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THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

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STEETTON

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S T R E T 1 O N

HENRY KINGSLEY.

ffO-V/7.s/7ECE BY GEO. M HHNTON.

LONDON

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STRETTON

BY

HENRY KINGSLEY.

1Klew :i6t)itlon,

WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY GEO. M. HEN TON.

LONDON :

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.G.

NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE. 1897.

STEETTON.

CHAPTER I.

Does Nature sympathise with disaster? Of all poets' fancies, that is the most foolish. Is *' the wind to he howling in turret and tree " whenever disaster, and sin, and terror are walking ahroad? We should have fine weather, I trow, were that the case.

The crystal purity of a perfect evening at the end of April was settling down over the beautiful valley which lies between Shrewsbury and Ludlow ; on the one hand, the Longmynd rolled its great sheets of grouse-moor and scarps of rock up, fold beyond fold ; while, on the other, the sharp peak of Caradoc took the evening, and smiled upon his distant brother, the towering Plin- limmon ; while Plinlimmon, in the West, with silver infant Severn streaming down his bosom, watched the sinking sun after Caradoc and Longmynd had lost it ; and when it sank, blazed out from his summit a signal to his brother watchers, and, wi'apping himself in purple robes, slept in majestic peace.

Down below in the valley, among the meadows, the lanes, and the fords, it was nearly as peaceful and quiet as it was aloft on the mountain-tops ; and under the darkening shadows of the rapidly leafing elms, you could hear, it was so still, the cows grazing and the trout rising in the river. Day was yet alive in some region aloft in the air, loftier than the summits of Plin- limmon or Caradoc, for the democratic multitude of the stars had not been able as yet to show themselves through the train of glorious memories which the abdicated king had left behind him. The curfew came booming up the valley sleepily, and ceased. It was a land lapped in order and tradition ; good landlords, good tenants, well-used labourers, if ever there were such in late years in England. Surely a land of peace 1

2 1

2 STKETTON.

Who comes here, along the path, through the growing clover ? Who is this woman who walks swiftly, bareheaded under the dew ? Who is this strange -looking woman, with an Indian shawl half- fallen off her shoulders, with clenched fists, one of which she at times beats on her beautiful head ? Can it be Mrs. Evans, of the Castle, or her ghost ? Or is it her in the flesh, and has she gone mad ?

Such were the questions put to one another by a young pair of lovers, wno watched her from beneath a plantation where they were innocently rambling. The young man said, '* That is a queer sight for a fellow courting," and the young woman said, " There was too much love-making there, I doubt." And the young man said, "How about the banns next Sunday?" And the young woman said, " Have ^our own way about it, and don't plague me," which I suppose meant "Yes."

We must follow this awful, swift- walking figure of poor Mrs. Evans, and watch her.

She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, in exact age forty-one, with that imperial dome-like head, and splendid carriage of that same head, which the Merionethshire people say is a specialite of the Merediths, though I have seen it elsewhere. If you had told her that she had Celtic blood in her veins, she would probably have denied it ; but she was certainly behaving in a most Celtic manner now. Anything more un-Norman than her behaviour now, cannot be conceived. The low, inarticulate moans — the moans which mean so much more than speech — the wild, swift walk, the gesticulation, the clenched fists, all told of Celtic excita- bility ; yet she was no Celt. It is only the old, stale story of Hibernis ipsis Hiberiiiores. She was behaving like a Celt because she had been brought up among them ; but there was a depth of anger and fury in her heart which must have come from the con- quering race.

As she neared her husband's Castle, she grew more calm, adjusted her shawl, and put her hair straight ; for she feared him, gentle as he was. He would have lain do\vn so that she should walk over him ; but "he would have been angry with her had he seen her in her late disorder. And she had never seen his wrath but once, and that was towards his o^vn son ; and she did not care to face it, for it was as deep and passionate as his love. So she bound up her hair, left off clenching her fists, pulled her shawl straight, and, stepping in by the flower-garden, let herself in by the postern, and appeared before him, as he stalked up and down the library.

"Is it over, darling of my heart? " he said.

STKETTON. 3

"It is all over," she said, spreading her ten white fingers before her.

'* And how is she ? " he asked.

*' She is dead ! " answered Mrs. Evans.

"Dead! dead! dead!" she was going on hysterically, when he caught her in his arms and kissed her into quiescence.

" Be quiet," he said ; " there is trouble enough without more. What have we done that God should afflict us like this ? Is the child alive?"

"Yes; but it cannot live," replied Mrs. Evans. "It is a weak thing : but God forgive us, there is no doubt about its father."

In the house of Evans, the qualities of valour in war, of faith to the death with friends, and of strict pi'obity towards the women of the estate, were always considered to be hereditary — more especially the last quality. The servants in the family were always taken from some family resident in the 11,000 acres which made the estate. Such of them as were traditionally supposed to require the quality of good looks, the ladies' -maids and the pad-grooms, were always selected from three or four families notorious for those qualities. Again, even in such a strong family as the Evanses, nurses were often required, and were selected always, if possible, from one of those three or four families : so that, in fact, most of the servants, male and female, were actual foster-brothers of some one member of the house. The idea of any wrong was actually incredible ; but it had come, and there was wild weeping over it.

The prettiest girl of all these good-looking famiHes had been the very last admitted into the Castle, as companion and lady's- maid to that splendid beauty, Eleanor Evans. Admitted, do I say ? She had been admitted when she was a wailing infant of a week old, as foster-sister to the equally wailing Eleanor : for Mrs. Evans had not been so lucky as usual, and had kept about a little too long. Elsie grew up almost as much at Stretton as she did at her own cottage, and had been as free of the Castle as was her foster-sister Eleanor.

Perhaps, because she had had only one nurse while Eleanor had two — who can say ? — she grew up very delicate and small, though very beautiful. Eleanor (I was going to say Aunt Eleanor, but must not as yet) grew up so physically strong that the wiser old ladies, after looking at her through their spectacles, pronounced that she was very splendid, but would get coarse. We shall see about that hereafter.

It was on the eve of Waterloo that the gentle little maid was

4 STEETTON.

fully accredited for the first time to her full powers of being thoroughly bullied by Eleanor. '' Now, you little fool, I have got you, body and bones," said Eleanor, when they went upstairs together, '* and I'll make you wish you were dead in a week ; " which made the little maid laugh, and yet C17 ; upon which Eleanor bent down over her and kissed her. '* What is the matter with you, you little idiot ? " she said. *' You want bully- ing, and you shall be bullied. Come up, and take my hair down." And the little maid did as she told her."

" Set all the doors open," said Eleanor, *'that I may walk to the end of the corridor and back. A dog would not sleep to- night. Oh, Charles ! brother of my heart, acquit thyself well ! My father and mother are praying for the heir of the house, but I — I, girl, cannot pray ! Why are you weeping, girl? "

*' I was thinking of Master Charles and the battle, miss."

** What is he to you ? How dare you cry while I am dry-eyed ! Idiot ! Good Duke ! Good Duke ! Tarre ! He should wait behind Soignies for Blucher ; but he knows. In front of Soignies there are open downs. Child, why do you weep ? Is it for your brothers, who have followed mine ? I do not weep for my brother "

Yes, but she did though. Broke down all in one instant, while the words were yet in her mouth. But it was soon over. She was soon after walking up and down the corridor, with her hair down, speculating on the chances of the war.

Late at night she came to her father and mother's bedroom. They had not gone to bed, but sat waiting for news, which could not possibly come for a week. *' Mother," she said, ''I can do nothing with my poor little maid. She has got hysterical about her two brothers at the war, and keeps accusing poor Charles, who, I am sure, never tempted them."

'' What ? " said Mrs. Evans, sharply.

" Keeps on accusing Charles in the most senseless manner. I am sure "

*' Go and sit with your father," said Mrs. Evans. ''Engage his attention ; keep him amused. I'll see to the girl."

She went and saw to the girl ; but took uncommonly good care that no one else did. She was an hour with her. When she came back to her husband's bedroom she found Eleanor sitting up, with a map of Belgium before her, chatting comfortably, but solemnly, about the movements of the armies.

She had seen the girl, she said ; and the girl was hysterical about her brothers, and accused Charles of leading them to the war. The girl was weak in her health, and would be always

STKETTON. 5

weak. The girl had always been a fool, and apparently intended to remain one. The girl must have change of air and scene. She had an aunt at Carlisle, who kept a stationer's shop. The girl must go there for a time ; for there was trouble enough without her tantrums. Charles, with his furious headlong way of doing things, was almost certainly killed, &c., &c., with a sly, kind eye on her husband and her daughter.

They both were on her in a moment, at such a supposition. She, when she saw that she had led them on the wrong scent, recovered her good temper, and allowed them to beat her pillar to post, while they proved that the allies would carry everything before them, and that nothing could happen to Charles (except accidents of war, which are apt to be numerous). Yet, complacent as she was, there were times when her hands caught together and pulled one another, as though the right hand would have pulled the fingers up by the roots. These were the times when she was saying to herself, abotit her own darling son, *' He had better die there ! He had better die there ! "

For the rest nothing was to be noted in this lady's behaviour for the present, save that the new lady's-maid was sent to Carlisle, that Mrs. Evans seemed to take the news of Waterloo rather coolly, and that she received her son, now Captain Evans, with extreme coolness on his return from Waterloo, covered with wounds and glory.

She thought him guilty. Why should she say to him, '' Hon- ourable conduct is of more avail than glory ? " He was chilled and ojffended, for he felt himself innocent.

What was he like at this time ? For the present we must take his sister Eleanor's account of him, who says that he was the very image of his son, Roland, — which m.ust be very satisfactory to the reader. The ladies may like to know, however, by the same authority, that if my friend, Eleanor, is right, and that Charles Evans was like his son Roland, that he was also, by the same authority, extremely like Antinous.

Antinous Charles had been brought up with this poor, pretty little maid, Elsie, and he had fallen in love with her, and she with him, which was against the rules of the house of Evans, for she was foster-sister of his sister. They loved like others. In what followed, Charles's own mother was against him, and gave him up as a villain who had transgressed the immutable traditions of the house. One of the girl's brothers was killed at Waterloo, one came home with Charles, as his regimental servant. Charles gave out that he was going to London ; but his silly servant came home

6 STRETTON.

to Stretton and vaguely let out the fact that Captain Charles had not been to London at all, but had been to Carlisle to see his sister, Elsie.

Mr. Evans's fury was terrible. He wi'ote in a friendly way to the colonel of Charles's regiment, begging him, as an old friend, to recall Charles instantly, and save him from what he feared was a very low intrigue. He sent old Mrs. Gray, the girl's mother, off to Cirlislo after her daughter at once, bearing such a letter as made Charles avoid home in returning to Chatham at the per- emptory summons of his commanding officer.

Let us say but little about it, as it is not among such painful scenes as this that we shall have to walk together. Charles had not been very long at Carlisle, but he had been too long it seemed. The unhappy girl came home, and was confined in six months' time. She died that night, but the child lingered on, and on.

Did Mrs. Evans wish that it should die ? Who can say ? Did she wish the disgrace buried and ended ? Who can say ? I think, however, that she slept none the worse after Mrs. Gray came to her and told her that the child was dead.

It had been baptized, and so was buried and registered — the illegitimate son of Elsie Gray ; the sexton patted down the turf, and all the scandal was over and done. Old James Evans said that Charles was now free for a new start, and had better go to India on his roster, and had better not come home first. And so a pale and rather wild-looking young captain paraded his company on the main deck of the East India Company's ship, The Veda, and sailed for India accordingly.

*' Taking thmgs rather coolly," you say. Why, no ; but some- what hotly : yet submitting. This young fellow of a captain had violated every traditional rule of his house, and felt guilty. Yet he was not without sources of information. He dared not face his family in the state of things as they were ; and he dared not see the woman he loved best in the world. He consoled himself and her by passionate, wild, foolish letters, carefully transmitted, and carefully and tenderly answered, not only to poor Elsie, but also to liis sister Eleanor, wliom we shall see ;igain. When unhappy affairs of this kind take place, there are apt to be domestic scenes. I will give you one.

At breakfast, one bright May mbrning, some two months before the child so soon to die was born, Eleanor had a letter, and was reading it. Her mother looked at her fath( r, and her father looked at her mother, and at last her father. Squire James Evans, spoke :

" IMy dear Eleanor, you have a letter from your brother Charles. Will you let me read it ? "

STEETTON. 7

*• No, I won't," said Eleanor.

*' Is that the way to speak to your father ? " said Mrs. Evans.

" Yes," said Eleanor, " if he proposes to read letters which are not directed to him. The letter is from Charles to me ; if he had intended to let my father see it, he would have directed it to him. He, on the other hand, has directed it to me, and I mean to keep it to myself."

Mrs. Evans wept.

Squire Evans said, ** This is well. My son has been a villain, and my daughter backs him up."

" You do ill to call your son a villain, sir," replied Aunt Eleanor. *' Call him fool and coward ; but you do ill, you two, to call him villain." And so Aunt Eleanor, then, by the way, a very beauti- ful young girl of eighteen, takes up her letter, and scornfully sweeps out of the room, with her nose in the air. Fine times indeed 1

Poor Elsie Gray was with her mother, as we said, and that devoted woman had more than one trouble on her hands at a time. It turned out now that young Robert Gray, the soldier- servant of Charles, had quietly, without leave of his commandant, without the slightest means of supporting her, married a pretty girl two parishes off, and now wrote coolly to his mother from Chatham to announce the fact, and inform his mother that the young lady would come to her for her confinement.

This child, as Mrs. Gray could tell, was born at the same time, or nearly, as the other. And the soldier's child lived, while the child of his master died. Little Gray grew up, and grew strong. And we shall have to see a great deal of him in many positions. It was about three weeks after Mrs. Evans came wringing her hands through the green lanes, lamenting the dishonour of her husband's house and her own, that the other little child wailed itself into silence, into peace, into death, and was heard of no more.

CHAPTER II.

Was Mrs. Evans sorry ? Who can say ? Those Merediths and Ap-Merediths, who call themselves Celtic, yet are as Norse as they can look at you out of their two eyes, have a singularly un- Celtic trick of concealing emotion. Eleanor could not say whether her mother was sorry or glad.

8 STKETTON.

It was not the custom, in families of that class, for the mother to allude, even in the most distant way, to her daughters on any points regarding marriage relations. Mrs. Evans broke through this rule once, and when her daughter and she were alone, said, very quietly, *' That child of Gray's, the soldier, is growing strong and hearty. You are old enough to understand that if things had gone right, that child would have called you aunt. His father is the brother of the woman whom you should have called sister, had it not been for the incalculable villainy of Charles."

" Mother, leave Charles alone. I will not have Charles abused."

*' A most maidenly, daughterly speech," said Mrs. Evans, scornfully.

'' Mother, I mean all duty ; but circumstances alter cases."

** This is well," said Mrs. Evans. '^ This is uncommonly well. There is some old cross of the Evans blood coming out here.

This is the Duchess of N 's blood, I doubt, which is now

defying her own flesh and blood."

"Don't talk like that, mother."

" I will not," rei)lied Mrs. Evans ; '* but allow me to teU you that if Lord Homerton had heard you utter such atrocious senti- ments, he would at once cease his visits, and would not propose."

" Oh, he has proposed," said Eleanor. '' He proposed yester- day."

'' What did he say ? " said Mrs. Evans, eagerly.

" Well," said Eleanor, coolly, *' he merely, as I believe men do (and dreadful fools they look when they do it), asked me if he might consider himself engaged to be married to me."

" And what did you say ? " asked Mrs. Evans.

** I said that I was at a loss to conceive what he had seen in my conduct which induced him to take such an unwarrantable liberty."

'' Good heavens ! " said Mrs Evans. *' Then are you oflf with him?"

" I never was on with him that I know of," said Eleanor. " He is a good fellow, and I like him well ; but I don't see why I should marry him. We shouldn't get on. He is not religious, and does not care for his estate."

*' Your influence would have made him care for both his estate and his religion," said Mrs. Evans.

" Not a bit of it," repHed Eleanor. " George is a man, although we never hit it ofi" together."

" Is it hopeless ? " said Mrs. Evans. " How did you dismiss him ? "

STRETTON. 9

" Well, I kissed him, and as he went out of the room, I gave him a pat on the back, and I said, * Go on, George ; go off to Greenwood. There is a girl there, worth fifty of me, who is dying for you. You would never have made such a fool of your- self about me, if it had not been for our two families.' And then he wanted to kiss me again, but I would not stand that. And so he rode off to Greenwood, and I think you will find that Laura Mostyn will be announced as Lady Homerton next week."

"You will never be married at this rate," said Mrs. Evans, biting her lip.

" Never mean to make such a fool of myself," replied Eleanor.

" A woman must marry to get position and station," said Mrs. Evans, looking keenly, and in a puzzled manner, on this radiant young beauty of eighteen.

" I have both," said Eleanor. " I have the Pulverbatch Farm, and that will bring me in £500 a year, and take up all my time. I tell you that I don't choose to have any husband but one, and he is my brother Charles. Let us drop this perfectly vain conversa- tion, and tell me what you want done about this child."

Mrs. Evans was beaten by that inexorable, beautiful face. She said, after a pause, " I wish you quietly to be godmother to it, and when I am dead, to look to it. We have done evil enough to that family as it is."

" Is it to be brought up as a gentleman? " she asked.

" Certainly not," said her mother ; " only respectably. I wish you would undertake it for me, for the sight of the child and of the whole of that family is distasteful to me."

Eleanor said, ''Yes," wondering. But when she said yes she meant yes, and she did what was desired of her.

CHAPTEK III.

The sudden and very lamentable death of Squire James Evans in the hunting-field threw a gloom, not in the mere newspaper accep- tation of the term, but in reality, over that part of Shropshire, for nearly a week. He was a most deservedly popular man, and what they wrote on his tomb was every word of it true, He ivas a good son, a good husband, a good father, a good landlord, a pious churchman, a firm friend, and he died without one single enemy. One little fact was omitted from his tombstone : he died without

10 STRETTON.

being reconciled to his son, at least formally. There may have been a reconciliation at heart, and those low, inarticulate moans, as he lay dying in his groom's arms in the ditch, may have been the attempted expression of it ; but the mouth was loose in death before they were ever uttered.

Mrs. Evans was not long after him. She was aged and worried, and she moped and brooded until she died. The old clergyman who attended her at the last, left her at the very last with a dis- satisfied and rather puzzled face. Eleanor she would not see for the last four days.

Well, she died. And it took nearly six months to communicate to Squire Charles his most sudden and unexpected succession. He came home at the end of a year, and found Eleanor, his sister, in possession, keeping all things square for him : receiving rents, bullying attorneys, walking up and do^\Ti among the farms, in a dress which was considered remarkable even in those times, and attending to the wants of the tenants. She had practically given one of the fiimily livings away, quite illegally, though the young curate to whom she gave it took possession as a matter of course. On the other hand, she had been rather tight with the tenants on the subject of repairs ; and, it is reported, used the word " humbug," just then coming into fashion, on more than one occasion. They tell an idle tale, those Shropshire folks. They say that she and the steward were standing together on the terrace, when Squire Charles rode up, on his return from India ; that the steward said, *' Thank Heaven, he has come at last 1 " And that Aunt Eleanor said, " I quite agree. Now you and he take the estates in hand, for I am sick of it ; and a nice mess you will make of it together, you two."

They did nothing of the kind, however. The property did rather better under the more liberal rule of Squire Charles than under the near and close rule of his sister, Eleanor. Women are apt to be very near and mean in business. They will give as few men will (jive, but they will haggle about sixpence, while they are irritating a good tenant. Was not the Antiquary, as near a man as another, upbraided by his usually submissive womankind for " raising the price of fish on them " ?

Eleanor the beautiful whiffed away from her brother's establish- ment at once, leaving him to manage his somewhat irritated tenants, and retired to her own faim at Pulverbatch. She marched ofi" with her young child Gray.

