wrecked
sailors often had a hard time of it, even though the terrors of the
galleys or the Inquisition did not loom quite so perilously before them
as had been the case a century before.  To find himself taken into the
service of a young English gentleman of quality, and to be the companion
of his travels, had been a piece of luck that Dick thanked Providence
for every day of his life.  He had been one of four servants at the
outset; but as Grey's resources diminished, or his roving life took him
into perils for which some men had little stomach, he gradually lost his
retinue, till, for the past year, Dick alone had followed him, and the
two had become friends and comrades, as well as master and servant.  Now
at their first halting-place, where they paused to let the horses
breathe after a steady half-hour's gallop, Grey opened the wallet at his
side, which he had filled with gold pieces from the casket (the rest he
had sewn carefully into his clothes for safety), and counted out a
certain number, which he shook in his fist as he spoke.

"Dicon, I am going to London to try my luck there.  But, as I have
ofttimes heard, fortunes are as easily lost there as won, wherefore it
may be that I shall become a beggar instead of growing in wealth and
greatness."

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Dick in passionate protest.

"Well, Heaven watches over the undeserving as well as the virtuous, so
there is e'en hope for me," answered Grey with his winning smile.  "But
look ye here, Dicon.  You have been a faithful rogue, and have served me
well, and I hope we may company together many a long day yet.  But
inasmuch as there are uncertainties in life, and we are going forth into
a new world, where perchance I may sink rather than swim, I desire to
give you six months' wage in advance, whilst I have my pockets lined
with gold, so that should any untoward chance befall me, as it has
befallen better men than myself, I shall not have to turn you adrift
unrewarded, nor will you, if you can be a wise varlet, and husband your
resources, be thrown on the world without some means of support."

Dick seemed about to protest, but either the look on his master's face
or some idea which had entered his own head held him silent.  He took
the coins without counting them, and producing a greasy leathern pouch,
such as sailors often carry with them, he dropped the gold pieces into
it one by one, tied it up, and fastened it safely in an inner pocket.

"That pouch stuck by me when I lost everything else in the world, and
well-nigh my own life," said the fellow with a grin.  "My mother did
give it me when I first went to sea, and she told me as a wise witch
woman had given it her.  She thought 'twas the caul of a child; and like
enough it be, for salt water never hurts it, and I was the only one
saved of all the crew that went down off the Spanish coast. I'd sooner
part with the gold pieces than with the pouch that holds them."

They both rode on with thoughtful faces after this brief interlude.
Grey was turning over a dozen different schemes in his mind; but all
were vague and chimerical.  Now and again he looked at an amethyst ring
upon his finger, and it came over him that the shortest cut to fortune
might be to present himself as a suppliant for favour at the feet of the
great Duchess of Marlborough, who was said to rule the Queen with a rod
of iron, and whose known devotion to her husband would be certain to
raise high in her favour any person who had rendered him so timely a
service as that which Grey had been able to offer on the day of
Ramillies.

But then, again, it seemed to Grey that to claim reward for that chance
service, which had cost him nothing, was little better than playing the
beggar or the sycophant.  There was in his nature a strong strain of
chivalrous romance--of love of adventure for its own sake, without
thought of reward or favour.  That encounter with the great Duke, the
interview which had followed, the consciousness that he had done his
country a notable service that day--all these things were very sweet to
him, forming an episode pleasant to look back upon.  If he now presented
himself on the strength of it as a petitioner for place or favour, at
once the whole thing would be vulgarized--he would be lowered in his own
estimation, sinking to the level of one of the crowd of greedy
flatterers and place-hunters who thronged the antechambers of the rich
and great, and fawned upon them for the crumbs of patronage which they
were able to dispense as the price of this homage.

Grey had seen this sort of thing at foreign courts, and his soul had
sickened at it.  Doubtless, in this great world of London it was the
same.  As a baronet, a young man of parts, with an attractive person,
and, at present, a well-filled purse, he might not improbably please the
fancy of the Duchess, and obtain some post in her household or about the
Court that would give him a chance at least to rise.  But the more he
thought of this the less he liked the idea, and at last he flung it from
him in scorn.

"I would sooner live in Grub Street, and drive a quill!" he said half
aloud.  "I could praise a hero with my pen, but I cannot fawn and
flatter with my lips.  And methinks I am not fit for the life of a
place-man: I have been too long mine own master.  Surely there are ways
by which a man may rise in the world without abasing himself in his own
esteem first.  I will go to London, and look about me with open eyes.
There are the world of politics, the world of art and literature, and
the theatre of war, if other spheres should fail.  Surely there must be
a place for me somewhere; but I will not choose the latter if I can help
it.  I fear not death on mine own account; but I desire to live, and to
grow rich, that I may square matters with yonder villain, and avenge
upon him my father's untimely death!"

For that his father had been in some sort done to death by his false
kinsman, Grey did not now doubt, though whether he would be able to
bring that crime home to him later, he could not at present surmise.
Much might be possible to a man with friends in high places; but these
would have to be found and won ere any step could be taken.

Grey often felt within himself the stirrings of ambition.  He had shown
promise of something akin to genius in his Oxford days, and there had
not been lacking those among his companions and tutors who had declared
that he could win fame and fortune through academic laurels.  But Grey
had then turned a deaf ear to such propositions.  He desired to travel
and see the world, and he had done this with much zest.  But the muse
within had not been altogether silent, and he had many times covered
sheets of paper with flowing stanzas or stately sonnets, which bore
witness to the fire that burned within.  His pencil, too, was not
without cunning; and his study of the treasures of many an art gallery,
many a foreign church, had given him knowledge and culture beyond what
the average gallant of the day could boast.  The double strand in his
nature was very marked--a reckless love of adventure, and a delicate
appreciation of the beautiful.  Often he longed after the days of the
early troubadours, when the two walked hand in hand.  He pondered these
matters in his busy brain as he rode onward in the sunny brightness of
the June morning, and found it in his heart to wish that he was not thus
possessed by such conflicting passions. He felt he would have had a
better chance of success had his bent in any one direction been more
decided.

They pulled up at the quaint old inn at Edgeware, and rode into the
courtyard, where lackeys and hostlers were making merry together, and
where some handsome horses were being groomed down, prior to being put
into the cumbersome but very handsome coach that stood beneath the
protecting galleries which ran round the court.  The lackeys wore a
livery of snuff-coloured cloth, with a quantity of gold lace about it.
The panels of the coach were snuff-coloured, and there was much heavy
gilding about it, which was being polished with great zeal by the
servants of the inn.  It was plainly the equipage of some person of
quality, and had evidently put up there for the night, but was likely to
be wanted shortly for the road again.

Grey dismounted, and leaving Dick in charge of the horses, made his way
in through the low-browed entrance, along a sanded passage, and so to
the public room, the door of which stood open.  As a boy he had known
this house, and it still seemed familiar to him, though it had changed
hands since he had been there last, and his face was not known to mine
host.

"Your pardon, sir," spoke this functionary, bustling forward on his
entrance, "but this room is bespoke for my Lord Sandford.  If you are
wanting a meal, it shall be quickly served elsewhere--"

But at that moment a rollicking voice from the foot of the adjacent
staircase broke in upon the excuses of the host.

"Gadzooks, man, but it shall be nothing of the sort.  Set a cover for
the gentleman at my table. Gosh! is a man so enamoured of his own
company that he must needs drive all the world away?--Come in, sir, come
in, and take pot-luck with me.--Landlord, see you give us of your best,
or I'll spit you on your own jack!  I've a great thirst on me, mind you;
and let the dishes be done to a turn.--Take a seat in the window, sir;
the air blows fresh and pleasant, but it will be infernally hot ere
noon.  I must be off and away in good time.  In London streets you can
find shade; but these country roads--hang them all!--get like
What's-his-name's fiery furnace seven times heated if they don't chance
to run through forest land!"

The speaker was a young man of perhaps seven-and-twenty, though reckless
dissipation had traced lines in his face which should not so early have
been there.  He was dressed according to the most extravagant fashion of
the day, with an immense curled wig, that hung half-way down his back; a
coat of velvet, richly laced, the sleeves so short that the spotless
lawn and ruffles of the shirt showed half-way up the forearm; a
wonderful embroidered vest, knee breeches of satin equally gorgeous, and
silk stockings elaborately gartered below the knee with bands of gold
lace.  He carried a fashionably cocked hat beneath his arm, with a
gold-headed cane; and a small muff was suspended from his neck by gold
chains.  The muff held a golden snuff-box, with a picture on the lid
which modesty would refuse to describe; and the young spark took snuff
and interlarded his talk with the fashionable oaths of the day as a
matter of course.

He looked curiously at Grey when they had taken their seats; for the
traveller, though dressed with exceeding simplicity, and wearing his own
hair in loose, natural curls, just framing his face and touching his
shoulders, was so evidently a man of culture and of gentle blood that
the dandy was both impressed and perplexed by him.  For high-bred look
and instinctive nobility of bearing Lord Sandford could not hold a
candle to Grey Dumaresq.

"I saw you ride into the yard just now.  Fine horse that of yours,
sir--very fine horse!  If he's ever for sale, mind you let me know of
him.  Lord Sandford--your very humble servant--always to be heard of at
Will's Coffee House or the Mohawk Club. Seem to remember your face; but
dash me if I can give it a name.  Awful memory for names I have--know
too many fellows, I suppose.  Not that there are so many like you,
either; but hang me, I must have met you somewhere before."

Grey had caught the fleeting memory, and answered at once,--

"We were at Oxford together, my lord.  Not at the same college, though;
but we have met, doubtless. My name is Grey Dumaresq--"

"Why, to be sure.  Gad! but that's strange! Thought I wasn't wrong about
a face!  I heard you spout forth a poem once.  Lord, it was fine, though
I didn't understand one word in ten!  Latin or Greek--rabbit me if I
know which!  And I knew your father, too; met him in London now and
again.  He's not been seen anywhere these eight or nine months."

"My father died last Christmas," spoke Grey gravely.  "I did not know it
myself, being abroad."  And led on by Lord Sandford's questions, which,
if not very delicately put, showed a real interest in the subject, Grey
gave him a bare outline of his own life since quitting Oxford, and of
the position in which he now found himself.

"Oddsfish, man--as our merry monarch of happy memory used to say--but
yours is a curious tale. The ladies will rave over the romance of
it--coupled with that face of yours.  Oh, never say die, man! You've the
world before you.  What more do you ask than such a face, such a story,
and a few hundred pounds in your pocket?  Why, with decent luck, those
hundreds ought to make thousands in a very short time.  You trust
yourself to me, my young friend.  I know my London.  I know the ropes.
I will show you how fortunes are made in a night; and you shall be the
pet of the ladies and the envy of the beaux before another month has
passed.  We will find you an heiress for a wife, and--heigh,
presto!--the thing is done."

Grey started, and made a gesture as of repulsion, whereat Lord Sandford
roared with laughter; and there was something so heartwhole and
infectious in his laugh that Grey found himself joining in almost
without knowing it.  The man had a strong personality, that was not to
be doubted, and at this moment Grey felt himself singularly lonely,
singularly perplexed about his own immediate future.  He did not know
London.  He had scarcely set foot within its precincts, save on the
occasion when he went to bid his father farewell, and when it seemed to
him that he stepped into Pandemonium itself.  Since then he had visited
many foreign capitals, and had accustomed himself to the life there to
some extent; but only to the life of a traveller--an onlooker.  Now he
felt that something more lay before him--that it was as a citizen and a
unit in the great hive that he must go. And how to steer his bark
through the shoals and quicksands of the new life, he had very small
idea. To win fame and fortune was his wish; but how were these good
things to be achieved?  Never had it entered his head to look upon
marriage as a way of gaining either.

"Zounds, man, don't look like that!  Better men than you or I have not
been shamed to thank their wives for their promotion.  But there are
more ways of killing a cat than hanging.  We'll look about and see.  You
put yourself in my hands, and I'll show you the ropes.  No, no; no
thanks.  I want some diversion myself.  Poor Tom Gregory, my boon
companion, made a fool of himself over the wine the other night, and got
spitted like a cockchafer by Captain Dashwood.  I've felt bad ever
since.  I tried what a trip into the country would do for me.  But dash
it all, I can't stand the dreariness of it.  I am on my way back to town
as fast as may be.  And you shall come with me.  Nay, I'll take no
denial.  A man must have something to do with his time, or he'll get
into a pretty peck of mischief.  I've taken a liking to you; and I
always get my own way, because I won't listen to objections."

So an hour later, when the coach rumbled out from under the archway of
the old inn, Grey Dumaresq sat within by Lord Sandford's side, and Dick,
with a puzzled but satisfied face, led his master's horse behind.




                              *CHAPTER V.*

                          *A HIGH-BORN DAME.*


Westward from Whitehall, just after one had left behind the streets and
lanes of the fashionable westerly portion of London town, and emerged
into a fair region of smiling meadows, blossoming fruit-trees, orchards,
and woodlands, were in those days to be found many pleasant and stately
houses, varying in size and splendour according to the condition of the
owner, but fair mansions for the most part, and inhabited by persons of
quality, many of whom held posts at Court, and found this proximity to
Whitehall a matter of no small convenience.

