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The Wizard's Son, Vol. 1 (of 3)

by Mrs. Oliphant · English · Gutenberg #47555 · 433,444 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Wizard's Son, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Author: Mrs. Oliphant


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIZARD'S SON, VOL. 1 (OF 3) ***
                     THE WIZARD'S SON

                         A Novel

                     BY MRS. OLIPHANT

    AUTHOR OF "THE CURATE IN CHARGE," "YOUNG MUSGRAVE," ETC.


    IN THREE VOLUMES
    VOL. I.

    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO.
    1884

    [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_]

    LONDON:
    R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
    BREAD STREET HILL.




THE WIZARD'S SON.




CHAPTER I.


The Methvens occupied a little house in the outskirts of a little town
where there was not very much going on of any description, and still
less which they could take any share in, being, as they were, poor and
unable to make any effective response to the civilities shown to them.
The family consisted of three persons--the mother, who was a widow with
one son; the son himself, who was a young man of three or four and
twenty; and a distant cousin of Mrs. Methven's, who lived with her,
having no other home. It was not a very happy household. The mother had
a limited income and an anxious temper; the son a somewhat volatile and
indolent disposition, and no ambition at all as to his future, nor
anxiety as to what was going to happen to him in life. This, as may be
supposed, was enough to introduce many uneasy elements into their joint
existence; and the third of the party, Miss Merivale, was not of the
class of the peacemakers to whom Scripture allots a special blessing.
She had no amiable glamour in her eyes, but saw her friends'
imperfections with a clearness of sight which is little conducive to
that happy progress of affairs which is called "getting on." The
Methvens were sufficiently proud to keep their difficulties out of the
public eye, but on very many occasions, unfortunately, it had become
very plain to themselves that they did not "get on." It was not any want
of love. Mrs. Methven was herself aware, and her friends were in the
constant habit of saying, that she had sacrificed everything for Walter.
Injudicious friends are fond of making such statements, by way, it is to
be supposed, of increasing the devotion and gratitude of the child to
the parent: but the result is, unfortunately, very often the exact
contrary of what is desired--for no one likes to have his duty in this
respect pointed out to him, and whatever good people may think, it is
not in itself an agreeable thought that "sacrifices" have been made for
one, and an obligation placed upon one's shoulders from the beginning of
time, independent of any wish or claim upon the part of the person
served. The makers of sacrifices have seldom the reward which
surrounding spectators, and in many cases themselves, think their due.
Mrs. Methven herself would probably have been at a loss to name what
were the special sacrifices she had made for Walter. She had remained a
widow, but that she would have been eager to add was no sacrifice. She
had pinched herself more or less to find the means for his education,
which had been of what is supposed in England to be the best kind: and
she had, while he was a boy, subordinated her own tastes and pleasures
to his, and eagerly sought out everything that was likely to be
agreeable to him. When they took their yearly journey--as it is considered
necessary for him--places that Walter liked, or where he could find
amusement, or had friends, were eagerly sought for. "Women," Mrs.
Methven said, "can make themselves comfortable anywhere; but a boy, you
know, is quite different." "Quite," Miss Merivale would say: "Oh, if you
only knew them as well as we do; they are creatures entirely without
resources. You must put their toys into their very hands." "There is no
question of toys with Walter--he has plenty of resources. It is not
that," Mrs. Methven would explain, growing red. "I hope I am not one of
the silly mothers that thrust their children upon everybody: but, of
course, a boy must be considered. Everybody who has had to do with
men--or boys--knows that they must be considered." A woman whose life
has been mixed up with these troublesome beings feels the superiority of
her experience to those who know nothing about them. And in this way,
without spoiling him or treating him with ridiculous devotion, as the
king of her fate, Walter had been "considered" all his life.

For the rest, Mrs. Methven had, it must be allowed, lived a much more
agreeable life in the little society of Sloebury when her son was young
than she did now that he had come to years, mis-named, of discretion.
Then she had given her little tea-parties, or even a small occasional
dinner, at which her handsome boy would make his appearance when it was
holiday time, interesting everybody; or, when absent, would still
furnish a very pleasant subject of talk to the neighbours, who thought
his mother did a great deal too much for him, but still were pleased to
discuss a boy who was having the best of educations, and at a public
school. In those days she felt herself very comfortable in Sloebury, and
was asked to all the best houses, and felt a modest pride in the
certainty that she was able to offer something in return. But matters
were very different when Walter was four-and-twenty instead of fourteen.
By that time it was apparent that he was not going to take the world by
storm, or set the Thames on fire; and, though she had been too sensible
to brag, Mrs. Methven had thought both these things possible, and
perhaps had allowed it to be perceived that she considered something
great, something out of the way, to be Walter's certain career. But
twenty-four is, as she said herself, so different! He had been
unsuccessful in some of his examinations, and for others he had not been
"properly prepared." His mother did not take refuge in the thought that
the examiners were partial or the trials unfair; but there was naturally
always a word as to the reason why he did not succeed--he had not been
"properly prepared." He knew of one only a few days before the eventful
moment, and at this time of day, she asked indignantly, when everything
is got by competition, how is a young man who has not "crammed" to get
the better of one who has? The fact remained that at twenty-four,
Walter, evidently a clever fellow, with a great many endowments, had got
nothing to do; and, what was worse--a thing which his mother, indeed,
pretended to be unconscious of, but which everybody else in the town
remarked upon--he was not in the least concerned about this fact, but
took his doing nothing quite calmly as the course of nature, and neither
suffered from it, nor made any effort to place himself in a different
position. He "went in for" an examination when it was put before him as
a thing to do, and took his failure more than philosophically when he
failed, as, as yet, he had always done: and, in the mean time,
contentedly lived on, without disturbing himself, and tranquilly let the
time go by--the golden time which should have shaped his life.

This is not a state of affairs which can bring happiness to any
household. There is a kind of parent--or rather it should be said of a
mother, for no parent of the other sex is supposed capable of so much
folly--to whom everything is good that her child, the cherished object
of her affections, does; and this is a most happy regulation of nature,
and smooths away the greatest difficulties of life for many
simple-hearted folk, without doing half so much harm as is attributed to
it; for disapproval has little moral effect, and lessens the happiness
of all parties, without materially lessening the sins of the erring.
But, unfortunately, Mrs. Methven was not of this happy kind. She saw her
son's faults almost too clearly, and they gave her the most poignant
pain. She was a proud woman, and that he should suffer in the opinion of
the world was misery and grief to her. She was stung to the heart by
disappointment in the failure of her many hopes and projects for him.
She was stricken with shame to think of all the fine things that had
been predicted of Walter in his boyish days, and that not one of them
had come true. People had ceased now to speak of the great things that
Walter would do. They asked "_What_ was he going to do?" in an entirely
altered tone, and this went to her heart. Her pride suffered the most
terrible blow. She could not bear the thought; and though she maintained
a calm face to the world, and represented herself as entirely satisfied,
Walter knew otherwise, and had gradually replaced his old careless
affection for his mother by an embittered opposition and resistance to
her, which made both their lives wretched enough. How it was that he did
not make an effort to escape from her continual remonstrances, her
appeals and entreaties, her censure and criticism, it is very difficult
to tell. To have gone away, and torn her heart with anxiety, but
emancipated himself from a yoke which it was against the dignity of his
manhood to bear, would have been much more natural. But he had no
money, and he had not the energy to seize upon any way of providing for
himself. Had such an opportunity fallen at his feet he would probably
have accepted it with fervour; but Fortune did not put herself out of
the way to provide for him, nor he to be provided for. Notwithstanding
the many scenes which took place in the seclusion of that poor little
house, when the mother, what with love, shame, mortification, and
impatience, would all but rave in impotent passion, appealing to him, to
the pride, the ambition, the principle which so far as could be seen the
young man did not possess, Walter held upon his way with an obstinate
pertinacity, and did nothing. How he managed to do this without losing
all self-respect and every better feeling it is impossible to say; but
he did so somehow, and was still "a nice enough fellow," notwithstanding
that everybody condemned him; and had not even lost the good opinion of
the little society, though it was unanimous in blame. The only way in
which he responded to his mother's remonstrances and complaints was by
seeking his pleasure and such occupation as contented him--which
was a little cricket now and then, a little lawn-tennis, a little
flirtation--as far away from her as possible; and by being as little at
home as possible. His temper was a little spoilt by the scenes which
awaited him when he went home; and these seemed to justify to himself
his gradual separation from his mother's house: but never induced him to
sacrifice, or even modify, his own course. He appeared to think that he
had a justification for his conduct in the opposition it met with; and
that his pride was involved in the necessity for never giving in. If he
had been let alone, he represented to himself, everything would have
been different; but to yield to this perpetual bullying was against
every instinct. And even the society which disapproved so much gave a
certain encouragement to Walter in this point of view: for it was Mrs.
Methven whom everybody blamed. It was her ridiculous pride, or her
foolish indulgence, or her sinful backing-up of his natural indolence;
even some people thought it was her want of comprehension of her son
which had done it, and that Walter would have been entirely a different
person in different hands. If she had not thought it a fine thing to
have him appear as a useless fine gentleman above all necessity of
working for his living, it was incredible that he could have allowed the
years to steal by without making any exertion. This was what the town
decided, not without a good deal of sympathy for Walter. What could be
expected? Under the guidance of a foolish mother, a young man always
went wrong; and in this case he did not go wrong, poor fellow! he only
wasted his existence, nothing worse. Sloebury had much consideration for
the young man.

Perhaps it added something to the exasperation with which Mrs. Methven
saw all her efforts fail that she had some perception of this, and knew
that it was supposed to be her fault. No doubt in her soul it added to
the impatience and indignation and pain with which she contemplated the
course of affairs, which she was without strength to combat, yet could
not let alone. Now and then, indeed, she did control herself so far as
to let them alone, and then there was nothing but tranquillity and peace
in the house. But she was a conscientious woman, and, poor soul! she had
a temper--the very complacency and calm with which her son went upon his
way, the approval he showed of her better conduct when she left him to
his own devices, struck her in some moments with such sudden indignation
and pain, that she could no longer contain herself. He, who might have
been anything he pleased, to be nothing! He, of whom everybody had
predicted such great things! At such moments the sight of Walter
smiling, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, excited her
almost to frenzy. Poor lady! So many women would have been proud of
him--a handsome young fellow in flannels, with his cricket bat or his
racquet when occasion served. But love and injured pride were bitter in
her heart, and she could not bear the sight. All this while, however,
nobody knew anything about the scenes that arose in the little house,
which preserved a show of happiness and tender union long after the
reality was gone. Indeed, even Miss Merivale, who had unbounded
opportunities of knowing, took a long time to make up her mind that
Walter and his mother did not "get on."

Such was the unfortunate state of affairs at the time when this history
begins. The Methvens were distantly connected, it was known, with a
great family in Scotland, which took no notice whatever of them, and,
indeed, had very little reason so to do, Captain Methven being long
since dead, and his widow and child entirely unknown to the noble house,
from which it was so great an honour to derive a little, much-diluted,
far-off drop of blood, more blue and more rich than the common. It is
possible that had the connection been by Mrs. Methven's side she would
have known more about it, and taken more trouble to keep up her
knowledge of the family. But it was not so, and she had even in her
younger days been conscious of little slights and neglects which had
made her rather hostile than otherwise to the great people from whom her
husband came. "I know nothing about the Erradeens," she would say; "they
are much too grand to take any notice of us: and I am too proud to seek
any notice from them."

"I am afraid, my dear, there is a good deal in that," said old Mrs.
Wynn, the wife of the old rector, shaking her white head. This lady was
a sort of benign embodiment of justice in Sloebury. She punished nobody,
but she saw the right and wrong with a glance that was almost
infallible, and shook her head though she never exacted any penalty.

Here Miss Merivale would seize the occasion to strike in--

"Prejudice is prejudice," she said, "whatever form it takes. A lord has
just as much chance of being nice as an--apothecary." This was said
because the young doctor, newly admitted into his father's business,
who thought no little of himself, was within reach, and just then caught
Miss Merivale's eye.

"That is a very safe speech, seeing there are neither lords nor
apothecaries here," he said with the blandest smile. He was not a man to
be beaten at such a game.

"But a lord may have influence, you know. For Walter's sake I would not
lose sight of him," said Mrs. Wynn.

"You cannot lose sight of what you have never seen: besides, influence
is of no consequence nowadays. Nobody can do anything for you--save
yourself," said Mrs. Methven with a little sigh. Her eyes turned
involuntarily to where Walter was. He was always in the middle of
everything that was going on. Among the Sloebury young people he had a
little air of distinction, or so at least his mother thought. She was
painfully impartial, and generally, in her anxiety, perceived his bad
points rather than his good ones; but as she glanced at the group, love
for once allowed itself to speak, though always with an accent peculiar
to the character of the thinker. She allowed to herself that he had an
air of distinction, a something more than the others--alas, that nothing
ever came of it! The others all, or almost all, were already launched in
the world. They were doing or trying to do something--whereas Walter!
But she took care that nobody should hear that irrepressible sigh.

"I am very sorry for it," said Mrs. Wynn, "for there are many people
who would never push for themselves, and yet do very well indeed when
they are put in the way."

"I am all for the pushing people," said Miss Merivale. "I like the new
state of affairs. When every one stands for himself, and you get just as
much as you work for, there will be no grudges and sulkings with
society. Though I'm a Tory, I like every man to make his own way."

"A lady's politics are never to be calculated upon," said the Rector,
who was standing up against the fire on his own hearth, rubbing his old
white hands. "It is altogether against the principles of Toryism, my
dear lady, that a man should make his own way. It is sheer democracy. As
for that method of examinations, it is one of the most levelling
principles of the time--it is one of Mr. Gladstone's instruments for the
destruction of society. When the son of a cobbler is just as likely to
come to high command as your son or mine, what is to become of the
country?" the old clergyman said, lifting those thin white hands.

Mr. Gladstone's name was as a firebrand thrown into the midst of this
peaceable little country community. The speakers all took fire. They
thought that there was no doubt about what was going to come of the
country. It was going to destruction as fast as fate could carry it.
When society had dropped to pieces, and the rabble had come uppermost,
and England had become a mere name, upon which all foreign nations
should trample, and wild Irishmen dance war dances, and Americans
expectorate, then Mr. Gladstone would be seen in his true colours. While
this was going on, old Mrs. Wynn sat in her easy-chair and shook her
head. She declared always that she was no politician. And young Walter
Methven, attracted by the sudden quickening of the conversation which
naturally attended the introduction of this subject, came forward, ready
in the vein of opposition which was always his favourite attitude.

"Mr. Gladstone must be a very great man," he said. "I hear it is a sign
of being in society when you foam at the mouth at the sound of his
name."

"You young fellows think it fine to be on the popular side; but wait
till you are my age," cried one of the eager speakers. "It will not
matter much to me. There will be peace in my days." "But wait," cried
another, "and see how you will like it when everything topples down
together, the crown and the state, and the aristocracy, and public
credit, and national honour, and property, and the constitution,
and----"

So many anxious and alarmed politicians here spoke together that the
general voice became inarticulate, and Walter Methven, representing the
opposition, was at liberty to laugh.

"Come one, come all!" he cried, backed up by the arm of the sofa, upon
which Mrs. Wynn sat shaking her head. "It would be a fine thing for me
and all the other proletarians. Something would surely fall our way."

His mother watched him, standing up against the sofa, confronting them
all, with her usual exasperated and angry affection. She thought, as she
looked at him, that there was nothing he was not fit for. He was clever
enough for Parliament; he might have been prime minister--but he was
nothing! nothing, and likely to be nothing, doing nothing, desiring
nothing. Her eye fell on young Wynn, the rector's nephew, who had just
got a fellowship at his college, and on the doctor's son, who was just
entering into a share of his father's practice, and on Mr. Jeremy the
young banker, whose attentions fluttered any maiden to whom he might
address them. They were Walter's contemporaries, and not one of them was
worthy, she thought, to be seen by the side of her boy; but they had all
got before him in the race of life. They were something and he was
nothing. It was not much wonder if her heart was sore and angry. When
she turned round to listen civilly to something that was said to her,
her face was contracted and pale. It was more than she could bear. She
made a move to go away before any of the party was ready, and disturbed
Miss Merivale in the midst of a _tête-à-tête_, which was a thing not
easily forgiven.

Walter walked home with them in great good humour, but his mother knew
very well that he was not coming in. He was going to finish the evening
elsewhere. If he had come in would she have been able to restrain
herself? Would she not have fallen upon him, either in anger or in
grief, holding up to him the examples of young Wynn and young Jeremy and
the little doctor? She knew she would not have been able to refrain, and
it was almost a relief to her, though it was another pang, when he
turned away at the door.

"I want to speak to Underwood about to-morrow," he said.

"What is there about to-morrow? Of all the people in Sloebury Captain
Underwood is the one I like least," she said. "Why must you always have
something to say to him when every one else is going to bed?"

"I am not going to bed, nor is he," said Walter lightly.

Mrs. Methven's nerves were highly strung. Miss Merivale had passed in
before them, and there was nobody to witness this little struggle, which
she knew would end in nothing, but which was inevitable. She grasped him
by the arm in her eagerness and pain.

"Oh, my boy!" she said, "come in, come in, and think of something more
than the amusement of to-morrow. Life is not all play, though you seem
to think so. For once listen to me, Walter--oh, listen to me! You cannot
go on like this. Think of all the others; all at work, every one of
them, and you doing nothing."

"Do you want me to begin to do something now," said Walter, "when you
have just told me everybody was going to bed?"

"Oh! if I were you," she cried in her excitement, "I would rest neither
night nor day. I would not let it be said that I was the last, and every
one of them before me."

Walter shook himself free of her detaining hold. "Am I to be a dustman,
or a scavenger, or--what?" he said, contemptuously. "I know no other
trades that are followed at this hour."

Mrs. Methven had reached the point at which a woman has much ado not to
cry in the sense of impotence and exasperation which such an argument
brings. "It is better to do anything than to do nothing," she cried,
turning away from him and hastening in at the open door.

He paused a moment, as if doubtful what to do; there was something in
her hasty withdrawal which for an instant disposed him to follow, and
she paused breathless, with a kind of hope, in the half-light of the
little hall; but the next moment his footsteps sounded clear and quick
on the pavement, going away. Mrs. Methven waited until they were almost
out of hearing before she closed the door. Angry, baffled, helpless,
what could she do? She wiped a hot tear from the corner of her eye
before she went into the drawing-room, where her companion, always on
the alert, had already turned up the light of the lamp, throwing an
undesired illumination upon her face, flushed and troubled from this
brief controversy.

"I thought you were never coming in," said Miss Merivale, "and that
open door sends a draught all through the house."

"Walter detained me for a moment to explain some arrangements he has to
make for to-morrow," Mrs. Methven said with dignity. "He likes to keep
me _au courant_ of his proceedings."

Miss Merivale was absolutely silenced by this sublime assumption,
notwithstanding the flush of resentment, the glimmer of moisture in the
mother's eye.




CHAPTER II.