The scandal about Charles Evans and Elsie Gray was known to very few persons, and was now almost forgotten even by those few : scarcely half a dozen all told. As for the county, they had never

STKETTON. 11

heard of it, and even if they had, would have taken small note of it, for there were plenty of scandals of the same kind in any one of their families. If it had got wind, the more ill-natured of them would have heen pleased at such a fiasco occurring in such a saint- like family as the Evanses. But then it never did get wind, and Charles Evans was welcomed to his ancestral halls by the county generally, with lute, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all manner of musical instruments. He lied a little, I doubt, at the very first reception, for on being inquired of by the county, where was his sister Eleanor, he replied that she was not well, and having been overpowered by his sudden return, had gone home to her farm at Pulverbatch : whereas, the truth was that she was perfectly well, and had told him the day before that she was not in sufficient temper to meet all these idiots, and walked ofi' to Pulverbatch, promising to come back to him as soon as he had got rid of his fools.

Yet they had had a pleasant meeting these two : worth giving perhaps. He took her in his arms, and she wound her fingers in his hair. And he said —

*' Love all the same, sister ? "

And she said : '' Not all the same, but more."

" Has anybody been? " said the brother.

"I should like to see them," said the sister. "My dear, I must marry you. No other arrangement is possible. Get rid of these fools, and find yourself a good wife, and I will come back and marry the pair of you."

" But who is to marry you ? " said the brother.

*' You," said the sister.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a long time before Squire Charles married, but at last, when he was five -and -thirty, he married a Miss Meredith, a very distant connection to him by birth, who, as Eleanor said, had been kept by her parents for him, till, like a brown Beurre pear, she was running a chance of being mildewed. Eleanor came to the wedding and signalised herself by utterly routing and defeating a certain Squire Overley, a most estimable man, of great wealth even in Shropshire, who was seeking her hand in marriage. She was

12 STEETTON.

very civil to him, but refused to speak of anything except medical science and the management of nursing sisterhoods. She beat that estimable young man, and saw that she had done so. "Heigh ho!" she said, as she got into bed. "One more goose choked, and another fool married. I'll be back with my pigs to-morrow. Overley is a good fellow though, and I'll find him a good wife. I wonder if Charley will let me have that sixty acres that Pilgrim wants to give up. If he don't I must give up my pigs ; for buy meal, I won't." And so the great Shropshire beauty went to her bed and slept the sleep of the just.

Charles's marriage was one of the most happy ones which ever took place, either in Novel-land or Earth-land. Within a year Roland, whom I hope you will get to like, was born ; and Eleanor was asked to be godmother. She, dating from Pulverbatch, replied that she hated boys, because they were always wanting their ears boxed. She would undertake this part of a godmother's business with the greatest pleasure, but as a conscientious woman she could not, in this case. She had invested, for her, heavily in old Berkshire pigs, which took up the main of her time, and as a boy's ears always required to be boxed on the spot to produce the proper effect, she doubted that she could not be always on the spot to box them, so she declined, and bred pigs, not even coming to the christening.

The next year was born Edward, whom I also hope that you will like. Once more Eleanor was asked to be godmother ; once more she refused, but she came to the great christening party, as she did not to the first one. No one, not even her own brother, knew if she was coming or not. A splendid present of plate for the child had arrived from her, but she put in no appearance until just before the second lesson. Then she swept in, splendidly dressed in grey silk, and sat down among the poor folks by the organ.

Old Major Venables said, afterwards, " That woman made a sensation ; but don't you think she meant to do it ? I tell you that those Evanses mean what they say, and do what they mean, and the deuce can't prevent them. What the deuce Eleanor means, I can't say. But she'll do it."

CHAPTER V.

It soon became evident what she meant to do. Although she pro- tested against any religious responsibility towards Edward, she

STKETTON. 13

nevertheless undertook any amount of physical responsibility. She even determined to assist at his education, to attend as far as she could to his diet, and to define and develop his character, which latter part of her programme she accomplished by allowing him to do exactly as he pleased, and giving him everything he asked for. Mr. Evans told her that she would spoil the child. *' I want to spoil him," she said. "He wants spoiling. I intend to gain an influence over him by that means, and use it for good. Our young one is a very sensitive and affectionate young one, and must be treated accordingly."

Meanwhile she had fairly done her duty, and her mother's be- hests towards young Allan Gray, the soldier's son. She had quietly and unostentatiously got him well educated at Ludlow, and at his own request had apprenticed him to a jeweller's in Shrews- bury. She nearly considered herself quit of him ; and his distant connection with the family was scarcely known by any one except herself, and almost fotgotten even by her.

Among the tastes early developed by Master Edward, under his aunt's direction, was a liking for jewellery, for bright and glitter- ing things. One of the greatest pleasures of his life, for some little time, was riding into Shrewsbury to shop with his aunt. Aunt Eleanor had given him a watch and chain, and on this chain he had the fancy to hang brelogues ; fish, lizards, crosses, lockets, which you will. And this shop, where young Gray — Aunt Elea- nor's other protege — was located, supplied things of this kind, of Palais Royal manufacture, cheap, soon dimmed in rust, soon cast aside. Young Evans soon got over this fancy of his for glittering things, though he always retained his passion for gaudry ; yet his continual going into this shop, to get these twopenny Palais Royal trifles, led to a result with which we have to do. It led to an acquaintance between him and the youth, Gray, who was deputed to sell them to him. And the youth Gray was as fond of glittering and gaudy things as was Childe Evans. And so the youth and the young boy, setting their heads together, '' Ye'U no hinder them," as the Scotch say, from getting uncommonly fond of one another. Roland always disliked him, as far as his gentle nature could allow him to dislike any one. But at anytime, when Roland denounced young Gray as a sententious young Methodist, Edward would plead so well with his deer-like eyes, that he would cause Roland's objurgations to die away into silence.

Roland and Edward, when old enough, were sent to a school, which I will call Gloucester, to avoid personality, reserving always for myself, in case of action for damages, the right of fixing my own dates.

14 STRETTON.

Our young jeweller's master moved from Shrewsbury to Glou- cester a short time before Roland and Edward went into school there together ; and so Edward and Allan Gray were once more brought together. The acquaintance between Gray and Childe Evans got cemented there, not much to Roland's pleasure. Edward bought no jewellery now, but got himself taken to strange places of worship by this imperial-looking young jeweller's apprentice, who could look at the splendid Roland as though he were an Oliver (forgive me). Roland did not like it, any more than the Doctor. The Doctor said that Roland should speak to Edward on the sub- ject. Roland, though only fourteen to his brother's thirteen, declined.

"It would bring a cloud between Eddy and myself," said the boy, " and I intend that there shall be no cloud between Eddy and me till we die."

Of course, with a fool of fourteen like this, there was nothing to be done. The Doctor pitched into Eddy. "It is not unknown to me, sir, that you have been in the company of an apprentice of this town, not only to a Dissenting place of worship, but also to the Papist chapel. It is the greatest scandal which has occurred at this school since its foundation. I shall write to your father."

" I wouldn't do tha^, sir," said poor little Eddy; "we were only looking about for ourselves. And we don't like either the one thing or the other."

" You like ! " said the Doctor. " You like ! Here, I'U sort your nonsense pretty quick. What was last week's memoriter ? "

" Non ebur neque aurem," began the poor boy, " Mea renidet in "

" Write it out twenty times, sir, and keep school," said the Doctor. " We will have a finish and an end of all this."

Roland did his brother's task for him, and was furious against the Doctor. But as Roland's fury against the Doctor will have to keep six years, by which time it had become changed to love and reverence, I will say little about it. Merely mentioning the fact that there was a third member of the Evans family, a pretty little girl, I will leave the Evans family — for what will be to you a few minutes — and describe another Shropshire family.

STRETTON. 15

CHAPTER VI.

Old Mordaunt, of Mordaunt Hall, used to say that his wife always had twins. When this statement was examined, you found that Mrs. Mordaunt had but two children — Johnny imme- diately after her marriage, and Jemmy twelve months afterwards, yet when

The petrified spectator asked, in undisguised alarm,

which was Johnny and which was Jemmy, the problem used to be solved by saying that Johnny was the fatter. But, then, neither of them ivas fat.

One — the elder — was broader, and less symmetrical than the younger one, James, more commonly called Jimmit. During the holidays, part of which young Edward Evans spent with his Aunt Eleanor, these two youths were frequent guests at her house. She pronounced them to be entirely similar, and utterly devoid of character. In which opinion she was not wholly right.

The Evanses and the Mordaunts both went to Gloucester to- gether, and, as neighbours, saw a great deal of one another. Both families also had a little girl, younger than either of the brothers, with whom, at present, we have nothing to do — they were in the school-room still ; and I have been turned out of the school-room by the governess at lesson- time too often to try and enter it again. By the by, are goveraesses so dreadfully bullied and ill-treated as it is the custom to represent ? For my part, ever since I was six years' old until now, I have been almost as afraid of them as I am of a schoolmaster, and have been used to see them have pretty much their own way ; but there are families, and families, no doubt.

I must quit speculation to give a letter, which was written at the time when these four lads were at ages ranging from seventeen to nineteen, and were all going up to matriculate at St. Paul's College — at either university you like. It came from the head- master of Gloucester Grammer School, himself a man from Trinity College, Cambridge, and was addressed to the senior tutor at St. Paul's — his old friend and contemporary.

" Dear George, — You have asked me more than once to send you a boy or two, and I have always hesitated because I have always disliked your college, its ways, and its works. Now, how- ever, that P E and 0 have married off altogether

16 STRETTON.

on college livings, and have undertaken cures of souls (their creed seeming to be that gentlemen's sons have no souls, or, like the French marquis, will be saved by rent-roll) ; now that you are first in command practically, I send you, my dear George, not one boy, but a batch of four. And, take them all in all, they are the finest batch of boys I have ever turned out.

** Let us speak plainly to one another, for we have never fairly done so. The reason of our clinging so strenuously to university work was the disappointment about Miss Evans. Well, we have never spoken of it before. I only ask you to stick to it a little longer, if it is only to see this batch of boys through.

" I don't know whether I am justified in sending them to you. You know, my dear George, that your college has been under the management of your old master and the three men who have re- tired to the cure of agricultural labourers' souls ; veiy fast, very disreputable, and most extravagantly expensive. Nothing seems to have done well but the boat, which, having less than a mile to row, has, by developing a blind, furious ferocity, kept the head of the river. And in the schools you have only had a few first-class men, all of your training, with second, third, and fourth blanks.

** You say that you will mend all, and raise your tone. Of course you will. If I don't die, like Ai^nold, over this teaching, I will send you any number of boys in two years, when your in- fluence has begun to work, and when the influence of the three pastors so lately sent out from high table and common room to catch agricultural sheep by the leg with their crook (Heaven save the mark !) has died out. But at present I am dubious. However, I have done it. Mind you the issue, as you will have to appear before God.

'• Now, I must tell you about these fellows, and must go through them. In the aggregate, they are an extremely queer lot. They are extremely rude and boisterous, as my boys generally are, though perfect gentlemen if you put them on their mettle. They are absolutely innocent of the ways of the world, and will, no doubt, get thoroughly laughed out of all that by your young dandies, whom I, as a Cambridge man, most entirely detest. To proceed about the aggregate of them, they are all very strong and very rich. The total of their present income is considerably more than you and I shall have the spending of when we have worked our- selves to the gates of death, and they have taken to boat-racing — a thing I hate and detest from the bottom of my soul, as being one of the most stupid and most bmtalising of all our sports. I know, however, that you do not think so. If there was any chance of their losing all their property together, we might make

STEETTON. 17

something of them. As it is, you must back up my efforts to make something of .them. Nothing stands in their way but their wealth.

*' Now, I will begin with them individually, and I begin with Roland Evans. Do you retain your old Platonic love for perfect physical beauty, perfect innocence, and high intelligence, and am- bition ? If so, you had better not see too much of my Aristides, Antinous Evans. The lad wonders why I laugh when I look at him. I laugh with sheer honest pleasure at his beauty. He is like the others, a boy of many prayers, but of few fears. If he could get his influence felt in your deboshed old coUege, he would do as much as you, old friend. But he is so gentle, and so young, that I fear he will not do much for you at once.

*' I pass to the elder Mordaunt. The elder Mordaunt is a wonderfully strong, bull-headed lad, whose course at school has been perfectly blameless, fulfilling every possible duty, but declin- ing to show any specidlite except wonderful Latin prose. There is something under the thick hide of him somewhere, for I have seen it looking at me from behind that dark-brown eye of his a hundred times. Can you fetch it out ? I have not been able. I have often been inclined to throw the book at the head of this young man, in return for his quiet contemplative stare ; but I have never done so. I flogged him once, because Sir Jasper Meredith (a cripple) let ofl" a musical box in chapel, and I thought it was the elder Mordaunt. It was arranged between the Mor- daunts and Meredith that the elder Mordaunt was to take the thrashing, because little Sir Jasper was not fit to take it. Sir Jasper Meredith came crying to me afterwards, and told the whole business. I never had occasion to flog the elder Mordaunt again. Be careful of this fellow, George. I don't understand him. You may.

'' I come now to the younger Mordaunt. And now I find that I have to tell a little story. Young Mordaunt was an unimpres- sionable lad, quite unnoticed by me, and nearly so by the lower masters, under whose hands he was passing, who only made their reports on him to me for extreme violence and fury. I have often had to flog this boy — you say what a nice employment for an educated gentleman — cela va sans dire ; and on one occasion I held him ready for expulsion. It was the most terrible case of bullying which had ever happened : four fifth-form boys, just ready for the sixth, had set on a sixth-form boy, just about to leave us for the army, and beaten him with single-sticks to that extent that he had to be taken to the hospital, as it appeared, with his own consent, for he made no complaint. The younger

3

Id RTRETTOI?.

Mordaunt was one of the beaters, one of the attacking party, and I was going to expel them all, until the elder Mordaunt, backed by my brother, the master of the lower third, explained the circumstances, upon which I did a somewhat diflferent thing. I held my tongue, and gave the beaten boy a chance for a new life.

" The elder Mordaunt and the elder Evans, Roland, lately grandfathers of the school, have always respected and honoured one another. But between the young Mordaunt and the elder Evans there was for a long time a great dislike. I have it from a former monitor, now Balliol scholar, that they actually fought on three occasions. Of course they were no match ; the older Evans easily beat the younger Mordaunt, while the elder Mordaunt, although an affectionate brother, positively declined to give his younger brother even the use of his knee during these encounters.

" The reason of the reconciliation between these two was odd. The cause of these encounters was the persistent bullying of the younger Evans, who was the fag of the younger Mordaunt. I have always forbidden bathing before the tenth of May, and have seldom been disobeyed. On one occasion, however, the younger Mordaunt disobeyed me, and before the winter's water was run oflf, determined to bathe in the weir, and having told his intention to a few, started, taking his fag, little Eddie Evans, to mind his clothes.

** It came to the ears of Roland Evans and old Mordaunt, who followed quickly with some other six-form boys, and were happily in time. You, as an Oxford man, know what lashers are : you know the Gaisford and Phillimore monument, set up to warn boys, if they could be warned, of the deadly suck under the apron.

"Well, the younger Mordaunt stripped and headed into the furious boil. He was in difficulties directly. Instead of being carried down into the shallow below, he was taken under, and disappeared. He rose again, and with infinite courage and cool- ness, swam into the slack water, and tried to hold on by the Camp's heading. But it was slippery, and he was carried again into the race, and turned over and over.

"When old Evans and old Mordaunt came, angrily, on the scene, all they saw was young Evans tearing the last of his clothes off. He knew his brother's voice, and he cried out, * Shut down the paddles ; he has come up again.' And then, forgetting cruelties which he had suffered, and insults which he had wept over in secret, he cast his innocent little body into the foaming

STRETTON. 19

dangerous lasher, and had his hitter enemy round the waist in one moment, trying to keep his head ahove the drowning rush of the water. Of course, Roland was in after them in a few seconds.

*' Cool old Mordaunt, who should be a general, I think, had, while rapidly undressing, let down the paddles. The pool was still now, too terribly still, they tell me. The two elder lads, swimming high and looking for their brothers, saw neither, until the handsome little head of Eddy Evans rose from the water, and said, ' I had him here, this instant, and he will be carried back by the wash.' Roland Evans, a splendid shoulder-swimmer, was with his brother in a moment, and saw young Mordaunt drowning on the gravel beneath him, spreading out his fine limbs, like a Christopher's cross, with each of his ten fingers spread out, taking leave of the world. Never seen it ? Better not ; it is ugly ; I have seen it several times, and don't like it. Well, the two Evanses had him out on the shallow before his brother, a slow breast-swimmer, could come up, and saved him. That is all my story.

" But it has changed this younger Mordaunt's life in some way. The great temptation of our English boys is brutality and violence, and this bathing accident has tamed him. The boy prayed more, as I gained from his brother, and desired that thanks should be given in chapel for his preservation, coupled (fancy that ! to me) with the condition that the names of the two Evanses should be mentioned with his. I refused to do so : Heaven knows why ! Whereupon the boy turned on me, and, face to face, refused to have any thanks given at all. He said he would give his own thanks.

"He is entirely tamed, if you can keep him en rapport with these two Evanses. He will follow them anywhere, and do just as they tell him, whether that be right or wrong. I never liked him, and I still think him boyish in many ways, though innocent almost to childishness in the way you wot of. He has brains, more brains than his brother. But he is a disagreeable boy. He has a nasty way of sitting straight up and frowning, and there is a petulant preciseness about him which I cannot bear. Try being civil and kind to him — I have never been. You have more power in that way as a Don than I have as a schoolmaster.

" Now I come to my last boy, young Evans. I won't say any- thing at all about this boy : I leave him to you. If you can stand his pretty ways, I can't.

" These boys will be a terrible plague to you. They make so much noise : don't stop them in that if you can help it. My best

20 STRETTON.

boys are noisy and outspoken. Coming from me, you need not doubt their scholarship : keep it up. They are, to conclude, an innocent lot of lads, dreadfully rich, and have taken up, I fear, with this most abominable boat-racing, which, however, is not so bad as steeple-chasing.

" Now good-bye. I have sent you a team fit for Balliol in scholarship, for Christchurch in breeding, and, I very much fear, for Brazenose in boating. Why Providence should have placed so many of our public schools near great rivers, where the stock gets steadily brutalised by that insane amusement, I cannot con- ceive. Old religious foundations, you say, always near rivers, then highways, and in the neighbourhood of fish for fast days. Fiddle-de-dee ! It all arises from the perversation (misrepresenta- tion) of the edicts of the first original council, in the year 1, when it was agreed that everything was to be where it was wanted. The only dissentient, you well remember, was the devil, who moved, as an amendment, that there should be full liberty of conscience, that every one should say the first thing which came into his head, and everybody was to do as he pleased. The great first council rejected, if you remember, this amendment with scorn ; but we are acting on it now. Let us take the benefit of the new opinions. Come over and talk Swivellerism to me, and I will back myself to talk as much balderdash as you. But don't talk any of it to my boys. I insult you, my dear George, by the supposition.

" P.S. — A tall, handsome-looking young booby, from Eton, comes with them from Shropshire. His father, calling here with the fathers of the other boys, asked me to say a good word to you on his behalf. I would if I could, but I don't know anything at all about him, except that he is to be married to Miss Evans, by a family arrangement, before he is capable of knowing his own mind. He has been brought up with the Evanses and the Mordaunts, and therefore cannot be very bad. But you know my opinion of Eton, and indeed of all public schools, except my own."

CHAPTER VII.

Furnished with this important epistle, the Dean of St. Paul's (college) felt a natural curiosity to see the young men who had attracted so mucli of the attention of undoubtedly the very best

STKETTON. 21

schoolmaster of the day, since the dies wfaustns when Arnold's old pupil came down to breakfast with fresh questions, and heard that the master had called for his master, and that he had arisen and followed him speedily.