Some of the fairest and seemliest of these mansions were those which lay
along the river banks, with gardens terraced to the water's edge, where
light wherries could deposit gay gallants at the foot of the steps
leading to the wide gravelled walks, and where a gay panorama of
shipping could be seen by those who paced the shady walks, or sat in the
little temples and bowers which made a feature of so many of these
gardens.

There was one house in particular that in these days had a notoriety of
its own.  It had been an old manor house in the time when London had not
extended so far to the west, and it lay embosomed in a quaint old
garden, where fair and tall trees made a pleasant shade through the hot
summer days, where the turf was emerald green and soft to the foot, and
roses flourished in wild abundance.  Now there was a formal Dutch garden
set in the midst of the old-time wilderness, where clipped box edges
divided the parterres of brilliant-hued blossoms sent from Holland, and
where nymphs disported themselves around marble fountains, and heathen
divinities on pedestals kept watch and ward over the long terraces which
lined the margin of the river.  But in spite of these innovations of
modern taste, the silvan charm of the old garden had by no means been
destroyed, and there were many who declared that not even Hampton Court
itself could hold a candle to Lord Romaine's riverside garden for beauty
and brightness and the nameless fascination which defies analysis. Lord
Romaine was accounted a rising man.  The friend of Marlborough and
Godolphin, a moderate Whig in politics, a courtier above all else, and
loyal to the backbone, he had been regarded with favour by the late
King, who had given him some appointment about the Court, which had been
confirmed by the Queen on her accession.  And although Queen Anne was
herself of such strong Tory leanings, she was beginning to find that the
moderate Whigs were the men most useful and most to be depended upon;
and the shrewd Duchess Sarah--her dear "Mrs. Freeman"--herself a convert
from high Tory principles to those of their moderate opponents, was
using her influence steadily and strongly to bring the Queen round to
the same state of mind.

So Lord Romaine's star was likely to rise with the rising tide of Whig
supremacy; and as he was a man of very large private means, and kept
open house in a lavish fashion, it was likely enough that he would make
his mark in the world.  It would be certainly no fault of his wife if he
did not.

Truth to tell, Lady Romaine's head had been somewhat turned when, three
years before, her husband succeeded to his father's title and estates,
and from being Viscount Latimer, with moderate means and only a measure
of Court favour to depend upon, became an earl with a very large
rent-roll, and a great fortune in ready money, which his father, who
lived a secluded existence in the country, had amassed during the later
years of his life.  As Lord and Lady Latimer this couple had lived at
the riverside house they still occupied when in town; but it had not
then worn the aspect that it did to-day, albeit the garden had been
something of a hobby to its owner for many years.

The lady cared little for the garden, save for the admiration it aroused
in others; but she longed with a mighty longing to furbish up the old
house after her own design, and as soon as the funds for this were in
their hands, not a moment was lost in the carrying out of her cherished
plans and projects.  With a rapidity that astonished the town, a great
new front was added to the old building, converting it into a
quadrangle, in the centre of which a great fountain threw its waters
high into the air.  All the new rooms were large, stately, and imposing,
and furnished according to the latest mode.  Inlaid cabinets from the
far East, crammed with curios of which my lady knew not even the names;
crooked-legged chairs and sofas of French make; furniture in the new
mahogany wood, just beginning to attract attention and admiration; rich
carpets and hangings from India, Persia, or China; embroideries from all
quarters of the globe; Italian pottery, Spanish inlaid armour, silver
trinkets from Mexico, feather work from the isles of the west--all these
things, jostled and jumbled together in rich confusion, made Lady
Romaine's new house the talk of the town; and her tall powdered lackeys
and turbaned negro pages were more numerous and more sumptuously attired
than those of any other fashionable dame of her acquaintance.

My lady was at her toilet upon this brilliant June morning; and as
custom permitted the attendance of gentlemen at this function, in the
case of married ladies, the hall and staircase leading up to her suite
of private apartments were already thronged by a motley crew.

There were dandies, fresh from their own elaborate toilets, reeking of
the perfume in which they had bathed themselves, displaying in their own
persons all the hues of the rainbow, and all the extravagant fripperies
of the day, laughing and jesting together as they mounted the
softly-carpeted stairs, their cocked hats under their arms, or descended
again after having paid their _devoirs_ to my lady, often cackling with
mirth over some _bon mot_ they had heard or uttered.  There were
chattering French milliners or French hair-dressers, with boxes or
bundles of laces, silks, perfumes, or trinkets, wherewith to tempt the
fancy of their patroness.  There were gaily-dressed pages running to and
fro with scented notes; turbaned negro boys carrying a lap-dog or monkey
or parrot to the doting mistress, who had suddenly sent for one of her
pets. Tire-women pushed themselves through the throng, intent on the
business of the toilet, which was such an all-absorbing matter; and the
whole house seemed to ring with the loud or shrill laughter and the
ceaseless chatter of this motley throng, bent on killing time in the
most approved fashion.

Some of the dandies about to depart, who were sipping chocolate from
cups of priceless Sevres china, and talking in their free, loose fashion
with each other, kept looking about them as though in hope or
expectation, and more than once the name of "Lady Geraldine" was bandied
about between them.  One young blood asked point blank why she was never
to be seen at her mother's toilet.  A laugh broke from his companions.

"If it's Lady Geraldine you come to see, you can save yourself the
trouble of the visit.  They say she was brought up by a Puritan
grandmother, who died last year, and left her all her fortune.  However
that may be, the Lady Geraldine never appears when she can escape doing
so.  My lady gives way to her. They say she does not care to have a
grown-up daughter at her heels, she who might pass for four-and-twenty
herself any day, but for that damning evidence.  But they say the father
is beginning to declare that his daughter is no longer to be kept in the
background.  I suppose the next thing will be that they will marry her
to some young nobleman. Gadzooks! with that face and that fortune--if
the fortune be not a clever myth--they ought not to find it a difficult
task!"

"I heard it said at the club that Sandford was the favoured suitor for
the hand of Lady Geraldine," said one young exquisite, speaking with a
lisp and taking snuff.

There was a laugh from the group of men standing by.

"Oh, Sandford is my lady's favourite!  They say he is a kinsman; and he
amuses her vastly, and gives her all the homage her heart desires.  But
Lord Romaine may have something to say to that. Sandford is going the
pace that kills, and is playing old Harry with his fortune and estate.
And as for my Lady Geraldine--well, 'tis said the pretty little Puritan
will look at none of us.  Split me! but it will be a pretty comedy to
watch!  The awakening of Aphrodite; isn't that the thing to call it?
But Aphrodite is not generally credited with much coyness--ha, ha, ha!
Perhaps it is but a pose on the part of the pretty maid.  The sweet
creatures are so artful in these days, one can never be too cautious."
And a roar of laughter answered this sally, caution being about the last
quality ever cultivated by the speaker.

Whilst all this was going on within doors, the object of these latter
remarks was enjoying a silvan solitude in the most secluded portion of
the beautiful old garden.

Far away from the house, far out of earshot of all the fashionable
clamour resounding there, set in the midst of a dense shrubbery of ilex
and yew, was an arbour--itself cut out of a giant yew-tree--commanding a
view of a portion of the river, slipping by its alder-crowned banks, and
overlooking a small, square lawn, sunk between high turf walls, in the
centre of which stood an ancient moss-grown sundial, whose
quaintly-lettered face was a source of unending interest to the fair
girl, who had made of this remote and sheltered place a harbour of
refuge for herself.

She was seated now just within the arbour, an open book of poetry upon
her knee; but she was not reading, for her chin rested in the palm of
her hand, as she leaned forward in an unstudied attitude of grace, her
elbow on her knee, her wonderful dark eyes fixed full upon the shining
river, a dreamy smile of haunting sweetness playing round her lips.  At
her feet a great hound lay extended, his nose upon his paws, his eyes
often lifted to the face of his mistress, his ears pricked at the
smallest sound, even at the snapping of a twig.  Nobody could surprise
the Lady Geraldine when she had this faithful henchman at her side.

The girl was dressed with extreme simplicity for the times she lived in,
when hoops were coming in, stiff brocades, laces and lappets,
high-heeled coloured shoes, and every extravagance in finery all the
rage. True, the texture of her white silk gown was of the richest, and
it was laced with silver, and fastened with pearl clasps that must have
cost a great sum; but it was fashioned with a simplicity that suggested
the rustic maiden rather than the high-born dame. Yet the simple
elegance of the graceful, girlish figure was displayed to such advantage
that even the modish mother had been able to find no fault with the
fashion in which her daughter instructed that her gowns should be cut;
and surmises and bets were freely exchanged by the gallants crowding
Lord Romaine's house as to whether it were a deep form of coquetry or
real simplicity of taste which made the Lady Geraldine differ so much
from the matrons and maids about her.

She wore no patches upon her face, though the dazzling purity of her
complexion would thereby have been enhanced.  And in days when the hair
was dressed into tower-like erections, and adorned with powder, laces,
ribbons, and all manner of strange fripperies, this girl wore her
beautiful waving golden tresses floating round her face in the fashion
of the ladies of Charles the Second's reign, or coiled them with
careless grace about her head in a natural coronet.  With powder or
pomatum, wires or artificial additions, she would have nothing to do.
She had been brought up in the country by her grandmother, a lady of
very simple tastes, who would in no wise conform to the extravagant
fashions which had crept in, and were corrupting all the old-time grace
and simplicity of female attire.

"Leave those fripperies to the gallants," had been the old lady's
pungent remark; "what do we want with powder and periwigs, patches and
pomatum?"

She remembered the simple elegance of the court-dresses of the ladies in
the Stuart times, and had no patience with the artificial trappings that
followed.  Moreover, albeit not a Puritan in any strict sense of the
word--being a loyal advocate of the Stuart cause--she was a woman of
great piety and devotion, and studied her Bible diligently; so that she
took small pleasure in the adornment of the person in gaudy clothing,
and the broidering of the hair, and in fine array.  She taught her
granddaughter to think more of the virtue of the meek and quiet spirit,
and to seek rather to cultivate her mind, and store it with information
and with lofty aspirations, than to give her time and thoughts to the
round of folly and dissipation which made up the life of the lady of
fashion.

Geraldine was so happy in the care of her grandmother, and felt so
little at home with her fashionable mother, that her visits had been few
and far between hitherto, until the sudden death of Mrs. Adair six
months previously had obliged her to return permanently to her father's
roof.

Here she found a state of things which amazed and troubled her not a
little, and greatly did she marvel how her mother could be the daughter
of the guardian of her childhood.  True, Lady Romaine had married very
young, and early escaped from the watchful care of her judicious mother;
but it seemed marvellous that so close a tie could have existed between
them, and the girl would look on with amaze and pain at her mother's
freaks and follies, wondering how any woman could find entertainment in
the idle, foolish, and often profane vapourings of the beaux who
fluttered about her, and how any sane persons could endure such a life
of trivial amusement and ceaseless meaningless dissipation.

Pleading with her father her grief at her grandmother's death, she had
obtained a six months' respite from attendance at the gay functions
which made up life to Lady Romaine.  Those six months had been spent,
for the most part, in the privacy of her own apartments, which she had
furnished with the dim and time-honoured treasures of her grandmother's
house, all of which were now her own, and which made her quarters in the
old part of the house like an oasis of taste, and harmony, and true
beauty in an ocean of confused and almost tawdry profusion.  The old
garden was another favourite haunt of hers, for there were portions of
it which were seldom invaded by the gay butterflies who often hovered
about the newer terraces and the formal Dutch garden, and the hound
always gave her ample warning of any approaching footstep, so that she
could fly and hide herself before any one could molest her.

So here she prosecuted her studies, read her favourite authors, and when
the house was quiet--her mother having flown off to some gay rout or
card-party or ball--she would practise her skill on the lute, virginal,
spinet, or harp, and her fresh young voice would resound through the
house, drawing the servants to the open windows to hear the sweet
strains.

Lady Romaine would have humoured the girl's fancy for seclusion
indefinitely.  She felt almost humiliated by the presence of a daughter
so stately and so mature.  Geraldine was nineteen, but might have passed
for more, with her grave, refined beauty, and her lack of all the
kittenish freakishness which made many matrons seem almost like girls,
even when their charms began to fade, and nature had to be replaced by
art.  Lady Romaine fondly believed that her admirers took her for
four-and-twenty; and now to have to pose as the mother of a grown-up
daughter was a bitter mortification, and one which disposed her to make
as speedy a marriage for Geraldine as could well be achieved.  Lord
Romaine had at last insisted that his daughter should appear in the
world of fashion, and she had been once or twice to Court in her
parents' train, where her striking beauty and unwonted appearance had
made some sensation. Geraldine had little fault to find with what she
saw and heard there.  Good Queen Anne permitted nothing reprehensible in
her neighbourhood, and her Court was grave to the verge of dullness.
She was a loving and a model wife; and the Duchess was devoted to her
husband, though often making his life a burden by her imperious temper.
Anything like conjugal infidelity was not tolerated therefore by either
of these ladies, and decorum ruled wherever the Queen was to be found.