Walter walked along the quiet, almost deserted street with a hasty step
and a still hastier rush of disagreeable thoughts. There was, he felt,
an advantage in being angry, in the sensation of indignant resistance to
a petty tyranny. For a long time past he had taken refuge in this from
every touch of conscience and sense of time lost and opportunities
neglected. He was no genius, but he was not so dull as not to know that
his life was an entirely unsatisfactory one, and himself in the wrong
altogether; everything rotten in the state of his existence, and a great
deal that must be set right one time or another in all his habits and
ways. The misfortune was that it was so much easier to put off this
process till to-morrow than to begin it to-day. He had never been roused
out of the boyish condition of mind in which a certain resistance to
authority was natural, and opposition to maternal rule and law a sort of
proof of superiority and independence. Had this been put into words, and
placed before him as the motive of much that he did, no one would have
coloured more angrily or resented more hotly the suggestion; and yet in
the bottom of his heart he would have known it to be true. All through
his unoccupied days he carried with him the sense of folly, the
consciousness that he could not justify to himself the course he was
pursuing. The daily necessity of justifying it to another was almost the
sole thing that silenced his conscience. His mother, who kept "nagging"
day after day, who was never satisfied, whose appeals he sometimes
thought theatrical, and her passion got up, was his sole defence against
that self-dissatisfaction which is the severest of all criticisms. If
she would but let him alone, leave him to his own initiative, and not
perpetually endeavour to force a change which to be effectual, as all
authorities agreed, must come of itself! He was quite conscious of the
inadequacy of this argument, and in his heart felt that it was a poor
thing to take advantage of it; but yet, on the surface of his mind, put
it forward and made a bulwark of it against his own conscience. He did
so now as he hurried along, in all the heat that follows a personal
encounter. If she would but let him alone! But he could not move a step
anywhere, could not make an engagement, could not step into a friend's
rooms, as he was going to do now, without her interference. The
relations of a parent to an only child are not the same as those that
exist between a father and mother and the different members of a large
family. It has been usual to consider them in one particular light as
implying the closest union and mutual devotion. But there is another
point of view in which to consider the question. They are so near to
each other, and the relationship so close, that there is a possibility
of opposition and contrariety more trying, more absorbing, than any
other except that between husband and wife. A young son does not always
see the necessity of devotion to a mother who is not very old, who has
still many sources of pleasure apart from himself, and who is not
capable, perhaps, on her side, of the undiscriminating worship which is
grandmotherly, and implies a certain weakness and dimness of perception
in the fond eyes that see everything in a rosy, ideal light. This fond
delusion is often in its way a moral agent, obliging the object of it to
fulfil what is expected of him, and reward the full and perfect trust
which is given so unhesitatingly. But in this case it was not possible.
The young man thought, or persuaded himself, that his mother's vexatious
watch over him, and what he called her constant suspicion and doubt of
him, had given him a reason for the disgust and impatience with which he
turned from her control. He pictured to himself the difference which a
father's larger, more generous sway would have made in him; to that he
would have answered, he thought, like a ship to its helm, like an army
to its general. But this petty rule, this perpetual fault-finding,
raised up every faculty in opposition. Even when he meant the best, her
words of warning, her reminders of duty, were enough to set him all
wrong again. He thought, as a bad husband often thinks when he is
conscious of the world's disapproval, that it was her complaints that
were the cause. And when he was reminded by others, well-meaning but
injudicious, of all he owed to his mother, his mind rose yet more
strongly in opposition, his spirit refused the claim. This is a very
different picture from that of the widow's son whose earliest
inspiration is his sense of duty to his mother, and adoring gratitude
for her care and love--but it is perhaps as true a one. A young man may
be placed in an unfair position by the excessive claim made upon his
heart and conscience in this way, and so Walter felt it. He might have
given all that, and more, if nothing had been asked of him; but when he
was expected to feel so much, he felt himself half justified in feeling
nothing. Thus the situation had become one of strained and continual
opposition. It was a kind of duel, in which the younger combatant at
least--the assailed person, whose free-will and independence were
hampered by such perpetual requirements--never yielded a step. The other
might do so, by turns throwing up her arms altogether, but not he.

It was with this feeling strong in his mind, and affecting his temper as
nothing else does to such a degree, that he hastened along the street
towards the rooms occupied by Captain Underwood, a personage whom the
ladies of Sloebury were unanimous in disliking. Nobody knew exactly
where it was that he got his military title. He did not belong to any
regiment in her Majesty's service. He had not even the humble claim of a
militia officer; yet nobody dared say that there was anything fictitious
about him, or stigmatise the captain as an impostor. Other captains and
colonels and men-at-arms of undoubted character supported his claims; he
belonged to one or two well-known clubs. An angry woman would sometimes
fling an insult at him when her husband or son came home penniless after
an evening in his company, wondering what they could see in an
under-bred fellow who was no more a captain (she would say in her wrath)
than she was; but of these assertions there was no proof, and the
vehemence of them naturally made the captain's partisans more and more
eager in his favour. He had not been above six months in Sloebury, but
everybody knew him. There was scarcely an evening in which half-a-dozen
men did not congregate in his rooms, drawn together by that strange
attraction which makes people meet who do not care in the least for each
other's company, nor have anything to say to each other, yet are
possibly less vacant in society than when alone, or find the murmur of
many voices, the smoke of many cigars, exhilarating and agreeable. It
was not every evening that the cards were produced. The captain was
wary; he frightened nobody; he did not wish to give occasion to the
tremors of the ladies, whom he would have conciliated even, if he had
been able; but there are men against whom the instinct of all women
rises, as there are women from whom all men turn. It was only now and
then that he permitted play. He spoke indeed strongly against it on many
occasions. "What do you want with cards?" he would say. "A good cigar
and a friend to talk to ought to be enough for any man." But twice or
thrice in a week his scruples would give way. He was a tall, well-formed
man, of an uncertain age, with burning hazel eyes, and a scar on his
forehead got in that mysterious service to which now and then he made
allusion, and which his friends concluded must have been in some foreign
legion, or with Garibaldi, or some other irregular warfare. There were
some who thought him a man, old for his age, of thirty-five, and some
who, concluding him young for his age, and well preserved, credited him
with twenty years more; but thirty-five or fifty-five, whichever it was,
he was erect and strong, and well set up, and possessed an amount of
experience and apparent knowledge of the world, at which the striplings
of Sloebury admired and wondered, and which even the older men
respected, as men in the country respect the mention of great names and
incidents that have become historical. He had a way of recommending
himself even to the serious, and would now and then break forth, as if
reluctantly, into an account of some instance of faith or patience on
the battlefield or the hospital which made even the rector declare that
to consider Underwood as an irreligious man was both unjust and unkind.
So strong was the prejudice of the women, however, that Mrs. Wynn,
always charitable, and whose silent protest was generally only made when
the absent were blamed, shook her head at this testimony borne in favour
of the Captain. She had no son to be led away, and her husband it need
not be said, considering his position, was invulnerable; but with all
her charity she could not believe in the religion of Captain Underwood.
His rooms were very nice rooms in the best street in Sloebury, and if
his society was what is called "mixed," yet the best people were
occasionally to be met there, as well as those who were not the best.

There was a little stir in the company when Walter entered. To tell the
truth, notwithstanding the wild mirth and dissipation which the ladies
believed to go on in Captain Underwood's rooms, the society assembled
there was at the moment dull and in want of a sensation. There had not
been anything said for the course of two minutes at least. There was no
play going on, and the solemn puff of smoke from one pair of lips after
another would have been the height of monotony had it not been the
wildest fun and gratification. The men in the room took pipes and cigars
out of their mouths to welcome the new-comer. "Hallo, Walter!" they all
said in different tones; for in Sloebury the use of Christian names was
universal, everybody having known everybody else since the moment of
their birth.

"Here comes Methven," said the owner of the rooms (it was one of his
charms, in the eyes of the younger men, that he was not addicted to this
familiarity), "in the odour of sanctity. It will do us all good to have
an account of the rector's party. How did you leave the old ladies, my
excellent boy?"

"Stole away like the fox, by Jove," said the hunting man, who was the
pride of Sloebury.

"More like the mouse with the old cats after it," said another wit.

Now Walter had come in among them strong in his sense of right and in
his sense of wrong, feeling himself at the same moment a sorry fool and
an injured hero, a sufferer for the rights of man; and it would have
been of great use to him in both these respects to have felt himself
step into a superior atmosphere, into the heat of a political
discussion, or even into noisy amusement, or the passion of
play--anything which would rouse the spirits and energies, and show the
action of a larger life. But to feel his own arrival a sort of godsend
in the dulness, and to hear nothing but the heavy puff of all the smoke,
and the very poor wit with which he was received, was sadly
disconcerting, and made him more and more angry with himself and the
circumstances which would give him no sort of support or comfort.

"The old ladies," he said, "were rather more lively than you fellows.
You look as if you had all been poisoned in your wine, like the men in
the opera, and expected the wall to open and the monks and the coffins
to come in."

"I knew that Methven would bring us some excellent lesson," said Captain
Underwood. "Remember that we have all to die. Think, my friends, upon
your latter end."

"Jump up here and give us a sermon, Wat."

"Don't tease him, he's dangerous."

"The old ladies have been too much for him."

This went on till Walter had settled down into his place, and lighted
his pipe like the rest. He looked upon them with disenchanted eyes; not
that he had ever entertained any very exalted opinion of his company;
but to-night he was out of sympathy with all his surroundings, and he
felt it almost a personal offence that there should be so little to
attract and excite in this manly circle which thought so much more of
itself than of any other, and was so scornful of the old ladies who
after all were not old ladies: but the graver members of the community
in general, with an ornamental adjunct of young womankind. On ordinary
occasions no doubt Walter would have chimed in with the rest, but
to-night he was dissatisfied and miserable, not sure of any sensation in
particular, but one of scorn and distaste for his surroundings. He would
have felt this in almost any conceivable case, but in the midst of this
poor jesting and would-be wit, the effect was doubled. Was it worth
while for this to waste his time, to offend the opinion of all his
friends? Such thoughts must always come in similar circumstances. Even
in the most brilliant revelry there will be a pause, a survey of the
position, a sense, however unwilling that the game is not worth the
candle. But here! They were all as dull as ditch water, he said to
himself. Separately there was scarcely one whom he would have selected
as an agreeable companion, and was it possible by joining many dulnesses
together to produce a brilliant result? There was no doubt that Walter's
judgment was jaundiced that evening; for he was not by any means so
contemptuous of his friends on ordinary occasions; but he had been eager
to find an excuse for himself, to be able to say that here was real life
and genial society in place of the affected solemnity of the proper
people. When he found himself unable to do this, he was struck as by a
personal grievance, and sat moody and abstracted, bringing a chill upon
everybody, till one by one the boon companions strolled away.

"A pretty set of fellows to talk of dulness," he cried, with a little
burst, "as if they were not dull beyond all description themselves."

"Come, Methven, you are out of temper," said Captain Underwood. "They
are good fellows enough when you are in the vein for them. Something has
put you out of joint."

"Nothing at all," cried Walter, "except the sight of you all sitting as
solemn as owls pretending to enjoy yourselves. At the rectory one yawned
indeed, it was the genius of the place--but to hear all those dull dogs
laughing at that, as if they were not a few degrees worse! Is there
nothing but dulness in life? Is everything the same--one way or
another--and nothing to show for it all, when it is over, but
tediousness and discontent?"

Underwood looked at him keenly with his fiery eyes.

"So you've come to that already, have you?" he said. "I thought you were
too young and foolish."

"I am not so young as not to know that I am behaving like an idiot,"
Walter said. Perhaps he had a little hope of being contradicted and
brought back to his own esteem.

But instead of this, Captain Underwood only looked at him again and
laughed.

"I know," he said: "the conscience has its tremors, especially after an
evening at the rectory. You see how well respectability looks, how
comfortable it is."

"I do nothing of the sort," Walter cried indignantly. "I see how dull
you are, you people who scoff at respectability, and I begin to wonder
whether it is not better to be dull and thrive than to be dull and
perish. They seem much the same thing so far as enjoyment goes."

"You want excitement," said the other carelessly. "I allow there is not
much of that here."

"I want something," cried Walter. "Cards even are better than nothing. I
want to feel that I have blood in my veins."

"My dear boy, all that is easily explained. You want money. Money is the
thing that mounts the blood in the veins. With money you can have as
much excitement, as much movement as you like. Let people say what they
please, there is nothing else that does it," said the man of experience.
He took a choice cigar leisurely from his case as he spoke. "A bit of a
country town like this, what can you expect from it? There is no go in
them. They risk a shilling, and go away frightened if they lose. If they
don't go to church on Sunday they feel all the remorse of a villain in a
play. It's all petty here--everything's petty, both the vices and the
virtues. I don't wonder you find it slow. What I find it, I needn't
say."

"Why do you stop here, then?" said Walter, not unnaturally, with a
momentary stare of surprise. Then he resumed, being full of his own
subject. "I know I'm an ass," he said. "I loaf about here doing nothing
when I ought to be at work. I don't know why I do it; but neither do I
know how to get out of it. You, that's quite another thing. You have no
call to stay. I wonder you do: why do you? If I were as free as you, I
should be off--before another day."

"Come along then," said Underwood, good-humouredly. "I'll go if you'll
go."

At this Walter shook his head.

"I have no money you know. I ought to be in an office or doing
something. I can't go off to shoot here or fish there, like you."

"By and by--by and by. You have time enough to wait."

Walter gave him a look of surprise.

"There is nothing to wait for," he said. "Is that why you have said so
many things to me about seeing life? I have nothing. We've got no money
in the family. I may wait till doomsday, but it will do nothing for me."

"Don't be too sure of that," said Underwood. "Oh, you needn't devour me
with your eyes. I know nothing of your family affairs. I suppose of
course that by and by, in the course of nature----"

"You mean," said Walter, turning pale, "when my mother dies. No, I'm not
such a wretched cad as that: if I didn't know I should get next to
nothing then, I----" (His conscience nearly tripped this young man up,
running into his way so hurriedly that he caught his foot unawares.)
Then he stopped and grew red, staring at his companion. "Most of what
she has dies with her, if that's what you're thinking of. There is
nothing in that to build upon. And I'm glad of it," the young man cried.

"I beg your pardon, Methven," said the other. "But it needn't be that;
there are other ways of getting rich."

"I don't know any of them, unless by work: and how am I to work? It is
so easy to speak. What can I work at? and where am I to get it?--there
is the question. I hear enough on that subject--as if I were a tailor
or a shoemaker that could find something to do at any corner. There is
no reason in it," the young man said, so hotly, and with such a flush of
resentful obstinacy, that the fervour of his speech betrayed him. He was
like a man who had outrun himself, and paused, out of breath.

"You'll see; something will turn up," said Underwood, with a laugh.

"What can turn up?--nothing. Suppose I go to New Zealand and come back
at fifty with my fortune made--Fifty's just the age, isn't it, to begin
to enjoy yourself," cried Walter, scornfully; "when you have not a tooth
left, nor a faculty perfect?" He was so young that the half-century
appeared to him like the age of Methusaleh, and men who lived to that
period as having outlived all that is worth living for. His mentor
laughed a little uneasily, as if he had been touched by this chance
shot.

"It is not such a terrible age after all," he said. "A man can still
enjoy himself when he is fifty; but I grant you that at twenty-four it's
a long time to wait for your pleasure. However, let us hope something
will turn up before then. Supposing, for the sake of argument, you were
to come in to your fortune more speedily, I wonder what you would do
with it--eh? you are such a terrible fellow for excitement. The turf?"

"All that is folly," said Walter, getting up abruptly. "Nothing more,
thanks. I am coming in to no fortune. And you don't understand me a
bit," he said, turning at the door of the room, to look back upon the
scene where he had himself spent so many hours, made piquant by a sense
of that wrongdoing which supplies excitement when other motives fail.
The chairs standing about as their occupants had thrust them away from
the table, the empty glasses upon it, the disorder of the room, struck
him with a certain sense of disgust. It was a room intended by nature to
be orderly and sober, with heavy country-town furniture, and nothing
about it that could throw any grace on disarray. The master of the place
stood against the table swaying a somewhat heavy figure over it, and
gazing at the young man with his fiery eyes. Walter's rudeness did not
please him, any more than his abrupt withdrawal.

"Don't be too sure of that," he said, with an effort to retain his
good-humoured aspect. "If I don't understand you, I should like to know
who does? and when that fortune comes, you will remember what I say."

"Pshaw!" Walter cried, impatiently turning away. A nod of his head was
all the good-night he gave. He hurried down as he had hurried up, still
as little contented, as full of dissatisfaction as when he came. This
man who thought he understood him, who intended to influence him,
revolted the young man's uneasy sense of independence, as much as did
the bond of more lawful authority. Did Underwood, _too_, think him a
child not able to guide himself? It was very late by this time, and the
streets very silent. He walked quickly home through the wintry darkness
of November, with a mind as thoroughly out of tune as it is possible to
imagine. He had gone to Underwood's in the hot impulse of opposition,
with the hope of getting rid temporarily, at least, of the struggle
within him; but he had not got rid of it. The dull jokes of the
assembled company had only made the raging of the inward storm more
sensible, and the jaunty and presumptuous misconception with which his
host received his involuntary confidences afterwards, had aggravated
instead of soothing his mind. Indeed, Underwood's pretence at knowing
all about it, his guesses and attempts to sound his companion's mind,
and the blundering interpretation of it into which he stumbled, filled
Walter with double indignation and disgust. This man too he had thought
much of, and expected superior intelligence from--and all that he had to
say was an idiotic anticipation of some miraculous coming into a fortune
which Walter was aware was as likely to happen to the beggar on the
streets as to himself. He had been angry with nature and his mother when
he left her door; he was angry with everybody when he returned to it,
though his chief anger of all, and the root of all the others, was that
anger with himself, which burnt within his veins, and which is the
hardest of all others to quench out.




CHAPTER III.


Walter was very late next morning as he had been very late at night. The
ladies had breakfasted long before, and there was a look of reproach in
the very table-cloth left there so much after the usual time, and
scrupulously cleared of everything that the others had used, and
arranged at one end, with the dish kept hot for him, and the small
teapot just big enough for one, which was a sermon in itself. His mother
was seated by the fire with her weekly books, which she was adding up.
She said scarcely anything to him, except the morning greeting, filling
out his tea with a gravity which was all the more crushing that there
was nothing in it to object to, nothing to resent. Adding up accounts of
itself is not cheerful work; but naturally the young man resented this
seriousness all the more because he had no right to do so. It was
intolerable, he felt, to sit and eat in presence of that silent figure
partly turned away from him, jotting down the different amounts on a bit
of paper, and absorbed in that occupation as if unconscious of his
presence. Even scolding was better than this; Walter was perfectly
conscious of all it was in her power to say. He knew by heart her
remonstrances and appeals. But he disliked the silence more than all. He
longed to take her by the shoulders, and cry, "What is it? What have you
got to say to me? What do you mean by sitting there like a stone figure,
and _meaning_ it all the same!" He did not do this, knowing it would be
foolish, and gave his constant antagonist a certain advantage; but he
longed to get rid of some of his own exasperation by such an act. It was
with a kind of force over himself that he ate his breakfast, going
through all the forms, prolonging it to the utmost of his power, helping
himself with deliberate solemnity in defiance of the spectator, who
seemed so absorbed in her own occupation, but was, he felt sure,
watching his every movement. It was not, however, until he had come to
an end of his prolonged meal and of his newspaper, that his mother
spoke.

"Do you think," she said, "that it would be possible for you to write
that letter to Mr. Milnathort of which I have spoken so often, to-day?"

"Oh, quite possible," said Walter, carelessly.

"Will you do it, then? It seems to me very important to your interests.
Will you really do it, and do it to-day?"

"I'll see about it," Walter said.

"I don't ask you to see about it. It is nothing very difficult. I ask
you to do it at once--to-day."

He gazed at her for a moment with an angry obstinacy.

"I see no particular occasion for all this haste. It has stood over a
good many days. Why should you insist so upon it now?"

"Every day that it has been put off has been a mistake. It should have
been done at once," Mrs. Methven said.

"I'll see about it," he said carelessly; and he went out of the room
with a sense of having exasperated her as usual, which was almost
pleasant.