The Dean was a dry man, and a man of humour. St. Paul's was, in those times, a queer, wild place ; it was partly " manned " by county gentlemen's and county parsons' sons, from the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Shropshire, and partly from two grammar schools in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The two sets of lads never spoke to one another. The former set were always perfect gentlemen in their manners, though not always in their morals : the latter were mainly gentle- men in their morals, but never in their manners. It was vinegar upon nitre with them, and the dry, shrewd, caustic Dean looked with great anticipation of amusement for the curious ''team" which the headmaster of Gloucester had sent him up.

He had undertaken the Latin prose lecture of that somewhat scholarless college, and had repeatedly said that it would bring him to an untimely grave, but after a fellow- commoner translating "The Ai't of Mingling in Society" in English of Addison, into Latin of his own, the Dean had dropped the Latin prose lecture, and had taken to the Greek. '' You are safer in Greek," he said. '' I am not good in Greek, and so I may live the longer. But I couldn't stand the Latin any more."

So it was in the Greek prose lecture that the Dean expected his young friends, with great curiosity. They were the first who came, very early, and they came sidling and whispering into the room one after another, and sat down in a row, each one saying as he went by, '' Good morning, sir," while the Dean stood and looked at them. Can one not see him now, with his broad shoulders, and his keen eyes looking out from under his wig ?

They sat down in the chair opposite to him, and he had a good look at them. The first who came in was Roland Evans, evidently leader among them, a splendid upstanding young fellow, with short curling hair, who carried his head like a stag. *' A fine face and a good head," thought the Dean. *' I wonder what is inside it ? " Next to him came his brother — a small, slight, bright- looking lad, rather too pretty to please the Dean's taste, but pleasant to see, with a wistful look in his clear brown eyes, which the Dean did not disapprove of. Next came the elder of the two Mordaunts, gigantic, somewhat stolid in appearance, looking as the Dean thought with Falstafi", '' land and beeves." Then came the younger Mordaunt, gigantic also, and rather cross-looking, but with a good square head ; as he passed on, he gave one look at

22 STRETTON.

the Dean, and let him know unmistakably that he considered him in the light of his natural enemy. Last of all came the " booby " who was to marry Miss Evans, and when the Dean looked on him, he thought at once : '* The rest are a puzzling lot, but there is no doubt about you ; you carry your turnpike -ticket in your hat ; you are a good fellow, and so I think is that Eoland Evans."

But he was puzzlingly amused by them on one account : four out of the five seemed strangely cast in the same mould. Here were two pairs of brothers, and a fifth young man, and they were all cast in the same mould, with the exception of the younger Evans, who seemed poetical. Had this batch of lads come under his notice with any other recommendation than that of the shrewd Doctor, he would have set them down for four young louts of the landholding persuasion from the western counties, and have thought no more about them ; but his friend had sent them to him as four of his picked boys, and Balliol would have opened her gates to them ; yet there they sat in a row before him, silent and apparently stupid, occasionally sneaking their eyes up at his, as though to see what he was like, but dropping them again directly. ** Is there character here? " the Dean asked himself. '' K. should know ; he said they were boisterous and troublesome. They are quiet enough 'low."

The odd contrast between the apparently stupid insouciance of the Englishman at one time, and his violent fury at another, seemed to be hardly known to the Dean as yet: he got an illustration of it.

The other men, to the number of some thirty, dropped in, and the lecture proceeded. Anything more saint-like than the behaviour of the Shropshire five was never seen. The lecture consisted in turning ''Spectator" into Greek prose, and after half an hour, every one being ready, the Dean called on Roland Evans, who stood up, and on being told that he might sit down, was very much confused. He read out his few sentences of Greek prose, and the Dean leant back in his chair.

*' That is really splendid, Mr. Evans. I could not -vvrite such Greek myself. Read it again, please, and listen to it, you others." Roland did so.

"Do you all write Greek like this at Gloucester? This is refreshing. Good Heavens ! when I think of the trash my ears are dinned with. Here, Mr. Mordaunt the elder, read your piece next : let me see if it runs in families, oris common to the school."

Old Mordaunt — sitting, as we used to say at school, one place below young Evans — did so, and his piece was ver^ good.

" Now, young Mr. Evans, read yours,"

STEETTON. 23

It appeared that these youths were under the impression that they could take places. They had come in and sat down in their old Gloucester class form. Young Eddy Evans had in his piece a passage of Addison's or Steele's in which occur the words, ''pray do not deceive yourself on this matter." Young Evans gave it ^^ fiT) 7r\avaa6T]." Whereupon both the Mordaunts rose to their feet, and cried with one voice, '* I challenge."

Before the astonished Dean could say one word, the two brothers were at it tooth and nail.

" I challenged first," said old Mordaunt.

" You did nothing of the kind," said the younger. '' You read the fourth chapter of Acts, and see what happened to Ananias and Sapphira."

'' That's a pretty thing to say to your own brother," said old Mordaunt.

'' Not a worse thing than trying to cut your own brother out of a place. Why do you challenge ? " said the younger brother.

"Because it's Greek Testament, and wrong in person," said the elder, scornfully.

'* Testament Greek is good enough — better than you could write. I challenge on other grounds. Ask him, sir, what letter he puts before the sigma."

The younger Evans, confused and directed by his evil genius, said hurriedly, " Epsilon." The younger Mordaunt at once sank back in his chair with the air of a man who had done a happy thing, and, addressing the Dean, said —

" This, sir, is a specimen of the scholarship of the Doctor's house-boys. If a commons-house boy had made such a mess, he would have been cobbed by the school."

At which dreadful words wi'ath and fury were depicted on the faces of the two Evanses, and of Maynard, who was engaged to their sister. Young Evans rose, perfectly calm, and, addressing the Dean as " Dominus," said that as the rules of English society prevented one boy from personally asking any explanation from any other boy in class, and indeed, in any place but the play- ground, whether he, the Dominus, would be so good as to demand, in his character as Dominus, of Mordaunt minor, when he was caned last, and what it was for. Whereupon Maynard, who had taken no part as yet, cried out, " Go it, young Evans ! "

" It was your brother who pressed the spring and set it going," said old Mordaunt.

' ' It was nothing of the kind ; and no one knows it better than yourself," said Roland Evans, *'I never touched it; what did be want with it at chapel ? "

24 STKETTON.

''I suppose he could take his musical snuff-box into chapel," said old Mordaunt, now, after the preliminary skirmish, in close alliance with his brother. '' I suppose he had as good a right to bring his musical box in as you had to bring in your Buttmann's Lexilogus."

'' Well, you need not turn up old things like that," said Eoland Evans.

<' Then you leave my brother alone, and I'll leave you alone. As for you, young Evans, you ought to have the Lexilogus banged about your stupid young head, and you would have had three months ago."

The Dean had by this time partly recovered from the stupor into which he had been plunged by this unexpected and violent storm. He found breath enough to say, '* Gentlemen, I must really request, and of necessity insist, that this unseemly objur- gation ceases at once." After a few growls and sniffs the lecture proceeded. The Gloucester boys' Greek was all nearly first-class, and then the Dean waded away into a slough of miserable stufi', which was furnished to him three times a week by the other men of his college,

A deaf fellow- commoner was blundering along through his piece, and the Dean thought that everything was going right, when the younger Mordaunt, who had been frowning and bristling for some time, finding his recollected wrongs too great to be kept in any longer, suddenly broke into articulate speech. To the unutterable terror and confusion of the whole lecture, he said, in a loud voice :

*' Those two Evanses double-banked young Perkins in the play-ground one Saturday afternoon, when the fellows were bathing, and took his money from him. And they took nineteen- pence-halfpenny, and all he ever got back was a shilling and a sixpence, and the shilling was bad."

'* It was the same shilling we took from him," cried Roland, ** and your fellows have double-banked ours a hundred times."

*' What became of the three halfpence then? " said old Mordaunt.

" They spent it in Banbury tarts," said young Mordaunt.

" There were no coppers at all," said young Evans. " And you can't get one Banbury tart under twopence. Now then, what do you think of that ? "

The Dean again recovered himself.

"In the whole course of my experience I never saw anything like this," he said. ** I insist on perfect silence. You five men will remain after lecture, I insist on silence, Mr. Jones, go on."

STRETTON. 26

"Now we shall all get lines, and liberty stepped," said young Mordaunt, aloud, '* and it was that young Evans began it."

'* It was not," said young Evans, emphatically.

" Will you hold your tongue, sir," said the Dean, in a voice which they knew they must listen to. And so the lecture went on and was finished. When it was done, the five remained, and young Mordaunt whispered to old Evans, '* He won't flog the lot."

The Dean began on them : " Gentlemen, your Greek is excellent, but your conduct has not been good. My friend warned me that you were boisterous. I have no great objection to juvenile spirits — in fact, I like them ; but I must most em- phatically insist that you will not quarrel in my lecture. You no longer take rank as schoolboys : we give young men of your age brevet rank as men. I must request that this does not happen again."

Old Mordaunt shoved young Mordaunt, who shoved young Evans, who shoved Maynard, who shoved Roland Evans, by which he understood that he was to be spokesman. His speech was so odd, so very simple, so very provincial, so full of the argot of a provincial school, that the Dean scarcely understood it. He said :

" Sir, we are very sorry to have ofiended you ; for myself, I have always been dead against barneying in class, for the mere purpose of spinning out the pensum. I have also tried most con- sistently to make friends between doctor's boys and common-house boys, principally, I will allow, for the sake of the boats. But these jealousies do exist, sir, even among friends, as we are : I am sure all true friends. But these jealousies have existed for a long time, and are not likely to cease. I will take it on myself to say, sir, that they shall be stopped in class, and not carried into play-ground, and that we would rather, having begun so unluckily, be punished by task instead of by stoppage of liberty."

The Dean impatiently paced the room, and scratched his wig. ** What the deuce," he said to himself, "am I to do with such boys as these ? An Eton or Harrow boy would know more of things at fourteen. Why does K. keep his boys back like this ? they are as innocent as children. I never saw such a thing in my life ; they fancy they are to be punished. Hang it all, let me see how green they are. Mr. Evans, how old are you ? "

" Nineteen, sir."

"You have behaved very badly. Suppose I was to cane one of you."

"We understood, sir," said Boland, "that we could not be caned after we came here. If, however, you decide on that

26 STRETTON.

course, the only one you could cane would be my brother. No boy is ever caned over eighteen, and my brother is only seven- teen."

''And it would be no use caning him!" exclaimed the irre- pressible young Mordaunt ; ''he has been caned a dozen times for laughing in chapel. And last half I tried him to see whether he had got over it. I showed him a halfpenny in Litany, and he went off, and was taken out, and caned."

"I would gladly, sir," said Roland, "take my brother's punishment on myself; but being over eighteen, I cannot, and should, in fact, resist ; it would be almost cowardly, sir, to put the fault of all of us on my brother."

"Do go to Bath, and keep me from Bedlam ! " exclaimed the irritated Dean.

And they fled off, and apparently had a free fight on the stairs ; for as the Dean put it, sixteen out of the five seemed to tumble down instead of walking down.

" This is K. all over," he said to himself, when they were gone ; " this is his system ; sending his boys up here babies instead of men. I wish he had sent them to Balliol, — I wish he had sent them to Jericho. I have no stand-point with them. I can't get at them. They are a noble lot ; but they are five years too young. And this hotbed of sin 1 Come in ! "

CHAPTER VIII.

There seemed some difficulty about the person who knocked at the door coming in, as indeed there was. There was a curious pegging sound, then a gentle turning at the door-handle, and then a heavy fall. The Dean dashed out, and found a little cripple lying on his back on the landing, laughing.

" I shall do it once too often," said the cripple. " My servant puts me into bed, but I direct my energies to tumbling out of it. I live in the gate which is called Beautiful, and am happy there ; but St. John and St. Paul are in Heaven, and have never said to me, ' What we have, we give thee.' Will you help up a poor little cripple, and set him on his legs, and give him his crutch, Dean ? Be St. John to me. Dean ? "

" Sir Jasper Meredith ! " exclaimed the Dean.

" I thought I should creep so nicely up, and I came one stair

STKETTON. 27

at a time. And I made fair weather of it until I tried to turn the handle, and then I lost my balance, and fell on my hack."

The Dean had never seen anything like this. He was a man of the cloister, and had heard of human ills, and of baronets with 14,000 acres, and of cripples also. But to find a feeble cripple, with 14,000 acres, flat on his back before his own door, on the landing, was a sensation for the good Dean. " And he is from Shropshire also," he considered. " Shropshire will do for us in time."

He picked the little cripple up very carefully, and brought him in. *' What can I do for you, Meredith ? " he said, gently.

*' Give me leave to get my breath, my dear sir," began the little man. '^ Thank ye. Oh ! that's better. I can't get on anyhow. The doctors say that it is my spine, and I say it's my legs, and I expect that I know as much about it as they do. My legs have separate individualities ; in fact, I have named them differently — Libs and Auster — and they always want to go in different directions, which brings me to grief — don't you see ? I suppose you have never noticed the same thing with regard to your legs, for instance, have you ? "

'' No," said the Dean, glancing complacently at his well- formed legs. " I never experienced anything of that kind — lately."

*'No," said Meredith ; '' your legs do look like a pair. Now mine, you will perceive, if you wiU do me the goodness to look at them, most distinctly are not."

" You are certainly afflicted," said the kind Dean, '' and I am sorry for it."

** We will speak of that on some future occasion," said the little man. '' I am not at all sure that I am. Being afflicted in this manner, do you see, brings you so many kind friends, and such sympathy, that I am not sure that I would change it even to be Roland Evans. Well, that is not what I came to speak about. I came on a matter of business, and I am taking up your valuable time in talking of myself. Cripples will talk about themselves, you know."

"My time is yours, Meredith," said the Dean, pleased by the kindly little ways of the cripple.

"Now that is very kind of you. May I take a liberty? I have been a petted boy, and am used to take liberties. May I have one little sprig of that Wustaria which is hanging your window with imperial purple ? I half live in flowers. Dean. They are the purest forms of mere physical beauty which can be brought to me, and I cannot travel in search of beauty, you kuow,"

28 STRETTON.

The Dean got him one at once, saymg, '' There is one form of physical heaiity which comes to you very often, I fancy — Roland Evans."

"Yes," said Meredith; ''I believe that he is veiy beautiful. But I, for my part, having known him so long, have lost the power of seeing that. If he were a cripple, or a leper, it would make no difference to me."

" You like him, then ? " said the Dean.

Meredith laughed quietly, and very absently, looking at the carpet.

'* The brain is always affected in these spine diseases," said the Dean to himself. " The poor little fellow is wool-gatliering."

Then he added, emphatically, *' We were speaking of Roland Evans, Sir Jasper Meredith. You like him, do you not ? "

In an instant one of the keenest, shrewdest faces he had ever seen was turned up to his, and he stood astounded.

" Like him ! " said the cripple. '' Yes, I like him very much indeed. You know that you yourself would like a noble young man like that (supposing that you were a cripple, which you are not) who left habitually his own amusements, in which he excelled, to attend to you ; who could put you in the best place to see his innings at cricket, a.id come running to you after a race to tell you about it. You would like such a man as that, would you not?"

The Dean, interested, said '' Yes ! "

" Ah ! So I like him. And in a similar way, I like his sister, who is Viola to Sebastian. And I like the whole lot of them — the two Mordaunts, Maynard, and Eddy Evans. They are all good. I came here on a point with regard to them. I am afraid they have been behaving very badly ? "

" They have been quarrelling so dreadfully," said the Dean,

" They always do in class," said Meredith. ''It is an old Gloucester dodge for spinning out the work, if one of the set has not got up enough lines."

'' If that is the case," said the Dean, angrily, '' I must request you to tell your friends that I will not suffer it again."

"It will not happen again," said Meredith. " They thought — I declare they did — that you would set them impositions. They are on their honour now."

" They are an extraordinary lot of greenhorns."

" They are," said Meredith, " with the exception of shrewd old Mordaunt. I suppose you know that none of them have ever been to London? "

"i know nothing about them," said the Dean, "except that

STRETTON. 29

K. sent them here. I never saw such an extraordinary lot of fellows in my life. But you must tell them that I will not stand disturbances in lecture -time. You said that you came here to speak to me about them."

'' True," said Meredith. **I ought to have had notice to quit before. I will do my business. The butler tells me that, as a fellow -commoner, I must sit at the high table with you. Do relax your rule, and let me sit at the Freshman's table, with the Evanses and the Mordaunts. They help me in a hundred ways. Do let a poor cripple have his dinner among his kind at the Freshman's table."

"Your request is granted, certainly," said the Dean, laughing. '* But you must tell your friends not to be so turbulent. We were told last night that the younger Mordaunt and the younger Evans fought for a plate of meat, which both claimed, and were fined by the senior man at the table."

*' My groom told me this morning," said Meredith, quietly, '' that the Bible clerk had sneaked. Young Evans certainly ordered the chicken, but then young Mordaunt, as senior boy, considered that he had a right to change dinners, not liking his mutton when he saw it. I am sorry that they fought over it, but boys ivill fight over their victuals, you know. I daresay you have done it yourself."

There rose suddenly on the mind of the Dean the ghost of a certain Bath bun which he had struggled for at a certain lodge at a certain school nearly twenty years before, and which had ended in a great fight in the playground with a certain great general, who was just now engaged in the reduction of Sebastopol. The Dean had the best of it, as did not the general.

"But," said he, "they behave like schoolboys. They are ranked as men here."

" They were schoolboys yesterday, and are schoolboys still," said Meredith. " It rests with you to make them men. What sort of men you are going to make of them is more in your line of business than mine. Lord help you through it ! for they are a rough lot. It rests with you to take up Dr. K.'s work where he left ofi". He has sent them here in trust to you."

30 STEETTON.

CHAPTER IX.

PuLVERBATCH, One woulcl tliiuk, was (at least in the old coaching days) as far, intellectually speaking, from anywhere, as any place could be. It was even out of the then road from Shrewslaury to Ludlow — one would have thought a very quiet road — and was intensely sleepy.

The Grange, Miss Eleanor Evans' inalienable property, was a heavy old Grange, with an actual moat, in which Miss Eleanor lived as a Mariana, though with a difference. There were eight hundred acres of fat meadow and corn-land around it, washed down from Caradoc, Lawley, and Longmynd ; every acre of which this strenuous lady held in her own hands.

When she took possession of it, after the lapse of a bad tenant's lease, and announced her intention of farming it, her brother gave her a little good advice.

** It is worth two pounds an acre, Nell, now that the Dower Farm has fallen in, even after Dell has scourged it so. 1600L a year — I'll find you a good tenant."

" Thanlv you," she said, "but I am going to find a good tenant in myself."

" You will make a mess of it." "Why?"

" Because you can't farm."

"Fiddle-de-dee," said Eleanor, " I have been bored to death with it all my life ; I ought to know something about it by this time. And, besides women are much sharper than men. Any one can farm ; don't tell me. I will take my four thousand a year off that land, or I will know the reason why."

"My dear Eleanor," said her brother, " I know you to be shrewd and determined ; I will aUow that you have quite suffi- cient intellect to manage the property."

" That is to say, as much intellect as Dell, who has 780 acres of yours. Thank you, for I am very much obliged to you for comparing me with a tipsy, muddled, uneducated old man like him. Go on," said Eleanor.

" You are angry, my dear," said her brother, " but you must remember that farming is a second nature to him." " What was his first ? " she asked.

This was one of those pieces of pure nonsense which scatter men's nonsense. Squire Charles picked himself up as well as he could, and said somewhat heavily

STKETTON. 31

" Supposing that you could actually get this farm in order, and get money's worth off it, you would be beaten at marketing."

"Why?" said Eleanor.

''Because, not being able to go to market yourself, you would have to send your bailiff, who would cheat you."

'* But I am not going to have any bailiff. And I am going to market my own self."

" The farmers will be too much for you," said Charles.

''Will they?" she said; "they must have had a sudden accession of brains then."

" Do you mean to tell me, Eleanor, that you are actually going into Shrewsbury market with samples of oats ? "

" Certainly."