But at other places and in other company matters were far different, and
already Geraldine began to shrink with a great disgust and distaste from
the compliments she received, from the coarse, foolish, affected talk
she heard, and from the knowledge of the senseless dissipation which
flowed like a stream at her feet, and which seemed to encircle the span
of her life in a way that made escape impossible.

But she had been taught obedience as one of the cardinal virtues, and
the days of emancipated daughters were not yet.  When her father bade
her lay aside her mourning and join in the life of the house, she knew
she must obey.  But she had asked from him the favour of being permitted
to design her own dresses, and to follow her own tastes in matters
pertaining to her own toilet, and also that she might be excused
attendance at her mother's morning levee; for the spectacle of crowds of
men flocking in and out of her mother's apartments, and witnessing the
triumphs of the coiffeurs and tire-women, was to her degrading and
disgusting; and though Lord Romaine laughed--being himself so inured to
the custom--and told her she was a little fool, and must get the better
of her prudery, he gave way to her in this, and the more readily because
she represented to him how that these morning hours were now the only
ones she could command for study; and he was proud to find in his
daughter an erudition and talent very rare amongst women in those days.

[Illustration: The old garden was another favourite haunt of hers (page
96).]

But now an approaching footstep warned the girl that her pleasant
morning was over.  The dog sprang up, but did not growl.  It was
Geraldine's own serving-woman approaching with the girl's white-plumed
hat and long silver-laced gloves.

"My lady's coach waits, and she desires your presence," was the message
that reached her. Geraldine sat down to let the woman fasten the hat
upon her head, and with a sigh she put away her books in their basket,
and gave it to the charge of the faithful hound.  She had found that her
treasures were far more carefully safeguarded by him than when left in
the care of a giddy maid, who was more bent on having the same kind of
amusement with the men-servants that her mistress had with the gallants
than of seeking to discharge her duties faithfully and well.

"Hasten, child, hasten!" cried Lady Romaine's shrill voice from the
entrance-hall, as Geraldine approached.  She was a wonderful object as
she stood there in the full light of the June sunshine, her stiff amber
brocade sweeping round her in great billows, her waist laced in like
that of a wasp, and accentuated by the style of the long-pointed bodice;
her high-heeled shoes, ornamented to extravagance, the heels being
bright red and the uppers sewed with precious stones; gems glittering in
the mass of laces at her throat, and in a number of clasps fastened to
the bodice; her hair towering upwards to such a height that she could
scarce sit comfortably in her lofty coach, and could wear nothing in the
way of head-gear save the laces and ribbons which were worked in with
much skill by the French hair-dresser. She was redolent of perfume;
gloves, lace handkerchief, dainty muff, every little knickknack, of
which she possessed so many, all emitted the same cloying sweetness.
Geraldine felt herself heave a sigh of oppression as she followed this
grotesque object into the coach.  She was growing used to the aspect
presented by the dames of fashion, but there were moments when her first
disgust came over her in great waves.

"I marvel that you like to make yourself such a figure of fun, child,"
remarked the mother, as she settled herself in her coach, smirked
towards the piece of looking-glass let in opposite, and turned a
sidelong glance upon her daughter; "'tis enough to set the gallants
laughing to see how you habit yourself.  Well, well; you are a lucky
girl to have found a suitor so soon.  Now take good heed to show him no
saucy airs, should he present himself at our box at the play to-day.  He
has been away these last days, but he can never long absent himself from
town.  Mind you have a smile for him when he appears, or I shall have
somewhat to say to you later, Miss Impertinence."  And the lady's ivory
fan came down somewhat smartly upon Geraldine's arm.

"Of whom are you speaking, ma'am?" she asked, whilst the colour mounted
suddenly in her fair face.

"Oh, come now; so we are already posing as a belle of many beaux!  Pray
who has ever cast a glance upon you save my good kinsman Sandford? And,
mind you, he is a man of taste and fashion, and it is a great compliment
that he has singled you out for notice.  There be girls would give their
ears for a kind glance from his eyes, and there are as good fish in the
sea as ever came out of it; so mind your manners, miss, and treat him to
no tricks.  It is high time you were wed, and had a husband to look
after you, and that is why I take you about.  For, as for pleasure in
such company, one might as well play bear-leader to a snow queen!"

"I did not know that Lord Sandford had done me any favour," spoke
Geraldine quietly.  "I have seen him but seldom, and he has spoke not
over much to me.  But I will bear your wishes in mind, madam, should he
appear to-day."

"Ha! there he is!" suddenly cried my lady, becoming excited, and rapping
smartly with her fan on the glass of the window.  The next minute the
coach had pulled up, and Lord Sandford, attired in the very height of
the fashion, was bowing over her hand with his courtliest air.




                             *CHAPTER VI.*

                      *THE PASTIMES OF THE TOWN.*


"The sun shines once again," quoth Lord Sandford, as he raised the
extended hand of Lady Romaine to his lips, and dropped a light kiss upon
her scented glove.  "The sun shines in the sky; but let him beware and
look to his laurels, for there are stars abroad of such dazzling lustre
that Phoebus must have a care lest the brightness of his shafts be
quenched in a more refulgent glow."  And the young man gazed into the
lady's eyes with a bold laughing stare that pointed the meaning of the
compliment.

"La! but you talk the greatest nonsense!" cried Lady Romaine, highly
delighted, as she tapped him smartly with her fan.  "Come, tell me where
you have been these many days.  Some said you had been a-wooing in the
country, and others that your dolts of tradesmen were dunning you to
distraction, and others that you had fought a duel and had need to fly;
but, pardieu! if one believed all the gossip of the town, one would have
enough to do.  I know there has been a duel, and I am aching to hear all
about it.  I'll warrant you know all the story, since he was your
friend.  Come, get into the coach, and tell me all about it.  Were you
there?  What was it all about?  And what sort of an end did he make?"

Lady Romaine's face expressed the eager pleasure and curiosity of a
child talking over some trivial pleasure; she flirted her fan, cast
languishing glances, and played off upon the young Earl all those
countless little airs and graces which characterized the fine lady of
the period.

But Geraldine drew back in her corner, her face growing cold and pale.
She had scarcely acknowledged Lord Sandford's presence, only just
bending her head in response to his bow.  He had not addressed her as
yet, and he appeared engrossed by the mother; but he flashed one quick
glance upon her now, and possibly read something of the pain and disgust
which possessed her, for he answered,--

"Nay, madam, let us not talk of what is past and done.  How can thought
of gloom and death dwell in so radiant a presence?  In sooth, all dark
thoughts take to themselves wings in this company, and will not be
caught or caged.  I forget that we are not in the bowers of Arcadia;
for, in sooth, I am transported thither so soon as these poor eyes be
dazzled by the light of those twin stars of love and beauty!"

Again Lady Romaine tapped him with her fan. She loved a compliment,
however fulsome; but she wanted at this moment to be entertained by the
account of the duel, which had made a little stir in the town, from the
fact of one of the combatants having been the boon companion and friend
of Lord Sandford.

"You dear, tormenting devil!  But I will have the story yet!  And we are
all dying to know how you will get on without your Fidus Achates.  By my
troth, you do not look as though you had wasted away in fruitless
longing.  Perchance you have found already another to fill his place?"

"Perhaps I have, madam," was the negligent reply. "I had not known the
town had so much thought to spare for worthless me.  I' faith, I am a
bigger man than I thought for.  But I must not keep your coach standing
in this blaze of sunshine.  Whither are you bound, fair ladies?  To some
Arcadian bowers of Paphos, I doubt not, where Orpheus will charm you
with his lyre, and nymphs will cluster round in envy, marvelling at
those charms which not even Aphrodite herself can rival."

"Oh fie! you are a sad flatterer!" cried Lady Romaine, sinking back upon
her cushions and waving her hand.  "We are bound to Lady Saltire's
hazard table for an hour's play.  Shall we meet you there, my lord?
Afterwards, we take supper at our favourite India house, and then to the
play--Wynstanly's water theatre.  He has a new piece--monstrous fine,
those who have seen it vow.  They have nymphs, and mermaids, and
tritons, and I know not what beside; and they ask a pretty price for the
boxes, I can tell you.  But la! one must go and see what all the world
is talking of.  Mind you come to our box if you be there.  We shall
expect you, and shall welcome you and any friend you like to bring."

"Even the new Fidus Achates, of whom you spoke just now?" asked Lord
Sandford, with a slightly ironical bow.

"Oh gracious, yes!" cried Lady Romaine, excited by the very idea; "bring
him at once and present him to us.  I hope he is a pretty fellow, and
can turn a merry quip and tell a story.  You should have heard Beau
Sidney last night!  Sakes!  I thought I should have split my sides!"

At this juncture the horses became so fidgety with standing in the glare
of the sun that Lord Sandford stepped back, and the coach rolled upon
its way. Lady Romaine waved her scented kerchief, and then routed her
scent-bottle out of her reticule, and turning sharply upon her daughter,
said,--

"Why sit you ever like a stuffed owl, without so much as a word or a
smile?  I die for shame every time I take you out.  What have I done to
be punished with such a daughter?  One would think you to be a
changeling child, if you did not so favour the Adairs.  How think you
you will ever get wed, sitting gaping there like a farm-house wench, who
is afraid to open her lips lest she should betray herself by her speech.
You put me to shame, child; I could cry with mortification.  What will
the world say, save that I have an idiot for a daughter?"

Geraldine knew not what to answer.  As she listened to the fatuous and
stilted talk which was fashionable in her mother's world, with its
senseless mythological allusions and high-flown extravagances, it often
seemed to her that these gay dandies and dames were all playing at
madmen together.  Her tongue had never learned the trick of such talk.
It perplexed and disgusted her, seeming trivial and childish when it was
not improper or profane.  She saw other young girls who listened
eagerly, and as eagerly reproduced the flowery nonsense amongst
themselves and their admirers; but it seemed impossible to her to do the
like, and she listened in humble silence to her mother's tirades,
wondering whether there were something radically wrong about herself, or
whether the absurdity and folly were in others.

"But, madam," she said gently at the last, "why should I get me a
husband so soon?  My grandmother was against very early marriages, and
as she lay dying she often warned me to make very careful choice ere I
gave my hand in troth-plight.  She said I must needs be certain of mine
own heart, for that no more wretched life could exist for woman than
when she was tied to a man she could not love or respect."

"Tush, child!  Your grandmother was a good woman.  I speak no hurt of
her.  But she knew less of life than many a girl of eighteen does
nowadays, and her ideas were all topsy-turvy.  A woman wants a fine
establishment, her powdered footmen, her negro boys, her dresses, her
jewels, and all the world doing her homage.  That is what makes the
pleasure of life. A good husband who can give you all that is what you
want; and what can you ask better than the addresses of Lord Sandford?
I tell you there are half the girls in town would give their ears for
his smiles.  He has been extravagant, 'tis true; but the estate can
stand a heavy drain, and he is lucky at cards.  He soon finds himself on
his legs again.  When he marries he will open his great house in the
Strand, of which he uses but one wing now.  With your fortune and his
estates and his luck in gaming, you might be the gayest couple in town.
Look to it, girl, that you show him no airs.  I am ashamed to have such
a mannerless wench for a daughter.  If you are not more careful, you
will drive all the beaux away; and then, when it is too late, you will
be sorry."

Geraldine had her own ideas on that point.  It was her one desire just
now to keep at arm's length all those gay popinjays that fluttered about
her mother.  Lord Sandford, it is true, was somewhat removed from the
crowd by a handsomer person, a more distinguished air, and by a greater
force of character.  On more than one occasion, when he had put himself
about to gain her ear, she had found that he could drop his mask of gay
affectations, and be both shrewd and entertaining.  Some of his
criticisms had even interested and aroused her; but she was very far
from being captivated.  She did not know whether it would be possible to
give to such a man either love or reverence, and without either one or
other Geraldine had resolved not to marry, though she knew that it was a
hard task for a daughter to set at naught the wishes of her parents in
these matters.  She saw that both father and mother, though for
different reasons, desired her to make a speedy choice, and take up her
position in the fashionable world as a lady of title and importance.

However, she was spared further strictures by the arrival of the
carriage at Lady Saltire's fine house: and shortly she found herself
standing behind her mother's chair at the hazard table, half stunned by
the clatter and clamour of voices, watching with grave, pained eyes the
eager faces of the players, their excited gestures as they reached for
their winnings, their rage and disappointment when the luck went against
them, the greed she saw in all faces--that lust after gold which is of
all vices one of the most hateful and degrading.

Old men and young girls, matrons and aged dames, all crowded round the
tables, their hoops crushing together, their tall powdered heads
sometimes meeting in sharp collision.  There were scented dandies, who
regarded this "ladies' play" as the merest bagatelle, and lost or won
their gold pieces with careless grace, thinking of the more serious play
which awaited them later at the club, or at the lodgings of some member
of their own set.