At the bottom of his heart he meant to do what his mother had asked of
him: but he would not betray his good intentions. He preferred to look
hostile even when he was in the mind to be obedient. He went away to the
little sitting-room which was appropriated to him, where his pipes
adorned the mantelpiece, and sat down to consider the situation. To
write a letter was not a great thing to do, and he fully meant to do it;
but after he had mused a little angrily upon the want of perception
which made his mother adopt that cold and hectoring tone, when if she
had asked him gently he would have done it in a minute, he put forth his
hand and drew a book towards him. It was not either a new or an
entertaining book, but it secured his idle attention until he suddenly
remembered that it was time to go out. The letter was not written, but
what did that matter? The post did not go out till the afternoon, and
there was plenty of time between that time and this to write
half-a-dozen letters. It would do very well, he thought, when he came in
for lunch. So he threw down the book and got his hat and went out.

Mrs. Methven, who was on the watch, hearing his every movement, came
into his room after he was gone, and looked round with eager eyes to see
if the letter was written, if there was any trace of it. Perhaps he had
taken it out with him to post it, she thought: and though it was
injurious to her that she should not know something more about a piece
of business in which he was not the sole person concerned, yet it gave
her a sort of relief to think that so much at least he had done. She
went back to her books with an easier mind. She was far from being a
rich woman, but her son had known none of her little difficulties, her
efforts to make ends meet. She had thought it wrong to trouble his
childhood with such confidences, and he had grown up thinking nothing on
the subject, without any particular knowledge of, or interest in, her
affairs, taking everything for granted. It was her own fault, she said
to herself, and so it was to some extent. She would sometimes think that
if she had it to do over again she would change all that. How often do
we think this, and with what bitter regret, in respect to the children
whom people speak of as wax in our hands, till we suddenly wake up and
find them iron! She had kept her difficulties out of Walter's way, and
instead of being grateful to her for so doing, he was simply
indifferent, neither inquiring nor caring to know. Her own doing! It was
easier to herself, yet bitter beyond telling, to acknowledge it to be
so. Just at this time, when Christmas was approaching, the ends took a
great deal of tugging and coaxing to bring them together. A few of
Walter's bills had come in unexpectedly, putting her poor balance
altogether wrong. Miss Merivale contributed a little, but only a little,
to the housekeeping; for Mrs. Methven was both proud and liberal, and
understood giving better than receiving. She went back to the
dining-room, where all her books lay upon the table, near the fire. Her
reckoning had advanced much since she had begun it, with Walter sitting
at breakfast. Her faculties had been all absorbed in him and what he was
doing. Now she addressed herself to her accounts with a strenuous
effort. It is hard work to balance a small sum of money against a large
number of bills, to settle how to divide it so as that everybody shall
have something, and the mouths of hungry creditors be stopped. Perhaps
we might say that this was one of the fine arts--so many pounds here, so
many there, keeping credit afloat, and the wolf of debt from the door.
Mrs. Methven was skilled in it. She went to this work, feeling all its
difficulty and burden: yet, with a little relief, not because she saw
any way out of her difficulties, but because Walter had written that
letter. It was always something done, she thought, in her simplicity,
and something might come of it, some way in which he could get the means
of exercising his faculties, perhaps of distinguishing himself even
yet.

Walter for his part strolled away through the little town in his usual
easy way. It was a fine, bright, winterly morning, not cold, yet cold
enough to make brisk walking pleasant, and stir the blood in young
veins. There was no football going on, nor any special amusement. He
could not afford to hunt, and the only active winter exercise which he
could attain was limited to this game--of which there was a good deal at
Sloebury--and skating, when it pleased Providence to send ice, which was
too seldom. He looked in upon one or two of his cronies, and played a
game of billiards, and hung about the High Street to see what was going
on. There was nothing particular going on, but the air was fresh, and
the sun shining, and a little pleasant movement about, much more
agreeable at least than sitting in a stuffy little room writing a
troublesome letter which he felt sure would not do the least good.
Finally, he met Captain Underwood, who regarded him with a look which
Walter would have called anxious had he been able to imagine any
possible reason why Underwood should entertain any anxiety on his
account.

"Well! any news?" the captain cried.

"News! What news should there be in this dead-alive place?" Walter said.

The other looked at him keenly as if to see whether he was quite
sincere, and then said, "Come and have some lunch."

He was free of all the best resorts in Sloebury, this mysterious
man. He belonged to the club, he was greatly at his ease in the
hotel--everything was open to him. Walter, who had but little money
of his own, and could not quite cut the figure he wished, was not
displeased to be thus exhibited as the captain's foremost ally.

"I thought you might have come into that fortune, you are looking so
spruce," the captain said, and laughed. But though he laughed he kept an
eye on the young man as if the pleasantry meant more than appeared.
Walter felt a momentary irritation with this, which seemed to him a very
bad joke; but he went with the captain all the same, not without a
recollection of the table at home, at which, after waiting three
quarters of an hour or so, and watching at the window for his coming,
the ladies would at last sit down. But he was not a child to be forced
to attendance at every meal, he said to himself. The captain's
attentions to him were great, and it was a very nice little meal that
they had together.

"I expect you to do great things for me when you come into your fortune.
You had better engage me at once as your guide, philosopher, and
friend," he said, with a laugh. "Of course you will quit Sloebury, and
make yourself free of all this bondage."

"Oh, of course," said Walter, humouring the joke, though it was so bad a
one in every way.

He could not quarrel with his host at his own table, and perhaps after
all it was more dignified to take it with good humour.

"You must not go in for mere expense," the captain said; "you must make
it pay. I can put you up to a thing or two. You must not go into the
world like a pigeon to be plucked. It would effect my personal honour if
a pupil of mine--for I consider you as a pupil of mine, Methven, I think
I have imparted to you a thing or two. You are not quite the simpleton
you used to be, do you think you are?"

Walter received this with great gravity, though he tried to look as if
he were not offended.

"Was I a simpleton?" he said. "I suppose in one's own case one never
sees."

"Were you a simpleton!" said the other, with a laugh, and then he
stopped himself, always keenly watching the young man's face, and
perceiving that he was going too far. "But I flatter myself you could
hold your own at whist with any man now," the captain said.

This pleased the young man; his gravity unbended a little; there was a
visible relaxation of the corners of his mouth. To be praised is always
agreeable. Moral applause, indeed, may be taken with composure, but who
could hear himself applauded for his whist-playing without an
exhilaration of the heart? He said, with satisfaction, "I always was
pretty good at games," at which his instructor laughed again, almost too
much for perfect good breeding.

"I like to have young fellows like you to deal with," he said, "fellows
with a little spirit, that are born for better things. Your
country-town young man is as fretful and frightened when he loses a few
shillings as if it were thousands. But that's one of the reasons why I
feel you're born to luck, my boy. I know a man of liberal breeding
whenever I see him, he is not frightened about a nothing. That's one of
the things I like in you, Methven. You deserve a fortune, and you
deserve to have me for your guide, philosopher, and friend."

All this was said by way of joke; but it was strange to see the steady
watch which he kept on the young man's face. One would have said a
person of importance whom Underwood meant to try his strength with, but
guardedly, without going too far, and even on whom he was somehow
dependent, anxious to make a good impression. Walter, who knew his own
favour to be absolutely without importance, and that Underwood above
all, his host and frequent entertainer, could be under no possible
delusion on the subject, was puzzled, yet flattered, feeling that only
some excellence on his part, undiscovered by any of his other
acquaintances, could account for this. So experienced a person could
have "no motive" in thus paying court to a penniless and prospectless
youth. Walter was perplexed, but he was gratified too. He had not seen
many of the captain's kind; nobody who knew so many people or who was so
much at his ease with the world. Admiration of this vast acquaintance,
and of the familiarity with which the captain treated things and people
of which others spoke with bated breath, had varied in his mind with a
fluctuating sense that Underwood was not exactly so elevated a person as
he professed to be, and even that there were occasional vulgarities in
this man of the world. Walter felt these, but in his ignorance
represented to himself that perhaps they were right enough, and only
seemed vulgar to him who knew no better. And to-day there is no doubt he
was somewhat intoxicated by this flattery. It must be disinterested, for
what could he do for anybody? He confided to the captain more than he
had ever done before of his own position. He described how he was being
urged to write to old Milnathort. "He is an old lawyer in Scotland--what
they call a writer--and it is supposed he might be induced to take me
into his office, for the sake of old associations. I don't know what the
associations are, but the position does not smile upon me," Walter said.

"Your family then is a Scotch family?" said the captain with a nod of
approval. "I thought as much."

"I don't know that I've got a family," said Walter.

"On the contrary, Methven is a very good name. There are half-a-dozen
baronets at least, and a peer--you must have heard of him, Lord
Erradeen."

"Oh yes, I've heard of him," Walter said with a conscious look.

If he had been more in the world he would have said "he is a cousin of
mine," but he was aware that the strain of kindred was very far off, and
he was at once too shy and too proud to claim it. His companion waited
apparently for the disclosure, then finding it did not come opened the
way.

"If he's a relation of yours, it's to him you ought to write; very
likely he would do something for you. They are a curious family. I've
had occasion to know something about them."

"I think you know everybody, Underwood."

"Well, I have knocked about the world a great deal; in that way one
comes across a great many people. I saw a good deal of the present lord
at one time. He was a very queer man--they are all queer. If you are one
of them you'll have to bear your share in it. There is a mysterious
house they have--You would think I was an idiot if I told you half the
stories I have heard----"

"About the Erradeens?"

"About everybody," said the captain evasively. "There is scarcely a
family, that, if you go right into it, has not something curious about
them. We all have; but those that last and continue keep it on record. I
could tell you the wildest tales about So-and-so and So-and-so, very
ordinary people to look at, but with stories that would make your hair
stand on end."

"We have nothing to do with things of that sort. My people have always
been straightforward and above-board."

"For as much as you know, perhaps; but go back three or four generations
and how can you tell? We have all of us ancestors that perhaps were not
much to brag of."

Walter caught Underwood's eye as he said this, and perhaps there was a
twinkle in it, for he laughed.

"It is something," he said, "to have ancestors at all."

"If they were the greatest blackguards in the world," the captain said
with a responsive laugh, "that's what I think. You don't want any more
of my revelations? Well, never mind, probably I shall have you coming to
me some of these days quite humbly to beg for more information. You are
not cut out for an attorney's office. It is very virtuous, of course, to
give yourself up to work and turn your back upon life."

"Virtue be hanged," said Walter, with some excitement, "it is not
virtue, but necessity, which I take to be the very opposite. I know I'm
wasting my time, but I mean to turn over a new leaf. And as the first
evidence of that, as soon as I go home I shall write to old Milnathort."

"Not to-day," said Underwood, looking at his watch; "the post has gone;
twenty-four hours more to think about it will do you no harm."

Walter started to his feet, and it was with a real pang that he saw how
the opportunity had escaped him, and his intention in spite of himself
been balked; a flush of shame came over his face. He felt that, if never
before, here was a genuine occasion for blame. To be sure, the same
thing had happened often enough before, but he had never perhaps so
fully intended to do what was required of him. He sat down again with a
muttered curse at himself and his own folly. There was nothing to be
said for him. He had meant to turn over a new leaf, and yet this day was
just like the last. The thought made his heart sick for the moment. But
what was the use of making a fuss and betraying himself to a stranger?
He sat down again, with a self-disgust which made him glad to escape
from his own company. Underwood's talk might be shallow enough, perhaps
his pretence at knowledge was not very well founded, but he was safer
company than conscience, and that burning and miserable sense of moral
impotence which is almost worse than the more tragic stings of
conscience. To find out that your resolution is worth nothing, after you
have put yourself to the trouble of making it, and that habit is more
strong than any motive, is not a pleasant thing to think of. Better let
the captain talk about Lord Erradeen, or any other lord in the peerage.
Underwood, being encouraged with a few questions, talked very largely on
this subject. He gave the young man many pieces of information, which
indeed he could have got in Debrett if he had been anxious on the
subject; and as the afternoon wore on they strolled out again for
another promenade up and down the more populous parts of Sloebury, and
there fell in with other idlers like themselves; and when the twilight
yielded to the more cheerful light of the lamps, betook themselves to
whist, which was sometimes played in the captain's rooms at that immoral
hour. Sloebury, even the most advanced portion of it, had been
horrified at the thought of whist before dinner when the captain first
suggested it, but that innocent alarm had long since melted away. There
was nothing dangerous about it, no stakes which any one could be hurt by
losing. When Walter, warned by the breaking up of the party that it was
the hour for dinner, took his way home also, he was the winner of a
sixpence or two, and no more: there had been nothing wrong in the play.
But when he turned the corner of Underwood's street and found himself
with the wind in his face on his way home, the revulsion of feeling from
something like gaiety to a rush of disagreeable anticipations, a crowd
of uncomfortable thoughts, was pitiful. In spite of all our boastings of
home and home influence, how many experience this change the moment they
turn their face in the direction of that centre where it is conventional
to suppose all comfort and shelter is! There is a chill, an abandonment
of pleasant sensations, a preparation for those that are not pleasant.
Walter foresaw what he would find there with an impatience and
resentment which were almost intolerable. Behind the curtain, between
the laths of the Venetian blind, his mother would be secretly on the
outlook watching for his return; perhaps even she had stolen quietly to
the door, and, sheltered in the darkness of the porch, was looking out;
or, if not that, the maid who opened the door would look reproachfully
at him, and ask if he was going to dress, or if she might serve the
dinner at once: it must have been waiting already nearly half an hour.
He went on very quickly, but his thoughts lingered and struggled with
the strong disinclination that possessed him. How much he would have
given not to go home at all! how little pleasure he expected when he got
there! His mother most likely would be silent, pale with anger, saying
little, while Cousin Sophia would get up a little conversation. She
would talk lightly about anything that might have been happening, and
Walter would perhaps exert himself to give Sophia back her own, and show
his mother that he cared nothing about her displeasure. And then when
dinner was over, he would hurry out again, glad to be released. Home:
this was what it had come to be: and nothing could mend it so far as
either mother or son could see. Oh, terrible incompatibility,
unapproachableness of one soul to another! To think that they should be
so near, yet so far away. Even in the case of husband and wife the
severance is scarcely so terrible; for they have come towards each other
out of different spheres, and if they do not amalgamate, there are many
secondary causes that may be blamed, differences of nature and training
and thought. But a mother with her child, whom she has brought up, whose
first opinions she has implanted, who ought naturally to be influenced
by her ways of thinking, and even by prejudices and superstitions in
favour of her way! It was not, however, this view of the question which
moved the young man. It was the fact of his own bondage, the compulsion
he was under to return to dinner, to give some partial obedience to the
rules of the house, and to confess that he had not written that letter
to Mr. Milnathort.

When he came in sight of the house, however, he became aware insensibly,
he could scarcely tell how, of some change in its aspect: what was it?
It was lighted up in the most unusual way. The window of the spare room
was shining not only with candlelight, but with firelight, his own room
was lighted up; the door was standing open, throwing out a warm flood of
light into the street, and in the centre of this light stood Mrs.
Methven with her white shawl over her head, not at all concealing
herself, gazing anxiously in the direction from which he was coming.

"I think I will send for him," he heard her say; "he has, very likely,
stepped into Captain Underwood's, and he is apt to meet friends there
who will not let him go."

Her voice was soft--there was no blame in it, though she was anxious.
She was speaking to some one behind her, a figure in a great coat.
Walter was in the shadow and invisible. He paused in his surprise to
listen.

"I must get away by the last train," he heard the voice of the muffled
figure say somewhat pettishly.

"Oh, there is plenty of time for that," cried his mother; and then she
gave a little cry of pleasure, and said, "And, at a good moment, here he
is!"

He came in somewhat dazzled, and much astonished, into the strong light
in the open doorway. Mrs. Methven's countenance was all radiant and
glowing with pleasure. She held out her hand to him eagerly.

"We have been looking for you," she cried; "I have had a great surprise.
Walter, this is Mr. Milnathort."

Puzzled, startled, and yet somewhat disappointed, Walter paused in the
hall, and looked at a tall old man with a face full of crotchets and
intelligence, who stood with two great coats unbuttoned, and a comforter
half unwound from his throat, under the lamp. His features were high and
thin, his eyes invisible under their deep sockets.

"Now, you will surely take off your coat, and consent to go up-stairs,
and make yourself comfortable," said Mrs. Methven, with a thrill of
excitement in her voice. "This is Walter. He has heard of you all his
life. Without any reference to the nature of your communication, he must
be glad, indeed, to make your acquaintance--"

She gave Walter a look of appeal as she spoke. He was so much surprised
that it was with difficulty he found self-possession to murmur a few
words of civility. A feeling that Mr. Milnathort must have come to look
after that letter which had never been written came in with the most
wonderfully confusing, half ludicrous effect into his mind, like one of
the inadequate motives and ineffable conclusions of a dream. Mr.
Milnathort made a stiff little bow in reply.

"I will remain till the last train. In the mean time the young gentleman
had better be informed, Mrs. Methven."

She put out her hands again. "A moment--give us a moment first."

The old lawyer stood still and looked from the mother to the son.
Perhaps to his keen eyes it was revealed that it would be well she
should have the advantage of any pleasant revelation.

"I will," he said, "madam, avail myself of your kind offer to go
up-stairs and unroll myself out of these trappings of a long journey;
and in the mean time you will, perhaps, like to tell him the news
yourself: he will like it all the better if he hears it from his
mother."

Mrs. Methven bowed her head, having, apparently, no words at her
command: and stood looking after him till he disappeared on the stairs,
following the maid, who had been waiting with a candle lighted in her
hand. When he was gone, she seized Walter hurriedly by the arm, and drew
him towards the little room, the nearest, which was his ordinary
sitting-room. Her hand grasped him with unnecessary force in her
excitement. The room was dark--he could not see her face, the only light
in it being the reflection of the lamp outside.

"Oh, Walter!" she cried; "oh, my boy! I don't know how to tell you the
news. This useless life is all over for you, and another--oh, how
different--another--God grant it happy and great, oh, God grant it!
blessed and noble!--"

Her voice choked with excitement and fast-coming tears. She drew him
towards her into her arms.

"It will take you from me--but what of that, if it makes you happy and
good? I have been no guide to you, but God will be your guide: His
leadings were all dark to me, but now I see--"

"Mother," he cried, with a strange impulse he could not understand,
putting his arm round her, "I did not write that letter: I have done
nothing I promised or meant to do. I am sick to the heart to think what
a fool and a cad I am--for the love of God tell me what it is!"




CHAPTER IV.


All Sloebury was aware next morning that something of the most
extraordinary character had happened to young Walter Methven. The rumour
even reached the club on the same evening. First the report was that he
had got a valuable appointment, at which the gentlemen shook their
heads; next that he had come into a fortune: they laughed with one
accord at this. Then, as upon a sudden gale of wind, there blew into the
smoking-room, then full of tobacco, newspapers, and men, a whisper which
made everybody turn pale. This was one reason, if not the chief, why
that evening was one of the shortest ever known at the club, which did
not indeed generally keep very late hours, but still was occupied by its
_habitués_ till ten or eleven o'clock, when the serious members would go
away, leaving only the boys, who never could have enough of it. But on
that evening even the young men cleared off about ten or so. They wanted
to know what it meant. Some of them went round to Captain Underwood's
where Walter was so often to be found, with a confidence that at least
Underwood would know; the more respectable members of society went home
to their families to spread the news, and half-a-dozen mothers at least
went to bed that night with a disagreeable recollection that they had
individually and deliberately "broken off" an incipient flirtation or
more, in which Walter had been one of the parties concerned. But the
hopeful ones said to themselves, "Lizzie has but to hold up her little
finger to bring him back." This was before the whole was known. The
young men who had hurried to Captain Underwood's were received by that
gentleman with an air of importance and of knowing more than he would
tell, which impressed their imaginations deeply. He allowed that he had
always known that there was a great deal of property, and perhaps a
title concerned, but declared that he was not at liberty to say any
more. Thus the minds of all were prepared for a great revelation; and it
is safe to say that from one end of Sloebury to the other Walter's name
was in everybody's mouth. It had been always believed that the Methvens
were people of good connections, and of later years it had been
whispered by the benevolent as a reason for Walter's inaction that he
had grand relations, who at the proper moment would certainly interfere
and set everything right for him. Others, however, were strenuous in
their denial and ridicule of this, asking, was his mother a woman to
conceal any advantages she had?--for they did not understand the kind of
pride in which Mrs. Methven was so strong. And then it was clear that
not only did the grand relations do nothing for Walter, but he did not
even have an invitation from them, and went from home only when his
mother went to the sea-side. Thus there was great doubt and wonder, and
in some quarters an inclination to treat the rumour as a canard, and to
postpone belief. At the same time everybody believed it, more or less,
at the bottom of their hearts, feeling that a thing so impossible must
be true.