"It will be thought very odd, and some will say improper."

" I know nothing about your last epithet. With regard to oddity, now look round among the county families around us, and say whether or no there is not a queer story among every one of them. There is an odd story in our own family, Charles."

" You mean about me."

" I mean about you. But I want to finish about this fiirming business. I am going to do it. I pay rent to myself; I have quite as much knowledge of farming as Dell, and ten times his intellect ; why should I not do well ? "

" You will be beaten in market," said Charles."

"You will see about that," said Eleanor.

She certainly was right, for she "gave her mind to it," and became one of the best farmers and keenest marketers about. Her scourged land recovered, as if by magic. She had good years and bad years, but she made money and a good deal of it ; as a very diligent and clever person, with no rent to pay, and over seven hundred acres of fine land, may do. As time went on her brother saw that he was wrong, and he told her so ; and added, " And you seem to be very happy, Eleanor."

" I am as happy as the day is long," she said. " I have no time to be otherwise. I am interested and amused all day long, in all weathers, and I have perfect health, and no cares. Women are frequently very great fools to marry."

" Yet it would be well to have another to care and work for," said Charles.

"I have got Eddy; he is my son, and I know he will be extravagant, and bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. I have spoilt him," she added, laughing, " therefore I must work and slave to meet his extravagance. As I have brewed, so must

32 STEETTON.

I bake ; I have made my bed and I must lie on it, as regards him. I gave him a new watch last week."

'' So I saw. I hope he did not ask for it ? "

'' Oh, no ; he never asks for anything, only he looks so pretty when he is pleased, and he likes bright and glittering things. I must work and save for him."

** You will not save much with those new cottages," said her brother ; ' ' you ought never to lay one brick on another till you see your way to a clear 7 per cent., exclusive of bad debts ; and you will never see three there."

" Say two and a half," said Eleanor ; " but it pays me indi- rectly on my own estate. I have my labourers on my o^vn ground, close to their work. What would you say of the wisdom of a slave-owner who made her niggers walk three miles to the cotton grounds ? "

" You will raise the rates."

''I don't care. Oh! by the by, your head keeper has been asking me whether he may rear some pheasants in my large spinney, and I have told him that I should like to catch him at it. Your partridges I will protect for you, but I won't have pheasants, rabbits, or hares ; you have plenty of ground of your own without bothering me."

Squire Charles laughed, and left her admiringly.

So she went on, busy, happy, quiet, contented, until I regret that it becomes necessary to pick her up at the age of forty-four years, just at the time Vv'hen that extraordinary set of boys, which I have previously described, had begun their most eccentric career at St. Paul's College.

The Grange at Pulverbatch was like so many Shropshire houses, a place worthy a long summer-day's visit. It was a low stone house, shrouded in and darkened by great dense groves of elms. Sooner than touch one bough of which, Eleanor would have sold her watch ; though she had very much spoilt the scenery of the valley, by slashing into her hedge-row timber else- where most unmercifully, and cutting doAvn her hedges to the famish- ing point. I am not antiquarian enough to say who built it or why it was built, but Eleanor had chosen to get it into her head that it was built by a small country gentleman, at the time, as she put it, ''when the greatest of all Englishmen for all time, Oliver Cromwell, ruled the land, and had one Milton for his Poet- Laureate." A mild antiquarian, on one occasion, by way of making himself agreeable, told her in a mild voice that her house was formerly a religious house, a cell of the larger house of St. Lawrence at Stretton.

STRETTON. 33

" It was nothing of the kind, sir," she answered, indignantly.

*' I think you will find that I am right," said the mild man.

" I don't believe a word of it," said Eleanor. And the mild antiquarian said no more.

''It was moated around on all sides, for defence," she said; " Carp-ponds," said the antiquarian ; and this moat was part of her belief in the place.

There were carp in this moat, and although she was shrewd enough to prefer the splendid trout which came out of the stream running through her estate for her own eating, yet on state occasions she always, as a great treat, gave her guests these abominable masses of dry bones out of the moat. They were to her as a haggis or a sheep's head is to a Scotchman. She used to send them to her neighbours, as rare compliments and presents. Well, she had few prejudices, and those were very innocent.

We shall see more of her kind, innocent, wise life as we go on : a little more about heriiouse, and herself, and she wiU be suffici- ently fully introduced.

I should think, from what I have observed, that almost the first ambition of every clever woman was to have a roo)ii of her own, a place where she was mistress, and could do as she pleased (surely some clever woman has said this before, though I cannot recollect where, but it is true). I have seen such rooms ; I know at least two ; and I guess that in these maiden bowers, women, whether poor or rich, symbolise their own souls, or the phases of them. I know a bower, hung with crude oil-sketches and photographs of great pictures ; again, I know another, full of saints, angels, and crucifixes. I suppose that every woman would have such a nest — alas ! how few are able. Eleanor, however, had her nest, which most decidedly symbolised her pursuits.

Eleanor's nest was what her brother called '' the dining-room," but what she would insist on calling, out of contradiction mainly, I think, " the best parlour." It was a dark wainscoted room, with a large stone-jammed bay-window at the end furthest from the door, in front of which her great library table, with innumer- able drawers, was placed, and by which the only available light was let into this wonderfully uncomfortable room. At this table she could look over her beloved moat, and write her letters. Here she received her men, and her poor folks ; and here she sat one afternoon, soon after the boys had gone to St. Paul's, reading her letters and answering them.

She was in her usual riding habit, and had been on foot or on horseback since six o'clock in the morning. As the light from the only window fell upon her face, you could see that, although

4

34 STRETTON.

her complexion might have suffered (or been improved) by wind, weather, and hard work, there was no doubt that she was still a singularly beautiful woman.

She had had all kinds of letters by that post, and she had read them, and laid them aside for answer. Mr. Sutton, of Keading, informed Miss Evans that he did not approve of such a large admixture of triticum in the grass-seed intended for soil washed from lime stone hills, but had executed the order under Miss Evans's direction, and begged to inform her that the " Student " parsnip, from Cirencester, was well worth a trial. Barr and Sugden informed her that they would, if possible, execute her small order for 5,000 snowdrops, but that a regular customer had come down on them for 14,000, and they were at present un- certain. A neighbouring miller wrote to say that if she would thrash out at once, he would chance the four big ricks at 54 (to which she said, " I daresay ") ; under all of which there was a letter from her lawyer, telling her that the dispute about the old arrears, hanging on since Dell's time, was settled against her ; and several begging-letters.

These were put aside for answering : they caused her no thought. It was the two she had just read which made her sit with her handsome head in the light, and really think. Let us look over her shoulder. The first was from young Allan Gray, the young man who was the son of the soldier Gray, and who, by natural laws, was nephew of Charles and Eleanor Evans, and cousin to Koland and Edward.

It ran thus : —

'' My dear Madam, — I enclose you Mr. Secretary's Cowell's receipt for the very noble donation to our poor little work. I know that the pleasure you had in giving it is even higher than is ours in receiving it ; I am requested to thank you for it, madam, and I thank you accordingly. Mr. Taunton, one of our best helpers, offered prayer for you to-night, madam, in the general prayer and by name. This I know will be gratifying to you."

(^^ Well, and so it is," said Eleanor. '' I am sure we all want

*'I wish, madam, that you could come and pay us a visit here, say when you come to the Cattle Show, at Christmas. I wish that sucli a shrewd and yet kind heart as yours could see what actual good we are doing among the misery and guilt around us.

" With deep reverence and gratitude, I remain, dear madam, your devoted servant, " Allan Gray."

STEETTON. 35

" Yes," said Eleanor, " you are a good boy, and a shrewd boy, and a grateful boy ; but I doubt I can't like you. You would be glad to be rid of your obligations to me to-morrow. I ought to like you, but I can't."

She was a shrewd, hard woman, this Eleanor Evans ; not given to show sentiment, yet when she opened the next letter she kissed it, and said, " My darling, now we wiU have you, after this Methodistical young prig. All the flowers in May are not so sweet as you, but you might write better, you know." The letter was from Eddy, and she read it with concentrated attention, weighing every word, this sensible and keen lady, going over the sentences three or four times to extract their meaning (of which tliere was but little). Don't laugh at her; a love as keen and pure as hers is not ridiculous. Perhaps Gray's letter was more sensible, but this boy's nonsense was infinitely dearer to her.

" Deak Aunt Nell, — You know that in one of our delightful, confidential talks the other day, you, in laying down our mutual plans for the future, said that one day I must get a good wife, and come and live with you. You hinted that you would, in the case of such an event, make over the main part of your personal property to me ; only reserving to yourself one single room. You remember the alacrity with which I fell into the arrangement, and the extreme anxiety I have always shown to carry out your wishes. Consequently, I have kept my weather- eye open for above a fort- night, and after long and painful consideration, I am able to declare myself suited for life.

"To a well-balanced mind, such as I believe mine to be (it is your look-out if it is not), wealth, position, nay, even beauty itself, weigh as nothing in the balance in a choice of this kind, in comparison with solidity of character. Gain that and you gain everything. I have gained it.

*' Of course I should not think of moving definitely in such an important matter as this without consulting you, my more than mother, to whom I owe so much. By-the-bye, this last remark reminds me that I may as well owe you a little more, while we are at it. Roland has boned all my money because young Mordaunt and I gave half-a-sovereign a-piece to a young man we found on the Trumpington road, with scarcely shoes to" his feet, just come out of Reading Hospital. So do send me some ; make it a tenner, if you can ; as much more as you like. I am sure that you must have thrashed out the three ricks by now, and must be in cash. Don't you hold your corn back in the way

36 STRETTON.

you do, raising the market on the poor. You thrash out, and send me a ten-pound note, and I'll bring you a present, if there is any of it left.

" I suppose this will be the first intimation you will have had of our splendid success. Koland has done such a thing which is simply unequalled in history. To be continued in our next, provided you send the money.

" Yours lovingly,

" EdWAKD HiVANS.

*' P.S. — I bought a squirrel of a cad in the meadow, who said it was tame. On calling it to our rooms, it bit me to the bone, and ran up the chimney. This is a wicked and ungrateful world. I doubt I am already night weary of it."

Aunt Eleanor put this letter aside, and answered young Gray's first.

*' My deae Mr. Gray, — I must beg that in any future com- munications to me, you will omit mentioning any obligations which you conceive you still owe to me. Such obligations cer- tainly existed at one time, but they exist no longer. I therefore request, sir, that they may be no longer mentioned between us.

" At my mother's desire, I did all I possibly could for you. You on your part have repaid me a thousand-fold, by turning out so well, and by leading such a blameless, godly, and, I hope, prosperous life as you are leading. What I did for you was from a sense of duty, and not on any sentimental grounds, for you and I never liked one another, which you know as well as I do, if you choose — (last three words erased). Consequently, my dear sir, now you have risen to your present honourable position, I must tell you that these continual protestations of gratitude towards a woman you always disliked are not good tcm.

'' It seems strange that two people so utterly separated as we are by every thought and every feeling should be engaged in the same work, that of ameliorating the condition of the poor. But it is so. If you wish to put me under obligations, you will show me how I can further assist you in your very noble work, and further how I can, in case of your requiring pecuniary help yourself, assist you. I can admire you without liking you ; and I am told by Mr. Cowell, whom I knew before you did, that you are de- creasing your own income by these good works.

" Eleanor Evans."

STRETTON. 37

When Allan Gray got this letter, he rose with set lips and walked up and down the room. *' A bitter, bitter, hard, cruel woman," he said ; ''an insult in every tone of it. Well, if she can be bitter, I can be bitter too ; ' ' and so he sat down and wrote : —

'' Madam, — I very much regret that a few expressions of per- sonal gratitude, which since your last letter are no longer felt, should have caused you such very deep annoyance. The cause being removed the effect will not reappear.

" With regard to my personal pecuniary matters, madam, they are in good order. With regard to the Refuge, send as much money to us as you possibly can. ' Sell all that thou hast,' if you like. With regard to our personal relations, madam, I can only say, as a man who never told a lie, that I respect and rever- ence you deeply.

*' Allan Gray."

** The fellow has got go, though," said Eleanor : '' but a brim- stone temper ; well, we are rid of Jmn for a time. I will send them some money, and go and see them."

Now we come to the answer to Eddy's letter, and the reply to that. A bitter, hard woman, was she, Master Gray ? Bitter to you : bitter to one who showed her every day and all day that he disliked his obligations to her, but not a bitter woman, though shrewd of tongue, towards the world. Was she strong ? certainly ; as strong a woman as most. Was she weak? she was weaker than water to some few ; to a very few. She could fight and beat her brother easily, and he was an " upstanding " man. Young Gray she could beat as the dust under her feet ; yet he was as self-contained and as mentally powerful a young man as most ; you will see that for yourselves Yet where she loved she was utterly powerless. And among others, she loved Eddy : nay, she loved him the dearest of them all.

Her brother went about with her on the subject of spoiling Eddy. He pointed out to her that her power over him was great, that her responsibilities with regard to him were great, and that she should not let him have his own way.

" I can't help it," she said.

" You, so strong-minded and energetic," said her brother, ** allow yourself to be made a perfect fool of by that boy ! "

'' I tell you I can't help it," said Eleanor, somewhat em- phatically.

** You should. You will spoil him," said her brother.

38 STRETTON.

" I never spoilt you, at all events," flashed out Eleanor. And Squire Charles, with certain schoolroom reminiscences in his mind, was obliged to admit that she certainly never had.

Now, with the almost cruel, almost vulgar tone of the answer to young Gray fresh in one's mind, let us turn to her answer to that bright little nephev/ of hers, Eddy Evans, and see whether or no there were not two sides to this woman : —

'' Dearest Eddy, — Your letter gives me the deepest interest. I congratulate you sincerely, my dear, in having found a partner for life. I go this afternoon to take the joyful intelligence to your father and mother, who will, no doubt, be made as happy as I am. Pray give my dearest love to your dear one, and say that I shall be happy to receive her on a visit as soon as she chooses, and to present her to her new father and mother-in-law.

' ' I think it of all things important that a person of a character so frivolous and empty as yours, should early become imbued with a sense of responsibility, and on those grounds I am delighted that you have taken this important step.

''I have not thrashed-out yet; the steamer comes to-morrow; but I have found an odd ten pounds. Do get out of that foolish habit of giving your money away like a baby. You will probably hear from your father the day after to-morrow on the subject of your grand alliance.

*' Write to me, and tell me what Koland has done, what ' your great success ' is, and what share you had in it. I can quite understand that Koland has done something unexampled in history, for I believe Roland to be capable of anything ; the only thing which puzzles me is that you should have had any hand in it. Write and explain. I will do anything at any time, my dear, to give you pleasure."

After a few pleasant days among her turnips and her beasts, during which she was observed to have very often a smile of amusement on her face. Aunt Eleanor got Eddy's reply : —

** Dear Aunt, — If you are willing to do anything to give me pleasure, you had better send another cheque for ten pounds (unless you like to make it twenty), because that gave me the deepest pleasure, as it did also to Jimmy Mordaunt. We have spent some of it in riot and dissipation, but have still some of it in hand. You have no idea of the temptations of this place, the facilities of credit, and the easiness with which young men of my personal appearance and of my expectations can raise money from the lenders at ruinous interest. If I sent a son here, the first

STllETTON. 39

thing I sliould take care of would bo that he was supplied with large sums of ready money, and so kept from all risk of temptation. Believe me that such is my experience.

'' With regard to the young person of whom I spoke to you in my first letter (I never spoke to her), I doubt if she will do. She is a barmaid down the river. I don't think she will do ; but, as you have told father, I will keep my eye on her, with a view of keeping her hanging over his head, and keeping him civil.

'' We never were frivolous so long together before, aunt. Suppose we drop it ; but this place is a perfect atmosphere of chaff. I don't like it half as well as the old place. There, between-whiles of racket and horse-play, we were serious. Well, there is not much that is serious in what I am going to tell you, except that old Roland has suddenly become a kind of hero in the University. Roland is the first man who ever won the University sculls in his first term, and my share in the victory was running along the bank and howling at him.

''I need not remind you of the Doctor's objections to our having Robert Coombes to Gloucester to teach us to row, and how his objections were overcome by our father and Mr. Mordaunt ; at all events, as far as money went. The fruits of that teaching have come out now.

" The third day we were here, Roland and I went early in the day, before the others were on the river, and Roland began trying sculling boats at the principal place where they are let. He was a long time before he found one to suit him, and kept going up and down in front of the barges, trying one after another, and changing frequently, during which time I noticed that he was attracting the attention of the people who were standing by. At last he found one which he said he could feel, and sent a waterman and myself to the tow-path side, at which time I observed that the principal boat-proprietors, and at least a dozen other people, had crossed, and were standing about, or walking slowly down the tow-path.

"He kept us waiting for a long time, but at last he came raging down, bare-legged and bare-headed, at a racing pace : and I said to myself, * I should like to see some of these University oars.' The waterman and I got our elbows up and went after him, and, as we went, I heard muttered exclamations of wonder and admiration. I felt as if I was the proprietor of a show.

'' He went down to the starting-post and rowed over, steered by the waterman. As we neared the barges w^e found others running with us, and Roland rowing more splendidly every minute. His last rapid rush home was Imperial — with a large I,

40 STRETTON.

** When he stopped, there was perfect silence among the boat- builders and watermen. They were bent, as I have understood, on business, and were none of them inclined to commit them- selves. I said to the man — a most respecatble tradesman, as rich as you, I believe — who had let the boat to us, ' My brother rows well for a Freshman.' He answered, 'I have not time to build him a boat, sir, but would earnestly beg him to use the one he is in, and not change.' I thought, of course, that he was afraid of our going to his rival over the water, till that rival came to me, and said : ' I should be glad of your custom, sir, but do urge your brother to stay in that boat. I have no boat in which he could show his form as well as in that. Beg him, sir, not to train down ; it is only a fortnight to the race.'

" I was utterly puzzled at all this, and looked for Roland. He had locked his boat to a punt in front of the University barge, and was talking to Jasper Meredith, who lay in it on cushions. I hailed them, and they took me in. I told them what I had heard. Jasper answered :

*' ' I have been trying to persuade your brother from entering for the boat-race,' said he to me. ' His answer is that he will not run against these older men. I watched you two this morning, and crutched it down to follow you, and see Roland row — a thing which delights me — and I have few pleasures. And I have been here, and heard those cads making bets on our own Roland ; dis- cussing the points in his body, as if he were a horse — his legs, his arms, his chest, his thighs— nay more, his manner of living, and his morality. All I can say is, that the whole business was immeasurably indecent. Since the days of Commodus, there was never such a thing done as for Roland to go down into the arena. It is a pleasure to me to see him row, but if he had heard the expressions those cads used about him, he would never row again as long as he lived.'

'*'You are looking only at one side of the question,' said Roland. * I only match myself against another gentleman.'

*' 'Yes ; but on what terms? ' said Jasper. *I heard one of them say, " If a cove could only persuade him to train, what a pot of money a fellow might put on." He did not say " fellow," but I spare your ears. And Roland has dropped to this ! '

'' Roland, laughing, said : ' I am not sure that I am going to row, and I don't think I am going to win. I only know that I am not going to bet.' And he shot away and left us.

*' But he rowed and he won. He had infinitely the worst side, and Jemmy Mordaunt and I ran through the Meadows with punts over the ditches, to steer him. The thing was easily done.

STRETTON. 41

Roland rowed his man — a Henley winner — down, and after the first half mile, kept him working on his wash. Although he had scrupulously practised in public, few believed in him against the Henley winner, and the cheers were very slight. He came into the University-barge, as did the other man, and they got locked together. Roland said : ' We cannot ail win, sir. I am sorry you have lost, but I am glad I have won.' The other man said : ' I give you my shoes, sir, and I think you will wear them well.' And then I took Roland out of his boat, and put the waterman in, and we stood alone on the barge.