Amongst this motley crowd, gaily apparelled servants moved to and fro,
handing coffee, chocolate, and delicate confectionery, or offering
scented waters for the refreshment of the ladies.  The gentlemen
preferred stronger potations, and congregated together, laughing and
jesting.  But not infrequently they would be joined by some giddy young
matron, who called them all by their Christian names, passed jests with
them that would not bear repetition in these days, and even toasted some
"pretty fellow," laughing gaily and giddily the while.

There were a few graver spirits congregated together in one small room,
and Geraldine could catch fleeting glimpses of them through an open
door.  She knew some of the faces, and that they were politicians and
men of letters; and she thought they were discussing some literary
point, for one held a paper in his hand, and he seemed to be reading
from it to the others.

"I'll warrant they have got a new ode to my Lord of Marlborough yonder,"
spoke a voice at Geraldine's elbow; and turning she saw an elderly man
whose face was known to her from his having been a guest at her father's
house.  "They had a great trouble after the victory of Blenheim to find
a poet able to hymn the triumph in periods sufficiently fine; but I
think it was Lord Halifax who discovered Mr. Addison, whose noble lines
set the city wondering.  Belike he has broken forth into lyric or epic
praise over the battle of Ramillies, and the marvellous effects it has
had abroad.  Shall we go and listen to his periods?"

Geraldine was thankful to get away from the heated atmosphere of the
card-room, and to find herself amongst men and women who had other
fashions of thought and speech.  But she was not allowed much peace in
these different surroundings; for she was quickly summoned to her
mother's side, taken from house to house, ever seeing and hearing the
like vapourings, the like fripperies and follies. It was the same thing
at the dinner or supper, where her mother had a whole train of young
bloods in her wake.  She gave them the best the house afforded, and
spent her time quizzing the dresses of the other ladies at the
surrounding tables, learning all the gossip about any person whose face
or costume struck her, and drinking in flattery and adulation as a bee
sips honey from the flowers.

In spite of her efforts to please her mother, Geraldine found it
impossible to take any share in this strange sort of gaiety.  Her
answers were little more than monosyllables.  Often she did not even
understand the allusions or the far-fetched metaphors of those who
addressed her.  More often she shrank from their glances and their open
compliments, feeling degraded by both, but powerless to repel them. She
was thankful when at last she found herself by her mother's side in the
box at Wynstanly's; for here she hoped she might find some measure of
peace, since the box would not hold any great number of persons, and her
mother was never satisfied without the attention of four or five
gentlemen at once.

If the play in itself were not very entertaining, the effects of fire
and water were rather magnificent, and something new, so that more
attention was given to the stage than was usual at such entertainments
in those days.  The fashionable listeners did not turn their backs upon
the players and talk at the top of their voices all the while the play
was in progress, as in some houses, and Geraldine was quite wrapped in
contemplation of the monsters and mermaids and denizens of the deep,
with Father Neptune and his trident at their head, so that she knew
nothing of what went on in the box where she sat, till a voice at her
elbow spoke insistently.

"They lack but one thing more--snow-white Aphrodite rising in peerless
beauty from the foam of the sea; and yet the audience has but to turn
its eyes hither, and behold they will see that crowning marvel for
themselves!"

The girl started, and looked full into the eyes of Lord Sandford, bent
upon her with a significance there was no misunderstanding.  He was
dressed in a daring costume of scarlet and gold, with quantities of lace
and sparkling jewels.  Even his well-turned legs were encased in scarlet
stockings, and his shoes were of the same flaming hue.  His height and
breadth of shoulder always made him a notable figure; and the immense
wig he wore, which to-night was cunningly powdered so as to look almost
like frosted silver, added to the distinction of his appearance.  Gilded
popinjay Lord Sandford with all his extravagances could never be called.
There was something too virile and strong about his whole personality
for that.

"I do not like compliments, my lord," she answered, the words escaping
her lips almost before she was aware; "I have heard something too much
of Venus and Cupid, Pallas and Hymen, since I made my appearance in
London routs.  I am but a simple country maid, and desire no high-flown
compliments.  I am foolish enough to regard them rather as honeyed
insults.  I pray you pardon my freedom of speech."

"I pray you pardon mine," spoke Lord Sandford quickly.  "You have
spoken, Lady Geraldine, a deeper truth than perchance you know.  I, for
one, will not offend again.  I would that all our sisters, wives, and
daughters would look as you and speak as you."

The frank sincerity in face and voice pleased her, and a smile dawned in
her eyes.  It was the first he had ever seen bent on him, and he was
struck afresh with the pure unsullied beauty of this girl's face.  Truth
to tell, his first attraction towards her had been the rumour of her
fortune, for he was more deeply in debt than he wished the world to
know; but something in the remoteness and isolation in which she seemed
to wrap herself piqued and interested him; for his jaded palate required
fresh food when it was to be had, and the vein of manliness and strength
which his life had never altogether warped or destroyed responded to the
sincerity he read in Lady Geraldine's fair face.

The curtain was down now.  For a few minutes he spoke of the play and
the water apparatus, worked by a windmill on the roof, which was
exciting so much interest in London.  Geraldine's eyes meantime
travelled round the box.  She saw her mother engrossed in gay talk with
a small circle of admirers; but one of these edged himself somewhat away
from the rest, and finally stood apart, leaning against the wall of the
box and surveying the house from that vantage point.

Geraldine's eyes were riveted with some interest upon this newcomer,
whom she was certain she had never seen before.  In some indefinable way
he was different from the men she had been used to meet at such places.
For one thing, he wore his own hair; and the floating brown curls, like
Cavalier love-locks, seemed to her infinitely more becoming than the
mass of false hair which was so much in vogue in all ranks save the
lowest.  His dress, too, though far more simple than that of the beaux
fluttering round her mother, seemed to her far more graceful and
distinguished.  His stockings, breeches, and vest were all of white,
with a little silver frosting.  His coat was of pale blue, with silver
buttons; and his lace cravat, though small and unostentatious, was rich
in quality, and fastened by a beautiful pearl.  He carried neither muff
nor snuff-box, cane nor toothpick.  He did not simper nor ogle, nor look
as though he desired to attract the eyes of the house upon himself.  But
he was, notwithstanding, a rather notable figure as he stood looking
gravely and thoughtfully downwards; there was something very graceful in
his attitude, and in the carriage of his head, and his features were so
remarkably handsome that Lady Romaine turned her eyes upon him many
times, and exerted all her artifices to draw him back to her immediate
neighbourhood.  But he was perfectly unconscious of this, not hearing
the chatter which went on about him, lost in some reverie of his own,
which brought a peculiar dreamy softness into his eyes.

Lord Sandford, following the direction of Geraldine's glance, looked at
this motionless figure, then back at the girl, and laughed.

"Lady Geraldine, pray permit me to present to you my newly-made friend
and comrade, Sir Grey Dumaresq, who, I doubt not, is dying to make his
bow to so fair a lady."

She flashed him a glance half merry, half reproachful, and he suddenly
laid his hand upon his lips, a laugh rolling from them hearty and full.

"I' faith I had forgot!  How shall I teach my rebel tongue a new
language?  But Sir Grey will atone for all my defects.--Here is a lady,
if you will believe it, O friend, who loves not the sugared and honeyed
phrase of adulation, but seeks in all things truth, virtue, and I know
not what else beside.  It is whispered to me that she is a mistress of
all the _belles lettres_, and perchance a poetess herself."

"Nay, my lord," answered Geraldine, with a blush and a smile--"only one
who loves the poesy of those who have lived before, and left their
treasures for us who come after, and would fain drink in all the beauty
of their thoughts and of their lives."

Lord Sandford good-naturedly yielded his seat to Grey, whose sensitive
face had lighted at the girl's words.

"Methought I had come to a world where naught was dreamed of save
fashion and frippery, false adulation and falser scorn.  I am well-nigh
stunned by the clamour of tongues, the strife of parties, the bustle of
this gay life of fashion."

"Oh, and I too--I too!" breathed the girl softly: and he flashed at her
a quick, keen glance of sympathy and interest.

"I was bred in the country; my grandam brought me up.  I lived with my
books, amid silvan solitudes, the songs of birds, the scent of flowers.
This great glittering world of folly and fashion is like a fiery wheel
going round in my head.  Ofttimes I could cry aloud for mercy, the pain
and bewilderment are so great.  I know there must be noble men and good
in this strange Pandemonium; but I know not where to find them, and my
heart grows sick.  Would that I could go back to my books and my dreams!
But alas! a maiden may not choose for herself."

"Still there is life here," spoke Grey quickly, "and it behoves us to
know men as well as books.  I have studied both.  I will study them
again.  I would fain learn all that life has to teach, whether for weal
or woe.  No hermit-monk was ever truly a man. Yet there be times when
one shrinks in amaze from all one sees and hears."

The chord of sympathy was struck.  They passed from one thing to
another.  She found one at last who knew and loved the poets of her
childhood's dreams--who could talk of Spenser and Sidney, of Watson,
Greville, and Drayton, quoting their verses, and often lighting upon her
favourite passages.  Here was a man who knew Milton and Clarendon,
Hobbes, Herbert, Lovelace and Suckling, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and
Izaak Walton.  He had read eagerly, like herself, poetry and prose,
drama and epic, lyric and sonnet.  He could speak of Poetry as one who
had loved and courted her as a mistress.  The girl longed to ask him if
he had written himself, but maiden shyness withheld her.  Yet her eyes
brightened as she talked, and the peach-like colour rose and deepened in
her cheeks; and Lord Sandford, turning back once again from the mother
to look at the daughter, was struck dumb with admiration and delight.

"There is a rose worth winning and wearing, though the stem may not be
free from a sharp thorn," he said to himself; and Lady Romaine, who
chanced to catch sight of Geraldine during a shifting of the admirers
who surrounded her, gave something very like a start, and felt a curious
thrill run through her in which pride and envy were blended.

"Gracious!  I did not know I had so handsome a daughter!  I must wed her
as fast as may be, else shall I find my beaux going from me to her," was
her unspoken thought; and aloud she said, tapping Lord Sandford with her
fan, "Pray tell my daughter that I am about to depart.  We have had
enough of the naiads and dryads, and I am tired and hungry.  Who will
come home with me to supper--to take pot-luck with us?"

There was an eager clamour in response; but when the supper-party
assembled round Lady Romaine's chocolate tables in her favourite private
parlour, she noted that Geraldine had disappeared to bed, and that Sir
Grey Dumaresq had not availed himself of her open invitation.




                             *CHAPTER VII.*

                             *A FAIR FACE.*


If Grey Dumaresq was a man who craved a variety of experiences, and
wished to see life under different aspects, he was getting his wish now;
for the gay world of fashion, into which he suddenly found himself
plunged, differed _in toto_ from any of his former experiences; and so
swift was the pace, and so shifting the throng amid which he moved, that
he often felt as though his breath were fairly taken away, and as though
he had suddenly stepped into a new existence.

Lord Sandford had chanced upon the young baronet at a moment when a
blank had been made in his own life by the sudden and violent death of
one who had been his boon companion and friend.  The gay young man, who
had fallen in a foolish duel a few weeks before, had been the inmate of
his house and the companion in all his freaks and follies; so much so,
that without him the young nobleman felt for the moment bewildered and
lost, and had absented himself from town with a view to "getting over
it," as he hoped: for he despised himself for any sign of weakness, and
would not for worlds have had his comrades and boon companions know how
the loss had affected him.

Then, as it seemed just by a lucky chance, this young and attractive man
had fallen as from the very skies at his feet.  Grey Dumaresq, new to
the world of London, curious and speculative, willing to see all, learn
all, participate in all, seemed exactly the person to fill the gap in
his life.  Grey had no place of abode; why, then, should he not occupy
the vacant chambers in the wing of the great mansion in the Strand which
Lord Sandford used as his customary lodging, when he was not spending
his time with friends, or making one of a gay party elsewhere?  Grey had
no valid reason for declining the invitation pressed upon him. Lord
Sandford was a masterful man, and his strong personality impressed
itself upon Grey with something between attraction and repulsion.  But,
on the whole, attraction seemed the stronger power, and curiosity to
know more of this man and his life held Grey's soul in thrall.  He had
always experienced a vivid curiosity to taste life in its various forms,
to know and understand the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations, the
ambitions of other men.  His travels had given him insight into many
matters; but he felt that these new experiences were likely to be more
searching, more exciting, more full of keen personal interest.  He had
been, as it were, a spectator heretofore; now he was to be a
participator.

He had not meant to be any man's guest; he had meant to take a modest
lodging of his own, and look about him for something in the way of
employment, but Lord Sandford had roared with laughter over such a
notion.

"What!  Sir Grey Dumaresq going cap in hand to some proud place-giver to
ask for patronage, or I know not what!  Gadzooks, man, with that face,
that figure, that horse, and a purse full of guineas, you can do better
than that!  Trust yourself to me. I'll show you where fame and fortune
lie.  You shall redeem your rat-infested old house in a very brief
while, if you will but trust yourself to my guidance.  You be Damon to
my Pythias--or is it t'other way round, eh?--and I'll show you the royal
road to the goal you want."