But when it burst fully upon the world next morning along with the pale
November daylight, but much more startling, that Walter Methven had
succeeded as the next heir to his distant cousin, who was the head of
the family, and was now Lord Erradeen, a great potentate, with castles
in the Highlands and fat lands further south, and moors and deer forests
and everything that the heart of man could think of, the town was swept
not only by a thrill of wonder, but of emotion. Nobody was indifferent
to this extraordinary romance. Some, when they had got over the first
bewilderment, received it with delightful anticipations, as if the good
fortune which had befallen Walter was in some respects good fortune also
for themselves; whereas many others were almost angry at this sudden
elevation over their heads of one who certainly did not deserve any
better, if indeed half so well as they did. But nobody was indifferent.
It was the greatest excitement that had visited Sloebury for years--even
it might be said for generations. Lord Erradeen! it took away
everybody's breath.

Among the circle of Walter's more intimate acquaintance, the impression
made was still deeper, as may be supposed. The commotion in the mind of
the rector, who indeed was old enough to have taken it with more
placidity, was such that he hurried in from morning service without
taking off his cassock. He was a good Churchman, but not so far gone as
to walk about the world in that ecclesiastical garment.

"Can you imagine what has happened?" he said, bursting in upon Mrs.
Wynn, who was delicate and did not go to church in the winter mornings.
"Young Walter Methven, that you all made such a talk about----"

This was unfair, because she had never made any talk--being a woman who
did not talk save most sparingly. She was tempted for a moment to
forestall him by telling him she already knew, but her heart failed her,
and she only shook her head a little in protest against this calumny,
and waited smilingly for what he had to say. She could not take away
from him the pleasure of telling this wonderful piece of news.

"Why it was only the night before last he was here--most of us rather
disapproving of him, poor boy," said the rector. "Well, Lydia, that
young fellow that was a good-for-nothing, you know--doing nothing, never
exerting himself: well, my dear! the most extraordinary thing has
happened--the most wonderful piece of good fortune----"

"Don't keep me on tenterhooks, Julius; I have heard some buzzing of talk
already."

"I should think you had! the town is full of it; they tell me that
everybody you meet on the streets--Lydia!" said the rector with
solemnity, drawing close to her to make his announcement more imposing,
"that boy is no longer simple Mr. Walter Methven. He is Lord
Erradeen----"

"Lord what?" cried the old lady. It was part of her character to be a
little deaf, or rather hard of hearing, which is the prettier way of
stating the fact. It was supposed by some that this was one of the
reasons why, when any one was blamed, she always shook her head.

"Lord Er-ra-deen; but bless me, it is not the name that is so wonderful,
it is the fact. Lord Erradeen--a great personage--a man of importance.
You don't show any surprise, Lydia! and yet it is the most astonishing
incident without comparison that has happened in the parish these
hundred years."

"I wonder what his mother is thinking," Mrs. Wynn said.

"If her head is turned nobody could be surprised. Of course, like every
other mother, she thinks her son worthy of every exaltation."

"I wish she was of that sort," the old lady said.

"Every woman is of that sort," said the rector with hasty dogmatism;
"and, in one way, I am rather sorry, for it will make her feel she was
perfectly right in encouraging him, and that would be such a terrible
example for others. The young men will all take to idling----"

"But it is not the idling, but the fact that there is a peerage in the
family----"

"You can't expect," cried the rector, who was not lucid, "that boys or
women either will reason back so far as that. It will be a bad example:
and, in the mean time, it is a most astonishing fact. But you don't seem
in the least excited. I thought you would have jumped out of your
chair--out of the body almost."

"I am too rheumatic for that," said Mrs. Wynn with a smile: then, "I
wonder if she will come and tell me," the old lady said.

"I should think she does not know whether she is on her head or her
heels," cried the rector; "I don't feel very sure myself. And Walter!
What a change, to be sure, for that boy! I hope he will make a good use
of it. I hope he will not dart off with Underwood and such fellows and
make a fool of himself. Mind, I don't mean that I think so badly of
Underwood," he added after a moment, for this was a subject on which,
being mollified as previously mentioned, the rector took the male side
of the question. Mrs. Wynn received the protest in perfect silence, not
even shaking her head.

"But if he took a fancy for horses or that sort of thing," Mr. Wynn
added with a moment's hesitation; then he brightened up again--"of
course it is better that he should know somebody who has a little
experience in any case; and you will perceive, my dear, there is a
great difference between a penniless youth like Walter Methven getting
such notions in his head which lead only to ruin, and young Lord
Erradeen dabbling a little in amusements which, after all, have no harm
in them if not carried too far, and are natural in his rank--but you
women are always prejudiced on such a point."

"I did not say anything, my dear," the old lady said.

"Oh, no, you don't say anything," cried the rector fretfully, "but I see
it in every line of your shawl and every frill of your cap. You are just
stiff with prejudice so far as Underwood is concerned, who really is not
at all a bad fellow when you come to know him, and is always respectful
to religion, and shows a right feeling--but one might as well try to fly
as to convince you when you have taken a prejudice."

Mrs. Wynn made no protest against this. She said only, "It is a great
ordeal for a boy to pass through. I wonder if his mother----" And here
she paused, not having yet, perhaps, formulated into words the thoughts
that arose in her heart.

"It is to be hoped that she will let him alone," the rector said; "she
has indulged him in everything hitherto; but just now, when he is far
better left to himself, no doubt she will be wanting to interfere."

"Do you think she has indulged him in everything?" said the old lady;
but she did not think it necessary to accuse her husband of prejudice.
Perhaps he understood Captain Underwood as much better as she
understood Mrs. Methven; so she said nothing more. She was the only
individual in Sloebury who had any notion of the struggle in which
Walter's mother had wrecked so much of her own peace.

"There cannot be any two opinions on that subject," said the rector.
"Poor lad! You will excuse me, my dear, but I am always sorry for a boy
left to a woman's training. He is either a mere milksop or a
ne'er-do-well. Walter is not a milksop, and here has Providence stepped
in, in the most wonderful way, to save him from being the other: but
that is no virtue of hers. You will stand up, of course, for your own
side."

The old lady smiled and shook her head. "I think every child is the
better for having both its parents, Julius, if that is what you mean."

This was not exactly what he meant, but it took the wind out of the
rector's sails. "Yes, it is an ordeal for him," he said, "but, I am
sure, if my advice can do him any good, it is at his service; and,
though I have been out of the way of many things for some time, yet I
dare say the world is very much what it was, and I used to know it well
enough."

"He will ask for nobody's advice," said Mrs. Wynn.

"Which makes it all the more desirable he should have it," cried the
rector; and then he said, "Bless me! I have got my cassock on still.
Tell John to take it down to the vestry--though, by the way, there is a
button off, and you might as well have it put on for me, as it is
here."

Mrs. Wynn executed the necessary repair of the cassock with her own
hands. Though she was rheumatic, and did not care to leave her chair
oftener than was necessary, she had still the use of her hands, and she
had a respect for all the accessories of the clerical profession. She
was sitting examining the garment to see if any other feeblenesses were
apparent, in which a stitch in time might save after labours, when, with
a little eager tap at the door, another visitor came in. This was a
young lady of three or four and twenty, with a good deal of the beauty
which consists in fresh complexion and pleasant colour. Her hair was
light brown, warm in tone; her eyes were brown and sparkling; her cheeks
and lips bloomed with health. She had a pretty figure, full of life and
energy--everything, in short, that is necessary to make up a pretty
girl, without any real loveliness or deeper grace. She came in quickly,
brimming over, as was evident, with something which burst forth as soon
as she had given the old lady the hasty conventional kiss of greeting,
and which, as a matter of course, turned out to be the news of which
Sloebury was full.

"Did you ever hear anything so wonderful?" she said. "Walter Methven,
that nobody thought anything of--and now he is turned into a live lord!
a real peer of parliament! they say. I thought mamma would have fainted
when she heard it."

"Why should your mamma faint when she heard of it, July? It is very
pleasant news."

"Oh, Aunt Lydia! don't you know why? I am so angry: I feel as if I
should never speak to her again. Don't you remember? And I always
thought you had some hand in it. Oh, you sit there and look so innocent,
but that is because you are so deep."

"Am I deep?" the old lady asked with a smile.

"You are the deepest person I ever knew: you see through us all, and you
just throw in a word; and then, when people act upon it, you look so
surprised. I heard you myself remark to mamma how often Walter Methven
was at our house."

"Yes, I think I did remark it," Mrs. Wynn said.

"And what was the harm? He liked to come, and he liked me; and I hope
you don't think I am the sort of person to forget myself and think too
much about a man."

"I thought you were letting him be seen with you too often, July, that
is true."

"You thought it might keep others off that were more eligible? Well,
that is what I supposed you meant, for I never like to take a bad view.
But, you see, there was somebody that was eligible; and here has he
turned, all at once, into the very best match within a hundred miles. If
mamma had only let things alone, what prospects might be opening upon me
now!"

"Half-a-dozen girls, I am afraid, may say just the same," said Mrs.
Wynn.

"Well, what does that matter? He had nothing else to do. When a young
man has nothing to do he must be making up to somebody. I don't blame
him a bit; that is what makes us girls always ready for a flirtation.
Time hangs so heavy on our hands. And only think, Aunt Lydia, if things
had been allowed to go on (and I could always have thrown him off if
anything better turned up), only think what might have happened to me
now. I might be working a coronet in all my new handkerchiefs," cried
the girl: "only imagine! oh, oh, oh!"

And she pretended to cry; but there was a sparkle of nervous energy all
the same in her eyes, as if she were eager for the chase, and scarcely
able to restrain her impatience. Mrs. Wynn shook her head at her visitor
with a smile.

"You are not so worldly as you give yourself out to be," she said.

"Oh, that just shows how little you know. I am as worldly as ever woman
was. I think of nothing but how to establish myself, and have plenty of
money. We want it so! Oh, I know you are very good to us--both my uncle
and you; but mamma is extravagant, and I am extravagant, and naturally
all that anybody thinks of is to have what is necessary and decent for
us. We have to put up with it, but I hate what is necessary and decent.
I should like to go in satin and lace to-day even if I knew I should be
in rags to-morrow; and to think if you had not interfered that I might
have blazed in diamonds, and gone to court, and done everything I want
to do! I could strangle you, Aunt Lydia, and mamma too!" Upon which Miss
July (or Julée, which was how her name was pronounced) gave Mrs. Wynn a
sudden kiss and took the cassock out of her hands. "If it wants any
mending I will do it," she said; "it will just give me a little
consolation for the moment. And you will have time to think and answer
this question: Is it too late now?"

"July, dear, it hurts me to hear you talk so--you are not so wild as you
take credit for being."

"I am not wild at all, Aunt Lydia," said the girl, appropriating Mrs.
Wynn's implements, putting on her thimble, threading her needle, and
discovering at one glance the little rent in the cassock which the old
lady had been searching for in vain, "except with indignation to think
what I have lost--if I have lost it. It is all very well to speak, but
what is a poor girl to do? Yes, I know, to make just enough to live on
by teaching, or something of that sort; but that is not what I want. I
want to be well off. I am so extravagant, and so is mamma. We keep
ourselves down, we don't spend money; but we hate it so! I would go
through a great many disagreeables if I could only have enough to
spend."

"And is Walter one of the disagreeables you would go through?"

"Well, no; I could put up with him very well. He is not at all
unpleasant. I don't want him, but I could do with him. Do you really
think it is too late? Don't you think mamma might call upon Mrs. Methven
and say how delighted we are; and just say to him, you know, in a
playful way (mamma could manage that very well), 'We cannot hope to see
you now in our little house, Lord Erradeen!' and then of course he would
be piqued (for he's very generous), and say, 'Why?' And mamma would say,
'Oh, we are such poor little people, and you are now a great man.' Upon
which, as sure as fate, he would be at the Cottage the same evening. And
then!" July threw back her head, and expanded her brown eyes with a
conscious power and sense of capability, as who should say--Then it
would be in my own hands.--"Don't you think that's very good for a
plan?" she added, subsiding quickly to the work, which she executed as
one to the manner born.

"I don't think anything of it as a plan--and neither do you; and your
mother would not do it, July," the old lady said.

"Ah," said July, throwing back her head, "there you have hit the blot,
Aunt Lydia. Mamma wouldn't do it! She could, you know. When she likes
she is the completest humbug!--but not always. And she has so many
notions about propriety, and what is womanly, and so forth--just like
you. Poor women have no business with such luxuries. I tell her we must
be of our time, and all that sort of thing; but she won't see it. No, I
am afraid that is just the difficulty. It all depends on mamma--and
mamma won't. Well, it is a little satisfaction to have had it all out
with you. If you had not interfered, you two, and stopped the poor boy
coming----"

At this juncture John threw open the door, and with a voice which he
reserved for the great county ladies, announced "Mrs. Methven." John had
heard the great news too.

"--Stopped the poor boy coming," July said. The words were but half out
of her mouth when John opened the door, and it was next to impossible
that the new visitor had not heard them. A burning blush covered the
girl's face. She sprang to her feet with the cassock in her arms, and
gazed at the new comer. Mrs. Methven for the first moment did not notice
this third person. She came in with the content and self-absorption of
one who has a great wonder to tell. The little world of Sloebury and all
its incidents were as nothing to her. She went up to old Mrs. Wynn with
a noiseless swiftness.

"I have come to tell you great news," she said.

"Let me look at you," said the old lady. "I have heard, and I scarcely
could believe it. Then it is all true?"

"I am sorry I was not the first to tell you. I think such a thing must
get into the air. Nobody went out from my house last night, and yet
everybody knows. I saw even the people in the street looking at me as I
came along. Mrs. Wynn, you always stood up for him; I never said
anything, but I know you did. I came first to you. Yes, it is all true."

The old lady had known it now for several hours, and had been gently
excited, no more. Now her eyes filled with tears, she could not have
told why.

"Dear boy! I hope God will bless him, and make him worthy and great,"
she said, clasping her old hands together. "He has always been a
favourite with me."

"He is a favourite with everybody," said July. No one had noticed her
presence, and she was not one that could remain unseen. "Everybody is
glad; there is not one that doesn't wish him well."

Did she intend to strike that _coup_ for herself which her mother was
not to be trusted to make? Mrs. Wynn thought so with a great tremor, and
interrupted her in a tone that for her was hurried and anxious.

"July speaks nothing but the truth, Mrs. Methven; there is nobody that
does not like Walter; but I suppose I ought now to drop these
familiarities and call him Lord Erradeen?"

"He will never wish his old friends to do that," said Mrs. Methven. She
already smiled with a gracious glance and gesture: and the feeling that
these old friends were almost too much privileged in being so near to
him, and admitted to such signs of friendship, came into her mind; but
she did not care to have July share her expansion. "Miss Herbert," she
said, with a little bow, "is very good to speak so kindly. But everybody
is kind. I did not know my boy was so popular. Sunshine," she added,
with a smile, "brings out all the flowers."

She had not sat down, and she evidently did not mean to do so while July
remained. There was something grand in her upright carriage, in her air
of superiority, which had never been apparent before. She had always
been a woman, as Sloebury people said, who thought a great deal of
herself; but no one had ever acknowledged her right to do so till now.
On the other hand, July Herbert was well used to the cold shade. Her
mother was Mrs. Wynn's niece, but she was none the less poor for that,
and as July was not a girl to be easily put down, she was acquainted
with every manner of polite snubbing known in the society of the place.
This of standing till she should go was one with which she was perfectly
familiar, and in many cases it afforded her pleasure to subject the
operator to great personal inconvenience; but on the present occasion
she was not disposed to exercise this power. She would have conciliated
Walter's mother if she could have done so, and on a rapid survey of the
situation she decided that the best plan was to yield.

"I must go and tell mamma the great news," she said. "I am sure she will
never rest till she rushes to you with her congratulations; but I will
tell her you are tired of congratulations already--for of course it is
not a thing upon which there can be two opinions." July laid down the
cassock as she spoke. "I have mended all there is to mend, Aunt Lydia;
you need not take any more trouble about it. Good-bye for the moment.
You may be sure you will see one or other of us before night."

They watched her silently as she went out of the room. Mrs. Methven
saying nothing till the door had closed, Mrs. Wynn with a deprecatory
smile upon her face. She did not altogether approve of her grandniece.
But neither was she willing to hand her over to blame. The old lady felt
the snub July had received more than the girl herself did. She looked a
little wistfully after her. She was half angry when as soon as July
disappeared Mrs. Methven sank down upon a chair near her, huge billows
of black silk rising about her, for she had put on her best gown. Mrs.
Wynn thought that the mother, whose child, disapproved by the world, had
been thus miraculously lifted above its censures, should have been all
the more tolerant of the other who had met no such glorious fate. But
she reflected that _they never see it_, which was her favourite
expression of wonderment, yet explanation of everything. There were so
many things that _they_ ought to learn by; but they never saw it. It was
thus she accounted with that shake of her head for all the errors of
mankind.

Mrs. Methven for her part waited till even the very step of that
objectionable Julia Herbert had died away. She had known by instinct
that if _that_ girl should appear she would be on the watch to make
herself agreeable to Walter's mother. "As if he could ever have thought
of her," she said to herself. Twenty-four hours before Mrs. Methven
would have been glad to think that Walter "thought of" any girl who was
at all in his own position. She would have hailed it as a means of
steadying him, and making him turn seriously to his life. But everything
was now changed, and this interruption had been very disagreeable. She
could scarcely turn to her old friend now with the effusion and emotion
which had filled her when she came in. She held out her hand and grasped
that of the old lady.

"I don't need to tell you what I am feeling," she said. "It is all like
a tumultuous sea of wonder and thankfulness. I wanted it, for I was at
my wits' end."

Mrs. Wynn was a little chilled too, but she took the younger woman's
hand.

"You did not know what was coming," she said. "You wanted one thing, and
Providence was preparing another."

"I don't know if that is how to state it; but at all events I was
getting to feel that I could not bear it any longer, and trying for any
way of setting things right: when the good came in this superlative way.
I feel frightened when I think of it. After we knew last night I could
do nothing but cry. It took all the strength from me. You would have
thought it was bad news."

"I can understand that." The old lady relinquished the hand which she
had been holding. "To be delivered from any anxieties you may have had
in such a superlative way, as you say, is not the common lot--most of us
have just to fight them out."

Mrs. Methven already felt herself far floated away from those that had
to fight it out. The very words filled her heart with an elation beyond
speech.

"And this morning," she said, "to wake and to feel it must be folly, and
then to realise that it was true! One knows so well the other sort of
waking when the shock and the pang come all over again. But to wake up
to this extraordinary incredible well-being--one might say happiness!"

The tears of joy were in her eyes, and in those tears there is something
so strange, so rare, that the soul experienced in life looks upon them
almost with more awe than upon the familiar ones of grief which we see
every day. The old lady melted, and her chill of feeling yielded to a
tender warmth. Yet what a pity that They never see it! How much more
perfect it would have been if the woman in her happiness had been
softened and kind to all those whom nothing had happened to!
Imperceptibly the old lady in her tolerant experience shook her gentle
old head. Then she gave herself in full sympathy to hear all the
wonderful details.




CHAPTER V.