" Not a soul knew us personally, and so not a soul would speak to us. We wanted to get the cup, but did not know whom to ask about it. We were not likely to speak to men who would not speak to us, and there we stood like fools ; Roland, in breeches, with his legs bare (for these barbarians row in trousers). How long we should have stood, I cannot say, but the President came, parting the throng, and made Roland's acquaintance.

" His influence here is so great that it broke the ice at once. He had actually called on us that morning, it seemed, which gave him the right of introducing us. So one happy result of the race is that we, with our charming manners, and our splendid personal appearance, have a new world opened to us. I was not aware, until I went to other colleges, that our college was a marked and disliked one ; but it is. So much for Roland's boat-race.

" On the Meadows we picked up Jasper Meredith, and, strangely enough, the young man to whom I gave ten shillings, who is now one of his servants. ' For heaven's sake,' said Jasper, ' don't begin talking about the boat-race. I am sorry he has won. Give me the address of this man, if you know it. He is a friend of yours.' He wanted the address of Allan Grray, for what purpose I did not ask him. Send it to him, for I have not got it. He has moved."

CHAPTER X.

See Aunt Eleanor's writing-table in the bay-window once more, with a lady writing there — a lady, but not Aunt Eleanor. The light of the window fell, this time, on the head of the most delicate little fairy ever seen : on the head of the girl who had taken her aunt's place as the great Evans beauty : on the head of Mildred Evans.

42 STRETTON.

The cross which the handsome Evans had made with the still more beautiful Meredith, had resulted in her, and she was very splendid indeed ; very small, very fragile, very blonde, in every attitude graceful ; yet not without a rather quick, decisive way of changing from one perfectly unstudied pose to another.

Without shadow ; all light as morning ; light in hair, light in sapphire eyes, light in her dress. She had dressed herself in white, and she had got a red rose from the garden and put it in her hair, and she had got a pink rose and put it in her bosom, and had put a geranium and rose in a glass vase before her, and thus fortified, had sat down, at our unsympathetic Aunt Eleanor's desk, to write her innocent little love-letter, which the reader will be glad to be spared.

She had just finished when the door was opened widely, and in came Aunt Eleanor, in a riding-habit, accompanied by a girl, also in a riding-habit, who looked exceedingly like Aunt Eleanor's ghost.

A very tall girl, with a singularly upstanding carriage, and a well-set-on head, covered with fine brown hair, combed back into a knot ; a very fine girl, very large and strong, but not in the least coarse. Ethel Mordaunt, of whom her brothers used to say that she was the greatest brick in England, whom Squire Charles was apt to pronounce a trifle coarse at times, though never within his sister's hearing, and whom Aunt Eleanor pronounced to be a perfect lady, far too good to marry any one except Eddy.

This young lady, still holding her riding- skirt under her left arm, threw her whip on the table, and said :

" You are the best judge. Miss Evans, being so much older and wiser than I am ; but even a girl just out of the schoolroom has an opinion, and my opinion is that you allow your good-nature to be abused in countenancing these two women."

'' I don't encourage them. Mrs. Gray is most respectable."

*' Is she ? " said Miss Mordaunt. " Ah, I daresay she is. But I don't like her, for all that. I don't like the way she talks to my brothers, for instance, though perhaps my brothers may. She is both familiar and slangy."

"I don't know what you mean," said Aunt Eleanor. "Her grandson and herself were left in my care by my mother, and I have striven to do my duty by them ; and slangy is not a nice word, Ethel."

" My brothers use it," said Ethel. ** And then there is old Phillis Myrtle again."

*' Mrs. Myrtle has her faults," said Aunt Eleanor ; " but these are matters which you cannot understand."

STRETTON. 43

*' Papa says she is a tipsy old thing," said Miss Mordaunt. ** Look here, Miss Evans, see if here is not our sweet little bird, writing her love-letter, and dressed up in flowers to do so. What an innocent little love it is. Put it in strong, Milly, my love. Leave no doubt about the state of your sentiments, my dear. Don't let him have the slightest doubt of your mutual relations, and let me read it after."

''It is sealed up," said Mildred, turning round and laughing.

" What a pity ! " said Miss Mordaunt. " I have seen a few of his, but I never saw one of yours. I should like to see one, be- cause I don't know how I shall have to write to your brother Eddy, when he, driven to exasperation by your aunt here, proposes to me. Do you ever write to Eddy ? "

" I am going to write now," said Mildred.

" Tell him that his aunt's heart is set on our union, and that if he will summon up the courage to propose, I will have him — conditionally. He must add a cubit to his stature, to begin with ; and there are other conditions also. Will you write that for me ? That, do you see. Miss Evans, will crown your kind plan."

" I have no plan now," said Aunt Eleanor. And standing in her place, with her riding-skirt tucked up under her left arm, she looked steadily at Miss Mordaunt, standing in her place, also in the same attitude, and also looking steadily at Aunt Eleanor. But as she returned Aunt Eleanor's stare, the veins in the girl's throat began to swell and throb, and a flush spread upwards over her face, until that face was scarlet. At which time. Aunt Eleanor went up and patted her on the shoulder, and said in her ear, " It was so with me once, my dear, long ago, long ago ; that is the reason why I never married."

The girl said nothing, but Mildred Evans, turning round from the table said, suddenly :

" I have got a letter also from Roland."

The blood fled back from Ethel Mordaunt's face as fast as it had come, and told the story full weU— the story which Aunt Eleanor had nearly guessed that afternoon, during their ride. An old story, and generally a sad one, of childish friendship ripening into love on the woman's part, but only into kindly, friendly indifierence on the man's. " She loves him," thought Aunt Eleanor, " and I shall never prate her out of it. No one ever prated me out of it, even after I had her children on my knee. God help the poor child ! "

Ethel Mordaunt had as well-cut and well-carved a head on her shoulders as had her brother James, whose carriage of his head has been before alluded to. This head was very nearly down on

44 STRETTON.

Aunt Eleanor's shoulder, but it was suddenly and imperioush drawn up again, and turned towards the door ; for a footman opened that door and said, '' If you please, ma'am, here is Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Myrtle."

Every fibre of Ethel Mordaunt's body became rigid as these two women appeared. '' Send beauty away," she said, almost im- periously, pointing with her head, negro fashion, to Mildred Evans. 'It is not fit that she should breathe the atmosphere with these two."

Aunt Eleanor chuckled internally, but did not let her laughter show outwardly. " Mildred," she said, '' would you kindly be so

good as to go and see whether the 1 mean, be so good as to

go upstairs and look out of the window and see if but I cannot

do it. Would you be so kind as to take yourself out of the way, my dear ? "

''I can understand that. Aunt," said Mildred, laughing, and slid out of the room, with her precious letter in her hand, making two pretty little obeisances to Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Phillis Myrtle as she went out, which those good ladies returned with deep reverences. " Now you go too," said Aunt Eleanor. *' I am going to stop where I am," said Ethel Mordaunt. " What is not fit company for her is not fit company for you." " Nevertheless, I am going to stop where I am. I am clever, and wish to study character."

'' You will go if I tell you to go," said Aunt Eleanor. '' Of course ; now have them in."

And they came in. Two very difi'erent-looking women, Mrs. Gray first. A tall old woman, with the remains of a certain kind of aquiline beauty, very upright in her carriage, and an expression in her face — a look of cool, careless impudence, which might either take the form of contemptuous badinage, or of utter scorn. She was very well dressed, and in good material ; but her whole appearance, striking as it was, was utterly repugnant both to Eleanor and Miss Mordaunt, for diff'erent reasons.

Phillis Myrtle was an entirely difterent person. A little, round- about old lady, with an apple face and a perpetual smile. To Eleanor she was possibly more repugnant than Mrs. Gray.

It was natural that these two women should be utterly repug- nant to her, even if they had been the most estimable characters in the world. These two women were the only two left who knew of, or cared to remember, her brother Charles's escapade with Elsie Gray. It was a secret between them, though it was never mentioned at all ; neither of the three knew how much the other knew. Who knew most, we shall see.

STEETTON. 45

It was a life-long annoyance for a "^ery higli-souled woman, im- patient of control, to keep this secret with two such women ; yet it had to be kept, for these women had the power of annoying her brother seriously. Squire Charles had done well by Mrs. Gray. She lived in a cottage rent-free, and had a fixed allowance, but the cottage was Eleanor's, and the allowance was paid by Eleanor's hand. Once, and once only, had the Squire spoken to Mrs. Gray after his return from India, and that was to say, " Mrs. Gray, our more recent intercourse was a very sad one ; I think that the wisest thing we can do is to forget one another." And Mrs. Gray said, '' Your honour shall be obeyed." Nothing more ; and had accepted her position quite quietly, merely curtseying to the Squire when they met. Here she was now with old Phillis Myrtle, the nurse, staring fixedly and boldly at Miss Mordaunt, as if she was weighing or appraising her, and here was Miss Mordaunt looking out of window instead of returning her gaze, and drumming with her horse -whip.

" I am afraid I have kept you waiting," began Eleanor. '' Not at all, miss ; I have been accustomed to wait on gentle- folks all my life, and my husband's family have been vassals to yours for centuries. Coming from the manufacturing countries as I do, this vassalage seemed strange at first, but I have got used to it. The world uses you well. Miss Eleanor, and I hope it will use you as well, Miss Mordaunt, when you are as old as Miss Eleanor. Why, miss, you are three-and-forty ; you must think of marrying soon."

*' I am sorry to say I am three-and-forty, my good Gray ; and as for thinking of marrying, I have thought of that all my life, and the more I think of it the less I like it."

It was so good-humouredly said that Mrs. Gray smiled a gaunt smile, and continued the conversation with Miss Mordaunt, who, by-the-bye, had not said one word.

" You will poison Miss Mordaunt's mind against marriage, Miss Eleanor," she went on, audaciously. " Beauty like hers should not go unsued. Mordaunts and Evanses must not fail in the land ; beauty, worth, valour, perfect openness, and perfect truth, are too good qualities to be lost in the land ; and where are they to be found unless among Mordaunts and Evanses ? Ah ! we may see Miss Mordaunt mistress of Stretton yet." Whereupon Miss Ethel, with her crest in the air, marched out of the room, with her riding-habit under her arm, and a look of high, cool, un- utterable contempt on her face. " I will come back. Miss Evans, when this woman is gone," she said ; but she might have gone upstairs without bruising her clenched hand against the banisters.

46 STEETTON.

*'Mrs. Gray," said Eleanor, angrily, '*you are taking great liberties."

'' Only with a Mordaunt. I love it ; I love to make one of those snake-headed Mordaunts put their heads in the air, like an adder just before he strikes ; I do it with the boys. They are a red-handed old lot. Why, that youngest one, Jimmy, her brother, nigh tortured your own nephew, Edward, to death at school, that you Imow. Mad love and bitter hate. I love to play with a Mordaunt. Ha ! ha ! "

" I'll trouble you not to play with an Evans, if you please," said Eleanor, calmly furious.

" No ! no ! not with a she-Evans. They get their stuff from the Merediths. Do you remember your mother ? Ah ! to see her bareheaded, with her hands held up over her head — well, don't look like that. She was a Meredith, and so are you ; your brother is an Evans. All the men -Evanses are soft ; you can do anything with 'em you like, except resist them when they plead. Your brother took two of my sons to Waterloo, and only brought back one. They would have gone to the devil after him — and then — why, and then another man-Evans, your nephew Edward, kisses you, strokes your hair, calls you his foolish old woman, and makes you, a woman of spirit, do just as he pleases. And he will live to break your heart as his father broke mine. You wait till you are old, and see him spending your hard-earned money on them that will despise you. Wait till you see him getting impa- tient for your death, and then remember my words."

Aunt iEleanor rose. " Now look here, Mrs. Gray, and have the goodness to attend to me. I am not going to have this, or anything in the remotest degree approaching to it, for one instant. Go out ! "

'' You had better hear my errand first."

*' I will not speak to you. Go out ! "

" You may get youi' servants to turn me out if you like," began Mrs. Gray.

" I shall not get my servants to do it ; I shall do it myself in less than half a minute," said Aunt Eleanor. And as she rose she looked so extremely like doing it, that Mrs. Gray turned round, not one bit abashed, and broke into a loud laugh.

" I'll go," she said ; " and I'll hold my tongue, too. This woman will tell you what we came about. There is no bad blood between us, Eleanor ; I like you the better for your anger." And she was gone.

" The old witch,'' said Aunt Eleanor, dropping back in her chair. " For her to have dared "

STEETTON. 47

A low sigh, and a dropping, or rather dribbUng, of honey-sweet words reminded her that Phillis Myrtle was still seated in the easiest of easy- chairs, rolling her head from one side to the other, and using her pocket handkerchief.

"You may well say dared, my dear young lady," began Mrs. Myrtle : " audacious as dear Mrs. Gray can be, I never thought she'd have burst out on this day of all days in the year. And witch you may well say, Miss Eleanor : witch she would be if she could, for I have watched her. But it ain't biling things in a pipkin as makes a witch — no, my dear, Lord forbid ! If she has asked me for black spells once, she has asked me a dozen times, and I replied to her, ' Mrs. Gray, I don't use them ; I am old, and I think of my soul ! ' And she has said to me, ' But, you fool, you know them,' as heaven help me, I do. And I have set her off with white spells,* for bunions and king's evil. But now she is going for good and all, and how her pious grandson will like it, I can't say.

''As I was saying, my dear young lady, she comes to me, and she says, ' You half-hearted witch,' she says, ' he will have you all the same, if you won't give me a black spell. If you won't let me make acquaintance with your master, at all events give me a white one.' And I said I would do anything neighbourly, not against my conscience, only that I should want a new crown-piece. Then she told me what she wanted. She says, in her own words, ' I want a love-spell. That girl, Ethel Mordaunt, is in love with young Boland Evans, for I have watched them, and he don't care for her. And I want something to put in his wine, or his drink, to make him love her ; for there will be mischief afoot if he marries her before they have studied one another's character. They will fight for the mastery, and there will be your master to pay.' And I gave her some dill- water, and she put it in his drink."

Eleanor groaned. The secret she had found out that day was known to this terrible Mrs. Gray ; and how many others ?

" Therefore, my dear young lady, it is as well that she goes away. It is indeed."

" Is she going away ? "

" Her grandson has offered her a home in London, my dear young lady, and she goes to him, and a nice mess they will make of it together."

" Did you two come here to tell me of this to-day ? " asked Eleanor.

* All this is going on in the present day, and there are educated men who believe that Mr, Home was carried round the ceiling of the room. >

48 STRETTON.

*' Yes, my dear lady, partly. And partly to ask if I might have her cottage. There is no one but us two knows anything, and no one but I and yourself, and your dear mother, now in glory, and the Squire as knows a certain part of the truth ; and there is no one but my own self knows the whole and entire truth. She thinks she does, but she don't. The Lord help you, if she did."

" What do you mean by the whole truth, Mrs. Myrtle ? " said Eleanor.

" Parcelling all together," said Mrs. Myrtle. "Not parts and parcels, but the whole biling."

'' Well," said Aunt Eleanor, rubbing her nose, " I suppose you had better have the cottage rent-free. I need not mince matters with you. It is of great importance that my brother's first mar- riage should not be talked of "

That silly old trot, Phillis Myrtle, was down on her knees before her in an instant. '' She don't know of that, my lady. Oh ! for heaven's sake keep it from her for ever."

" Does she believe my brother a villain, then ? " said Eleanor, indignantly.

" Oh ! let her believe so, my lady. Oh ! for the sake of the mother that bore you, and the brother you love, let her believe so. Listen to me, a foob'sh old woman. Think of what her claims would be if she knew it ; and nobody knows that much but you and I — no one alive. Think, dear Miss Eleanor, what would be the effect of bringing it up now — how Squire Charles had made a shameful marriage in Scotland over the broomstick, but legal. Think of what Madam Evans would say when she found it had been kept from her. Think of the effect on the boys. Think of my darling Eoland, whom I nursed, how his head would be bowed ; and think of your poor little Eddy. Think of him, miss. Don't let that woman think there was a marriage. You have con- cealed before. Go on concealing : it is no new sin. Think of Eddy, miss."

" You plead well," said Aunt Eleanor. " I think you are an affectionate woman, though you must own yourself to be a great fool. Will that woman. Gray, speak, think you ? "

'' No, my lady ; she is too proud ; and she don't know all. I did not think as you knew as much as you did. I thought you thought as she thought. But I am the only one that knows all. Leave well alone, my lady."

" Leave ill alone, you mean. Well, I suppose I had better. You can have the cottage."

^' Well, aunt," said Mildred, coming in with her arm round Ethel's waist, " are the two wretches gone ? "

STEETTON. 49

** Don't talk to me for a time, you two. Kiss, play, fall in love, quarrel, do anything you like, but never give yourselves to a deceit. It will grow out of a little lie, like the thin clouds of summer, darkening and darkening, till it breaks, in ruin and confusion."

CHAPTER XI.

Stretton Castle lay on the north side of the valley, under Long- mynd ; Mordaunt Royal lay upon the south side, nearly facing it, with Caradoc at its back.

When the Evanses and the Mordaunts first came into that part of the country, and began quarrelling, is lost in the mist of antiquity. All down through the history of the county, however, you will find that the Evanses and the Mordaunts did nothing but squabble, and now and then intermarry, mainly for the purpose of patching up a worse quaiTel than usual. There was, however, such a furious hurly-burly about marriage settlements, dower lands, appanages, and so forth, that the remedy had been found to be worse than the disease, and had been tacitly abandoned. These disputes had been settled with lance in the tilting -ground, with rapier in the meadow, and with red tape in Chancery ; but at last the old jealousies and disputes had died out, and they were exceedingly good friends. The last case of enmity between the houses was when James Mordaunt so shamefully bullied Eddy Evans at Gloucester. Even that was past and gone now.

In the great civil war, the then Evans declared for Parliament — and, of course, the then Mordaunt for King. This was a very pretty quarrel indeed, and the great statesman tried to utilise it : not knowing, as the Mayna.rds and Merediths, or any Shropshire folks, could have told him, that the Evanses and Mordaunts only quarrelled between themselves, and that, in case of a Evans or a Mordaunt being assailed in any way by an outsider (even a May- nard or a Meredith), the other family would at once fly to the rescue, and defy creation. Consequently, during the Revolution, the Evans of those times did nothing more than watch his pestilent neighbour, Mordaunt ; and during the Restoration, Mordaunt did nothing more than go bail for his traitorous neigh- bour, Evans. Obligations in this way were mutual ; and what is more to the purpose, they both kept their lands under their leet,

5

50 STRETTON.

their heads on their shoulders, and what concerns us most, their houses over their heads.

So that now, as of old, Stretton stood a little up the hill — a long mass of dark grey, blazing with roses, with an oak wood behind it, and sheets of moorland rising behind ; while before it, the deer-park stooped down, like a cascade of green turf, into the valley, unaltered since the time of Henry. VII. For a similar reason, the dark red-brick, James the First house of Mordaunt, buried among its dense elms and oaks, on the other side of the valley, kept its form unaltered through all political changes.

Either house, or either estate, were possessions which, to poor folks, seem almost fabulous. Yet there are thousands as good, or much better, to be seen anywhere. One of my neighbours, a commoner, has 20,000/. a year ; another, just in sight, has 60,000Z. ; another, also a commoner, within four miles, has just died worth 5,000,000/. The figures, with regard to the Evans and the Mordaunt properties, drop terribly from these real, every- day sums. Mr. Mordaunt is reputed to have about 7,000/. a year, and Squire Charles Evans 8,000/. We have only to do with the last estate, and I only mention figures to show that it was a very desirable one for a moderate man. Though not by any means as good as the New York Herald, and but little better than Mr. Ward Beecher's church, it was worth fighting for.

There was a pleasant, orderly luxury about the place which was extremely agreeable, and was rather wonderful to contemplate, when one considered the beggarly income. It is perfectly certain that Charles Evans could never have done what he did with his limited means, but for one thing : he never went to London, except to lodgings, and Mrs. Evans did not dress.