For lack of any definite plans, Grey had consented for the nonce to
accept Lord Sandford's advice, and had quickly found himself installed
in some gloomy and stately yet luxurious chambers in a vast house, of
which only a portion was open for use, and the rest given over to a
neglect and decay that Hartsbourne itself could scarcely rival.

"But we shall change all that some day," spoke Lord Sandford, with a
careless laugh, as Grey expressed his surprise at the vast rooms and
long galleries shut up and infested by rats and spiders. "Oh yes, we
shall change all that some day; but what does a bachelor want with such
a house as this?  What should I be the better for a crowd of liveried
servants, eating off their heads, idling away their time dicing and
drinking?  What have I to give an army of scullions and cooks to do--I
who seldom take a meal at home after my morning chocolate?  No, no; I
know a trick worth two of that. I don't ruin myself to keep a crew of
fat, lazy rogues about me, cheating me at every turn.  Half a dozen
fellows and a few kitchen wenches do well enow for me; but when Lady
Sandford comes to her husband's home--ah well! then we shall see the
difference."

But though he talked jestingly from time to time of the Lady Sandford
that was to be, he gave Grey no hint as to whether his fancy inclined
more to one or another of the many gay maidens with whom he chatted and
flirted, danced and romped, in the fashion of the day; and so
bewildering and dazzling were these young madams and their surroundings
that the newcomer was lost in a maze of wonder and bewilderment, and
found it hard to distinguish one face from another, until he met one,
different from all the rest.

But Grey was not left idle; he had small time for musing.  The very
first day of his sojourn in London he was surrounded by a fluttering
crowd of tailors, glove-sellers, barbers, fencers, sellers and purveyors
of every imaginable ware, who all professed their eagerness to serve
him, and quoted Lord Sandford as a patron who could swear to their
honesty and the excellence of their goods.

Into the midst of this motley throng Lord Sandford thrust himself,
laughing his great hearty laugh, and quickly sent to the right-about
two-thirds of the importunate crowd--a jest here, a keen thrust there, a
slap on back or shoulder in another quarter, emphasizing his forcible
hints.  And when the room was cleared of all but the lucky few, he flung
himself into an armchair with another laugh, telling Grey he was sorry
his knaves of servants, who looked for perquisites everywhere, had let
in this flood of rogues upon him, but added that he must needs have the
wherewithal to cut a proper figure in London town, and forthwith set
about the business of ordering an outfit for the young man which almost
took his guest's breath away.

"Poof!" he cried, when the latter strove to remonstrate, "you have
plenty of money; and these rascals can wait if it suits your pleasure.
Father's memory!  Oh, be hanged to all such mawkish sentiment!  You need
not think less of your father because you wear a blue coat in lieu of a
black! Rabbit me! but you are of a different world from this if you keep
alive your father's memory for six months after his decease!  No, no;
you must cut a figure.  Sir Hugh's name is clean forgot by now. I'll eat
my boots if 'tis not so.  I'll have you as gay as my fancy paints you.
No black--no sables for the gentleman, I tell you.  Let us see those
other patterns.  Ah! here is something more like."

Grey submitted.  In sooth, he cared but little for the colour of his
clothes, or the set of his hat, or the cut of his coat.  He let Lord
Sandford have his way for the most part, only insisting here and there
upon soft and tender tints, and showing a predilection for white, which
his friend quite approved.

"You shall be a foil to me, not a rival.  I have learned that art from
the ladies.  I like to blaze like old Sol in his strength; you shall
rather recall gentle Luna amid her galaxy of stars.  Faugh! One's tongue
gets into this silly trick of speech, so that one cannot drop it even
betwixt man and man!  But you are right to think that white becomes you
well.  You will look a pretty fellow, in all conscience, when you have
added a peruke to your other adornments."

But here Grey stood firm.  Nothing would induce him to cumber his head
with one of those mountains of hair.  In vain the perruquiers displayed
their wares; in vain Lord Sandford bantered and laughed, and made out
that he would be reckoned as a mad fellow by the young bloods of the
city.  Grey would not yield an inch.  He had always found his own hair
sufficient and comfortable, and he would wear it to the end.  And as the
discomfited perruquier at last departed, Lord Sandford broke into
another of his great laughs.

"I' faith you are right, man.  I like you the better that you have the
courage of your opinions, and care no whit for fashion.  You'll be a
match for more than the perruquiers yet.  There's a fighting strain in
your blood.  I can see it in the glint of your eye. Well, you shall not
lack opportunity to fight as well as to laugh here in London town; but
we'll not have cold steel or hot lead again.  I've seen enough of that
cursed duelling to last me for a lifetime."

Grey was quickly to discover the nature of the battles in which he was
to take a part, and at the first he shrank from them with an instinctive
aversion he could not well have defined, being no grave moralist or
philosopher.  Contests of skill or of luck at the gaming tables were all
the rage of the day with the young dandies of the town, and the man who
could keep a steady head, and in some cases a steady hand, was certain
in the long run to obtain advantage over his fellows.  At one club a
game something like our modern billiards was all the rage; and, of
course, a man who was moderate in his cups could score heavily over the
reckless, dissipated bloods, who were seldom sober after sundown.  Dice
and cards had their vogue at other places; and though some of the games
played were those purely of chance, others required no small skill and a
clear head to ensure success, and it was here that Lord Sandford's
strong head and Grey's cool blood and temperate habits gave them the
advantage.

The young man had not been a fortnight in town before finding his
capital doubled, as well as all bills paid to the astonished tradesmen,
who seldom looked to receive their money within a twelvemonth.  He was
disposed to be troubled at this easy fashion of making money; but Lord
Sandford laughed him to scorn.

"Zounds, man, what does it matter?  Those young popinjays are bound to
lose their money to some one. Why not then to honest fellows like you
and me, who pay our bills and do good to the community with the money?
Scruples!  Faugh! you must rid yourself of them!  Sir Hugh Dumaresq's
son need not trouble himself thus.  Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die.  Isn't that good Scripture?"  But the reckless young lord paled
a little at the sound of his own words.  He had seen sudden death once
too often for his peace of mind of late.

In sooth, Grey felt but little scruple in taking his winnings.  The
young man was not greatly in advance of his age, although he was indued
with a nature more finely strung and aspirations more lofty than
belonged to most.  Gambling was so much a matter of course both in this
and in other lands, and the devotees of the amusement so numerous and so
bent upon their sport, that it would have needed stronger convictions
than Grey as yet possessed to make any stand on such a point.  He took
the same risks as the others, and if his coolness of head, steadiness of
hand, and quick observation and memory served to make for success in his
case, he rather regarded this as a witness to his superiority, and felt
only a small sense of reluctance in pocketing his gains; which
reluctance he could only attribute to a lingering memory of words spoken
by his mother when he was a growing boy, and news came to them from time
to time of Sir Hugh's losses over cards, and the necessity for further
retrenchments upon the already impoverished estate.

But the cases being so dissimilar, Grey did not see that he need debar
himself from this easy highroad to fortunes, as it then seemed.  Nobody
was dependent upon him.  Nobody was there to grieve over his troubles or
to rejoice over his success.  His honest serving-man was in sooth the
only being in any way deeply attached to him; and Dick was as delighted
at his master's brave appearance, and at the golden stream running into
his pocket, as though he had achieved some great success or triumph.

There was one way by which Grey had pocketed considerable sums of money
that was very congenial to him, and had given him some very happy hours.
This was the speed and strength of his horse, which Lord Sandford had
made boast of, vowing in the hearing of some of the smartest dandies of
the town that Don Carlos would beat any steed against whom he was
pitted--a challenge eagerly taken up by the young bloods, proud of their
own horses and horsemanship, to whom trials of skill and strength, and
contests over which wagers might freely be exchanged, were as the very
salt of life.

So either out at Hampstead, or at Richmond or Hampton Court, Don Carlos
had been set to show the metal of which he was made, and had come off
easy victor in every race and every match, whether flat running, or
leaping, or a course of the nature of a steeplechase had been elected.
His strength and speed, sagacity and endurance, had never once failed
him, and already he was the talk of the town, and Grey could have sold
him for a great price had he been willing to part with his favourite.

Many bright eyes had smiled upon the young centaur, many languishing
glances had been cast at him.  He had been called up again and again to
be presented to some high-born dame, or some bevy of laughing maidens,
and he had bowed with courtly grace, and received their sugared
compliments with suitable acknowledgments.  But no face had attracted
him as that face he had seen once at the water theatre, almost upon his
first appearance in the gay world. He knew that it belonged to Lady
Geraldine Romaine; and often his eyes roved round some gay assemblage,
searching half unconsciously for a sight of her tall and graceful
figure, and the sweet, earnest face, so different from the laughing and
grimacing crowd in which he now moved.  Grey had not known much of
women, so far.  His college life first, and then his roving career of
adventure, had hindered him from making friendships save with those of
his own sex; and his deep love for his mother had preserved as a living
power his chivalrous belief in women, and a resolute determination to
disbelieve the idle, malicious, and vicious tales he heard of them on
all sides.  Womanhood was sacred to him, and should be sacred to the
world.  That was his inalienable conviction; and he had striven to be
blind and deaf to much of what had often been passing around him, that
he might not sink to the level of the men he met, who would tear to
tatters a woman's reputation for an evening's pastime, or revel in every
ugly bit of scandal or tittle-tattle that the young beaux' valets
learned from the lackeys of other fine folk, and retailed with additions
at the door of the theatre, the gates of the Park, or on the staircases
of the fashionable houses whither their masters and mistresses flocked
for amusement, unconscious or heedless of the gossip spread abroad about
them by their servants at the doors.

Grey took no pleasure in the society of these fashionable dames.  His
tongue had not learned the trick of the artificial language then in
vogue.  He was disgusted by the gross flattery every lady looked to
receive, and the lisping platitudes of the attendant beaux filled him
with scorn.  It was small wonder that he chose rather the society of men
of more virility and stronger fibre, such as Lord Sandford and his
chosen friends; for though many of them were wild young rakes, and not a
few had a very doubtful record, yet Grey knew little enough about that,
and found them not without attraction, although the higher part of his
nature revolted from much that he saw and heard.  Nevertheless, he
regarded it all as a part of the experience in life which he craved, and
he might have become in a short while just such another as these, had it
not been for an incident which suddenly arrested him in his career of
dissipation, and turned his thoughts into different channels.

It had been early June when he came to town, and now July had come, with
its sultry suns and breathless nights, when Grey ofttimes felt after an
evening over cards that it was mockery to go to bed, and lounged away
the residue of the night at his open window, enjoying the only coolness
and freshness that was to be had, as the wind came whispering from the
river charged with refreshing moisture.

Sometimes the river seemed to call him; and at such times he would lay
aside his finery, clothe himself in some plainer habit, and betake
himself through the silent house, where the night watchman was always
found slumbering at his post, out through the big courts and down to the
river steps, where a few light wherries were always kept moored, one of
which he would select, and shoot out upon the glimmering river to meet
the new day there.

Some of his happiest hours were spent thus; and at such times as these
he felt rising within him a vague sense of unrest and of disgust.  He
had come to the world of London to conquer fate, to make for himself a
name and a career; and here he was wasting day after day in
coffee-houses or clubs, with a crowd of idlers whose thoughts never rose
above the fancy of the hour, whose only ambition was to kill time as
easily and pleasantly as possible, and to line their pockets with gold,
that they might have more to throw away on the morrow.

Was this what he would come to?  Was this what he was made for?  Would
he become like unto them, a mere roisterer and boon companion, a man
without aspirations and without ambition?  His cheeks burned at the
thought; and he sent his light craft spinning rapidly up the stream as
the questions formed themselves.

It was an exquisite summer morning.  The bells in the many towers and
steeples of the city had chimed the hour of five.  The sun had long been
up, yet the glamour and glory of the new-born day still lay upon the
sleeping city and the dewy meadows of the opposite shore.  Grey rowed on
rapidly, yet drinking in the beauty of all he saw.  He knew not how far
he had rowed; he had lost count of his surroundings; he was absorbed in
a deep reverie, when he was suddenly brought up breathless and wondering
by the sound of a voice singing--a voice so clear and sweet and true
that he asked himself whether it could be any creature of earth that
sang, or whether it might be some nymph or mermaid such as sailors spoke
of in their wondrous tales.

He gazed about him.  He saw that he was passing a garden, and that a
group of weeping willows overhung the water at this spot.  The singing
seemed to come from thence.  Burning curiosity possessed him, and he
very slowly and softly rowed himself onwards, till the prow of his boat
met the drooping boughs with a soft rustle.  The song ceased suddenly.
Grey turned in his seat, and drew himself within the sheltering shade;
as he did so, a quick exclamation broke from him.  He dropped his oars
as he exclaimed,--

"The Lady Geraldine!"

                     *      *      *      *      *

How had it come about?  Grey never could have said.  But now it was all
told--the story of his chequered life.  She had been silent at the
first--not exactly resentful of his intrusion, not unwilling to let him
have speech of her again, but quiet, with a maidenly reserve and dignity
which had acted upon him like a charm.  It brought back to him the
memory of his mother, and her noble dignity.  The look in her eyes
recalled those things that he had learned at her knee, and those
aspirations after true greatness of life which she had cherished and
fostered. Suddenly his present life looked to him utterly sordid, mean,
and unworthy; and in a burst of confidence, for which he could have
given no reason, he told her all his tale, encouraged by the soft and
earnest glances of her beautiful eyes, although she scarcely spoke a
word from beginning to end.