The sentiments of the spectators in such a grand alteration of fortune
may be interesting enough, and it is in general more easy to get at them
than at those which fill the mind of the principal actor. In the present
case it is better to say of the principal subject of the change, for
Walter could not be said to be an actor at all. The emotions of the
first evening it would indeed be impossible to describe. To come in from
his small country-town society, to whom even he was so far inferior that
every one of them had facilities of getting and spending money which he
did not possess, and to sit down, all tremulous and guilty, feeling
himself the poorest creature, opposite to the serious and important
personage who came to tell him, with documents as solemn as himself,
that this silly youth who had been throwing away his life for nothing,
without even the swell of excitement to carry him on, had suddenly
become, without deserving it, without doing anything to bring it about,
an individual of the first importance--a peer, a proprietor, a great
man. Walter could have sobbed as his mother did, had not pride kept him
back. When they sat down at table in the little dining-room there were
two at least of the party who ate nothing, who sat and gazed at each
other across the others with white faces and blazing eyes. Mr.
Milnathort made a good dinner, and sat very watchful, making also his
observations, full of curiosity and a certain half-professional
interest. But Cousin Sophy was the only one who really got the good of
this prodigious event. She asked if they might not have some champagne
to celebrate the day. She was in high excitement but quite
self-controlled, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She immediately began in her
thoughts to talk of my young cousin Lord Erradeen. It was a delightful
advancement which would bring her no advantage, and yet almost pleased
her more than so much added on to her income; for Miss Merivale was not
of any distinction in her parentage, and suddenly to find herself cousin
to a lord went to her heart: it was a great benefit to the solitary lady
fond of society, and very eager for a helping hand to aid her up the
ascent. And it was she who kept the conversation going. She even flirted
a little, quite becomingly, with the old lawyer, who felt her, it was
evident, a relief from the high tension of the others, and was amused by
the vivacious middle-aged lady, who for the moment had everything her
own way. After dinner there was a great deal of explanation given, and a
great many facts made clear, but it is to be doubted whether Walter knew
very well what was being said. He listened with an air of attention,
but it was as if he were listening to some fairy tale. Something out of
the _Arabian Nights_ was being repeated before him. He was informed how
the different branches of his family had died out one after another.
"Captain Methven was aware that he was in the succession," the lawyer
said; and Mrs. Methven cast a thought back, half-reproachful,
half-approving upon her husband, who had been dead so long that his
words and ways were like shadows to her, which she could but faintly
recall. Would it have been better if he had told her? After pursuing
this thought a long time she decided that it would not, that he had done
wisely--yet felt a little visionary grudge and disappointment to think
that he had been able to keep such a secret from her. No doubt it was
all for the best. She might have distracted herself with hopes, and worn
out her mind with waiting. It was doubtful if the support of knowing
what was going to happen would really have done her any good; but yet it
seemed a want of trust in her, it seemed even to put her in a partially
ridiculous position now, as knowing nothing, not having even an idea of
what was coming. But Walter did not share any of these goings back upon
the past. He had scarcely known his father, nor was he old enough to
have had such a secret confided to him for long after Captain Methven
died. He thought nothing of that. He sat with an appearance of the
deepest attention, but unaware of what was being said, with a vague
elation in his mind, something that seemed to buoy him up above the
material earth. He could not bring himself down again. It was what he
remembered to have felt when he was a child when some long-promised
pleasure was coming--to-morrow. Even in that case hindrances might come
in. It might rain to-morrow, or some similar calamity might occur. But
rain could not affect this. He sat and listened and did not hear a word.

Next morning Walter awoke very early, before the wintry day had fully
dawned. He opened his eyes upon a sort of paling and whitening of
everything--a grey perception of the walls about him, and the lines of
the window marked upon the paleness outside. What was it that made even
these depressing facts exhilarate him and rouse an incipient delight in
his mind, which for the moment he did not understand? Then he sat up
suddenly in his bed. It was cold, it was dark. There was no assiduous
servant to bring hot water or light his fire--everything was chilling
and wretched; and he was not given to early rising. Ordinarily it was an
affair of some trouble to get him roused, to see that he was in time for
a train or for any early occupation. But this morning he found it
impossible to lie still; an elasticity in him, an elation and buoyancy,
which he almost felt, with a laugh, might float him up to the ceiling,
like the mediums, made him jump up, as it were in self-defence. It
buoyed him, it carried him as on floating pinions into a limitless
heaven. What was it? Who was he? The chill of the morning brought him a
little to himself, and then he sat down in his shirt-sleeves and
delivered himself up to the incredible, and laughed low and long, with a
sense of the impossibility of it that brought tears to his eyes. He Lord
Erradeen, Lord Anything! He a peer, a great man! he with lands and money
and wealth of every sort, who last night had been pleased to win two
sixpences! After the buoyancy and sensation of rising beyond the world
altogether, which was a kind of physical consciousness of something
great that had happened before he was awake, came this sense of the
ludicrous, this incredulity and confused amusement. He dressed himself
in this mood, laughing low from time to time, to himself, as if it were
some game which was being played upon him, but of which he was in the
secret, and not to be deceived, however artfully it might be managed.
But when he was dressed and ready to go down-stairs--by which time
daylight had fully struggled forth upon a wet and clammy world--he
stopped himself short with a sudden reminder that to-day this curious
practical joke was to extend its career and become known to the world.
He laughed again, but then he grew grave, standing staring at the closed
door of his bedroom, out of which he was about to issue--no longer a
nobody--in a new character, to meet the remarks, the congratulations of
his friends. He knew that the news would fly through the little town
like lightning; that people would stop each other in the streets and
ask, "Have you heard it?--is it true?" and that throughout the whole
place there would be a sort of revolution, a general change of
positions, which would confuse the very world. He knew vaguely that
whatever else might happen he would be uppermost. The people who had
disapproved of him, and treated him _de haut en bas_, would find this to
be impossible any longer. He would be in a position which is to be seen
on the stage and in books more frequently than in common life--possessed
of the power of making retribution, of punishing the wicked, and
distributing to the good tokens of his favour. It is a thing we would
all like to do, to avenge ourselves (within due Christian and social
limits) on the persons who have despised us, and to reward those who
have believed in us, showing the one how right they were, and the other
how wrong they were, with a logic that should be undeniable. There is
nobody who has ever endured a snub--and who has not?--who would not
delight in doing this; but the most of us never get such a supreme
gratification, and Walter was to have it. He was going to see everybody
abashed and confounded who had ever treated him with contumely. Once
more he felt that sensation of buoyancy and elation as if he were
spurning earth with his foot and ready to soar into some sort of
celestial sphere. And then once more he laughed to himself. Was it
possible? could it be? would anybody believe it? He thought there would
be an explosion of incredulous laughter through all the streets; but
then, when that was over, both friends and foes would be forced to
believe it--as he himself was forced to believe.

With that he opened his door, and went down-stairs into the new world.
He stumbled over the housemaid's pail, of course, but did not call forth
any frown upon that functionary's freckled forehead as he would have
done yesterday. On the contrary, she took away the pail, and begged his
pardon with awe--being of course entirely blameless. He paused for a
moment on the steps as he faced the raw morning air going out, and lo!
the early baker, who was having a word with cook at the area over the
rolls, turned towards him with a reverential look, and pulled off his
cap. These were the first visible signs of Walter's greatness; they gave
him a curious sort of conviction that after all the thing was true.

There was scarcely anybody about the Sloebury streets except bakers and
milkmen at this hour. It was a leisurely little town, in which nothing
particular was doing, no manufactures or business to demand early hours;
and the good people did not get up early. Why should they? the day was
long enough without that: so that Walter met no one in his early
promenade. But before he got back there were symptoms that the
particular baker who had taken off his cap had whispered the news to
others of his fraternity, who, having no tie of human connection, such
as supplying the family with rolls, to justify a salutation, only
stared at him with awe-stricken looks as he went past. He felt he was
an object of interest even to the policeman going off duty, who being an
old soldier, saluted with a certain grandeur as he tramped by. The young
man took an aimless stroll through the half-awakened district. The roads
were wet, the air raw: it was not a cheerful morning; damp and
discouragement breathed in the air; the little streets looked squalid
and featureless in shabby British poverty; lines of low, two-storied
brick, all commonplace and monotonous. It was the sort of morning to
make you think of the tediousness to which most people get up every day,
supposing it to be life, and accepting it as such with the dull content
which knows no better; a life made up of scrubbing out of kitchens and
sweeping out of parlours, of taking down shutters and putting them up
again; all sordid, petty, unbroken by an exhilarating event. But this
was not what struck Walter as he floated along in his own wonderful
atmosphere, seeing nothing, noting everything with the strange vision of
excitement. Afterwards he recollected with extraordinary vividness a man
who stood stretching his arms in shirt sleeves above his head for a
long, soul-satisfying yawn, and remembered to have looked up at the
shop-window within which he was standing, and read the name of Robinson
in gilt letters. Robinson, yawning in his shirt-sleeves, against a
background of groceries, pallid in the early light, remained with him
like a picture for many a day.

When he got back the breakfast table was spread, and his mother taking
her place at it. Mr. Milnathort had not gone away as he intended by the
night train. He had remained in Mrs. Methven's spare room, surrounded by
all the attentions and civilities that a household of women, regarding
him with a sort of awe as a miraculous messenger or even creator of good
fortune, could show to a bachelor gentleman, somewhat prim and
old-fashioned in his habits and ways. It was his intention to leave
Sloebury by the eleven o'clock train, and he had arranged that Walter
should meet him in Edinburgh within a week, to be made acquainted with
several family matters, in which, as the head of the house, it was
necessary that he should be fully instructed. Neither Walter nor his
mother paid very much attention to these arrangements, nor even remarked
that the old lawyer spoke of them with great gravity. Mrs. Methven was
busy making tea, and full of anxiety that Mr. Milnathort should
breakfast well and largely, after what she had always understood to be
the fashion of his country; and as for Walter, he was not in a state of
mind to observe particularly any such indications of manner. Cousin
Sophia was the only one who remarked the solemnity of his tone and
aspect.

"One would suppose there was some ordeal to go through," she said in her
vivacious way.

"A young gentleman who is taking up a large fortune and a great
responsibility will have many ordeals to go through, madam," Mr.
Milnathort said in his deliberate tones: but he did not smile or take
any other notice of her archness. It was settled accordingly, that after
a few days for preparation and leave-taking, young Lord Erradeen should
leave Sloebury. "And if I might advise, alone," Mr. Milnathort said,
"the place is perhaps not just in a condition to receive ladies. I would
think it wiser on the whole, madam, if you deferred your coming till his
lordship there has settled everything for your reception."

"_My_ coming?" said Mrs. Methven. The last twelve hours had made an
extraordinary difference in her feelings and faith; but still she had
not forgotten what had gone before, nor the controversies and struggles
of the past. "We must leave all that for after consideration," she said.

Walter was about to speak impulsively, but old Milnathort stopped him
with a skilful interruption--

"It will perhaps be the wisest way," he said; "there will be many things
to arrange. When Lord Erradeen has visited the property, and understands
everything about it, then he will be able to----"

Walter heard the name at first with easy unconsciousness: then it
suddenly blazed forth upon him as his own name. His mother at the other
end of the table felt the thrill of the same sensation. Their eyes met;
and all the wonder of this strange new life suddenly gleamed upon them
with double force. It is true that the whole condition of their minds
was affected by this revelation, that there was nothing about them that
was not full of it, and that they were actually at this moment
discussing the business connected with it. Still it all came to life now
as at the first moment at the sound of this name, Lord Erradeen! Walter
could not help laughing to himself over his coffee.

"I can't tell who you mean," he said. "You must wait a little until I
realise what Walter Methven has got to do with it."

Mrs. Methven thought that this was making too much of the change. She
already wished to believe, or at least to persuade Mr. Milnathort to
believe, that she was not so very much surprised after all.

"Lord Erradeen," she said, "is too much amused at present with having
got a new name to take the change very seriously."

"He will soon learn the difference, madam," said Mr. Milnathort.
"Property is a thing that has always to be taken seriously: and of all
property the Erradeen lands. There are many things connected with them
that he will have to set his face to in a way that will be far from
amusing."

The old lawyer had a very grave countenance--perhaps it was because he
was a Scotchman. He worked through his breakfast with a steady routine
that filled the ladies with respect. First fish, then kidneys, then a
leg of the partridge that had been left from dinner last night; finally
he looked about the table with an evident sense of something wanting,
and though he declared that it was of no consequence, avowed at last,
with some shyness, that it was the marmalade for which he was looking:
and there was none in the house! Mr. Milnathort was full of excuses for
having made such a suggestion. It was just a Scotch fashion he declared;
it was of no consequence. Mrs. Methven, who held an unconscious
conviction that it was somehow owing to him that Walter had become Lord
Erradeen, was made quite unhappy by the omission.

"I shall know better another time," she said regretfully. They were all
still under the impression more or less that it was his doing. He was
not a mere agent to them, but the god, out of the machinery, who had
turned darkness into light. He justified this opinion still more fully
before he went away, putting into Walter's hand a cheque-book from a
London bank, into which a sum of money which seemed to the inexperienced
young man inexhaustible, had been paid to his credit. The old gentleman
on his side seemed half-embarrassed, half-impatient after a while by the
attention shown him. He resisted when Walter declared his intention of
going to the railway to see him off.

"That is just a reversal of our positions," he said.

At this Mrs. Methven became a little anxious, fearing that perhaps
Walter's simplicity might be going too far. She gave him a word of
warning when the cab drove up for Mr. Milnathort's bag. It was not a
very large one, and Walter was quite equal to the condescension of
carrying it to the station if his mother had not taken that precaution.
She could not make up her mind that he was able to manage for himself.

"You must remember that after all he is only your man of business," she
said, notwithstanding all the worship she had herself been paying to
this emissary of fortune. It was a relief to shake hands with him, to
see him drive away from the door, leaving behind him such an amazing,
such an incalculable change. Somehow it was more easy to realise it when
he was no longer there. And this was what Walter felt when he walked
away from the railway, having seen with great satisfaction the grizzled
head of the old Scotsman nod at him from a window of the departing
train. The messenger was gone; the thing which he had brought with him,
did that remain? Was it conceivable that it was now fixed and certain
not to be affected by anything that could be done or said? Walter walked
steadily enough along the pavement, but he did not think he was doing
so. The world around him swam in his eyes once more. He could not make
sure that he was walking on solid ground, or mounting up into the air.
How different it was from the way in which he had come forth yesterday,
idle, half-guilty, angry with himself and everybody, yet knowing very
well what to do, turning with habitual feet into the way where all the
other idlers congregated, knowing who he should meet and what would
happen. He was separated from all that as if by an ocean. He had no
longer anything to do with these foolish loungers. His mother had told
him a thousand times in often varied tones that they were not companions
for him; to-day he recognised the fact with a certain disgust. He felt
it more strongly still when he suddenly came across Captain Underwood
coming up eagerly with outstretched hands.

"I hope I am the first to congratulate you, Lord Erradeen," he said.
"Now you will know why I asked you yesterday, Was there any news----"

"Now I shall know? I don't a bit; what do you mean? Do you mean me to
believe that _you_ had any hand in it?" Walter cried, with a tone of
mingled incredulity and disdain.

"No hand in it, unless I had helped to put the last poor dear lord out
of the way. I could scarcely have had that; but if you mean did I know
about it, I certainly did, as you must if you had been a little more in
the world."

"Why didn't you tell me then?" said Walter. He added somewhat hotly,
with something of the sublime assumption of youth: "Waiting for a man to
die would never have suited me. I much prefer to have been, as you say,
out of the world----"

"Oh, Lord! I didn't mean to offend you," said the captain. "Don't get on
a high horse. Of course, if you'd known your Debrett as I do, you would
have seen the thing plain enough. However, we needn't quarrel about it.
I have always said you were my pupil, and I hope I have put you up to a
few things that will be of use on your entry into society."

"Have you?" said Walter. He could not think how he had ever for a moment
put up with this under-bred person. Underwood stood before him with a
sort of jaunty rendering of the appeal with which grooms and people
about the stable remind a young man of what in his boyish days they have
done for him--an appeal which has its natural issue in a sovereign. But
he could not give Underwood a sovereign, and it was perhaps just a
little ungenerous to turn in the first moment of his prosperity from a
man who, from whatever purpose, had been serviceable to him in his
poverty. He said, with an attempt to be more friendly: "I know,
Underwood, you have been very kind."

"Oh, by Jove! kind isn't the word. I knew you'd want a bit of training;
the best thoroughbred that ever stepped wants that; and if I can be of
any use to you in the future, I will. I knew old Erradeen; I've known
all about the family for generations. There are a great many curious
things about it, but I think I can help you through them," said the
captain with a mixture of anxiety and swagger. There had always been
something of this same mixture about him, but Walter had never been
fully conscious what it was till now.

"Thank you," he said; "perhaps it will be better to let that develop
itself in a natural way. I am going to Scotland in a week, and then I
shall have it at first hand."

"Then I can tell you beforehand you will find a great many things you
won't like," said Underwood, abruptly. "It is not for nothing that a
family gets up such a reputation. I know two or three of your places.
Mulmorrel, and the shooting-box on Loch Etive, and that mysterious old
place at Kinloch-houran. I have been at every one of them. It was not
everybody, I can tell you, that old Erradeen would have taken to that
place. Why, there is a mystery at every corner. There is----"

Walter held up his hand to stay this torrent. He coloured high with a
curious sentiment of proprietorship and the shrinking of pride from
hearing that which was his discussed by strangers. He scarcely knew the
names of them, and their histories not at all. He put up his hand: "I
would rather find out the mysteries for myself," he said.

"Oh," cried Underwood, "if you are standing on your dignity, my lord, as
you like, for that matter. I am not one to thrust my company upon any
man if he doesn't like it. I have stood your friend, and I would again;
but as for forcing myself upon you now that you've come to your
kingdom----"

"Underwood," cried the other, touched in the tenderest point, "if you
dare to insinuate that this has changed me, I desire never to speak to
you again. But it is only, I suppose, one of the figures of speech that
people use when they are angry. I am not such a cad as you make me out.
Whether my name is Methven or Erradeen--I don't seem to know very well
which it is----"

"It is both," the other cried with a great laugh, and they shook hands,
engaging to dine together at the hotel that evening. Underwood, who was
knowing in such matters, was to order the dinner, and two or three of
"the old set," were to be invited. It would be a farewell to his former
comrades, as Walter intended; and with a curious recurrence of his first
elation he charged his representative to spare no expense. There was
something intoxicating and strange in the very phrase.

As he left Underwood and proceeded along the High Street, where, if he
had not waved his hand to them in passing with an air of haste and
pre-occupation, at least every second person he met would have stopped
him to wish him joy, he suddenly encountered July Herbert. She was going
home from the vicarage, out of which his mother had politely driven her;
and it seemed the most wonderful luck to July to get him to herself,
thus wholly unprotected, and with nobody even to see what she was after.
She went up to him, not with Underwood's eagerness, but with a pretty
frank pleasure in her face.

"I have heard a fairy tale," she said, "and it is true----"

"I suppose you mean about me," said Walter. "Yes, I am afraid it is
true. I don't exactly know who I am at present."

"Afraid!" cried July. "Ah, you know you don't mean that. At all events,
you are no longer just the old Walter whom we have known all our lives."

There was another girl with her whom Walter knew but slightly, but who
justified the plural pronoun.

"On the contrary, I was going to say, when you interrupted me----"

"I am so sorry I interrupted you."

"That though I did not know who I was in the face of the world, I was
always the old Walter, &c. A man, I believe, can never lose his
Christian name."

"Nor a woman either," said July. "That is the only thing that cannot be
taken from us. We are supposed, you know, rather to like the loss of the
other one."

"I have heard so," said Walter, who was not unaccustomed to this sort of
fencing. "But I suppose it is not true."