But he did everything else. To begin with, he sat in Parlia- ment, for one thing, three elections, which somewhat took the gloss off his income ; and then he sat a fourth at a greater expense than before — an expense which made even him open his eyes, and brought in a furious remonstrance from Eleanor. He sat, I say, a fourth time, for three weeks, after which time he was unseated in a scandalous manner. There was no doubt at aU about it. Out- raged Britannia held up her hands in sheer horror ; and six thou- sand odd of good money gone to the bad for nothing ! After this, Charles Evans retired into private life, cursing his attorney, con- soling himself with the fact that "the other fellow" had spent more money than he had, and so let public afi'airs go to the deuce as they liked.

Consequently, although be kept the hounds at his ovm expense, his estate was not injured in any way. Hounds can be kept very

STRETTON. 51

well for 2,000/. a year ; and he kept them till he made the brilliant discovery that you could get as much sport out of them if you let some one else keep them, and only galloped after them yourself. So he gave up his hounds.

Then he bred race-horses, and, indeed, he won the Oaks, to Eleanor's intense exasperation, " Now we are done for," she said : " this is the finish and end of us at last." But she was deceived. Charles bred a colt, such a colt as was never seen, and he, a consummate horseman, taught one of his stable-boys to ride it, and he won the Two Thousand,''' and Eleanor gave the house up for lost ; but no. He came back to her the next day, very quietly, and told her that he had sold his horse, with its engagements, for 5000/., and had netted 14,000/. in bets. " You are not going on then," she said. " No," he answered ; " it is so slow."

Sailing-yachts eat nothing, and so his yachting cost him little. And now that his Parliamentary career was done with and finished, his sole dissipation was his yacht at Aberystwith. His was a most desirable property, perfectly unencumbered, all ready for Roland, who seemed to be worthy of it.

Most worthy. The good Doctor's estimate of his character was being confirmed day by day. The Dean had gone out of his way to write to Squire Evans about his two sons : they were both of them patterns (in spite of a slight tendency to boisterousness), but Roland was a paragon. The schools, and consequently the world, were at his feet — he might do anything — there was never anything like him. Old Mordaunt wrote to his father : '' Roly Evans has won the University skulls, and has made a blazes fine speech at the Union. I heard it. There ain't a man to hold a candle to him here. He is getting petted and flattered ; but I don't think they will spoil him."

Jim Mordaunt also wrote to his sister. I hardly know why, but I feel as if I was violating confidence in writing down what he wrote. It ran thus : —

" He has done a thing five hundred times greater than winning the University sculls — for my part I hate to see him rowing. The question before the house was the Eastern war, and the ultra- Radicals were against it ; and Roland got on his legs, on the Libeial side, and did so cast about his beautiful, furious words about national death and national dishonour, that he carried the house with him. You should have seen the way he raised his head and sent the well-thought-out syllogisms rattling through his white teeth : it was a sight ! Johnny says that his logic was all fishy in the major term, and that his whole argument was bosh ; * The Caractacus Derby is an exact parallel.

52 STEETTON.

but you know Johnny. As for me, I would sooner hear Roland's buncombe than any one else's common sense. So would you, my sister. They are all flattering him, but they will never spoil him. I got up a fight with him and his brother to-night. Pretending to cut Eddy's hair, while I was flourishing the scissors I got the enclosed off his head. He is in an awful wax with me, for he has missed his curl : he little dreams where it has gone. Mind you never, under any circumstances, let him see it ; he would never forgive me."

So after their successful two first terms they all came back, full of hope, health, and high spirits, to their two beautiful homes. I suspect that of all the men in the world, a young English country gentleman, of good name, of good repute, of tolerable intelligence, with good health, and of innocent life, has more chance of happi- ness than any other. Most human cares are impossible for him ; he has plenty to do, plenty to think about, and his work is all laid ready to his hand. I cannot conceive of any man of finer chances than a rich young squire — the world and its temptations seem put out of the way in his case ; yet he frequently makes a fearful fiasco of it too.

There was no blot on the prospects of the young Mordaunts or the young Evanses on the morning after their arrival home, any more than there was a cloud in the June sky, which stretched overhead a sheet of glorious, cloudless blue. All possibilities of any disturbing causes seemed absolute nonsense. The chances were so infinitely in their favour. Money was to be had for the picking up ; they had talents, prospects, health, high spirits ; the world was theirs, in a way, if they cared to go into it and succeed ; or if they failed, here were two homes of ancient peace ready for them to come back to. Misfortune, thanks to settled old order, seemed in their cases to have become impossible.

The Mordaunts had come over to breakfast with the Evanses, and Maynard was spending the first part of his vacation with them for the purpose of being with his beloved Mildred Evans. Aunt Eleanor had come from Pulverbatch to see her darling Eddy ; and so they were all assembled in the morning room at Stretton.

Aunt Eleanor was the first person who sauntered out through the open window into the bright, blazing sun. The boys stayed behind eating more, and yet more, of marmalade and honey, and the others sat because they were contented, until at last Eddy cried out, '' There is Aunt Eleanor having a row with Deacon Macdingaway ; " and, indeed. Aunt Eleanor's usual expletive ** Fiddle-de-dee," was plainly borne to the ears of the assembled company.

STEETTON. 53

" Let's go and hear the fun, you fellows,'* said the younger Mordaunt — a proposition which, as it stood, was innocent enough, but might have been carried out with less boisterousness. They need not all of them have rushed to the window at once. Like- wise, there was no necessity of a free fight between Eddy Evans and young Mordaunt, which ended in Eddy being cast on his back in the middle of a bed of geraniums, with young Mordaunt atop of him. However, they soon were beside Aunt Eleanor, deter- mined to back her through thick and thin against Deacon Mac- dingaway. With which heed the younger Mordaunt, on arriving at the scene of action, by way of taking up a formidable position, said to Macdingaway, ** She did nothing of the kind."

Macdingaway was the head Scotch gardener, who, in an evil moment for him, had confessed to one of these madcaps that he had held an office in his church, after which they had christened him *' Deacon." He turned on young Mordaunt, and said, " Her ladyship threepit "

" That I emphatically deny," struck in Eddy, who had got his breath.

" Her ladyship threepit that the roses should no have been budded till the first week in July," said the inexorable Macdinga- way ; " and I took the liberty to disagree with her."

*' That alters the case altogether, of course," said Eddy. ** You are quite right. Deacon. Aunt, you have not got a leg to stand on, you know. You had better leave him alone : he has much the best of the argument. Here are the others : let us come to them."

As they went away from him, old Macdingaway shook his clever old head. ** A' folly together," he said. " If your father had na lived before ye, where would ye be ? "

All the others were now standing on the terrace. Squire Charles Evans, a handsome man of fifty, in a short velvet coat, perfectly cut trousers and well-made lace-up boots ; very grey, with slight grey whiskers and moustache. Squire Mordaunt, a full-necked, brown-faced thickset man, without a hair on his face, in grey breeches and gaiters, with a grey shooting coat. He vv'as a very bucolic -looking man, this Squire Mordaunt, but he had a shrewd deep -set eye under his heavy eyebrows too. He stood looking at the group as they approached, with his head thrust forward, and his hands holding a whip (for he had ridden over) behind his back, and he was the first who spoke.

" What new trouble has my friend Miss Evans been getting into ? " he asked, in a rather grating voice. " She seems to be borne back in triumph from some new victory by these four foolish boys."

64 STRETTON.

** Nothing but a dispute with my dear friend and admirer, Mae- dingaway, George Mordaunt," she re^Dlied, with her head in the air ; " nothing worse than that this time."

"I am gkd of that," said Squire Mordaunt. ''Edward, you can come out of your aunt's pocket. My dear Miss Evans, once more, will you let me have that right of way through your two orchards for watering my horses at Gweline Farm ? "

"No, I won't," said Aunt Eleanor, with a dangerous look in her face. Stroking Edward's bare curls, who, although he was not in her pocket, was certainly leaning idly against her. " No, won t.

" But why not, my dear Miss Evans ? " said Squire Mordaunt. " Because ijou ask me, and because you ask me with that look in your face. I would sooner let every gipsy on the country-side camp there than let one of your dogs through, if you look at me like that, and ask me like that, now then ! What do you think of that, for instance ? "

-The other boys had heard nothing of this ; but Mrs. Evans, who was en jfctssMit a pretty woman, and Mrs. Mordaunt, who was not pretty, but clever, interposed.

''Surely," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "I shall have to quote Dame

Quickly on you two some day. You cannot serve heaven well,

that you never come together without quarrelling. Do be quiet."

" A wilful woman must have her way," said Squire Mordaunt.

" And indeed she must," said Aunt Eleanor ; " you never said

a truer word than that. I am going after the boys."

Young Maynard and Mildred Evans had marched off, and were courting somewhere or another ; there remained only the four boys and Ethel Mordaunt, who were standing together, and aj)parently all talking at once. The Mordaunts, with the exception of Mrs. Mordaunt had ridden over, and so Ethel Mordaunt was in her ridnig- liabit, though bare-headed. Aunt Eleanor, as she approached them, heard that the four boys were discussing what they would do with themselves on this happy summer's day, and saw that Ethel was listening to them : she, also in her riding-habit, and bare-headed, stooped, and pretended to weed one of Macdingaway's well-weeded flower-beds.

" I vote," said young Eddy, " that we ride into Shrewsbuiy, have ices, and see the boats go. And we might buy a piece of salmon, and Jimmy Mordaunt might bring it home in his pocket." " I wouldn't be a fool if I was in jour place," said the younger Mordaunt. "You have had plenty of opportunities of eating yourself blind at the University ; and I am sure we have had boating enough."

STEETTON. 65

'' Let us go fishing," said the elder Mordaunt. ** What do you say, Roland ? "

'' It is too bright for fishing, Johnny," said Roland ; "I'll tell you what I should be inclined to propose. Let us take Rory, our old Irish pointer, and ride away over the Longmynd and see what grouse there are. What do you think, Ethel? "

" I think that would be very pleasant," said Ethel.

"It is certainly an improvement on Eddy's proposal of eating ices in Shrewsbury, and also an improvement on Johnny's equally idiotic idea of going fishing. I am for it," said Young Mordaunt.

" Do you think, Johnny," said Ethel to her elder brother — " do you think that / might come ? "

" No,'' shouted young Mordaunt ; "we don't want a parcel of girls with us."

Young Mordaunt had said this in sheer recklessness, expecting that his sister, as her wont was, would have given it to him. He was rather astonished, and very much ashamed, when his imperial sister turned gently to him and said :

" I won't be much in your way, Jimmy. I can ride as far and as fast as any of you. And you too have been a weary while away ; let me see something of you now. Let me come, Jimmy."

"I believe," said young Mordaunt, impetuously, "that I am the greatest brute on earth ; of course you are to come. I shouldn't go if you didn't. Come on, you fellows, and let us get the horses." And away they all went towards the stables.

And Ethel following, passed Aunt Eleanor, pretending to weed a flower-bed, and Aunt Eleanor said :

" So you are bent on going with him then ? "

And Ethel said, " I can't help it. One long summer's day beside him is not much to ask out of eternity."

Aunt Eleanor said, " You are binding a burden for your back which you will find hard to carry before you have done with it. / know, and your father knows too : though he might have kept his tongue between his teeth this blessed day. Are you bent on going?"

" Oh yes. Miss Evans. Let me go ! "

"I am not stopping you. Which way are you going to ride ? "

" Over Longmynd, to look at the grouse."

"And so on to Maynard Barton to lunch," rejoined Aunt Eleanor. " Go by all means."

" They said nothing of Maynard Barton," said Ethel. " We shall hardly get so far."

" You foolish child," said Aunt Eleanor. " AVhy, if you had set out this day to ride over Caradoc or Lawley, if you had set

56 STRETTON.

out to ride to the top of the Wrekin, your destination would have been the same. Roland can make these boys go where he chooses, and sometime in the day you would have found your- selves by some excuse at Maynard Barton, and would have found Roland talking to Mary Maynard. Will you go now, you fool ? "

" Yes ! yes ! It is twelve miles to Maynard Barton, and twelve miles is something. It would have been something to you once, Miss Evans."

^' Heaven knows it would ! " said Aunt Eleanor. *' Well, my dear, when it is all over, and you want to eat your own heart in peace and quietness, come to the old woman at Pulverbatch, and begin a new life with her. You won't die over it, you know — you have too much chest, and are too active in your habits ; but if you think you are going to get out of this without deep pain and misery, you are mistaken. See, they are calling for you. Run, my dear — and put the knife in delicately under your fifth rib."

She did not hear the last sentence ; but running up to the door, found her mother with her hat ready for her, and immediately afterwards, having received a tremendous kiss of reconciliation fiom her brother Jim, was pitched on her horse by him, and they all went away through the lanes towards the mountain.

The horses were of course good, and they all rode well (according to the English standard — a ridiculously low one com- pared to South America). They could, however, ride better than French people, and their horses were well trained and quiet : so they enjoyed themselves.

They were soon through the lanes, and out on the heather. Roland Evans and John Mordaunt rode in front, and the old pointer was sent out before them. Behind them rode abreast Eddy, Jim Mordaunt, and his sister Ethel, who were more than once cautioned by the two elders in front about making so much noise ; for Eddy and Jim were furious and fantastic in their horse-play, and Ethel laughed loud and long at them. ^' They seem jolly behind there, those three," said John Mordaunt.

a Very jolly. Keep quiet there : we shall have the birds up," said Roland.

" Quiet there, Ethel," said the elder Mordaunt, calling back to them.

The old dog had pointed five times on the slope of the Long- mynd, and had been whistled away. " There are at least four packs here," said Roland.

** And we are not half over the south side," said stolid old John Mordaunt. " We shall spot at least four or five packs more on this south side : send the dog on."

STKETTON. 67

"I should like to try the north side," said Roland. ''Have you any objection ? "

** Not in the least," said the elder Mordaunt. " You mean towards Maynard Barton ? I have not the slightest objection to going there or anywhere, so long as one understands where one is going. Northward ho ! you three jawers. We are going to beat among the bilberry slopes towards Maynard Barton. Ethel, you mind the blind ruts. We will lunch with old Mother Maynard, d'ye hear?"

" Are you going to Maynard Barton to lunch ? " asked Roland.

*'We had better, I think," said the elder Mordaunt. ''We shall Imow how things stand."

" I don't understand you," said Roland.

" I don't think you do," said John Mordaunt.

" Twelve miles out of all eternity," she said, and here was her reward. Not one single word from him during the whole ride ; nothing but the tomfooleries of her brother and Eddy Evans. And at last, when they found themselves dismounting in front of the low, dark-red fa9ade of nearly the oldest and perhaps the most prosperous of Shropshire houses, only this for twelve miles' ride. Mary Maynard, wonderful pretty, and silly almost to idiocy ; and Roland bending over this doll, this fool, with his really fine genius flashing from his eyes.

Old Mrs. Maynard was the very mother you would have selected out of a dozen, as the mother of the strong, good-humoured, good-looking giant who was at that moment daundering about with Mildred Evans at Stretton. If you had to compare her to a flower it would be to a cabbage-rose, extremely beautiful, but rather stout — a rose which budded well, but which opened coarsely. Compare her to a bird, she was a pouter pigeon, fuU-breasted, fussy, afiectionate, and never for one instant silent. She was a widow, and intensely interested in love-making, as she was also in eating and drinking. She was in her flower- garden when our party appeared, and having given one glance at them, went swiftly indoors, and gave tremendous orders for lunch.

The elder Mordaunt, who had by far the oldest head on his shoulders of all our party, in spite of his blockish look, noticed that this good dame, whom he knew very well indeed, was a little distraught and not quite herself. He had reason to think that he might as well watch matters this day ; and he watched her.

Mary Maynard was out in the porch to receive them, and when they had dismounted, and were all standing about on the terrace, talking to one another, Mrs. Maynard rejoined them. Roland had gone at once to Mary Maynard, and they two were apart, laughing

58 STRETTON.

together ; and John Mordaunt, watching keenly, noticed that Mrs. Maynard on her arrival darted a sudden, quick, impatient, and yet puzzled look at Eoland and Mary, but the next moment was all smiles. He wondered deeply, did this young man. ''Hang it ! " he said to himself ; " the old girl ought to be satisfied with that.''

"Now, this is good of you," began Mrs. Maynard. "The very first day too : to come over all this way to see me. I need not ask where Robert is ; I am sure he is where I wish him to be. Tell Mildred to send him over as soon as she can ; a mother must wait under such circumstances — must she not, John Mor- daunt ? Roland, you have never paid your compliments to me. Come here and pay them — are these your university manners ? Mary, go in and see that they are getting lunch. Roland, I was saying " (she was not), " that it was so good of you to come over and bring Ethel with you the very first day."

" My brothers gave me leave to come," said Ethel, quietly. " To be sure, to be sure," said Mrs. Maynard. " So kind of your brothers to bring you over the very first day. Well, well, come in, and we will see what there is to eat. Roland, give Ethel your arm."

" Thank you, I am not lame," said Ethel. "Well, well! Lame! no indeed! Lame, she says; that is good ; conceive a Mordaunt lame — no, no ! Or an Evans either, for that matter. Come into the drawing-room — it is rather dark coming out of the sun. I keep the sun out of the room to spare the carpet ; for Robert will be bringing your sister here some day, Roland, and I must quit. Take care of the footstools, Ethel. Roland, she will break her neck ; guide her."

" I can see as well as Roland," said Ethel ; and they all sat down in the darkened drawing-room.

If it was difficult to keep Eddy Evans and Jim Mordaunt quiet in the class or lecture, it was hopelessly impossible to keep them quiet, without legal supervision, after a twelve miles' ride, when they were both petulantly expective of their victuals. They fell out instantaneously, and cast away the scabbard ; and Ethel sat and laughed at them.

Eddy deliberated where he should sit down, and while he remained standing Jim Mordaunt remained standing also, with his eyes fixed upon him ; of which fact Eddy was not unconscious. At last he said, looking at a sofa, "1 shall sit here." Where- upon James Mordaunt bore do\vn swiftly on that same sofa, saying, "I am going to sit there." A tremendous single combat ensued, during which James Mordaunt, who was as strong as a

STRETTON. 59

bull, managed to take away Eddy Evans' watch, chain, and money, and transfer them to his own pocket. After which he sat quietly do^vn in a chair by his sister, and called her attention to the pictures.

Eddy was beginning his plaint. " I have been robbed in your house by a ruffian, Mrs. Maynard, while my brother sat and looked on," when he stopped, and every one started, Mrs. Maynard included ; for a quiet voice out of a dark corner said —

" The boy, Mordaunt minor, will restore the property to Evans minor, and will write out the first book of Euclid." Whereupon the elder Mordaunt said to himself, " So that's her game : well, I have no objection, lam sure." And Mrs. Maynard said, some- what querulously in spite of herself, " My dear Sir Jasper Meredith, how you frightened me ! I thought you were gone."

" Gone, when I was ordered off? Why, no," said Sir Jasper Meredith. " I wanted to stay and see my friends. I shan't go without my lunch now. Roland or Johnny Mordaunt, or any of you but Jimmy and Eddy, give my poor bones a hoist into the dining-room, for there is the butler announcing the vivers."

There was a general outcry of recognition, for he was a great favourite ; and the bull-headed elder Mordaunt took him on one arm, and carrying his crutches in the other, carried him into the dining-room, and set him down between himself and his sister ; James and Eddy skirmished in, Eddy, half begging, half fighting for the recovery of his property, and the rear was brought up by Roland and Mary, who sat side by side.