And now she looked at him with a great compassion in her face.

"Oh, it is sad, it is sad!" she said in her earnest musical tones.  "I
know a little how sad it is.  I see it too.  But you are a man.  You are
strong, you are your own master.  Why do you let yourself be made the
sport and plaything of fate?  Oh, do not do it! Rise to your calling as
a man, as a gentleman, as a Christian!  You can--I know you can!  I read
it in your face!  What is Lord Sandford to you? The acquaintance of a
few weeks.  What are his comrades to you?  You know that in your heart
you despise them.  Then will you make yourself as one of them?  Will you
sink to their level?  Oh no, no, no!  Break the fetters; they cannot be
fast riveted yet.  Break them, and stand a free man, and then see what
the world has to offer you."

She was gazing at him now, not shyly, not as a maiden archly coquetting
with a handsome young swain, but as a woman yearning to reclaim one
whose footsteps had well-nigh slipped in the mire, and whose whole soul
was stirred by the effort.

Grey listened like a man who dreams; and yet his eyes were on fire, and
his heart was kindled to a great flame--shame at his own weakness,
yearnings after vanished memories and half-forgotten aspirations
struggling together with some new and utterly unknown emotion which
seemed to come surging over him like a flood, leaving him speechless,
motionless.

She had risen, and now held out her hand.

"You will triumph yet.  I am assured of it.  And I shall pray God to
give you His strength and grace. Farewell, sir; we may meet again
sometimes.  I shall hear of you.  I shall listen to hear naught but
good. Your mother's voice shall plead through mine.  Give up evil
companions; give up idle dissipation, and all that it brings in its
train.  Lead the higher life of the Courteous Knight, the Spotless
Knight, the Knight of the Holy Grail.  Did we not speak of them all when
first we met, and methought you looked such a one yourself?  Be true to
that better self; and so I say farewell again.  May God be with you!"

She was gone, and Grey stood looking after her as a man who sees a
vision.




                            *CHAPTER VIII.*

                        *A STARTLING DISCOVERY.*


As Grey Dumaresq drifted downstream with the tide that sunny July
morning, he felt as though something new and wonderful had come into his
life, as though some great and marvellous change had fallen upon him,
which, for good or ill, must leave its mark upon his life.

He did not try to analyze the strange feelings which possessed him.  For
a time he did not even consciously think.  He seemed to be drifting
along a shining pathway--drifting, he scarce knew whither, and did not
care to ask.  His heart was strangely heavy, and yet strangely light.  A
curious loathing and shame at himself was blended with a sense of
exultant triumph, which held him in a mood of ecstasy.  For a long while
he drifted onwards, scarce thinking or knowing whither he went, till a
sudden consciousness that he was passing Lord Sandford's house brought
him to himself with a sense of shock. He had left that house only two
hours before; yet it might have been as many years that had rolled over
his head, so different were his feelings, so changed was his outlook
upon life.

He moored his boat, and went up to his room. Before long he would be
expected to drink coffee or chocolate at his friend's levee, meet all
those of his comrades who had energy to pay their customary _devoirs_ to
their patron, and discuss the plans for the ensuing day and night.  Grey
dashed some cold water over his hot head, and sat down to think.

What would Lord Sandford say if he suddenly expressed his intention of
giving up gambling in all its many insidious forms, in order to enter
upon a life totally different from that of the past weeks? It was not as
though he had any alternative plan to unfold to him.  He was as ignorant
how his fortune was to be made now, after several weeks in gay London
town, as he had been on his first approach to that city.  He could
almost hear the great guffaw of laughter with which Lord Sandford would
greet his confession.  He half feared the powerful personality and the
imperious temper of the man who had been a good friend to him, and who
had the reputation of being a dangerous enemy when his will was crossed.
Grey knew that this man liked him--went near to loving him--would not
easily let him go.  He knew that he would appear both ungrateful and
capricious; and the young man writhed at the thought of seeming either
the one or the other.  But yet he must break away.  Pacing up and down
the room, he seemed to see the soft earnest eyes of the Lady Geraldine
bent upon him.  He had pledged his word to her, and in spirit to his
dead mother.  From that pledge there was no drawing back.  Yet how could
the break best be made?

He thought over the engagements already entered into.  Was it needful
that these should be kept? He thought not--at least not those which were
but promises to meet at such and such clubs or coffee-houses for the
purposes of card-playing and similar recreations.  But there was one
engagement that Grey did not see his way honourably to break. He had
promised to ride Don Carlos the following Saturday in a course against
three other picked horses, and heavy wagers, he knew, had been laid upon
or against his steed.  This engagement he felt he could not break; but
the rest he would.  He might even make the excuse that Don Carlos wanted
attention, and that he was going to take him into the country for
purposes of training; and, once away from Sandford House, he ought to be
able to pen a letter to the master which might excuse his return, and
explain the nature of the change which had come over him.

Yes, that would be the way.  He would not go open-mouthed to him this
morning, to be perhaps scoffed or cajoled into some rash compromise.
Grey knew that his ability to see both sides of a question often led him
into difficulties and the appearance of vacillation.  Surely he could
keep his pledge if he made the break with a certain diplomatic skill.
Not only would it be easier to himself, but it might prove the safer
method also.

When he saw Lord Sandford in the midst of his friends, laughing at the
last bit of scandal, passing jokes over the latest repartee of the
redoubtable Duchess of Marlborough to the meek Queen, discussing the
rivalries of the ministers, and the other rivalries (to them more
important) of the reigning beauties of the gay world, Grey felt that it
would indeed be impossible to speak in this company of any of those
things which were in his mind.  He contented himself by standing aloof,
looking out of the window and sipping his chocolate, whilst the gay
flood of talk surged around him, and he caught a word here and a phrase
there, but always heard when Lord Sandford's resonant tones dominated
those of all others.

"Talk of rival beauties; we shall see sport to-night.  Lady Romaine and
Lady Saltire--dearest friends and dearest foes--are to go to Vauxhall
Gardens to-night, each in a new toilet specially designed and ordered
for the occasion.  It will be a ladies' battle, in very truth; and
public opinion must needs decide which of the rival queens is fairest to
look upon.  I have promised both the dear creatures to be there, to give
my admiration to both alike. Shall I risk the undying enmity of either
by giving the palm to one?  No such fool, gentlemen--no such fool is
Sandford.  I vow I will have ready such a pretty speech or couplet for
each that she shall go away with a better opinion of me than ever!  Ha,
ha, ha!  I love to see the pretty dears, tricked out in their finery,
and ready to tear each other's eyes out!  So, gentlemen, I cancel all
previous engagements for to-night.  I am for Vauxhall, and Heaven only
knows how late we shall be detained there by the battle of beauty."

"We will all be there!" cried the young bloods, who were at all times
ready to follow Lord Sandford to whatever place of entertainment he
elected to go; and one voice followed with a laughing question,--

"Will the snow maiden be there in the train of her mother?"

Grey felt himself start, and was glad his face was turned away.  He
would not for worlds that the sharp mocking eyes of Lord Sandford should
see him at this moment, albeit he had no notion of any sort that he had
special interest in his spotless Lady Geraldine.

[Illustration: He stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the
fair Geraldine (page 155).]

"I trow so," was the carelessly-spoken reply of Lord Sandford, as he
adjusted his wig and suffered his valet to spray some delicate perfume
over his person, as a finishing touch to his toilet.  "The Lady
Geraldine is no longer to lead the life of a nun.  It has been decreed
that she is to show her lovely face abroad, and add thereby a lustre to
her mother's charms."

"A lustre her ladyship would well dispense with," laughed another.  "She
would sooner pose as the stepmother than the mother of a grown-up
daughter--ha, ha!  How comes it that this young beauty hath never been
shown before to the world?  Other damsels make their _debut_ at sixteen;
but the Lady Geraldine can scarce be less than twenty, and has the
dignity of matronhood."

"A vast deal more dignity than the most part of our matrons do show
forth," spoke Lord Sandford incisively.  "Doubtless she learned it from
her grandam, her mother's mother and her father's aunt; for my Lord and
my Lady Romaine are cousins, and Mrs. Adair was trusted and revered by
both.  Young children are in the way of such gay ladies of fashion,
wherefore the babe was sent to its grandam, and remained with her till
the virtuous and discreet old lady died, having bequeathed her store of
wisdom and discretion to the beautiful maid she had reared."

"And her fortune too," sniggered one gay dandy. "Do not forget that
item, my lord.  It is whispered that it will make the biggest of her
charms.  What is the figure?  Doth anybody know?"

All disclaimed any precise information, and Lord Sandford spoke no word;
his brow was slightly furrowed, and there was a subdued gleam in his eye
which warned those who saw it that something in the conversation was not
to his mind.  They therefore hastened to change it, and many of them
said adieu and sauntered away.  Only a small knot remained with their
patron, discussing the plans for the day; and Grey stood still in the
embrasure of the window, his heart still beating with curious violence
and rapidity.  When those men were speaking of Geraldine, he had scarce
been able to keep his fingers from their throats.  What business had
they taking her pure name upon their lips?  And why had they spoken of
her fortune?  Could it be true that she was so great an heiress?  He
hated to believe it; yet what was it to him?  He was wakened from his
reverie by a quick question from Lord Sandford, which he heard as
through the mists of a dream, and answered,--

"'Tis true I am not quite myself.  I slept not at all last night, and
have been on the river well-nigh since sunrise to rid me of the vapours.
Methinks I will seek some sleep in mine own rooms ere night. Reckon not
on me for to-day's pastime."

"Ay, you have the air of a man squeamish and in need of rest.  Go get
thee a good sleep, friend Grey, for we must keep you in fettle for the
match on Saturday.  Man and beast must come to the field strong and
robust, with nerve and wind and muscle true and taut.  But you must make
one of our party to Vauxhall to-night.  There will be many bright eyes
on the lookout for the gay cavalier, as the ladies call you for your
love-locks.  You must not fail us there."

For a moment Grey hesitated, prudence and passion fighting together for
mastery.  But the overwhelming desire to see Geraldine again--perhaps to
speak a word of farewell--overcame him, and he answered briefly as he
strolled through the room on his way out,--

"I shall be ready enough for that; you can reckon on me."

How the day passed Grey never knew, and it was still broad daylight when
he and his comrades started for the gardens of Vauxhall, where it was
the fashion to spend the evening hours when nothing more attractive
offered, and where such music and such illuminations as the times had to
offer were to be enjoyed, and where ladies and their attendant beaux
fluttered about like so many gay butterflies, and found opportunity as
the dusk fell for walks and talks of a more private nature in the bosky
alleys and shady paths than they could hope to gain in crowded routs and
card-parties.  Supper could be obtained too, and pleasant little parties
made up; and the fashionable world found it agreeable on these hot
summer nights to take their pleasure out in the open air.

Grey detached himself from his friends upon the first opportunity, and
wandered alone through the gardens, avoiding encounters with persons he
knew, though often accosted with laugh and jest and challenge by masked
ladies, or young bloods eager to make friends with one whose face and
figure began to be known, owing to his successes in horsemanship with
Don Carlos, and his friendship with Lord Sandford.  But Grey made small
response to overtures, quickly shook himself free, and pursued his
solitary ramble, till at length a sound of gay voices, laughter, and
almost uproarious mirth, in which the tones of Lord Sandford could
plainly be heard, drew him to a wide open space where an illuminated
fountain seemed to have drawn a great concourse of people; and there,
amid a tossing crowd of gaudy gallants, and ladies with towering heads,
mincing, giggling, uttering little shrieks, little jests, or playing off
an infinitude of coquetries and artifices to attract admiration, he
beheld the stately white-robed figure around which his thoughts and
fancies had been playing all through the long hours of the day.

He saw not the rival queens of beauty in their gorgeous apparel.  He saw
not the surging crowd that eddied around them, appraising, flattering,
admiring, laughing.  He only saw one white figure, standing aloof and
for the moment alone, the moonbeams glimmering upon the shining
whiteness of her dress, the fair face bent, as though in some sort of
sorrow or shame.  He saw it, and he was instantly at her side.

Whether or not he spoke, he knew not.  He offered his arm, and the next
moment he was leading her away from that giddy, mocking crowd; and he
felt the clinging clasp of her fingers thrilling him to his heart's
core.  He heard the breath of relief as the chorus of flippant merriment
died away in the distance. He paused, and a quick exclamation escaped
his lips.

"This is no place for you, Lady Geraldine.  Why do they bring you
hither?"

She answered not, but turned her gaze for a moment towards him, and then
dropped her eyes. With an impulse for which he could not account, he
covered the fingers which lay upon his arm with his own disengaged hand,
and passionate words sprang to his lips.

"Give me only the right, fair lady, and I will save you from them all.
I ask only to live and die as your knight--your champion--without
wages--without reward!"