"Oh," said July, "if it were for the same reason that makes you change
your name, I should not mind. But there is no peerage in our family that
I know of, and I should not have any chance if there were, alas!
Good-bye, Lord Erradeen. It is a lovely name! And may I always speak to
you when I meet you, though you are such a grand personage? We do not
hope to see you at the Cottage now, but mamma will like to know that you
still recognise an old friend."

"I shall come and ask Mrs. Herbert what she thinks of it all," Walter
said.

July's brown eyes flashed out with triumph as she laughed and waved her
hand to him. She said--

"It will be too great an honour," and curtseyed; then laughed again as
she went on, casting a glance at him over her shoulder.

He laughed too; he was young, and he was gratified even by this
undisguised provocation, though he could not help saying to himself,
with a slight beat of his heart, how near he was to falling in love with
that girl! What a good thing it was that he did not--_now_!

As for July, she looked at him with a certain ferocity, as if she would
have devoured him. To think of all that boy had it in his power to give
if he pleased, and to think how little a poor girl could do!




CHAPTER VI.


Mrs. Methven was conscious of a new revival of the old displeasure when
Walter informed her of the engagement he had formed for the evening. She
was utterly disappointed. She had thought that the great and beneficial
shock of this new life would turn his character altogether, and convert
him into that domestic sovereign, that object of constant reference,
criticism, and devotion which every woman would have every man be. It
was a wonderful mortification and enlightenment to find that without
even the interval of a single evening devoted to the consideration of
his new and marvellous prospects, and that talking over which is one of
the sweetest parts of a great and happy event, he should return--to
what?--to wallowing in the mire, as the Scripture says, to his old
billiard-room acquaintances, the idlers and undesirable persons with
whom he had formed associations. Could there be anything more unsuitable
than Lord Erradeen in the midst of such a party, with Underwood, and
perhaps worse than Underwood. It wounded her pride and roused her
temper, and, in spite of all her efforts, it was with a lowering brow
that she saw him go away. Afterwards, indeed, when she thought of it, as
she did for hours together, while cousin Sophia talked, and she
languidly replied, maintaining a conversation from the lips outward, so
poor a substitute for the evening's talking over and happy consultation
she had dreamed of--Mrs. Methven was more just to her son. She tried
always to be just, poor lady. She placed before herself all the reasons
for his conduct. That he should entertain the men who, much against her
wish and his own good, yet in their way had been kind to and entertained
him, was natural. But to do it this first evening was hard, and she
could not easily accept her disappointment. Afterwards she reminded
herself with a certain stern philosophy that because Walter had owned a
touch of natural emotion, and had drawn near to her and confessed
himself in the wrong, that was no reason why his character should be
changed in a moment. There were numbers of men who on occasion felt and
lamented their misdoing, yet went on again in the same way. He had been
no doubt startled, as some are by calamity, by the more extraordinary
shock of this good fortune; but why should he for that abandon all the
tastes and occupations of his former life? It was she, she said to
herself, with some bitterness, who was a fool. The fact was that Walter
meant no harm at all, and that it was merely the first impulse of a
half-scornful liberality, impatience of the old associations, which he
had tacitly acknowledged were not fit for him, that led him back to his
former companions. He felt afterwards that it would have been in better
taste had he postponed this for a night. But he was very impatient and
eager to shake himself free of them, and enter upon his new career.

Something of the same disappointed and disapproving sentiment filled
Mrs. Methven's mind when she heard of his visit to the Cottage. She knew
no reason why he should take a special leave of July Herbert; if he knew
himself a reason, which he did not disclose, that was another matter.
Thoughts like this embittered the preparations for his departure, which
otherwise would have been so agreeable. She had to see after many things
which a young man of more wealth, or more independent habits, would have
done for himself--his linen, his portmanteau, most of the things he
wanted, except the tailor part of the business; but it was not until the
last evening that there was any of the confidential consultation, for
which her heart had longed. Even on that last day Walter had been very
little indoors. He had been busy with a hundred trifles, and she had
begun to make up her mind to his going away without a word said as to
their future relations, as to whether he meant his mother to share any
of the advantages of his new position, or to drop her at Sloebury as
something done with, which he did not care to burden himself with, any
more than the other circumstances of his past career. She did so little
justice to the real generosity of her son's temper in the closeness of
her contest with him, and the heat of personal feeling, that she had
begun to make up her mind to this, with what pain and bitterness it is
unnecessary to say.

She had even began to make excuses for her own desertion in the tumult
of endless thought upon this one subject which possessed her. She would
be just; after all, was it not better perhaps that she should be left in
the little house which was her independent home, for which she owed
nothing to any one? If any unnecessary sense of gratitude made him offer
her reluctantly a share in his new life, that would be humiliation
indeed. If, as was apparent, her society, her advice, her love were
nothing to him, was it not far better that both should recognise the
situation, and view things in their true light? This the proud woman had
made up her mind to, with what depth of wounded tenderness and
embittered affection who could say? She had packed for him with her own
hands, for all his permanent arrangements were to be made after he had
left Sloebury, and to change her household in consequence of an
alteration of fortune which, according to all appearances, would not
concern her, was, she had proudly decided, quite out of the question.
She packed for him as in the days when he was going to school, when he
was a boy, and liked everything better that had been done by his mother.
A woman may be pardoned for feeling such a difference with a passionate
soreness and sense of downfall. In those days how she had thought of the
time when he would be grown up, when he would understand all her
difficulties and share all her cares, and in his own advancement make
her triumphant and happy! God forgive me, she said to herself, now he
has got advancement far above my hopes, and I am making myself wretched
thinking of myself. She stopped and cried a little over his new linen.
No, he was right; if it must be allowed that they did not "get on," it
was indeed far better in the long run that there should be no false
sentiment, no keeping up of an untenable position. Thank God she
required nothing; she had enough; she wanted neither luxury nor
grandeur, and her home, her natural place was here, where she had lived
so many years, where she could disarm all comment upon Walter's neglect
of her, by saying that she preferred the place where she had lived so
long, and where she had so many friends. Why, indeed, should she change
her home at her time of life? No doubt he would come back some time and
see her; but after all why should her life be unsettled because his was
changed? It was he who showed true sense in his way of judging the
matter, she said to herself with a smile, through the hastily dried and
momentary tears.

Walter came in when the packing was just about concluded. He came half
way up the stairs and called "Mother, where are you?" as he had often
done when he was a boy and wanted her at every turn, but as he never did
now. This touched and weakened her again in her steady resolution to
let him see no repining in her. "Are you packing for me?" he called out
again; "what a shame while I have been idling! But come down, mother,
please, and leave that. You forget we have everything to settle yet."

"What is there to settle?" she said, with a certain sharpness of tone
which she could not quite suppress, coming out upon the landing. The
maids who were going to bed, and who heard all this, thought it was
beautiful to hear his lordship speaking like that, quite natural to his
mother; but that missus was that hard it was no wonder if they didn't
get on; and Cousin Sophia from her virgin retirement, where she sat in
her dressing-gown reading a French novel, and very much alive to every
sound, commented in her own mind, closing her book, in the same sense.
"Now she will just go and hold him at arm's length while the boy's heart
is melting, and then break her own," Miss Merivale said to herself. Thus
everybody was against her and in favour of the fortunate young fellow
who had been supping on homage and flattery, and now came in easy and
careless to make everything straight at the last moment. Mrs. Methven on
her side was very tired, and tremulous with the exertion of packing. It
would have been impossible for her to banish that tone out of her voice.
She stood in the subdued light upon the stairs looking down upon him,
leaning on the banister to support herself; while he, with all the light
from below upon his face, ruddy with the night air, and the applauses,
and his own high well-being, looked up gaily at her. He had shaken off
all his old irritability in the confidence of happiness and good fortune
that had taken possession of him. After a moment he came springing up
the stairs three at a time.

"You look tired, mother, while I have been wasting my time. Come down,
and let us have our talk. I'll do all the rest to-morrow," he said,
throwing his arm round her and leading her down-stairs. He brought her
some wine first of all and a footstool, and threw himself into the easy
task of making her comfortable. "Now," he said, "let's talk it all
over," drawing a chair to her side.

All this was quite new upon Walter's part--or rather quite old,
belonging to an age which had long ago gone.

"Isn't it rather late for that?" she said, with a faint smile.

"Yes, and I am ashamed of myself; but, unfortunately, you are so used to
that. We must settle, however, mother. I am to go first of all to
Kinloch-houran, which Milnathort says is not a place for you. Indeed, I
hear----" here he paused a little as if he would have named his
authority, and continued, "that it is a ruinous sort of place; and why I
should go there, I don't know."

"Where did you hear?" she said, with quick suspicion.

"Well, mother, I would rather not have mentioned his name; but if you
wish to know, from Underwood. I know you are prejudiced against him.
Yes, it is prejudice, though I don't wonder at it. I care nothing for
the fellow; but still it comes out, which is rather strange, that he
knows these places, and a good deal about the Erradeens."

"Is that, then," cried the mother quickly, "the reason of his being
here?"

"He never said so, nor have I asked him," answered Walter, with
something of his old sullenness; but then he added--"The same thought
has crossed my own mind, mother, and I shouldn't wonder if it were so."

"Walter," she said, "a man like that can have but one motive--the desire
to aggrandise himself. For heaven's sake, don't have anything to do with
him; don't let him get an influence over you."

"You must have a very poor opinion of me, mother," he said, in an
aggrieved tone.

She looked at him with a curious gaze, silenced, as it seemed. She loved
him more than anything in the world, and thought of him above
everything; and yet perhaps in that wrath with those we love which works
like madness in the brain, it was true what he said--that she had a poor
opinion of him. Extremes meet, as the proverb says. However, this was a
mystery too deep for Walter to enter into.

"Don't let us waste words about Underwood," he said. "I care nothing for
the fellow; he is vulgar and presuming--as you always said."

Partly, no doubt, this avowal was made with the intention of pleasing
his mother; at the same time it proved the great moral effect of
promotion in rank. Lord Erradeen saw with the utmost distinctness what
Walter Methven had only glimpsed by intervals. And it is impossible to
describe how this speech pleased Mrs. Methven. Her tired eyes began to
shine, her heart to return to its brighter hopes.

"The thing is, what arrangements you wish me to make," said Walter.
"What are you going to do? I hear Mulmorrel is a handsome house, but
it's November, and naturally it is colder in the north. Do you think you
would care to go there now, or wait till the weather is better? It may
want furnishing, for anything I know; and it appears we've got a little
house in town."

"Walter," she said, in a voice which was husky and tremulous, "before
you enter upon all this--you must first think, my dear. Are you sure it
will be for your comfort to have me with you at all? Wouldn't you rather
be free, and make your own arrangements, and leave me--as I am?"

"MOTHER?" the young man cried. He got up suddenly from where he was
sitting beside her, and pushed away his chair, and stood facing her,
with a sudden paleness and fiery eyes that seemed to dazzle her. He had
almost kicked her footstool out of his way in his excitement and wounded
feeling. "Do you mean to say you want to have nothing to do with me?" he
said.

"Oh! my boy, you could not think so. I thought that was what--you meant.
I wish only what is for your good."

"Would it be for my good to be an unnatural cad?" said the young man,
with rising indignation--"a heartless, ill-conditioned whelp, with no
sense and no feeling? Oh, mother! mother! what a poor opinion you must
have of me!" he cried; and so stung was he with this blow that sudden
tears sprang to his eyes. "All because I'm a fool and put everything off
to the last moment," he added, in a sort of undertone, as if explaining
it to himself. "But I'm not a beast for all that," he said, fiercely.

She made him no reply, but sat and gazed at him with a remorse and
compunction, which, painful sentiments as they are, were to her sweet as
the dews from heaven. Yes, it appeared that through all her passionate
and absorbing tenderness she had had a poor opinion of him. She had done
him injustice. The conviction was like a new birth. That he should be
Lord Erradeen was nothing in comparison of being, as he thus proved
himself, good and true, open to the influences of affection and nature.
She could not speak, but her eyes were full of a thousand things; they
asked him mutely to forgive her. They repented, and were abashed and
rejoiced all in one glance. The young man who had not been nearly so
heartless as she feared, was now not nearly so noble as she thought: but
he was greatly touched by the crisis, and by the suggestion of many a
miserable hour which was in her involuntary sin against him and in her
penitence. He came back again and sat close by her, and kissed her
tremulously.

"I have been a cad," he said. "I don't wonder you lost all faith in me,
mother."

"Not that, not that," she said faintly; and then there was a moment of
exquisite silence, in which, without a word, everything was atoned for,
and pardon asked and given.

And then began perhaps the happiest hour of Mrs. Methven's life, in
which they talked over everything and decided what was to be done. Not
to give up the house in Sloebury at present, nor indeed to do anything
at present, save wait till he had made his expedition into Scotland and
seen his new property, and brought her full particulars. After he had
investigated everything and knew exactly the capabilities of the house,
and the condition in which it was, and all the necessities and
expediencies, they would then decide as to the best thing to be done;
whether to go there, though at the worst time of the year, or to go to
London, which was an idea that pleased Walter but alarmed his mother.
Mrs. Methven did her best to remember what were the duties of a great
landed proprietor and to bring them home to her son.

"You ought to spend Christmas at your own place," she said. "There will
be charities and hospitalities and the poor people to look after."

She did not know Scotland, nor did she know very well what it was to be
a great country magnate. She had been but a poor officer's daughter
herself, and had married another officer, and been beaten about from
place to place before she settled down on her small income at Sloebury.
She had not much more experience than Walter himself had in this
respect; indeed, if the truth must be told, both of them drew their
chief information from novels, those much-abused sources of information,
in which the life of rural potentates is a favourite subject, and not
always described with much knowledge. Walter gravely consented to all
this, with a conscientious desire to do what was right: but he thought
the place would most likely be gloomy for his mother in winter, and that
hospitalities would naturally be uncalled for so soon after the death of
the old lord.

"What I would advise would be Park Lane," he said, with a judicial tone.
"Milnathort said that it was quite a small house."

"What is a small house in Park Lane would look a palace at Sloebury,"
Mrs. Methven said: "and you must not begin on an extravagant footing, my
dear."

"You will let us begin comfortably, I hope," he said; "and I must look
for a nice carriage for you, mother."

Walter felt disposed to laugh as he said the words, but carried them off
with an air of easy indifference as if it were the most natural thing in
the world: while his mother on her side could have cried for pleasure
and tenderness.

"You must not mind me, Walter; we must think what is best for yourself,"
she said, as proud and pleased as if she had twenty carriages.

"Nothing of the sort," he said. "We are going to be comfortable, and you
must have everything that is right first of all."

What an hour it was! now and then there will be given to one individual
out of a class a full measure of recompense heaped and overflowing, out
of which the rest may get a sympathetic pleasure though they do not
enjoy it in their own persons. Mrs. Methven had never imagined that this
would come to her, but lo! in a moment it was pouring upon her in floods
of consolation. So absorbing was this happy consultation that it was
only when her eyes suddenly caught the clock on the mantelpiece, and saw
that the hands were marking a quarter to two! that Mrs. Methven startled
awoke out of her bliss.

"My poor boy! that I should keep you up to this hour talking, and a long
journey before you to-morrow!" she cried.

She hustled him up to his room after this, talking and resisting gaily
to the very door. He was happy too with that sense of happiness
conferred, which is always sweet, and especially to youth in the
delightful, easy sense of power and beneficence. When he thought of it
he was a little remorseful, to think that he had possessed the power so
long and never exercised it, for Walter was generous enough to be aware
that the house in Park Lane and the carriage were not the occasions of
his mother's blessedness. "Poor mother," he said to himself softly. He
might have made her a great deal more happy if he had chosen before
these fine things were dreamt of. But Mrs. Methven remembered that no
more. She begged pardon of God on her knees for misjudging her boy, and
for once in her life was profoundly, undoubtingly happy, with a
perfection and fulness of content which perhaps could only come after
long experience of the reverse. After such a moment a human creature, if
possible, should die, so as to taste nothing less sweet: for the less
sweet, to be sure, must come back if life goes on, and at that moment
there was not a cloud or a suggestion of darkness upon the firmament.
She grudged falling asleep, though she was very tired, and so losing
this beautiful hour; but nature is wilful and will seldom abdicate the
night for joy, whatever she may do for grief.

Next morning she went to the station with him to see him away.
Impossible to describe the devotion of all the officials to Lord
Erradeen's comfort on his journey. The station-master kindly came to
superintend this august departure, and the porters ran about contending
for his luggage with an excitement which made, at least, one old
gentleman threaten to write to the _Times_. There was nothing but "my
lord" and "his lordship" to be heard all over the station; and so many
persons came to bid him good-bye and see the last of him, as they said,
that the platform was quite inconveniently crowded. Among these, of
course, was Captain Underwood, whose fervent--"God bless you, my
boy"--drowned all other greetings. He had, however, a disappointed
look--as if he had failed in some object. Mrs. Methven, whose faculties
were all sharpened by her position, and who felt herself able to
exercise a toleration which, in former circumstances, would have been
impossible to her, permitted him to overtake her as she left the place,
and acknowledged his greeting with more cordiality, or, at least, with a
less forbidding civility than usual. And then a wonderful sight was seen
in Sloebury. This _béte noir_ of the feminine world, this man whom every
lady frowned upon, was seen walking along the High Street, side by side,
in earnest conversation with one of the women who had been most
unfavourable to him. Was she listening to an explanation, a
justification, an account of himself, such as he had not yet given, to
satisfy the requirements of the respectability of Sloebury? To tell the
truth, Mrs. Methven now cared very little for any such explanation. She
did not remember, as she ought to have done, that other women's sons
might be in danger from this suspicious person, though her own was now
delivered out of his power. But she was very curious to know what
anybody could tell her of Walter's new possessions, and of the family
which it was rather humiliating to know so little about. It was she,
indeed, who had begun the conversation after his first remark upon
Walter's departure and the loss which would result to Sloebury.

"You know something about the Erradeens, my son tells me," she said
almost graciously.

"Something! I know about as much as most people. I knew he was the heir,
which few, except yourselves, did," the captain said. He cast a keen
glance at her when he said, "except yourselves."

"Indeed," said Mrs. Methven, "that is scarcely correct, for Walter did
not know, and I had forgotten. I had, indeed, lost sight of my husband's
family and the succession seemed so far off."

It was thus that she veiled her ignorance and endeavoured to make it
appear that indifference on her part, and a wise desire to keep Walter's
mind unaffected by such a dazzling possibility, had been her guiding
influence. She spoke with such modest gravity that Captain Underwood,
not used to delusion under that form, was tempted into a sort of belief.
He looked at her curiously, but her veil was down, and her artifice, if
it was an artifice, was of a kind more delicate than any to which he was
accustomed.

"Well!" he said, "then it was not such a surprise to you as people
thought? Sloebury has talked of nothing else, I need not tell you, for
several days; and everybody was of opinion that it burst upon you like a
thunderbolt."

"Upon my son, yes," Mrs. Methven said with a smile.

He looked at her again, and she had the satisfaction of perceiving that
this experienced man of the world was taken in.

"Well, then," he said, "you will join with me in wishing him well out of
it: you know all the stories that are about."

"I have never been at Mulmorrel--my husband's chances in his own
lifetime were very small, you know."

"It isn't Mulmorrel, it is that little ruined place where something
uncanny is always said to go on--oh, _I_ don't know what it is; nobody
does but the reigning sovereign himself, and some hangers-on, I suppose.
I have been there. I've seen the mysterious light, you know. Nobody can
ever tell what window it shows at, or if it is any window at all. I was
once with the late man--the late lord, he who died the other day--when
it came out suddenly. We were shooting wildfowl, and his gun fell out of
his hands. I never saw a man in such a funk. We were a bit late, and
twilight had come on before we knew."

"So then you actually saw something of it yourself?" Mrs. Methven said.
She had not the remotest idea what this was, but if she could find out
something by any means she was eager enough to take advantage of it.