Not a soul spoke to Mrs. Maynard except in the way of polite- ness : matters were gone out of hei' hands, for good or for evil. Such of the company as glanced towards Roland and Mary might see that he was bending his face towards hers, and talking so low that no one could catch what he said, and that she was answering him by very few sentences, each of which was accompanied by a bland, vacant giggle. Eddy and James Mordaunt misconducted themselves as usual, James saying that Eddy was over-eating himself, and Eddy saying that James was drinking too much wine. The spectacle of these two fresh, innocent lads, with their babyish horse-play of taking the food off one another's plates, might have been amusing at another time, but was passed without notice now. There were several anxious hearts at that table, and possibly the widow Maynard 's was the most anxious of all ; though, indeed. Ox Mordaunt, looking across Sir Jasper Meredith to his beautiful sister, was in his way anxious too. For Ethel, there was no anxiety shown in hei- face. When her bright clear eye was not looking down in pity and admiration on Sir Jasper

60 STRETTON.

Meredith, it was raised to her brother's honest broad head, and he could look back to her — well, as she asked her brother to look at her.

And with one of these glances of affection from brother to sister, across that unconscious cripple. Sir Jasper Meredith's head, there went this unspoken sentiment. " He can't be such a fool." Apparently, however, he was ; for Mary Ma}Tiard and Roland were whispering and giggling down at the lower end of the table, and Dame Maynard's brow grew darker and darker.

The only reasonable conversation at that table was that between John and Ethel Mordaunt, and Sir Jasper Meredith ; the little baronet, lying, a heap of deformed bones, at the bottom of his chair, just able to feed himself, and no more, with the ox-like Mordaunt on one side, and the beautiful Ethel on the other ; he considered himself in good company, and said so.

" There seems to be a strength comes into my bones when I sit between you two," he said. " I wish you hadn't got any money, you two."

''Why so?" said Ethel.

*' Because then I could give you my money to sit alongside of me and talk to me, as you are doing now."

''But we will do that without your money," said Mordaunt, '* and our conversation is not worth much."

" You are not clever, you two ; but then you are so good. I should like my Roland to be with me too, for he is handsome, and you are not handsome, you know. At least you are hand- some, Miss Mordaunt, are you not? "

" Don't you think so ? " said Ethel.

" / don't know, bless you," said Sir Jasper, " I am too blind to see you. I can see Roland's beauty when he is bareheaded by the shape of his head, and I cannot see your head for your hair."

" You are not so blind as you pretend to be," said John Mordaunt.

" Indeed I am. I can see nothing in quiescence ; I can see things in motion well enough, and I am getting stronger in my sight. I like to see Roland row, though I abuse him for doing so."

" I think you are quite right," said old Mordaunt; "I back you up there. But this blindness of yours, there is a little affec- tation about it, is there not ? "

"Well, perhaps a little," said Sir Jasper, laughing. "There are none so deaf as those who won't hear, and none so blind as those who won't see. And I won't see the girl who is giggling down there, charm her mother never so wisely."

STRETTON. 61

** What ! it is as I thought, then ? " said John Mordaunt.

** I don't know what you thought," said the httle cripple. " I only know that the estates come entirely into Eobert Maynard's hands on his coming of age, and that the widow Maynard, his mother, has only a fortune of lOOOL a-year, and that she and her son do not hit it off very well. I know, moreover, Miss Mordaunt, that Mrs. Maynard is so fond of good living and of a good establishment that she would sell her daughter to an articu- late skeleton like myself to secure it ; do you see ? ' '

"I see perfectly," said Ethel, in the coolest way in the world. ** But surely the Evans' connection, which seems to be progressing so favourably there, will suit all parties."

" It will suit all parties but one. Of course it is evident that Roland is desperately smitten with Mary Maynard ; and it is equally obvious (although you may be disinclined to believe it) that she has sufficient mind of her own to prefer Beauty to the Beast. The only perfeon that the Roland-Mary connection would not suit would be the old woman."

'' He is a precious good catch for her," said John Mordaunt.

*' Yes, but he is not such a good catch as nie," said Sir Jasper. " Roland ! — I have hardly patience at his impudence in daring to compete with me in a matter like this ! — Roland has no qualifi- cations comparable to mine. His father will live thirty years longer ; mine is dead. In case of Mary's marrying Roland, which seems, after to-day, certain, Mrs. Maynard will only have an elder son's house to retire to ; in case of Mary's marrying me, she would have a house of 14,000 acres to retire to, and no one to stand in the way of her management but her own daughter, who is as clay in her hand, and a miserable cripple like myself, who cannot get up-stairs without his valet."

" Mary Maynard must have a will of her own," said Ethel, '' or she would scarcely go on with Roland as she is doing, without her mother's consent."

^' She is only allowed to do so to-day," said Sir Jasper, " because I, steadily declining to come to book, Roland is kept as second string to the old woman's bow. That old woman would sell her daughter to the Cham of Tartary, and the girl would never wince at the bargain. Look at her with Roland now."

** She seems quite devoted to him indeed, and he to her. How pretty her ways are ! "

"Very pretty indeed," said Sir Jasper. "You mean her pretty little way of turning her head up into his face when he speaks to her ? "

62 STRETTON.

Ethel said, ''Yes."

" Ah, it is very pretty. I engaged a new groom the other day, and he was brought in to see his new master, and I saw the look on that young man's face when he first set eyes on this ruined heap of humanity, which his fellow-creatures call Sir Jasper Meredith. I saw repugnance in his honest, uneducated eyes, a repugnance which I have removed since. Yet, Miss Mordaunt, that pretty girl, now using her pretty ways to Roland, has been all this morning using them to the very same heap of disordered bones which is sitting beside you, and which shocked a coarse groom I "

"You don't shock us. We love you. And, therefore, why need you have shocked her? " said Ethel. And the elder Mor- daunt said, " Right, Ethol ! Well said ! "

Said Sir Jasper, airily, *' There is not much to shock in her. However, you two hear me to the end. The old woman will have Roland if she can't get me, and she is not going to get me. And now, mark me : I will die in the workhouse (which, with my wealth, is improbable ; or in the hospital, which is extremely probable, in case of my attempting the crossings at Hyde Park Corner, or at Farringdon Street, indeed I have made myself a life-governor of both institutions, with a view to such a contin- gency), but I will never let Roland's life — a life of such unexampled promise — be ruined by marrying that girl."

Could he hear Ethel's heart ? Professor T tells us that

a slight nervous twitch in one of his legs was enough to puzzle a party of spiritualists. If the good professor's legs are subject to such terrible nervous manifestations as Ethel Mordaunt's heart, we should be inclined to ask him, as a man we cannot do without, to give up his Alpine excursions. Her heart thumped, and beat, and throbbed in a way to puzzle any number of spiritualists ; but the heap of bones lying in the chair beside her never heard it, and her face never betrayed it.

She said, vei-y quietly, *' Get me some of those cherries, Johnny ; not the May-Dukes, but the Morellas ; I like sour cherries. My dear Sir Jasper, if you would kindly take the trouble, at some leisure moment, to put it to yourself what extreme nonsense you have been talking, I think that your death-bed, whether it be St. George's or Guy's, will be all the easier."

*' As how, then, Beatrice? " said Sir Jasper; ** give me some of your cherries, or tell him to get me some more. No ; I want yours ; your brother has picked out the best for you, and I want them. Hand them over."

STEETTON. 63

*' I will give them to you ; but it is not very polite of you to want them," said Ethel.

" I am not going to be polite," said Sir Jasper. "Disabuse your mind of the idea. I want your cherries. What were you going to ask me ? "

'' I was going to point out to you the nonsense you have been talking. You say that you will prevent this match from taking place, which is utterly foolish and wrong ; and as a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what business it is of yours, and what means you are going to employ ? "

'^ My reasons against the match are that I don't choose it to take place ; and my means are — well, they are so numerous that I could not even give a catalogue raisonnee of them. But I won't have Roland's life destroyed by marrying that chit of a girl."

" How are you to stop it ? " said John Mordaunt. "It is gone too far for you, I doub't. Look at them now."

" Well, it is a strong flirtation," said Sir Jasper ; " but I won't have it. At times I have thought of marrying the old woman myself (she would have me fast enough), and keeping the girl as an old maid for her to bully. At another time I have thought of opening Roland's eyes ; but then he is decidedly in love with her, and would resent anything I said of her. At another time I have thought that if he had not been an idiot he would have fallen in love with — with some one else. However, that is all over : there they go. Look at them. Confound — but it shan't be for all that."

" Looks as if it was all over," said bull-headed old Mordaunt ; "does it not, Ethel?"

"It seems so," she said, quietly and naturally. "They have got their heads close together there in the garden, haven't they ? Let us get up and go."

How much do cripples, and blind people, and deaf and dumb people, and people who are cut off from the ordinary means of human intercourse see or feel more than we do — who can say ? Sir Jasper Meredith, lying there in his ruin, had some dim idea that there was something in the nature of a cloud, and the only way which he knew of dispersing a cloud was by the old Shrews- bury trick of nonsense.

There might have been a little cloud in her eyes ; there might have been a slight tendency to expanding her bust, and casting her head back like a snake about to strike, which, according to Mrs. Gray, was a specialite of the Mordaunts. Sir Jasper Mere- dith could not say why, but he felt it necessary, and more than

64 STEETTON.

that, imperatively necessary, that some one should talk nonsense to her. " She looks a deal too old for her age," he said to him- self. '* She does not like that arrangement. Let me make her laugh. It is impossible that she can care for Koland, and yet she is angry at this."

Ethel had risen, with her beautiful square head on one side, and her riding-habit gathered under her left arm, and had said, *'It is time we went home." When Sir Jasper said, "My dear Miss Mordaunt, will you sit down again, for I wish to speak on a matter of business, and your brother being present, no time can be so good as this? "

Ethel sat down at once, and her brother ate cakes.

*'I wanted to ask you. Miss Mordaunt," said Sir Jasper, " whether you would like to marry me, and become Lady Mere- dith?"

Ethel looked at him for one moment, but took time at her answer. She was puzzled for an instant, but she saw that he meant to please and amuse her, and she met him.

*' You might do worse," she said, bending her beautiful face towards the heap of bones, " and again you might do better ; you might many Mrs. Maynard, or her daughter. Give me your qualifications."

" Twenty thousand a year," said Sir Jasper.

*' Nineteen thousand five hundred too much," said Ethel. " I shall marry a parish doctor, learn nursing, and got something to do. At any rate, I will not have a word to say to you. And besides, sir, you are false and faithless, for you love another. No, sir."

Merely a wild random shot of nonsense, kindly meant ; but she saw that her arrow had hit, and had gone deep. No one saw the slight spasm which passed over Sir Jasper's face as she said these words, and she held her tongue honourably.

'* Mrs. Maynard," she said aloud, ** Sir Jasper Meredith has just made me a proposal of marriage, which I have refused in the most peremptory manner. I really think that after such a dreadful ordeal as this, I ought to go to my mother — you always do go to your mother in a case of this kind, do you not ? Assist me with your experience."

The experience of Mrs. Maynard was so difi'erent from that of this frank, bold, honest girl, that she really had nothing to say. As for her having sufiicient humour to see that the whole thing was a joke between two people who had been children together, and were mere brother and sister, that was not in her. She did not doubt that the thing had taken place, and

STEETTON. 65

that she saw before her a girl who had refused a man with twenty thousand a year, and coal under his property, and he a cripple, which was such an immense advantage. She was simply dum- foundod. She rang the bell, and ordered round the horses, and Sir Jasper took occasion to order his pony-carriage.

It was very awkward. No one spoke for a long time, until Sir Jasper, in a wicked croak, said, ** Think twice over your decision. Miss Mordaunt. You will never get such another offer in your life. Just think an instant. Twenty thousand a year and a cripple ! Think of that, a helpless cripple ! Why, bless you, Miss Mordaunt, you are entirely unable to see the wonderful advantages which you are refusing. You have only to take away my crutch, and you are absolui^e mistress. You could cut up my deer-park for the coal that is underneath it, and double your income, while I lay powerless on the sofa."

"It is of no use," said Ethel ; and they all crowded out.

Young Evans and young Mordaunt could not, of course, mount without riot and confusion ; but at last they were all fairly under way. Ethel had been put on her horse by her elder brother, and had ridden forward with young Evans and young Mordaunt — ostensibly to pacify their great quarrel, m reality to aggravate it ; for in her heart she loved nonsense and fun, as did Aunt Eleanor. James Mordaunt entirely refused to give up Edward Evans' watch and chain, although he had restoi'ed his money. On being appealed to by his sister to give up the watch, he replied that there were certain cases in which the ordinary laws of social morality were held in abeyance, and that this was one. He had thought the matter through, and had concluded to retain the watch, more particularly as it was a better one than his own.

Old Mordaunt said to Roland Evans, " Well, old boy, I con- gratulate you."

" On what grounds, Johanne mi ? " said Roland.

** On your engagement with Miss Maynard," said the ox.

*' Are you mad ? " asked Roland.

" Are you ? " said old Mordaunt. " You can't be a humbug ; but you may be an ass. Are you not engaged to her ? "

" Certainly not," said Roland. '' What could have put that into your head ? "

"What put it into your head to keep it so close to hers, old fellow? " said old Mordaunt.

" I was only talking about her brother, who is to be married to my sister. There is nothing between us. The girl is a fool. Why, your sister Ethel is worth fifty of her."

" So I think myself," said old Mordaunt.

6

06 STRETTON.

" But I don't want to be engaged to any one. 1 shall never marry, bless you."

"Then I would let that be understood," said old Mordaunt. '' The girls say you are good-looking. I don't see it myself, but they say so. And if you keep your head so close to Maiy Maynard's as you did to-day, you ought to mean something."

"You are a perfect fool, Johnny," said Roland. "To prove what a perfect fool you are, I will go and do the same thing with your own sister. I suppose that I am not suspected there ? Perhaps you would like to get up a scandal between Eddy and Aunt Eleanor. I leave you to your thoughts."

He went forward and detached Ethel from the squabbling lads. He rode beside her all the way home, and he led her away from the others. He called the old pointer to him, and on the north side of Longmynd he took her down a little glen, alone. The old dog stood, and Roland, laying his hand on Ethel's, guided her horse gently in front of tlie dog, until he showed her the old grouse, swelled out with indignation, in the heather, and the chicks running after her, " peet ! peet ! peet ! " "Is it not a pretty sight?" he said, with his hand still on hers, looking into her face.

It was a very pretty sight indeed, that beautifully imperial head, with the large speculative eyes. He did not mean that. He was speaking of the grouse -poults.

"It is a very pretty sight," she said. "We had better go home now we have seen it."

"I am sure that it was a pretty sight," said Roland, " for the beauty of it is reflected on your face. Good gracious ! don't tell your brother that I said that, or he will be wanting to make out that I am in love with you next. He has accused me of being engaged to Mary Maynard this blessed day. After that he is capable of saying anything."

" Then there is no truth about this between you and Mary Maynard?"

"No more than there is between you and me," said Roland. " Why, she is practically my sister."

Ethel might have wished it otherwise, but she was quite con- tented on the whole. So on the long summer afternoon she rode beside the man she loved, her loveless lover, through the heather — idle, foolish, aimless.

Come elsewhere with me, if you please. We have had nearly enough of these silly, ornamental people for the present. Let us see how another life or two, with the most important bearing on these summer butterflies, are wearing on. Keep, please, in your

STRETTON. 67

mind, the picture of beautiful Ethel, and the beautiful Roland ; she loving him beyond everything created ; he not loving her better than his pretty brother Eddy, or young Jim Mordaunt. Leave those two sitting on their horses, whose knees were bathed in the summer heather, and come away with me elsewhere — into the squalor of London.

CHAPTER XII.

This life of the rich English country gentleman would seem wonderfully beautiful. In a well-set, well-ordered, well-trained house of this kind, you get almost all the things which are supposed by ordinary people to make life valuable. To begin with, you get rules of life and conduct, in which you believe, and which are easy to follow : the following of which (such as going to church in the morning and being as respectable as another generally) gives you the prestige of being a respectable person. Next you get an entourage of accumulated beauty and accumulated tradition. No one ever knows of the accumulated art-treasures in any old country. house, until a sleepy and tangle-headed house- maid bums it doAvn. There you have enough to eat and drink ; all of the best. There you have air, light, exercise. The beauty of horses, the beauty of dogs, the beauty of your grass-lands in spring and of your corn-lands in summer. The beauty of your budding oaks in May, when the soft note of the wood-pigeon tones down the slightly vulgar and too vivid green, and the beauty of intertwining beech-twigs in winter, when the woodcock rises like some swift, dim, noiseless ghost, and you have to concentrate your whole intellect — all that is in you — into that second when you press your trigger, and the pretty innocent bird lies dead, with out- stretched wings, on the dead leaves before you.

Then, again, there was a greater beauty and a greater charm than any of these things in a highly-toned English country- gentleman's house. I mean the relations with servants ; the relations between master and man, between mistress and maid. One would be inclined to think that no relations could be much more pleasant than those between a good master and a good servant. These things, like much else, have passed away ; one only alludes to this relation in saying that the lives of such lads as the Evanses and the Mordaunts are more to be envied, in many ways, than those of any lads in Europe.

68 STRETTON.

Now we will leave these Evanses and Mordaunts, and go to Camden Town.

That great outcome of one side of British genius is one of the first things which an intelligent foreigner should be taken to see. As an example of the national genius displayed in architecture, I conceive that it is unequalled in Europe, and also in America ; and in this opinion I am confirmed, after consultation, by in- telligent travellers, who go with me in saying that it is absolutely unique. There is a depth of vulgarity about it with which the Nevskoi Prospect and the Hausmann Boulevards compete but feebly. The Kussian and the Frenchman have each made an efibrt at soulless, characterless vulgarity, but they have failed because they have brought in tlie element of size or bigness, the only thing which saves Niagara from being one of the ugliest cascades in the world. Now, in Camden Town we have sur- passed ourselves. We have had the daring greatness to be little, mean, and low. We have banished all possibility of a man's expressing his character in the shape of his house : that is nothing — have not mere French prefects done the same? But we have done more. Over hundreds of acres we have adopted a style of house-building which is, I believe, actually unique in the history of the world, The will and genius of a nation often — nay, generally — expresses itself in architecture. Nineveh, Paris, San Francisco, St. Petersburg, Pitt Street, Sydney, the Pyramids, are all cases in point. With regard to Axum, of the Ethiopians, and Caracorum, of the Tartars, one has little reliable information, but I have no doubt that they would bear this out, and assist one in rendering the theory arguable, that the genius of a nation generally expresses itself in its houses.

It would be unwise to commit one's-self. With Chatsv/orth and Buckingham Palace before us, it could not be asserted that the very curious taste for gregarious vulgarity of opinion among the least vulgar, and really the most independent people in the world, has culminated at Camden Town. It is possible to say that, if Arminius were to see Camden Town he would remark, '' Here is the genius of the English nation in bricks and mortar. Stone don't pay. You can't get at best more than four per cent, out of fair Ashlar, and you ought never to build under seven."

Yet there are about one million people, of good education, who live in these Philistine ghettos in London, and never grumble. Is there any reader who does not know some family living in one of these artistically abominable tei races — some family shut up, with not too much money, in a hideous brick box — a family which, in spite of its inartistic surroundings, exhibits every form of gentle-

STKETTON. 69

ness and goodness ? Any reader who docs not know such a family is exceptionally unfortunate.

Some, whose souls are elsewhere, never think of its being in- artistic and squalid. Others, the people who habitually eat their hearts, beat against such a prison like caged tigers. Until his grandmother came to him, young Gray never thought of finding fault with the decent, quiet little home he had prepared for her. When she came, he wished she had never come, for he saw at once that she disliked him, and only Imew afresh that he disliked her ; and now that she had come, she took good care to prove to him, not only that she disliked him, but that she hated Camden Town ; and what was still more unfortunate, utterly hated his ways and his works. A glance at him would not be amiss.

I have heard this gentlest, tenderest, and least cruel of men compared to a bloodhound in face, because of a certain solemn and majestic carriage of the head, and a lofty, uplooking, speculative habit of the eyes, whieh the bloodhound has among dogs, above all other dogs. In mind. Gray certainly resembled the blood- hounds : in this, at least, being nearly the gentlest and kindest of created beings ; here the fancied resemblance ceases. The blood- hound is the stupidest of dogs. Allan Gray had a very noble intellect.