Then he was silent.  His breath came thick and fast.  He felt the quiver
of the hand he held.  He knew not how long the silence lasted, it was so
strangely sweet, so full of mysterious meaning.

"I thank you, sir.  I trow that you speak truth, and that your words are
not idle froth--gone in a moment--as the words of so many of yonder
gallants. But it may not be.  I may not give you such a right. A maiden
is not free to choose her friends; and the knights of chivalry are long
since vanished from the earth.  I would that I might call you friend,
that sometimes we might meet and hold converse together. I trust that I
may learn a good report of you, that one day I may speak with pride of
having known you in your youth.  But that must suffice us.  Let it be
enough for both.  I may not--"

She hesitated, and her voice died into silence. She spoke with a
repressed emotion which he scarcely understood.  The tumult of his own
heart was such that he could not seek to gauge the depths of her
feelings.

"If I may not be your knight, let me at least be your friend--your
servant!" he pleaded.  "And if there is anything wherein I can serve
you--"

She seemed struck by the phrase.  She lifted her bent head and gazed
earnestly at him; but the words she spoke seemed strange.

"You are the friend of Lord Sandford; is it not so?"

"I have been his comrade these many weeks.  He has shown me much
kindness and good-fellowship. I owe him gratitude."

"And you must know him well, I doubt not.  Tell me, Sir Grey--and I pray
you deceive me not--what kind of a man is this same Lord Sandford?  Is
he leal and true, faithful, loving, and loyal?  Is he better than the
crowd who follow at his heels and ape his manners, use his name as a
watchword, and fawn upon his favour?  Tell me, what think you of him?  A
friend must needs speak sooth."

"Lady, you have asked a hard question, inasmuch as I know but little of
the man, albeit I have lived with him above a month.  He attracts me,
and yet there be moments when he repels me too.  He is a good friend--I
would not speak a word against him; yet it is said that he can be a
bitter and an unscrupulous enemy; and those who have lost his favour
withdraw themselves as speedily as possible from his notice, fearful
lest some evil may befall them."

"Is he then cruel and rancorous?"

"I can believe that he might be, were his passions roused.  He has that
forceful nature which tends to vehement liking and bitter hatred.  I
have experienced the one; I have not tasted of the other.  For the rest,
he is a man of parts, and can do all well to which he puts his hand.
Methinks he would be strong enough to break off his reckless and vicious
habits, had he but motive sufficient to make him! desire to do so.  But
for the nonce he floats with the current, and lives as the world lives.
More I cannot say."

At that moment a swift, firm tread was heard approaching along the dim
alley; and Geraldine looked hastily round, her hand dropping from Grey's
arm.

"It is he!" she whispered, and there was a catch in her voice which the
young man heard without understanding.  He faced round, and beheld the
towering figure of Lord Sandford beside them.

"Well chanced upon!" quoth he in his resonant tones.  "I was sent by
your mother in search of you, Lady Geraldine.  The court of beauty has
sat.  To her has been adjudged the prize.  She now desires the presence
of her daughter, to share her triumph. We shall sup anon, and the table
will not be complete without one gracious and lovely presence. Lady
Geraldine, honour me by accepting my escort.--Grey, will you join us?"

He spoke the last words over his shoulder, and there was a note in his
voice which the young man had never heard before, and which he did not
fully understand.  It seemed to sting him, but he knew not why.

"I thank you--no," he answered.  "I am going home."

And then he stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the fair
Geraldine, who threw him one strange, half-appealing glance over her
shoulder, but spoke no word of farewell.

Grey had meant to go home, but somehow he could not bring himself to do
so.  His brain seemed on fire, and his heart with it.  He knew not what
ailed him, but a fever was consuming him.  He left the gardens, but
walked on and on, not knowing or caring whither he went.  The night was
far spent, and the dawn was beginning to blush in the eastern sky,
before he found himself in the region of Sandford House again.

The place was still and deserted.  The revellers and roisterers seemed
all at home.  A watchman dozed at his post, thankful for the peace of
the streets, and Grey met no interruption, till suddenly, round a
corner, he came face to face with his host, who gave him a look, uttered
a short laugh, and linked his arm within his.

"Well met, friend Grey!  You too have had no desire to woo the somnolent
god?  We find metal more attractive elsewhere.  Say now, what think you
of the future Lady Sandford?  Methought you had eyes but for her
to-night.  Will she not queen it right royally here--the beautiful
stately creature? You have taste, Grey, and I am well pleased that you
have.  Those painted, patched, and powdered Jezebels, smirking and
ogling and running all over the town for the adulation of the crowd, are
as little to your mind as to mine.  We can flatter and fool and make
mock with the best; but when it comes to marriage!  Faugh! one's soul
sickens at the thought.  What man in his senses would trust his
happiness or his honour in the hands of that tawdry crew?  Gilt and
tinsel do very well to play with; but when one desires to purchase, one
asks for gold."

Grey's heart seemed to stand still within him.  He felt growing numb and
cold.  As they passed beneath the gateway, and the lamp shone upon his
face, Lord Sandford saw that it was white as death, and a strange gleam
came into his own eyes.

"Come, my friend, you do not answer.  What think you of the wife that I
have chosen?  What think you of the Lady Geraldine Adair?  Is she not a
matchless creature?  Who would have believed such a sport could come
from such a tree?"

Grey commanded himself by a great effort.

"Is the Lady Geraldine Adair, then, your affianced wife?"

"That, or next door to it.  My suit is approved of her parents.  We
shall be betrothed ere long.  I thought you might be learning as much
from her own lips to-night.  Did I not hear my name pass between you
twain?"

"She did ask some question anent you," answered Grey, who had no desire
to fence or parry--he felt too stunned and bewildered; "but she spoke
not of any troth-plight.  Why should she?"

"True, why should she?  She is not one of your empty-headed chatterers.
She wears not her heart upon her sleeve.  And your acquaintance is of
the slightest; is it not so?  Have you met before, since that evening in
the water theatre when I did first present you to each other?"

"I have seen her but once between," answered Grey, still in the same
quiet, stunned fashion; and when they had entered the house, he made
excuse to go at once to his room, declining all proffer of refreshment
or further converse.

Lord Sandford looked after him with an intent look upon his face, which
slowly clouded over, till there was something almost malignant and
ferocious in his aspect.

"So it is as I thought.  He has been hit, and hard hit.  Where can he
have seen her in the interim?  They would not have been standing thus,
talking thus, if some bond had not been established between them.  Yet I
thought I had kept an eye upon him.  I knew there might be danger.  I
saw it the first moment that they met.  There is something akin in their
natures.  They feel it themselves. Hr-r-r-rr! that must be put a stop
to.  I will have no rival in Geraldine's heart.  She does not love me
yet; but she fears me a little, and she thinks of me. That is no bad
basis to build upon.  I shall win her yet, if I have a fair field.  But
a rival--no, that must not be!  And yet I read somewhat in her eyes
to-night which had not been there before.  The fiend take all false
friends!  I must rid myself of this one, and that speedily.  I have
liked him; but he shall not stand in my way.  Well, 'tis I have made
him: I can quickly unmake him.  Let me but think of the way and the
means.  Grey Dumaresq, you are a pretty fellow and a pleasant comrade;
but you shall never be suffered to stand in the light of Sandford's
hopes and plans and desires.  Look to yourself, my friend; for evil is
abroad for you!"




                             *CHAPTER IX.*

                      *"A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS."*


"Master, master, wake up!  What ails you? Have you forgot the day, and
what has to be done?"

Dick, with an expression of uneasiness and determination upon his face,
was shaking Grey somewhat vehemently by the shoulder.  The latter seemed
to find it hard to wake; and when his eyes opened at last, there was a
lack-lustre expression in them that was strange and unnatural.  Dick's
honest face clouded over yet more.

"I was certain there was some devilry afoot when they all came here last
night.  I have never seen my master in such a mad mood of merriment," he
muttered half aloud, as he turned away to get a brimming glass of pure
cold water from the table.  "What has come over them, I don't know.  But
I like not the change. I liked not the look in Lord Sandford's eyes.  He
is a great man, I doubt it not; but I wish my master had chanced upon
another as a friend and comrade in this great Babylon of a city.  There
is more going on here than I well understand."

"What are you grumbling over there to yourself, Dicon?" asked Grey from
his bed, and his voice sounded more natural and quiet than his servant
had heard it yet; "and where am I?  For sure this room is strange to
mine eyes, nor have I any recollection of it overnight; and how come you
to be here, for that matter, honest Dicon?  Methought you were at
Hampstead, watching over Don Carlos, that he might be ready for
Saturday's race."

"Yes, master, and so I am; and this is the hostelry at Hampstead where I
have taken up my quarters with the horse; and hither it was that you
came yestere'en, with Lord Sandford and his friends, to be ready for the
match to-day.  But beshrew me if I did think yesterday you would be fit
for the saddle to-day!  Is it strange I should mutter and grumble to
myself when such things happen?"

"Nay now, what things, good Dicon?  I pray you tell me," spoke Grey, as
he drained at one draught the ice-cold water, and drew a long breath of
relief. "I feel like a man waking from a strange and fevered dream; for,
in sooth, I know but little of what has been passing these last days.
Some strange madness seems to have possessed me.  I had meant to say
farewell to Lord Sandford and his world, and seek mine own fortunes in
some other field.  Yet methinks I have not made the break.  I have
visions of wild orgies and furious gaming--such as I held aloof from
before.  Dicon, I fear me I have made a desperate fool of myself, and of
my fortunes too.  Tell me, what money have I with me now?"

"Not much, master.  I took what you had--a matter of some twenty guineas
perhaps.  I have it safe in a bag.  But surely that is not all.  You had
won a fortune, you did tell me--"

"Ay, and now I have lost it.  I can recollect how the guineas flew, and
how the stakes were doubled, and how I lost again and yet again.  I take
it I am a ruined man, good Dicon.  These twenty guineas saved from the
wreck are all the fortune I possess, and belike it is better so--better
so."

"Better!" echoed the dismayed Dick; "nay, my master.  But you will win
it back again.  The luck cannot always be against you.  Think how it was
at the first!"

"Yes, Dicon, and perchance it had been better had the luck been worse.
I love not such gains as these. Besides, there is somewhat in this
beyond my ken. Lord Sandford desired my friendship and company then, and
luck was with me.  Now that he desires it no more, the luck has changed,
and that so strangely and desperately that one might almost say there
was magic in it."

Dick's jaw dropped; he longed to know more, but feared to intrude too
much upon his master's secrets. Grey, however, knew how faithful and
attached was his stanch henchman, and as he went through his morning
toilet he told him a little of the events of the past three days, in as
far as he himself could remember them.

"I have offended Lord Sandford doubly," he said, "though he will not
openly admit it.  But I know--I feel the change.  I trow that he is my
enemy. Nay, Dicon, look not so aghast; it will matter little in the
future, since to-day I take my leave of him, and most like in this great
whirling world our paths will not again cross, either for weal or woe."

"But how?--what?  He did seem to love you well."

"I think he did; but a mischance befell.  He did not tell me of his
troth-plight to a fair lady--a lady of surpassing beauty, and of a
virtue and purity which make her like a bright particular star amid the
painted dames and mincing damsels of this giddy London town. Twice or
thrice did I meet her and pay homage to her wondrous beauty and
goodness.  It was words she spoke to me that decided me, ere ever any
ill-blood had been aroused, to leave off from this life of
pleasure-seeking and distraction, and seek a nobler career than that of
the butterfly dandy fluttering round the town.  But Lord Sandford
thought that there was somewhat more than this betwixt us.  Of that I am
assured.  A flame of jealousy swept over him; and when I told him of my
resolution, I trow that his suspicions received confirmation.  I did not
see it then, but I see it now.  He thought I left him to pursue my ends
alone, and, perchance, to seek to win the lady of his choice.  But he
spoke nothing of this--only insisted that for this week my engagements
should be kept, and that after to-day's race I might go my own way, an I
was so resolved.  He was not unkindly; yet there was something strange
and stern in his bearing and language, and you have seen how his
imperious temper and will sweep all before them.  I myself was strangely
dazed and something sorrowful.  I scarce do know why my heart was so
heavy within me.  I let him have his way; and you behold what that way
has been.  I am a ruined man, beggared of all my winnings; and methinks
my Lord Sandford has plotted for this very thing."

"It is a shame!  Would I could take my horsewhip to him--"

"Nay, nay, good Dicon; be not so wroth," spoke Grey calmly and quietly.
"In sooth, I know not that I owe him aught but thanks.  When all is said
and done, it was but ill-gotten gain.  I would sooner face life with
none of it upon me.  I had a few guineas to start with--well, it was
more than a few; yet had I spent my time in London, I should have had
but little left by now.  I have learned many lessons, and I shall start
clear of debt, and without my pockets filled with other men's gold."