"No more than that; but I can tell you this: Erradeen was not seen again
for twenty-four hours. Whether it was a call to him or what it was I
can't undertake to say. He never would stand any questioning about it.
He was a good fellow enough, but he never would put up with anything on
that point. So I can only wish Walter well through it, Mrs. Methven. In
my opinion he should have had some one with him; for he is young, and, I
dare say, he is fanciful."

"My son, Lord Erradeen," said Mrs. Methven with dignity, "is man enough,
I hope, to meet an emergency. Perhaps you think him younger than he is."
She propounded this delicately as, perhaps, a sort of excuse for the
presumption of the Christian name.

Underwood grew very red: he was disappointed and irritable. "Oh, of
course you know best," he said. "As for my Lord Erradeen (I am sure I
beg your pardon for forgetting his dignity), I dare say he is quite old
enough to take care of himself--at least, we'll hope so; but a business
of that kind will upset the steadiest brain, you know. Old Erradeen had
not a bad spirit of his own, and _he_ funked it. I confess I feel a
little anxious for your boy; he's a nice fellow, but he's nervous. I was
in a dozen minds to go up with him to stand by him; but, perhaps, it is
better not, for the best motives get misconstrued in this world. I can
only wish him well out of it," Captain Underwood said, taking off his
hat, and making her a fine bow as he stalked away.

It is needless to say that this mysterious intimation of danger planted
daggers in Mrs. Methven's heart. She stopped aghast: and for the moment
the idea of running back to the station, and signalling that the train
was to be stopped came into her mind. Ridiculous folly! Wish him well
out of it? What, out of his great fortune, his peerage, his elevation in
the world? Mrs. Methven smiled indignantly, and thought of the strange
manifestations under which envy shows itself. But she went home somewhat
pale, and could not dismiss it from her mind as she wished to do. Well
out of it! And there were moments when, she remembered, she had
surprised a very serious look on the countenance of Mr. Milnathort. Was
Walter going unwarned, in the elation and happy confidence of his heart,
into some danger unknown and unforeseen? This took her confidence away
from her, and made her nervous and anxious. But after all, what folly it
must be: something uncanny and a mysterious light! These were stories
for Christmas, to bring a laugh or a shiver from idle circles round the
fire. To imagine that they could effect anything in real life was a kind
of madness; an old-fashioned, exploded superstition. It was too
ridiculous to be worthy a thought.




CHAPTER VII.


Walter arrived in Edinburgh on a wintry morning white and chill. A sort
of woolly shroud wrapped all the fine features of the landscape. He
thought the dingy turrets of the Calton Jail were the Castle, and was
much disappointed, as was natural. Arthur's Seat and the Crags were as
entirely invisible as if they had been a hundred miles away, and the
cold crept into his very bones after his night's journey, although it
had been made luxuriously, in a way very different from his former
journeyings. Also it struck him as strange and uncomfortable that nobody
was aware of the change in his position, and that even the railway
porter, to whom he gave a shilling (as a commoner he would have been
contented with sixpence), only called him "Sir," and could not perceive
that it would have been appropriate to say my lord. He went to an hotel,
as it was so early, and found only a dingy little room to repose himself
in, the more important part of the house being still in the hands of the
housemaids. And when he gave his name as Lord Erradeen, the attendants
stared at him with a sort of suspicion. They looked at his baggage
curiously, and evidently asked each other if it was possible he could be
what he claimed to be. Walter had a half-consciousness of being an
impostor, and trying to take these surprised people in. He thawed,
however, as he ate his breakfast, and the mist began to rise, revealing
the outline of the Old Town. He had never been in Edinburgh before; he
had rarely been anywhere before. It was all new to him, even the sense
of living in an inn. There was a curious freedom about it, and
independence of all restraint, which pleased him. But it was very
strange to be absolutely unknown, to meet the gaze of faces he had never
seen before, and to be obliged always to explain who he was. It was
clear that a servant was a thing quite necessary to a man who called
himself by a title, a servant not so much to attend upon him as to
answer for him, and be a sort of guarantee to the world. Now that he was
here in Edinburgh, he was not quite sure what to do with himself. It was
too early to do anything. He could not disturb old Milnathort at such an
hour. He must let the old man get to his office and read his letters
before he could descend upon him. So that on the whole Walter, though
sustained by the excitement of his new position, was altogether chilled
and not at all comfortable, feeling those early hours of grim daylight
hang very heavily on his hands. He went out after he had refreshed and
dressed--and strolled about the fine but foreign street. It looked quite
foreign to his inexperienced eyes. The Castle soared vaguely through
the grey mist; the irregular line of roofs and spires crowning the ridge
threw itself up vaguely against a darker grey behind. There was a river
of mist between him and that ridge, running deep in the hollow,
underneath the nearer bank, which was tufted with spectral bushes and
trees, and with still more spectral white statues glimmering through. On
the other side of the street, more cheerful and apparent, were the
jewellers' shops full of glistening pebbles and national ornaments.
Everybody knows that it is not these shops alone, but others of every
luxurious kind, that form the glory of Prince's Street. But Walter was a
stranger and foreigner; and in the morning mists the shining store of
cairngorms was the most cheerful sight that met his eye.

Mr. Milnathort's office was in a handsome square, with a garden in the
centre of it, and another statue holding possession of the garden. For
the first time since he left home, Walter felt a little thrill of his
new importance when he beheld the respectful curiosity produced among
the clerks by the statement of his name. They asked his lordship to step
in with an evident sensation. And for Walter himself to look into that
office where his mother had so strongly desired that he should find a
place, had the most curious effect. He felt for the moment as if he were
one of the serious young men peeping from beyond the wooden railing that
inclosed the office, at the fortunate youth whose circumstances were no
different from their own. He did not realise at that moment the
unfailing human complacency which would have come to his aid in such
circumstances, and persuaded him that the gifts of fortune had nothing
to do with real superiority. He thought of the possible reflections upon
himself of the other young fellows in their lowly estate as if he had
himself been making them. He was sorry for them all, for the contrast
they must draw, and the strange sense of human inequality that they must
feel. He was no better than they were--who could tell? perhaps not half
as good. He felt that to feel this was a due tribute from Lord Erradeen
in his good fortune to those who might have been Walter Methven's
fellow-clerks, but who had never had any chance of being Lord Erradeen.
And then he thought what a good thing it was that he had never written
that letter to Mr. Milnathort, offering himself for a desk in the
office. He had felt really guilty on the subject at the time. He had
felt that it was miserable of him to neglect the occasion thus put
before him of gaining a livelihood. Self-reproach, real and
unmistakable, had been in his mind; and yet what a good thing he had not
done it: and how little one knows what is going to happen! These were
very ordinary reflections, not showing much depth; but it must be
recollected that Walter was still in a sort of primary state of feeling,
and had not had time to reach a profounder level.

Mr. Milnathort made haste to receive him, coming out of his own room on
purpose, and giving him the warmest welcome.

"I might have thought you would come by the night train. You are not old
enough to dislike night travelling as I do; but I will take it ill, and
so will my sister, if you stay in an hotel, and your room ready for you
in our little place. I think you will be more comfortable with us,
though we have no grandeur to surround you with. My sister has a great
wish to make your acquaintance, my Lord Erradeen. She has just a
wonderful acquaintance with the family, and it was more through her than
any one that I knew just where to put my hand upon you, when the time
came."

"I did not like to disturb you so early," Walter said.

"Well, perhaps there is something in that. We are not very early birds:
and as a matter of fact, Alison did not expect you till about seven
o'clock at night. And here am I in the midst of my day's work. But I'll
tell you what I'll do for you. We'll go round to the club, and there
your young lordship will make acquaintance with somebody that can show
you something of Edinburgh. You have never been here before? It is a
great pity that there is an easterly haar, which is bad both for you and
the objects you are wanting to see. However, it is lifting, and we'll
get some luncheon, and then I will put you in the way. That is the best
thing I can do for you. Malcolm, you will send down all the documents
relative to his lordship's affairs to Moray Place, this afternoon; and
you can tell old Symington to be in attendance in case Lord Erradeen
should wish to see him. That is your cousin the late lord's body
servant. He is a man of great experience, and you might wish--; but all
that can be settled later on. If Drysdales should send over about that
case of theirs, ye will say, Malcolm, that I shall be here not later
than three in the afternoon; and if old Blairallan comes fyking, ye can
say I am giving the case my best attention; and if it's that big
north-country fellow about his manse and his augmentation----"

"I fear that I am unpardonable," said Walter, "in interfering with your
valuable time."

"Nothing of the sort. It is not every day that a Lord Erradeen comes
into his inheritance; and as there are, may be, things not over-cheerful
to tell you at night, we may as well make the best of it in the
morning," said the old lawyer. He got himself into his coat as he spoke,
slowly, not without an effort. The sun was struggling through the mist
as they went out again into the streets, and the mid-day gun from the
Castle helped for a moment to disperse the haar, and show the noble
cliff on which it rears its head aloft. Mr. Milnathort paused to look
with tender pride along the line--the houses and spires lifting out of
the clouds, the sunshine breaking through, the crown of St. Giles's
hovering like a visible sign of rank over the head of the throned city,
awakened in him that keen pleasure and elation in the beauty of his
native place which is nowhere more warmly felt than in Edinburgh. He
waved his hand towards the Old Town in triumph. "You may have seen a
great deal, but ye will never have seen anything finer than that," he
said.

"I have seen very little," said Walter; "but everybody has heard of
Edinburgh, so that it does not take one by surprise."

"Ay, that is very wisely said. If it took you by surprise, and you had
never heard of it before, the world would just go daft over it. However,
it is a drawback of a great reputation that ye never come near it with
your mind clear." Having said this the old gentleman dismissed the
subject with a wave of his hand, and said, in a different tone, "You
will be very curious about the family secrets you are coming into, Lord
Erradeen."

Walter laughed.

"I am coming to them with my mind clear," he said. "I know nothing about
them. But I don't believe much in family secrets. They belong to the
middle ages. Nowadays we have nothing to conceal."

Mr. Milnathort listened to this blasphemy with a countenance in which
displeasure struggled with that supreme sense that the rash young man
would soon know better, which disarms reproof. He shook his head.

"You may say we can conceal but little," he said, "which is true enough,
but not altogether true either. Courage is a fine thing, Lord Erradeen,
and I am always glad to see it; and if you have your imagination under
control, that will do ye still better service. In most cases it is not
only what we see, but what we think we are going to see, that daunts us.
Keep you your head cool, that is your best defence in all emergencies.
It is better to be too bold than not to be bold enough, notwithstanding
the poet's warning to yon warrior-maid of his."

These last words made Walter stare, for he was not very learned in
poetry at the best, and was totally unprepared to hear Spenser from the
lips of the old Scottish lawyer. He was silent for a little in mere
perplexity, and then he said, with a laugh--

"You speak of danger as if we were on the eve of a battle. Are there
giants to encounter or magicians? One would think we were living in the
dark ages," Walter cried with a little impatience.

Mr. Milnathort said nothing more. He led the young man into one of the
great stone palaces which form the line of Prince's Street, and which
was then the seat of the old original club of Edinburgh society. Here
Walter found himself in the midst of a collection of men with marked and
individual faces, each one of whom ought to be somebody, he thought.
Many of them were bound about the throat with white ties, like
clergymen, but they did not belong to that profession. It gave the
young man a sense of his own importance, which generally deserted him in
Mr. Milnathort's presence, and of which he felt himself to stand in
need, to perceive that he excited a great deal of interest among these
grave and potent signors. There was a certain desire visible to make his
acquaintance and to ascertain his political opinions, of which Walter
was scarcely aware as yet whether he had any. It was suggested at once
that he should be put up for the club, and invitations to dinner began
to be showered upon him. He was stopped short in his replies to those
cordial beginnings of acquaintance by Mr. Milnathort, who calmly assumed
the guidance of his movements. "Lord Erradeen," he said, "is on his way
West. Business will not permit him to tarry at this moment. We hope he
will be back ere long, and perhaps stay a while in Edinburgh, and see
what is to be seen in the way of society." This summary way of taking
all control of his own movements from him astounded Walter so much that
he merely stared at his old tyrant or vizier, and in his confusion of
surprise and anger did not feel capable of saying anything, which, after
all, was the most dignified way; for, he said to himself, it was not
necessary to yield implicit obedience even if he refrained from open
protest upon these encroachments on his liberty. In the mean time it was
evident that the old lawyer did not intend him to have any liberty at
all. He produced out of the recesses of the club library a beaming
little man in spectacles, to whom he committed the charge of the young
stranger.

"Mr. Bannatyne," he said, "knows Edinburgh as well as I know my
chambers, and he will just take you round what is most worth seeing."

When Walter attempted to escape with a civil regret to give his new
acquaintance trouble he was put down by both with eagerness.

"The Old Town is just the breath of my nostrils," said the little
antiquary.

"It cannot be said that it's a fragrant breath," said old Milnathort;
"but since that is so, Lord Erradeen, you would not deprive our friend
of such a pleasure: and we'll look for you by five or six at Moray
Place, or earlier if you weary, for it's soon dark at this time of the
year."

To find himself thus arrested in the first day of his emancipation and
put into the hands of a conductor was so annoying yet so comic that
Walter's resentment evaporated in the ludicrous nature of the situation
and his consciousness that otherwise he would not know what to do with
himself. But sight-seeing requires a warmer inspiration than this, and
even the amusement of beholding his companion's enthusiasm over all the
dark entries and worn-out inscriptions was not enough to keep Walter's
interest alive. His own life at this moment was so much more interesting
than anything else, so much more important than those relics of a past
which had gone away altogether out of mortal ken. When the blood is at
high pressure in our veins, and the future lying all before us, it is
very difficult to turn back, and force our eager eyes into contemplation
of scenes with which we ourselves have little or no connection. The
antiquary, however, was not to be baulked. He looked at his young
companion with his head on one side like a critical bird. "You are
paying no attention to me," he said half pathetically; "but 'cod, man (I
beg your pardon, my lord!), ye _shall_ be interested before I'm done."
With this threat he hurried Walter along to the noisiest and most
squalid part of that noble but miserable street which is the pride of
Edinburgh, and stopped short before a small but deep doorway, entering
from a short flight of outside stairs. The door was black with age and
neglect, and showed a sort of black cave within, out of which all kind
of dingy figures were fluttering. The aspect of the muddy stairs and
ragged wayfarers was miserable enough, but the mouldings of the lintel,
and the spiral staircase half visible at one side, were of a grim
antiquity, and so was the lofty tenement above, with its many rows of
windows and high-stepped gable.

"Now just look here," said Mr. Bannatyne, "these arms will tell their
own story."

There was a projecting boss of rude, half-obliterated carving on the
door.

"I cannot make head nor tail of it," said the young man; his patience
was beginning to give way.

"Lord Erradeen," cried the other with enthusiasm, "this is worth your
fattest farm; it is of more interest than half your inheritance; it is
as historical as Holyrood. You are just awfully insensible, you young
men, and think as little of the relics that gave you your consequences
in the world--!" He paused a little in the fervour of his indignation,
then added--"But there are allowances to be made for you as you were
bred in England, and perhaps are little acquainted--My lord, this is
Me'even's Close, bearing the name even now in its decay. It was my Lord
Methven's lodging in the old time. Bless me! can your young eyes not
read the motto that many people have found so significant? Look here,"
cried Walter's cicerone, tracing with his stick the half-effaced
letters, "Baithe Sune and Syne."

Young Lord Erradeen began, as was natural, to feel ashamed of himself.
He felt a pang of discomfort too, for this certainly bore no resemblance
to the trim piece of modern Latin about the conquering power of virtue
which was on his father's seal. The old possibility that he might turn
out an impostor after all gleamed across his mind. "Does this belong to
me?" he added with some eagerness, to veil these other and less easy
sentiments.

"I know nothing about that," said Mr. Bannatyne with a slight tone of
contempt. "But it was the Lord of Methven's lodging in the days when
Scots lords lived in the Canongate of Edinburgh." Then he added, "There
is a fine mantelpiece up-stairs which you had better see. Oh nobody will
have any objection, a silver key opens every door hereabout. If it
should happen to be yours, my lord, and I were you," said the eager
little man, "I would clear out the whole clanjamfry and have it
thoroughly cleaned, and make a museum of the place. You would pick up
many a curious bit as the auld houses go down. This way, to the right,
and mind the hole in the wall. The doors are all carved, if you can see
them for the dirt, and you'll not often see a handsomer room."

It was confusing at first to emerge out of the gloom of the stairs into
the light of the great room, with its row of windows guiltless of either
blind or curtain, which was in possession of a group of ragged children,
squatting about in front of the deep, old-fashioned chimney, over which
a series of elaborate carvings rose to the roof. The room had once been
panelled, but half of the woodwork had been dragged down, and the rest
was in a deplorable state. The contrast of the squalor and wretchedness
about him, with the framework of the ancient, half-ruined grandeur, at
once excited and distressed Walter. There was a bed, or rather a heap of
something covered with the bright patches of an old quilt, in one
corner, in another an old corner cupboard fixed into the wall, a rickety
table and two chairs in the middle of the room. The solemn, unsheltered
windows, like so many hollow, staring eyes, gazed out through the cold
veil of the mist upon the many windows of an equally tall house on the
other side of the street, the view being broken by a projecting pole
thrust forth from the middle one, upon which some dingy clothes were
hanging to dry. The children hung together, getting behind the biggest
of them, a ragged, handsome girl, with wild, elf locks, who confronted
the visitors with an air of defiance. The flooring was broken in many
places, and dirty beyond description. Walter felt it intolerable to be
here, to breathe the stifling atmosphere, to contemplate this hideous
form of decay. He thought some one was looking at him from behind the
torn panels. "This is horrible," he said. "I hope I have nothing to do
with it." Disgust and a shivering, visionary dread was in his voice.

"Your race has had plenty to do with it," said the antiquary. "It was
here, they say, that the warlock-lord played most of his pliskies. It
was his 'warm study of deals' like that they made for John Knox on the
other side of the street. These walls have seen strange sights: and if
you believe in witchcraft, as one of your name ought----"

"Why should one of my name believe in witchcraft? It appears," he said,
with petulance, "that I know very little about my name."

"So I should have said," said the antiquary, dryly. "But no doubt you
have heard of your great ancestor, the warlock-lord? I am not saying
that I admire the character in the abstract; but an ancestor like that
is fine for a family. He was mixed up in all the doings of the time, and
he made his own out of every one of them. And then he's a grand
historical problem to the present day, which is no small distinction.
You never heard of that? Oh, my lord, that's just not possible! He was
the one whose death was never proved nor nothing about him, where he was
buried, or the nature of his end, or if he ever came to an end at all;
his son would never take the title, and forbade _his_ son to do it: but
by the time you have got to the second generation you are not minding so
much. I noticed that the late lord would never enter into conversation
on the subject. The family has always been touchy about it. It was the
most complete disappearance I can recollect hearing of. Most historical
puzzles clear themselves up in time: but this never was cleared up. Of
course it has given rise to legends. You will perhaps be more interested
in the family legends, Lord Erradeen?"

"Not at all," said Walter, abruptly. "I have told you I know very little
about the family. What is it we came to see?--not this wretched place
which makes me sick. The past should carry off its shell with it, and
not leave these old clothes to rot here."

"Oh!" cried little Mr. Bannatyne, with a shudder. "I never suspected I
was bringing in an iconoclast. That mantelpiece is a grand work of art,
Lord Erradeen. Look at that serpent twisted about among the
drapery--you'll not see such work now; and the ermine on that mantle
just stands out in every hair, for all the grime and the smoke. It is
the legend beneath the shield that is most interesting in the point of
view of the family. It's a sort of rhyming slogan, or rather it's an
addition to the old slogan, 'Live, Me'even,' which everybody knows."

