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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
IN MEMORY OF
CAROLINE CUSHING DUNIWAY
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THE WYWERN MYSTERY.


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THE WWWERN MYSTERY.
3, #obeſ.
By J. S. (LE FANU,
AUTHOR of “UNCLE silas,” “GUY DEVERELL,” ETC., ETC.
IN THREE WOLUMES.
WOL. I.
LONDON :
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1869.
[The Right of Translation is reserved.]


London :
BRADBURy, Evans, AND Co., PRINTERs, whiteFRIARs.


genitation.
—º-
JMY (DEAR JUODGE KEOGH,
You, who take an interest in all Litera-
twre, will not disdain, the dedication of these
trifling Volumes, in testimony of an early friend—
ship, never interrupted, and of an admiration,
everywhere inspired by your brilliant talents.
Fver yours most faithfully,
J. S. LE FANU.
890





viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
XV.-HARRY ARRIVES . - - -
XVI.-A PARTY OF THREE . - - -
XVII.-MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY
XVIII.--THE BROTHERs' WALK . - -
XIX.-COMING IN . - - - -
XX.-HARRY APPEARS AT THE GRANGE .
XXI.-HARRY'S BEER AND CONVERSATION
xxII.--THE TROUT . - - - -
XXIII.-THE WISITOR - - - -


2 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
said the girl, laying a hand on each shoulder
of kind old Lady Wyndale, and looking fondly,
but also sadly, into her face.
“Which Mr. Fairfield, dear—the old or the
young one 3’’
“Old Mr. Fairfield, the Squire, as we call
him at Wyvern. He'll really be angry, and
I’m a little bit afraid of him, and I would not
vex him for the world—he has always been
so kind.” -
As she answered, the young lady blushed
a beautiful crimson, and the old lady, not
observing it, said—
“Indeed, I don't know why I said young
—young Mr. Fairfield is old enough, I think,
to be your father ; but I want to know how
you liked Lord Tremaine. I told you how
much he liked you. I'm a great believer in
first impressions. He was so charmed with
you, when he saw you in Wyvern Church.
Of course he ought to have been thinking of
something better; but no matter—the fact
was so, and now he is, I really think, in love


ALICE MAYBELL. 3
—very much—and who knows? He's such
a charming person, and there is everything to
make it—I don’t know what word to use—
but you know Tremaine is quite a beautiful
place, and he does not owe a guinea.”
“You dear old auntie,” said the girl, kissing
her again on the cheek, “wicked old darling
—always making great matches for me. If
you had remained in India, you'd have mar-
ried me, I’m sure, to a native prince.”
“Native fiddlestick; of course I could if I
had liked, but you never should have married
a Mahomedan with my consent. Never mind
though ; you're sure to do well; marriages
are made in heaven, and I really believe there
is no use in plotting and planning. There
was your darling mamma, when we were
both girls together, I said I should never
consent to marry a soldier or live out of
England, and I did marry a soldier, and
lived twelve years of my life in India; and
she, poor darling, said again and again, she
did not care who her husband might be, pro-
B 2


4. THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
vided he was not a clergyman, nor a person
living all the year round in the country—that
no power could induce her to consent to, and
yet she did consent, and to both one and the
other, and married a clergyman, and a poor
one, and lived and died in the country. So,
after all, there's not much use in planning
beforehand.”
“Very true, auntie; none in the world, I
believe.”
The girl was looking partly over her
shoulder, out of the window, upward towards
the clouds, and she sighed heavily; and
recollecting herself, looked again in her aunt's
face and smiled.
“I wish you could have stayed a little
longer here,” said her aunt.
“I wish I could,” she answered slowly, “I
was thinking of talking over a great many
things with you—that is, of telling you all
my long stories; but while those people were
staying here I could not, and now there is not
time.”


ALICE MAYBELL.
5
“What long stories, my dear !”
“Stupid stories, I should have said,” an-
swered Alice.
“Well come, is there anything to tell ?”
demanded the old lady, looking in her large,
dark eyes.
“Nothing worth telling — nothing that
is—” and she paused for the continuation of
her sentence.
“That is what ?” asked her aunt.
“I was going to talk to you, darling,”
answered the girl, “but I could not in so
short a time—so short a time as remains
now,” and she looked at her watch—a gift of
old Squire Fairfield’s. “I should not know
how to make myself understood, I have so
many hundred things, and all jumbled up in
my head, and should not know how to
begin.”
“Well, I'll begin for you. Come—have
any visitors looked in at Wyvern lately 4”
said her aunt.
“Not one,” she answered.


6 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“No new faces !”
“No, indeed.”
“Are there any new neighbours ?” per-
sisted the old lady.
“Not one. No, aunt, it isn't that.”
“And where are these elderly young gen-
tlemen, the two Mr. Fairfields : * asked the
old lady.
The girl laughed, and shook her head.
“Wandering at present. Captain Fairfield
is in London.”
“And his charming younger brother—
where is he 4” asked Lady Wyndale.
“At some fair, I suppose, or horse-race ;
or, goodness knows where,” answered the
girl.
“I was going to ask you whether there
was an affair of the heart,” said her aunt.
“But there does not seem much material ;
and what was the subject ' Though I can't
hear it all, you may tell me what it was to be
about.”
“About fifty things, or nothings. There's


ALICE MAYBELL. . 7
no one on earth, auntie, darling, but you
I can talk anything over with ; and I'll write,
or, if you let me, come again for a day or
two, very soon—may I ?”
“Of course, no,” said her aunt gaily. “But
we are not to be quite alone, all the time,
mind. There are people who would not for-
give me if I were to do anything so selfish,
but I promise you ample time to talk—you
and I to ourselves ; and now that I think, I
should like to hear by the post, if you will
write and say anything you like. You may
be quite sure nobody shall hear a word about
it.”
By this time they had got to the hall-
door.
“I’m sure of that, darling,” and she kissed
the kind old lady.
“And are you quite sure you would not
like a servant to travel with you; he could
sit beside the driver ?”
“No, dear auntie, my trusty old Dulcibella
sits inside to take care of me.”