Dick was scarce moralist enough to understand or appreciate his master's
scruples--scruples new, indeed, to Grey himself--but the faithful fellow
was ready to accept any verdict and any decision made by the man he
loved and served; and as he put the finishing touches to the workmanlike
riding toilet which he had in readiness, he remarked with a short
laugh,--

"Faith, master, you and I betwixt us, with Don Carlos and my good nag
for company, and a few guineas in our pockets, need not fear the future;
and I trow it will be well for you to be quit for ever of my Lord
Sandford's company.  I liked him not greatly for your friend; I hate him
with a goodly hatred since he shows himself your foe.  Shall we turn our
backs upon him and upon London town, and seek our fortunes with the army
over the water, where his Grace of Marlborough will give you welcome?"

"I scarce know what the future will bring for me, Dicon," was the reply,
spoken gravely, yet with a certain listless indifference not lost upon
the servant; "I have made no plans as yet.  Let us see what this day
brings forth first."

"I wager it will fill our pockets anew with gold!"

"I will not touch their gold!" spoke Grey with eyes that suddenly
flashed fire.  "I have cancelled all my wagers.  I will take nothing at
their hands. I will ride Don Carlos and ride my best for mine own honour
and that of the good steed I shall bestride; but their money will I not
touch.  I have done with all that.  Nay, stare not in such amaze, good
Dicon.  I have not taken leave of my senses; rather, I trow, I have come
to my better mind.  Now get me somewhat to eat here, and then we will to
the stables to see my beauty. This match once over, we turn a new page
in our life's story.  Who knows what the next will be?"

It was not much that Grey could eat.  The three days which had passed
since he and Lord Sandford had come to an understanding, which was
well-nigh a rupture, had left a mark upon him.  Moreover there was a
weary ache at his heart which he did not fully understand, and which was
harder to bear than aught beside.  Dimly he knew that it had some
connection with the Lady Geraldine Adair; but he feared to search too
deeply into that matter.  She was as far removed from him as the moon in
the heavens, and he believed her plighted to another, and that one a man
who had stood his friend, even though suspicion, jealousy, and an
imperious temper had changed friendship into something very like enmity.
Grey never for a moment dreamed of regarding himself as an aspirant for
that fair hand; but he knew that the motive which was urging him to
change the manner of his life and become a worthier and a better man was
the hope that she might watch his career, and hear a whisper of his fame
or his success; or that he might win some laurels in the fields of
literature, art, or politics, which he might perchance in some sort lay
at her feet.

This, however, lurked in the background of his thoughts.  He scarcely
owned to himself that he expected ever to look upon that fair face
again; hence the sensation of heart sickness which had rendered him
well-nigh desperate for a few days, and had helped him to squander
without a qualm the hoard which his previous successes had accumulated.
And now the end of this mad life of gay folly had come. He had drained
the cup to the dregs, and found it bitter to the taste.  He had neither
liking nor respect for the companions with whom he had associated.
Towards Lord Sandford his feelings were very mixed. The power of the man
was too great to be shaken off entirely, nor could he despise or dislike
him.  But the tie of friendship had snapped asunder.  A chasm had opened
between them, and he felt that he was regarded, if not as a foe, yet as
something akin, and it needed not Dick's words of warning to tell him
that the less he saw of this man in the future the better it would be
for himself.

Sounds of laughter and revelry greeted his ears as he slipped quietly
out towards the paddock and shed where his horse had been stabled these
past weeks, tended and exercised by Dick, and ready for whatever demand
might be made upon him.  He greeted his master with a neigh of
recognition, dropped his nose in the extended hand, and stood tranquil
and content under Grey's quiet caresses.  The glossy coat was satin
smooth, the delicate tracery of veins could be distinctly seen, and each
muscle stood out hard and taut; there was no superfluous flesh, but a
firmness and excellence of condition that brought a smile of
satisfaction to Grey's face.  He turned with a smile to Dick, who stood
by beaming.

"Not much fear of him to-day, eh, Dicon?"

"He would jump the moon, master, if you asked it of him," was the proud
and confident answer.

"How do the others look?  Have you seen them?"

"Pretty bits of horseflesh every one; and there is a black stallion of
Mr. Artheret's that will take some beating.  But he's too heavy for some
of the jumps. He don't take off fast enough.  And he's a nasty temper
too.  There's a gray Arab with pace; but he falls away behind, as they
all do.  I don't think Don Carlos will be troubled long by him.  None of
the others will take much beating.  Pretty to look at, but not trained
for what they've got to do.  Lord Sandford was here yesterday early,
looking at the jumps, and he had several of them made stiffer; but
there's nothing Don Carlos cannot sail over like a bird!"

"Let us go and see," said Grey.  "I will take a canter on the turf to
warm myself to the saddle. Soh, boy, soh!" as he lightly vaulted to his
seat, and the horse curveted beneath him.  "We will take a look at these
obstructions.  The stiffer they are, the better you and I will be
pleased--eh, my beauty?"

Dick mounted his nag, and rode beside his master to the course, where
the horses were to be matched against each other when Lord Sandford and
his friends should have finished their merry meal, and be ready to
witness the exhibition.  It was a fine stretch of ground which had been
chosen--nearly a mile in length, and with several natural obstacles,
which had been increased in some cases artificially, to test better the
strength and skill of horse and rider.  A stream of water with rather
awkward banks ran across the course in one place, and in another was a
dip in the ground filled with gorse bushes--a nasty place to get
entangled in, if the horse could not be persuaded to clear the whole
thing with a flying leap.  A broken stone wall with a ditch in front was
another obstacle; and the last was a barrier entirely artificial, made
of hurdles and bushes high enough to tax the mettle of any horse, though
not absolutely insurmountable. Still it was a formidable object enough,
and Grey looked at it critically, walking Don Carlos up and down, to let
the creature take his own observations with regard to the leap he was to
make.

"It was here they were busy yesterday, but I could not see all they did.
I was afraid to leave Don Carlos with so many strangers about.  Some of
the grooms with the other horses looked up to mischief. But I heard them
say afterwards that Lord Sandford had not been satisfied with the field
as it was.  He said they must have something that really would be a
test, or the black stallion and Don Carlos were like to come in
together."

But now a horn blew gaily, and horsemen were seen approaching from many
quarters.  In the neighbourhood of the inn all was bustle and
excitement, whilst from all sides there appeared streams of people
converging to this spot.  Some fine carriages had been driven out from
London, with bedecked ladies eager to witness the contest.  Others had
stayed the night in the neighbourhood to be ready; and all the natives
of the place who could get a holiday had come to gape at the fine folks,
and see the grand gentlemen racing their own horses.

Indeed the hour for the contest had well-nigh come.  Grey could see that
the other horses were assembling, their riders decked in every colour of
the rainbow, quite eclipsing the quiet and workmanlike suit of buff
which he wore.  But Grey's taste had always disinclined him to gaudy
colours.  The soft leather, finely chased and stamped in gold, pleased
his eye more than rich-hued cloths or velvets.  His breeches were of
white buckskin cut by Lord Sandford's own tailor, and he wore long boots
fitted with silver spurs, albeit he scarcely ever had need of the latter
when he bestrode Don Carlos.  His scarf was of white silk fringed with
gold, and his only adornment was a cravat of fine lace, fastened with a
diamond clasp.  His cocked hat matched his buff coat, and was adorned
with a white plume.  Altogether, as he rode forward to his place, it
would have been hard to find a fault with his dress or person; and the
ladies behind their fans audibly praised his elegant figure, graceful
seat, and distinguished and handsome face.

Grey, all unconscious of the favour bestowed upon him, rode up and
saluted courteously the gentlemen who were to meet him and each other in
rivalry. Lord Sandford, splendidly mounted, was to act as judge at the
winning post.  Another of his friends was to be starter; and gentlemen
were posted at various points along the course to see that all the rules
laid down were observed, and that no rider deviated from the
well-pegged-out route prescribed for all.  The spectators scattered
hither and thither, taking up stations wherever their fancy prompted.
The course seemed marked out by a glittering border extending down both
sides.  The sun shone brilliantly in the sky, and all nature seemed in
gladsome mood.

Grey cast a keen look at the seven rival steeds as they were brought
into line for the start.  He picked out in a moment the two of whom
Dicon had spoken, and saw that he had judged well.  Then he gave his
whole mind to the task in hand, checked with hand and voice the prancing
of the excited Don Carlos, and brought him up to his appointed place
docile and motionless.

The word was given, but the black stallion had bounded off a few seconds
too soon, and had to be recalled.  A second start was spoiled by two
other competitors, who suddenly reared at each other, and strove to
fight.  One iron hoof, indeed, inflicted such a wound upon the shoulder
of his neighbour that that horse had to be taken away limping and
bleeding.

It was trying to all, horses and riders alike; but at the third start
all got off, though Grey saw that again the black stallion had made his
bound a second too soon.  This gave him a few yards the advantage,
which, as his rider pressed him hard from the first, and his temper was
evidently up, he increased in the next minute to more than a length.
The Arab and Don Carlos were neck and neck, and sailed over the first
easy jump side by side, the stallion having cleared it with a tremendous
bound a couple of seconds earlier.

The water jump was next, and it was obvious that one spot offered
greater advantages to the horse than any other.  The stallion made for
this spot with a rush, took off and bounded clear over, just as Don
Carlos and the Arab came rushing up neck and neck, each rider desirous
of the advantage of the sound bank.  Grey set his teeth and glanced at
his adversary.  A collision at the leap might be fatal to one or both,
so far as the race went.  His rival would not budge an inch--that he
saw.  With a muttered oath between his teeth, he pulled his left rein,
and used his knees.  Don Carlos felt, and instantly understood: swerving
slightly, he gathered himself together, and rose magnificently where the
water was wider and the bank less safe; but he landed safely, and with a
hardly perceptible scramble found his feet again, and amid the plaudits
of the people raced on after the Arab, who, having got a momentary
advantage, was now slightly in advance.

The black stallion had just reached the downward dip leading to the deep
ditch filled with gorse bushes. His rider had had perforce to pull him
up somewhat, lest he should slip and fall, for the ground was sandy and
treacherous.  But Don Carlos had been born and bred to this sort of wild
work, and dashing onwards and downwards with the agility of a deer, came
neck and neck with his rival, and having passed the Arab, cleared with a
bound the treacherous gully, landing true and safe upon the opposite
side.  The Arab followed in his tracks, his rider taking advantage of
the lead given; but the black stallion slipped and snorted, could not be
made to try the leap till another of the horses came up and took it,
after which he sprang across with a vicious energy which tried the
horsemanship of his rider, and tore like a wild thing after the leading
pair.

These had cleared one after the other the wall and ditch; but the Arab
was showing signs of distress, whilst Don Carlos looked fresh and eager
as at the start.  There now remained only a quarter of a mile of smooth
sward, and then the last critical jump; and Grey, knowing himself first,
and not knowing what had betided his rivals, sailed happily onward,
secure of victory, though he heard behind him the thud of flying horse
hoofs, and knew that the black stallion was not beaten yet.  It was he
who snorted with such excitement and fury, and seemed to awaken thunders
with his iron-shod hoofs.

One glance over his shoulder, and Grey passed his whip very lightly
across the neck of Don Carlos. The gallant animal sprang forward like an
arrow from a bow, showing how well within himself he had been travelling
so far.  The sound of other beating hoofs was fainter now.  Grey looked
keenly at the great obstacle looming up in his path, and measured the
height at various places, deciding where the leap could best be taken.

He felt the tension of the muscles beneath him. Don Carlos was gathering
himself together for the leap.  He would not fail, falter, or refuse.
The great mass seemed rushing up against him.  He felt the slackening
with which Don Carlos faced his task, the motion of his flanks as he
took off and rose. Then what was it happened?  The sound of a click,
sharp and clear--a sickening sensation of falling, sinking, struggling,
plunging.  Grey felt for a moment as though the end had come.  He and
his horse seemed falling into the very bowels of the earth. A black
shadow almost overhead showed him that the stallion had cleared the
barrier, and the air was full of shouts, screams, cheers, and cries.

Next moment he felt strong hands lifting and dragging him upwards.
Dick's white face looked into his own, and the first words he heard were
hissed in his ear by his faithful henchman.

"Foul play, foul play, my master.  That ditch was dug and concealed--ay,
and more than concealed; it has been an old well at some time, and it
will open with a spring.  You have been grossly tricked and cozened.  It
has been a trap cleverly laid and baited. But let me only get at
them--my Lord Sandford--"

Dick almost choked in his fury; but Grey was now on his feet, and his
one thought was for the good horse, who had dropped downwards into this
unseen, unsuspected pit, and was gasping in affright, but might possibly
have escaped serious injury.  He himself felt little ill effects, having
had a marvellous escape.  But his soul was stirred within him, and in
getting out the horse he saw plainly that Dick had been right, and that
some sort of old trap-door concealed an opening into the ground which
might have been at one time a well, but was now silted up with sand.  By
luring the foremost rider to this particular spot to take the leap, any
astute enemy aware of the nature of the ground could almost certainly
ensure his overthrow and defeat; and Grey had his suspicions that Lord
Sandford had hoped that he might then and there break his neck--a thing
which might very well have happened.

There was a crowd round the spot now, and great horror was expressed by
many at sight of the unsuspected well, no voice being louder than Lord
Sandford's in proclaiming astonishment and indignation. But Grey took no
notice of the cl

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/45201