Walter felt a mingled attraction and repulsion which held him there
undecided in front of the great old fireplace, like Hercules or any
other hero between the symbolical good and evil. He had a great
curiosity to know what all this meant mingled with an angry
disinclination impossible to put into words. Mr. Bannatyne, who of
course knew nothing of what was going on in his mind, took upon himself
the congenial task of tracing the inscription out. It was doggerel, bad
enough to satisfy every aspiration of an antiquary. It was as follows:--

    "Né fleyt atte Helle, né fond for Heeven,
                        Live, Me'even."

"You will see how it fits in with the other motto," cried the
enthusiast. "'Baithe Sune and Syne,' which has a grand kind of
indifference to time and all its changes that just delights me. And the
other has the same sentiment, 'Neither frightened for hell nor keen
about heaven.' It is the height of impiety," he said, with a subdued
chuckle; "but that's not inappropriate--it's far from inappropriate; it
is just, in fact, what might have been expected. The warlock lord----"

"I hope you won't think me ungrateful," cried Walter, "but I don't think
I want to know any more about that old ruffian. There is something in
the place that oppresses me." He took out from his pocket a handful of
coins. (It was with the pleasure of novelty that he shook them together,
gold and silver in one shining heap, and threw half a dozen of them to
the little group before the fire.) "For heaven's sake let us get out of
this!" he said, nervously. He could not have explained the sentiment of
horror, almost of fear, that was in his mind. "If it is mine," he said,
as they went down the spiral stair, groping against the black humid
wall, "I shall pull it down and let in some air and clear the filth
away."

"God bless me!" cried the antiquary in horror and distress, "you will
never do that. The finest street in Christendom, and one of the best
houses! No, no, Lord Erradeen, you will never do that!"

When Mr. Bannatyne got back to the club, he expressed an opinion of Lord
Erradeen, which we are glad to believe further experience induced him to
modify. He declared that old Bob Milnathort had given him such a handful
as he had not undertaken for years. "Just a young Cockney!" he said, "a
stupid Englishman! with no more understanding of history, or even of the
share his own race has had in it, than that collie dog--indeed, Yarrow
is far more intelligent, and a brute that is conscious of a fine
descent. I am not saying that there are not fine lads among some of
those English-bred young men, and some that have the sense to like
old-fashioned things. But this young fellow is just a Cockney, he is
just a young cynic. Pull down the house, said he? Spoil the first street
in Europe! We'll see what the Town Council--not to say the Woods and
Forests--will say to that, my young man! And I hope I have Bailie Brown
under my thumb!" the enraged antiquary cried.

Meantime Walter made his way through the dark streets in a tremor of
excitement and dislike of which he could give no explanation to himself.
Why should the old house have affected him so strongly! There was no
reason for it that he knew. Perhaps there was something in the
suddenness of the transition from the comfortable English prose of
Sloebury to all these old world scenes and suggestions which had a
disenchanting effect upon him. He had not been aware that he was more
matter of fact than another, less likely to be affected by romance and
historical associations. But so it had turned out. The grimy squalor of
the place, the bad atmosphere, the odious associations, had either
destroyed for him all the more attractive prejudices of long family
descent, and a name which had descended through many generations--or
else, something more subtle still, some internal influence, had
communicated that loathing and sickness of the heart. Which was it? He
could not tell. He said to himself, with a sort of scorn at himself,
that probably the bourgeois atmosphere of Sloebury had made him
incapable of those imaginative flights for which the highest and the
lowest classes have a mutual aptitude. The atmosphere of comfort and
respectability was against it. This idea rather exasperated him, and he
dwelt upon it with a natural perversity because he hated to identify
himself as one of that stolid middle class which is above or beneath
fanciful impulses. Then he began to wonder whether all this might not be
part of a deep-laid scheme on the part of old Milnathort to get him,
Walter, under his power. No doubt it was arranged that he should be
brought to that intolerable place, and all the spells of the past called
forth to subdue him by his imagination if never through his intellect.
What did they take him for? He was no credulous Celt, but a sober-minded
Englishman, not likely to let his imagination run away with him, or to
be led by the nose by any _diablerie_, however skilful. They might make
up their minds to it, that their wiles of this kind would meet with no
success. Walter was by no means sure who he meant by _they_, or why they
should endeavour to get him into their power; but he wanted something to
find fault with--some way of shaking off the burden of a mental weight
which he did not understand, which filled him with discomfort and new
sensations which he could not explain. He could almost have supposed
(had he believed in mesmerism, according to the description given of it
in fiction--) that he was under some mesmeric influence, and that some
expert, some adept, was trying to decoy him within some fatal circle of
impression. But he set his teeth and all his power of resistance against
it. They should not find him an easy prey.




CHAPTER VIII.


The drawing-room in Moray Place seemed in the partial gloom very large
and lofty. It must be remembered that Walter was accustomed only to the
comparatively small rooms of an English country town where there was
nobody who was very rich--and the solid, tall Edinburgh houses were
imposing to him. There was no light but that which came from a blazing
fire, and which threw an irregular ruddy illumination upon everything,
but no distinct vision. He saw the tall windows indefinitely draped, and
looking not unlike three colossal women in abundant vague robes standing
against the wall. In a smaller room behind, which opened from this, the
firelight was still brighter, but still only partially lit up the
darkness. It showed, however, a table placed near the fire, and glowing
with bright reflections from its silver and china; and just beyond that,
out of the depths of what looked like an elongated easy-chair, a piece
of whiteness, which was a female countenance. Walter, confused at his
entrance, made out after a moment that it was a lady, half reclining on
a sort of invalid _chaise longue_, who raised herself slightly to
receive him, with a flicker of a pair of white, attenuated hands. "You
are very welcome, Lord Erradeen," she said, in a sweet, feeble voice.
"Will you excuse my rising--for I'm a great invalid--and come and sit
down here beside me? I have been looking for you this half-hour past."
The hand which she held out to him was so thin that he scarcely felt its
light pressure. "If you have no objection," said Miss Milnathort, "we
will do with the firelight for a little longer. It is my favourite
light. My brother sent me word I was to expect you, and after your cold
walk you will be glad of a cup of tea." She did not pause for any reply,
but went on, drawing the table towards her, and arranging everything
with the skill of an accustomed hand. "I am just a cripple creature,"
she said. "I have had to learn to serve myself in this way, and Robert
is extraordinarily thoughtful. There is not a mechanical convenience
invented but I have it before it is well out of the brain that devised
it; and that is how I get on so well with no backbone to speak of. All
this is quite new to you," she said, quickly shaking off one subject and
taking up another, with a little swift movement of her head.

"Do you mean--Edinburgh, or----"

"I mean everything," said the lady. "Edinburgh will be just a bit of
scenery in the drama that is opening upon you, and here am I just
another tableau. I can see it all myself with your young eyes. You can
scarcely tell if it is real."

"That is true enough," said Walter, "and the scenery all turns upon the
plot so far: which is what it does not always do upon the stage."

"Ay!" said Miss Milnathort, with a tone of surprise, "and how may that
be? I don't see any particular significance in Holyrood. It is where all
you English strangers go, as if Edinburgh had no meaning but Queen
Mary."

"We did not go to Holyrood. We went to Lord Methven's Lodging, as I hear
it is called: which was highly appropriate."

"Dear me," said the lady, "do you mean to tell me that John Bannatyne
had that sense in him? I will remember that the next time Robert calls
him an auld foozle. And so you saw the lodging of Methven? I have never
seen it myself. Did it not make your heart sick to see all the poverty
and misery in that awful street? Oh yes, I'm told it's a grand street:
but I never have the heart to go into it. I think the place should die
with the age that gave it birth."

This was a sentiment so entirely unlike what Walter had expected to
hear, that for the moment it took from him all power of reply. "That
would be hard upon antiquity," he said at length, "and I don't know what
the artists would say, or our friend Mr. Bannatyne."

"He would have me burnt for a witch," the invalid said with a sweet
little laugh; and then she added, "Ah, it is very well to talk about
art; but there was great sense in that saying of the old Reformers,
'Ding down the nest, and the crows will flee away.'"

"I expected," said Walter, "to find you full of reverence for the past,
and faith in mysteries and family secrets, and--how can I tell?--ghosts
perhaps." He laughed, but the invalid did not echo his laugh. And this
brought a little chill and check to his satisfaction. The sense that one
has suddenly struck a jarring note is highly uncomfortable when one is
young. Walter put back his chair a little, not reflecting that the
firelight revealed very little of his sudden blush.

"I have had no experience in what you call ghosts," she said, gravely.
"I cannot, to tell the truth, see any argument against them, except just
that we don't see them; and I think that's a pity, for my part."

To this, as it was a view of the subject equally new to him, Walter made
no reply.

"Take you care, Lord Erradeen," she resumed hastily, "not to let
yourself be persuaded to adopt that sort of nomenclature." There was a
touch of Scotch in her accent that naturalised the long word, and made
it quite in keeping. "Conclude nothing to be a ghost till you cannot
account for it in any other way. There are many things that are far more
surprising," she said; then, shaking off the subject once more with that
little movement of her head, "You are not taking your tea. You must have
had a tiring day after travelling all night. That is one of the modern
fashions I cannot make up my mind to. They tell me the railway is not
so wearying as the long coach journeys we used to make in the old time."

"But you--can scarcely remember the old coach journeys? Why, my
mother----"

"Very likely I am older than your mother; and I rarely budge out of this
corner. I have never seen your mother, but I remember Captain Methven
long long ago, who was not unlike the general outline of you, so far as
I can make out. When the light comes you will see I am an old woman. It
is just possible that this is why I am so fond of the firelight," she
said with a laugh; "for I'm really very young though I was born long
ago. Robert and me, we remember all our games and plays in a way that
people that have had children of their own never do. We are just boy and
girl still, and I've known us, after a long talk, forget ourselves
altogether, and talk of papa and mamma!" She clapped her hands together
at this, and went into a peal of genuine laughter, such as is always
infectious. Walter laughed too, but in a half-embarrassed, half-unreal
way. All was so strange to him, and this curious introduction into a
half-seen, uncomprehended world the most curious of all.

"I would like to know a little about yourself," she resumed after a
moment. "You were not in the secret that it was you who were the kin? It
was strange your father should have left you in the dark."

"I can't remember my father," said Walter, hastily.

"That makes little difference; but you were always a strange family.
Now you, Robert tells me, you're not so very much of an Erradeen--you
take after your mother's side. And I'm very very glad to hear it. It
will perhaps be you, if you have the courage, that will put a stop
to--many things. There are old rhymes upon that subject, but you will
put little faith in old rhymes; I none at all. I believe they are just
made up long after the occasion, just for the sake of the fun, or
perhaps because some one is pleased with himself to have found a rhyme.
Now that one that they tell me is in the Canongate--that about 'Live,
Me'even--'"

"I thought you said you didn't know it?"

"I have never seen it; but you don't suppose I am ignorant of the
subject, Lord Erradeen? Do you know I have been here stretched out in my
chair these thirty years? and what else could I give my attention to,
considering all things? Well, I do not believe in that. Oh, it's far too
pat! When a thing is true it is not just so terribly in keeping. I
believe it was made up by somebody that knew the story just as we do;
probably a hundred years or more after the event."

Walter did not say that he was quite unacquainted with the event. His
interest perhaps, though he was not aware of it, was a little less warm
since he knew that Miss Milnathort was his mother's contemporary rather
than his own; but he had come to the conclusion that it was better not
to ask any direct questions. The light had faded much, and was now
nothing more than a steady red glow in place of the leaping and blazing
of the flames. He scarcely saw his entertainer at all. There were two
spots of brightness which moved occasionally, and which represented her
face and the hands which she had clasped together (when they were not
flickering about in incessant gesture) in her lap. But there was
something altogether quaint and strange in the situation. It did not
irritate him as the men had done. And then she had the good sense to
agree with him in some respects, though the _mélange_ of opinions in her
was remarkable, and he did not understand what she would be at. There
was an interval of quiet in which neither of them said anything, and
then a large step was audible coming slowly up-stairs, and through the
other drawing room.

"Here is Robert," the invalid said with a smile in her voice. It was
nothing but a tall shadow that appeared, looming huge in the ruddy
light.

"Have you got Lord Erradeen with you, Alison? and how are you and he
getting on together?" said old Milnathort's voice.

Walter rose hastily to his feet with a feeling that other elements less
agreeable were at once introduced, and that his pride was affronted by
being discussed in this easy manner over his head.

"We are getting on fine, Robert. He is just as agreeable as you say, and
I have great hopes will be the man. But you are late, and it will soon
be time for dinner. I would advise you to show our young gentleman to
his room, and see that he's comfortable. And after dinner, when you
have had your good meal, we'll have it all out with him."

"I am thinking, Alison, that there is a good deal we must go over that
will be best between him and me."

"That must be as you please, Robert, my man," said the lady, and Walter
felt like a small child who is being discussed over his head by grown-up
persons, whom he feels to be his natural enemies. He rose willingly, yet
with unconscious offence, and followed his host to his room, inwardly
indignant with himself for having thus impaired his own liberty by
forsaking his inn. The room however was luxuriously comfortable, shining
with firelight, and a grave and respectable servant in mourning, was
arranging his evening clothes upon the bed.

"This is Symington," said Mr. Milnathort, "he was your late
cousin's body-servant. The late Lord Erradeen gave him a very warm
recommendation. There might be things perhaps in which he would be of
use."

"Thanks," said Walter, impulsively. "I have a man coming. I am afraid
the recommendation is a little too late."

This unfortunately was not true; but the young man felt that to allow
himself to be saddled with a sort of governor in the shape of the late
lord's servant was more than could be required of him; and that he must
assert himself before it was too late.

"You will settle that at your pleasure, my lord," said old Milnathort,
and he went away shutting the door carefully, his steady, slow step
echoing along the passage. The man was not apparently in the least
daunted by Walter's irritation. He went on mechanically, lightly
brushing out a crease, and unfolding the coat with that affectionate
care which a good servant bestows upon good clothes. Walter longed to
have brought his old coat with him that everything should not have been
so distressingly new.

"That will do," he said, "that will do. It is a pity to give you so much
trouble when, as I tell you, I have another man engaged."

"It is no trouble, my lord; it is a pleasure. I came out of attachment
to the family. I've been many years about my late lord. And however ye
may remind yourself that you are but a servant, and service is no
heritage, yet it's not easy to keep yourself from becoming attached."

"My good man," said Walter, half impatient, half touched, "you never saw
me in your life before. I can't see how you can have any attachment to
me."

Symington had a long face, with a somewhat lugubrious expression,
contradicted by the twinkle of a pair of humorous, deep-set eyes. He
gave a glance up at Walter from where he stood fondling the lappels of
the new coat.

"There are many kinds of attachments, my lord," he said oracularly;
"some to the person and some to the race. For a number of years past I
have, so to speak, just identified myself with the Erradeens. It's not
common in England, so far as I can hear, but it's just our old Scots
way. I will take no other service. So, being free, if your lordship
pleases, I will just look after your lordship's things till the other
man comes."

Walter perceived in a moment by the way Symington said these words that
he had no faith whatever in the other man. He submitted accordingly to
the ministrations of the family retainer, with a great deal of his old
impatience, tempered by a sense of the humour of the situation. It
seemed that he was never to have any control over himself. He had barely
escaped from the tutelage of home when he fell into this other which was
much more rigid. "Poor mother!" he said to himself, with an affectionate
recollection of her many cares, her anxious watchfulness; and laughed to
himself at the thought that she was being avenged.

Mr. Milnathort's table was handsome and liberal; the meal even too
abundant for the solitary pair who sat alone at a corner of the large
table, amid a blaze of light. Miss Milnathort did not appear.

"She never comes down. She has never sat down at table since she had her
accident, and that is thirty years since."

There was something in Mr. Milnathort's tone as he said this that made
Walter believe that her accident too had something to do with the
family. Everything tended towards that, or sprang from it. Had he been
to the manner born, this would no doubt have seemed to him natural
enough; but as it was he could not keep himself from the idea either
that he was being laughed at, or that some design was hidden beneath
this constant reference. The dinner, however, went off quietly. It was
impossible to discuss anything of a private character in the presence of
Milnathort's serious butler, and of the doubly grave apparition of
Symington, who helped the other to wait.

Walter had never dined so solemnly before. It must be added, however,
that he had seldom dined so well. It was a pity that he was so little
knowing in this particular. Mr. Milnathort encouraged him through the
repast by judicious words of advice and recommendation. He was very
genial and expansive at this most generous moment of the day. Fond of
good fare himself he liked to communicate and recommend it, and Walter's
appetite was excellent, if perhaps his taste was uncultivated. The two
noiseless attendants circulating about the table served them with a
gravity in perfect keeping with the importance of the event, which was
to the old lawyer the most interesting of the day.

When they were left alone finally, the aspect of affairs changed a
little. Mr. Milnathort cleared his throat, and laid aside his napkin. He
said--

"We must not forget, Lord Erradeen, that we have a great deal of
business to get through. But you have had a fatiguing day, and probably
very little sleep last night"--

"I slept very well, I assure you," Walter replied cheerfully.

"Ay, ay, you are young," said Mr. Milnathort, with a half-sigh. "Still
all the financial statements, and to give you a just view of all that's
coming to you, will take time. With your permission we'll keep that till
to-morrow. But there's just a thing or two--. Lord save us!" he cried
suddenly, "you're not the kind of person for this. There is many a one I
know that would have liked it all the better--till they knew--for what's
attached to it. I thought as much when I first set eyes upon you. This
will be one that will not take it all for gospel, I said to myself--one
that will set up his own judgment, and demand the reason why."

Walter, a little uncertain at first how to take this, ended by being
gratified with such an estimate of himself. It showed, he felt, more
perception than he had looked for, and he answered, with a little
complacency, "I hope you think that is the right way of approaching a
new subject."

"I am not unbiased myself," said the lawyer, "and I have had to do with
it all my life. There are conditions connected with your inheritance,
Lord Erradeen, that may seem out of the way to a stranger. If you had
succeeded in the way of nature, as your father's son, they would not
have been new to you, and you would have been prepared. In that way it
is hard upon you. There was one of your ancestors that laid certain
conditions, as I was saying, upon every heir. He was one that had, as
you may say, a good right to do that, or whatever else he pleased,
seeing he was the making of the family. In old days it was no more than
a bit small highland lairdship. It was he that gave it consequence; but
he has held a heavy hand upon his successors ever since."

"Would it be he by any chance of whom Mr. Bannatyne was discoursing to
me," said Walter, "under the title of the warlock-lord?"

"Ah! John Bannatyne took that upon him?" cried Mr. Milnathort with
vivacity. His eyes gleamed from under his deep-set brows. "The less a
man knows the more ready he is to instruct the world: but I never
thought he would take that upon him. So you see, as I was saying, there
are certain formalities to go through. It is understood that once a
year, wherever he may be, Lord Erradeen should pass, say a week, say two
or three days, in the old castle of Kinloch Houran, which is the old
seat of the family, the original of the Methven race."

Walter had been listening with some anxiety. He drew a long breath as
Mr. Milnathort came to a pause. "Is that all?" he cried, with a voice of
relief. Then he laughed. "I was winding myself up to something heroic,
but if it is only a periodical retirement to an old castle--to think, I
suppose, upon one's sins and examine one's conscience----"

"Something very like that," said the old man, somewhat grimly.

"Well! It might be a great inconvenience; but there is nothing very
appalling in the prospect, if that is all."

"It is all, Lord Erradeen--if ye except what passes there, a thing that
is your own concern, and that I have never pried into for my part. And
just this beside, that you are expected there at once and without
delay."

"Expected--at once and without delay." Walter grew red with anger at
these peremptory words. "This sounds a little arbitrary," he said.
"Expected? by whom? and to what purpose? I don't understand----"

"Nor do I, my young lord. But it's so in the docume

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