I have described that wild, fierce boy (for he was little else), James Mordaunt, as carrying his head well ; Allan Gray carried his as high as ever did James Mordaunt. They both carried them like men ready to strike ; and when you consider that, from the utter dissimilarity of their education, their utter divergence in every possible line of thought, these two youths might have had to strike one another, one would have prayed that they should be kept asunder. They were strangely brought together.

In stature, he was singularly tall and well made, though very slight. Even at his present age of thirty, he looked like forty — like a made man. In manner he was extremely precise ; silent and courteous ; in dress excessively neat.

Seeking about, scarcely guided at all, for a rule of life, he had found a certain very eminent clergyman among the Dissenters who had given him one which suited him so well, that he never departed from it. An entire faith in the verbal inspiration of the Bible ; a resolute habit of self-examination and prayer ; and an intense desire to do his whole duty towards every one in this world : these were his rules of life, and he followed them well, while Aunt Eleanor disliked him, and called him prig. Though, while she laughed, she said that the world would get on no worse for a few more of the same stamp.

70 BTKETTON.

His temper was naturally very quick indeed, but lie soon dis- covered this and tamed it — you will never see it exhibited. The good and noble man who had done so much for him had an intense dislike of art in all forms, and his teaching in this respect had fallen on congenial soil in the case of Allan Gray. Wha,t with being naturally short-sighted, and what with having a very intense and practical mind, he was absolutely unable to understand the very word. Keligiously, objects of art were strictly forbidden by the second commandment ; practically, they were a dead and totally unprofitable loss of money, which might be given to all kinds of good works. He admired his little home in Camden Town as being neat and respectable, and as representing a great deal of sheer hard work and of trust from his employers. In the jewellery which passed under his hands he had taste — but not of his own. As we know, some boys, too stupid to learn their Euclid, actually learn it by heart, and pass examination in that singular way ; so Allan Gray had actually learnt by rote what was in good taste and in bad, and was more looked up to as an authority in that matter than any one in the shoj).

Such a man brought to such a home his wild old fury of a grandmother ; and in his honest, kindly loyalty, laid the whole of his hardly earned home at her feet.

For the first week they got on very well together indeed. He returned promptly from his business, and gave up his whole time to settling her and making her comfortable. It was at the end of the very first week, however, that the first jar occurred.

*' As you are now comfortably settled, grandmother," he said at breakfast, " I need not come home so early. Indeed, I shaU not be home before eleven."

She merely shrugged her shoulders ; but he saw that she did not like it. "I shall go to bed early," she said. *' I don't care for looking out on the gas-lamps."

*' Can you not read, grandmother ? "

'' I have not got anything to read. I have read the newspaper, and I have nothing to read besides."

" Have you read the book I gave you ? "

'' No. It is a religious book, which ought to be read by a religious woman, which I most decidedly am not, and don't mean to be. I'll go to bed and think of the fine old times."

I think all women can be kind when they have given deep pain, even to a man they dishke. She saw such a look of hopeless pain in Allan Gray's face as he left the room to go to his business that she called him back.

" There, you silly lad," she said, '^ don't mind what I say.

STEETTON. 71

You meant kindly by bringing me here, and we shall do very well. I came because I thought it would be a change, and I love change ; and, heaven help me, I have got it ; it is duller than the other place. Let us bear with one another, boy. I have money, and in a few years it will be yours."

"You do not think I want your money, grandmother? I had not the wildest idea you had any."

''Go to your work," she said, imperiously ; and he went.

When he was gone, she said, "I knew that he did not know that I had any. He is quite honest. I wish I had not come. Brick walls for Caradoc ; a Methodist, or a pretended one, for my garden of beauties. Allan's Puritan crop and mutton-chop whiskers for Roland's curly head and Eddy's pretty eyes. Well, I am freer here."

Such was the life to which Allan Gray was condemned. Was it an unbeautiful or an unhappy one ? I think that you will say that it was not. That it was a singular contrast to the very beautiful life of the Mordaunts, the Evanses and the Maynards, is most true. Camden Town is not Caradoc, nor Saffron Hill Long- mynd ; any more than Allan Gray, the toiler, was Roland Evans, handsome and strong, the favourite among favourites of fortune. Yet they were both happy men in their way. Both lived in the future ; the one in a future of anticipated triumph ; but Allan Gray's future went further than Roland's as yet. Allan's future went deep and far into the next world ; his quiet fanaticism was as potent a means of taking him out of himself, as were Roland's dreams of triumphs in the Schools or the Senate. Roland's surroundings were as graceful and as beautiful as those of a Greek. Allan Gray could dispense with them, nay, was even glad to do so, for he called them in his quaint language, '' a snare." A man Avho is perfectly assured that in thirty years he will be walking in the City of the New Jerusalem, as described in tlie 21st of the Revelation, is not likely to care much about the inartistic squalor of Camden Town, even if he could appreciate it, which Allan Gray could not. The costermonger, against whose barrow this solemn young gentleman walked sometimes, and to whom this solemn "young swell" apologised, did not know that the tall young gentleman was thinking with his whole soul over the beatific vision. The Romish priest for whom Allan sent when he found that a soul was craving, on the verge of death, for the old offices which had given comfort before, little thought that the young man with the face like a bloodhound, who had so courteously handed over the dying man to him, went home to pray that the Scarlet Abomination might cease out of the land.

72 STRETTON.

A most perfect fanatic — a man who was unable to appreciate any form of artistic beauty — a man given up to a business which he hated and despised ; and yet who had a flower-garden too ; a garden also in which he could see his flowers grow. They were apt to wither and die, certainly ; but he had heard that of all flower-gardens.

On this day, when he had first left his grandmother alone, he went first to his place of business, the jeweller's, and dashed at once into the books. The partners came to him once or twice on business, and he gave back their kindly smiles of courtesy and trust as frankly and as honestly as any man could. So he worked away at the dull figures, which were not dull to him, for he had his purpose, until nearly three o'clock in the day, and then uneasily began to hear the carriages pass. "I must go into Vanity Fair soon, I doubt," he said to himself.

He was quite right. A youth came in and said, "If you please, Mr. Gray, Mr. Henry wants you." And Allan, with a sigh, arose and followed.

Mr. Henry was the youngest partner, Allan's old friend : he managed to brush past him. " Allan, my dear," he said, "to the rescue ! Father and uncle are both engaged, and here is the Duchess of Choohire wanting loose opals and sapphires for setting."

" C. 16 and Q. 19," said Allan, in a whisper, and passed on, with his head in the air, for his interview with the Duchess, looking uncommonly like an ideal duke himself. What were principalities and powers to him I

" The stones will be here at once, your grace," he said, calmly. " One of the house has gone for them. May I take the liberty of inquiring whether it is your grace's intention to set the stones together ? "

The Duchess said, " I had a design of doing so. I wanted to give my daughter. Lady Alice Barty, a necklace for her wedding. I thought they would look pure and innocent," said the natural woman. "I mean, I thought it would be in good taste," said the artificial one.

Allan bowed, and said, " They will be here directly, your grace." He was back for one instant among the sapphire, the sardonyx, the jasper, and the chalcedony of the New Jerusalem ; but he had two existences : he was quite ready for her when she said —

" Do you think it will do ? "

Now the Duchess of Cheshire was, in her old age, a very religious woman of a certain sect ; and a very open-handed

STRETTON. 73

woman also, as more than one prophetical expounder of the Revelations well knew. Allan Gray knew it, but would have died sooner than trade on it : nevertheless, he gave this singu- larly odd answer, which, coming from a shop-manager to a Duchess, must have rather astounded her grace.

'' It would scarcely do, your grace, as the taste of the world goes. And, as a general rule, you present to a young lady, on her real entrance into the world, something symbolical."

"Yes," said the old lady; "but sapphire represents the blue of heaven, and the cloud of onyx the troubles on earth." For she had got rambling, too, and was thinking of the time when her son Charley was killed in the duel, and of other disasters since, and forgot that the solemn, imperial gentleman before her was only a shop " manager."

"In the New Jerusalem, your grace," said the shopman, quietly, "which we will pray that the Lady Alice may enter, the gates were twelve pearls : why should not her ladyship have a twelvefold collier of large pearls, with the jewels interspersed ? That would be really symbolical, I should fancy, under your grace's approbation, and at least Christian."

The astonished old lady could only say, ^' Faut de mieux — . would the colours be in good taste ? ' '

" They would be in St. John's taste," said Allan, with that curious confidence and audacity which few other sects possess now, and remained silent.

"It is a beautiful idea," said the old lady. " Your house is famous for its good taste. I think I will say yes ; I like your idea very much ; you are evidently a good young man. Plan out the necklace for me." And she retired to her carriage, and talked all the evening, and for many evenings, of the wonderful young man at Morton's. And Lady Alice Barty wore that neck- lace on her wedding-day.

Meanwhile, Henry had been Avaiting with the sapphires and the opals, and seeing the Duchess depart, thought that they had missed an order. " Why, the old lady is gone," he said.

" Have you any exceptionally large pearls ? " asked Allan. " What a pity it is that we should have let the Googerat necklace go ! I would give anything for those pearls now."

" Hang it ! you can have them if you want them. There was no cash produced. She is burst up, and they are in the safe now."

" That is well. Keep the twelve best. I suppose you never heard of Chrysopras ? "

" Never," said the partner.

74 3TKETT0N.

" We must try Giiillo Antico," said Allan. " Get me these other stones, and don't disturb me, if you can hel^D it. I will go and design this necklace ; it is a large order for our house. Send the artist to me. ' And the street of the city was of pure gold, as it were trans2)arent glass,' — that is, white enamel over gold. Send me the artist."

So the ultra-Protestant actually set to work to symbolise in his trade, in a gold necklace, the very thing which puzzles and awes the most advanced Christians. He was disturbed, if aught could disturb him.

Just before the shop's closing, he was called out again. This time he had to attend to a different kind of people. An evil man was buying jewels for a young girl, and the girl had had jewels bought for her before, and knew their value, and was so particular that Gray had to be called in again. He stood before these two quite quietly, and served them well, and gave them his advice, knowing that he was serving his employers. There were plenty of precedents in the Old Testament, which he read most, but fewer in the New, which he read least. Those two were as nothing to him. A hog comes to your gate, and you throw it an apple ; the hog is nothing to you, and they were less than nothing to him.

" Now," he said to the three partners, as soon as the shop was shut, " I am going to walk in my garden."

''Does your garden take much to keep up. Gray?" said the senior partner.

'' Well, it would cost more than I could afford, sir, if it were properly kept up."

" Now how much, for instance," said the senior partner — " to keep it going properly, you know — do you think it would cost to keep your garden in order ? "

'' The whole garden ? " asked Allan ; "I have only a share of it."

" Say the whole garden, then," said the senior partner.

"Well," said Allan, ''I could do something with 400,000/. a year, if I had the management of it. As it is, I do what I can."

" We were going to increase your salary," said the senior partner, laughing, " by 1001. a year, but I suppose that would not be much for your garden ? "

" Very little," said Allan ; and then, remembering himself, added, "you arc very kind to me. I thank you deeply. I will make good use of the money which you entrust to me from God."

STRETTON. 76

CHAPTER XIII.

Allan Gray was walking swiftly away, with his face towards his flower-garden, when he heard himself hailed, and pausing, was overtaken by the junior partner.

"Here is a young gentleman wants you," he said; "he has been waiting at the shop-door ever so long, and having given you up, came into the shop. I ran after you."

" A young gentleman ? "

" A regular young swell. He says that he kncKvs you would speak to him if you saw him."

Allan Gray, coming into the shop, saw a slight, deer-eyed youth before him, who held out his hand and said,. " Allan, you have not forgotten me."

It was Eddy Evans. ^ The few demonstrations of kindly feeling which Englishmen allow themselves were over in a moment. Their eyes did the rest, and then Eddy and Allan were alone in the street together.

" You had not forgotten me ? " said Eddy.

" Was it likely that I could forget you ? Did I not think you had forgotten me ? " said Allan Gray.

" See then," said Eddy, with both his hands clasped over Allan's arm, and his face turned up into the solemn face of the other, " how unfair you can be. Have I not deserted all pleasure, as they call it, to come here for the higher and more real pleasure of seeing you ? ' '

Allan said nothing, but he somehow noticed Eddy's hands, which were clasped over his left arm. Eddy's hands were very small, and he had on the most beautifully made lemon- coloured kid gloves.

These attracted Allan's attention so much, that he took one of Eddy's hands in his, and held it there, and passed his brown fingers up and down the seams, and said, " What pretty gloves ! " For he loved the lad as much as he could love any one, and he permitted his love to demonstrate itself so far.

" I doubt you are an old brute," said Edward. " You are not a bit glad to see me."

" I am veiy happy," said AUan.

"Yes, but you don't show it," said Eddy. "7 am happy to

see you again, but I don't look like a Memnon. I want to

spend the evening with you. Where are you going ? "

" I will go anywhere with you," said Allan. " Where are you going?"

76 STKETTON.

" I was going to dine at the Bedford with the others, and then we were going to the play, and then we were going to Cremorne. But I gave it all up to come to you, and you don't care for me."

'' I care for you more than for any living being, Edward," said Allan.

" Hush, man, I know you do," said Edward. '' Have I not come to you ? have I not proved that I, also, care for you — after Koland?"

" Friendships will settle in a few years," said Allan. '' We will see how this sentimental fondness for one another will settle itself. Which is a great problem."

*'Not such a great problem as this," said Edward. ''AVhere are you going to take me ? "

** I ivas going to my flower-garden. Will you come ? Dare you come ? "

" I dare anything. I am an Evans, and I would sooner go to Newgate with you than to Vauxhall with another. I will come."

'* Then we will go. How did you come to London ? "

** Our fathers gave us money to come and see the town, and we have come to see it ; Roland, and Johnny, and Jimmy Mordaunt, and I. And we hava been to St. Paul's, which is 404 feet in height ; and to the Monument, which is 202 ; and to the Tower, which was built by Augustus the Stark, King of Saxony ; and I found it very slow, for tastes vary. Indeed, Jim Mordaunt quarrelled violently with his brother on the same subject on the very summit and top of the dome of St. Paul's, Jimmy declaring that any one could have built it if he had had the money, and Johnny accusing his brother of trying to be fine. I got sick of all this giddy dissipation, and asked Roland for liberty. So he took away my money, and let me come to you."

*' Why did he take away your money ? " asked Allan.

*'He always does. I give it away when people ask me for it, and so does Jim Mordaunt. John Mordaunt used to take his brother's money away until he got too big. Jim won't stand it now, and fights."

'' You don't fight Roland, then ? "

''No, Roland does as he likes. Nobody ever could resist Roland, you know. Besides, he leaves me some. I have five shillings or more now."

" How old are you, Edward Evans ? "

" Seventeen."

** You are very childish and simple. I doubt if we had better go where we are going — yet, we will go. Are you too great a

STKETTON. 77

child to share my pleasure ? Why should I ask you ? Let us come ? "

The bright evening summer's daylight fell full and strong upon the squalor of the streets through which they passed ; streets which became more squalid, mean, and ugly as they passed along. In the darkness of the winter's evening their wi'etchedness is hidden ; under the summer sun it is patent. Eddy chattered at first, but less and less as the streets got narrower and more dirty, and at the top of Saffron Hill he was quite silent.

For the people were so wild, so strange, and so very fierce. They scolded one another so much, and when they were civil to one another, their language was hard and wild ; and to Eddy, listening with his keen little ears, it seemed that their conversa- tion turned on two things only, money and drink.

" I don't like this place," said Eddy, very emphatically ; *'it is a bad place. I like pretty places and pretty things. What are those bells? "

''The big one?"

" Yes ; the one like Tom."

" That is the bell of the Roman Catholics ; they have established themselves here."

"Do they do good? "

** Every one who works for Christ does good," said Allan Gray, the extreme Protestant. '* Of course, they do good. They work among these Irish, whom they have, for their own purposes, kept sitting in outer darkness, and they do good. And they'd need."

'' What is the little shai^D bell ? " said Eddy, getting interested.

" That is the Puseyite church," said Allan, with a smile. " We tried that together, you know, at Shrewsbury."

'* I liked it," said Eddy ; " you did not. Do they do good."

" No end," answered Allan. " I get into trouble for saying so, though."

" Do you Low Church and Dissenters do good, Allan ? "

" We think so ; you must come and see. Stay here a moment ; there is a row. Keep quiet."

The narrow steep lane before them was crowded with people of the very lowest order, all talking in that dreadful, hoarse, London voice, which, I confess, I have never heard elsewhere. As Allan and Eddy had been looking down that lane, they had seen it swarming with " roughs," male and female, intermingling, growl- ing, and swearing ; but now there was an incident. Ask the next policeman, or read your newspaper, before you say that I exag- gerate here.

From the door of one of the houses came stumbling, impelled

78 STRETTON.

by some blow from behind, a woman, bareheaded and mad, who recovered her balance in the middle of the street, and confronted the door from which she had come. Her fierce, bruised fiice, her demoniac fury, and her horrible wild words, made Eddy tremble and cling close to Allan. In another moment a man had dashed out of the door and confronted the woman, who was at bay, and the cowardly crowd parted. It was an Irish row, and they were man and wife. No one had a right to interfere.

Then began once more the fierce, wild objurgation, rising to a scream on the part of the woman and a roar on the part of the man, until there was an instant's silence, as he went at her. Then inarticulate curses, worse than the worst roar of any wild beast, as he seized her by the hair, cast her heavily down, and began kicking her on the head.

Not a soul of all the soulless cowards around interfered. They were Irish ; the man was a dangerous character ; and, moreover, they were man and wife. Not one soul interfered. Allan Gray uttered an oath which was strange to his vocabulary, and made a dash forward against the crowd ; but there was one more nimble than he.

While he was stopped disputing by three or four heavy coster- mongers — who had the strongest objection to any interference, on any grounds, between a man and his ''missis," Eddy, with that rapid dexterity which is gained at football and cricket, had parted the crowd — nay, had done more. He had delivered his two little fists straight into the eyes of the Irish gentleman, and was apparently prepared to do so once more.

It is impossible to say how the matter would have ended, for the woman had risen, and dazed and stunned as she was by her husband's kicks on the head, had her wits enough about her to see that this youth before her husband was the youth who had saved her life by giving her husband two black eyes. She there- fore found it necessary, according to the creed of her class, to entirely eradicate and destroy that youth. Having thrown a few flowers of speech at our poor Eddy, she made a resolute advance towards him, and in another moment it would have fared badly with him — when Allan Gray, having been recognised by some among the crowd, there was a cry raised of " Teacher ! Teacher ! " and he was allowed to pass. With singular misfortune, he arrived just in time to get between Eddy and the infuriated Irish- woman. Eddy, who was expecting another attack from the husband, watched Allan Gray, and knew more about him than he had ever known before. Deep down in the man there was a strain of humour J utterly unsuspected by himself, but detected at once

STRETXON. 79

by headlong Eddy, who knew the article when he saw it, if ever a lad did.

The woman raged at him, with her ten nails spread out, blind in her wi'ath. Gray with great dexterity caught her two WTists in his hands, and said, quietly, '' Now, my dear, good soul, do just think how very much at random you are acting."

'^ Where's the young man as hit him.?" she said, slightly struggling. " Give me that young man ! " And then she pro- ceeded to describe what she intended to do to that oniamental young undergraduate who had saved her from the brutality of her husband, with a degree of detail which cannot bo reproduced here. Her object, it seems, was Eddy's lungs — she called them his " lights " — and garnished her speech with adjectives and par- ticiples. Her argument took the form of what a sporting paper might call " reiterated asseveration." She struggled a very little, for the poor thing was faint, and Allan Gray soon dropped her hands.

"Ah!" she said, "you're a teacher, I doubt; I didn't see you. But," vv^itli sudden vivacity, " I'll have out the liver of any chap that lays hands on my man ! If they was a teacher's I would ; if they was yours I would. He has been a good husband

to me out of