ALICE MAYBELL. 9
dog has killed her guinea-pig, or old Fairfield
won't allow her to sit up till twelve o'clock at
night, reading her novel. Some childish
misery, I dare say, poor little soul!”
But for all that she was not satisfied, and
her poor, pale, troubled look haunted her.


THE WALE OF CARWELL. 11
dull, like a sick bird. Be that way always;
do, dear.”
“You’re a kind old thing,” said the young
lady, placing her slender hand fondly on her
old nurse's arm, “good old Dulcibella : you're
always to come with me wherever I go.”
“That's just what Dulcibella'd like,” an-
swered the old woman, who was fat, and liked
her comforts, and loved Miss Alice more than
many mothers love their own children, and
had answered the same reminders, in the
same terms, a good many thousand times in
her life.
Again the young lady was looking out of
the window—not like one enjoying a land-
scape as it comes, but with something of
anxiety in her countenance, with her head
through the open window, and gazing for-
ward as if in search of some expected object.
“Do you remember some old trees standing
together at the end of this moor, and a ruined
windmill, on a hillock 7" she asked suddenly.
“Well,” answered Dulcibella, who was not


THE WALE OF CARWELL. 13
that turns off to the left, just under that old
mill 2’’
“That'll be the road to Church Carwell.”
“You must drive about three miles along
that road.”
“That'll be out o' the way, ma'am—three,
and three back—six miles—I don’t know
about the hosses.”
“You must try, I’ll pay you—listen,” and
she lowered her voice. “There's one house
—an old house—on the way, in the Wale of
Carwell; it is called Carwell Grange—do
you know it !”
“Yes'm ; but there's no one livin’ there.”
“No matter—there is ; there is an old
woman whom I want to see ; that's where I
want to go, and you must manage it, I shan't
delay you many minutes, and you're to tell
no one, either on the way or when you get
home, and I’ll give you two pounds for your-
self.”
“All right,” he answered, looking hard in
the pale face and large dark eyes that


14 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
gazed on him eagerly from the window.
“Thankye, Miss, all right, we'll wet their
mouths at the Grange, or you wouldn't mind
waiting till they get a mouthful of oats, I
dessay ?”
“No, certainly; anything that is necessary,
only I have a good way still to go before
evening, and you won't delay more than you
can help ?”
“Get along, then,” said the man, briskly to
his horses, and forthwith they were again in
motion.
The young lady pulled up the window,
and leaned back for some minutes in her
place.
“And where are we going to, dear Miss
Alice Z" inquired Dulcibella, who dimly ap-
prehended that they were about to deviate
from the straight way home, and feared the
old Squire, as other Wyvern folk did.
“A very little way, nothing of any conse-
quence; and Dulcibella, if you really love me
as you say, one word about it, to living being


THE WALE OF CARWELL. 15
at Wyvern or anywhere else, you'll never say
—you promise ?”
“You know me well, Miss Alice—I don't
talk to no one; but I’m sorry-like to hear
there's anything like a secret. I dread
secrets.”
“You need not fear this—it is nothing, no
secret, if people were not unreasonable, and
it shan’t be a secret long, perhaps, only be
true to me.”
“True to you! Well, who should I be true
to if not to you, darling, and never a word
about it will pass old Dulcibella's lips, talk
who will; and are we pretty near it?”
“Very near, I think; it's only to see an
old woman, and get some information from
her, nothing, only I don't wish it to be talked
about, and I know you won't.”
“Not a word, dear. I never talk to any
one, not I, for all the world.”
In a few minutes more they crossed a little
bridge spanning a brawling stream, and the
chaise turned the corner of a by-road to the


THE WALE OF CARWELL. 17
were slowly mounting this an open carriage
—a shabby, hired, nondescript vehicle—ap-
peared in the deep shadow, at some distance,
descending towards them. The road is so
narrow that two carriages could not pass one
another without risk. Here and there the
inconvenience is provided against by a recess
in the bank, and into one of these the distant
carriage drew aside. A tall female figure,
with feet extended on the opposite cushion,
sat or rather reclined in the back seat. There
was no one else in the carriage. She was
wrapped in gray tweed, and the driver had
now turned his face towards her, and was
plainly receiving some orders.
Miss Maybell, as the carriage entered this
melancholy pass, had grown more and more
anxious; and pale and silent, was looking
forward through the window, as they ad-
vanced. At sight of this vehicle, drawn up
before them, a sudden fear chilled the young
lady with, perhaps, a remote prescience.
VOL. I. C


CHAPTER III.
THE GRANGE.
THE excited nerves of children people the
darkness of the nursery with phantoms. The
moral and mental darkness of suspense pro-
vokes, after its sort, a similar phantasmagoria.
Alice Maybell's heart grew still, and her
cheeks paled as she looked with most un-
reasonable alarm upon the carriage, which
had come to a standstill.
There was, however, the sense of a great
stake, of great helplessness, of great but un-
defined possible mischiefs, such as to the
“look-out” of a rich galleon in the old
piratical days, would have made a strange
sail, on the high seas, always an anxious
object on the horizon.
And now Miss Alice Maybell was not re-


THE GRANGE. 19
assured by observing the enemy's driver get
down, and taking the horses by the head,
back the carriage far enough across the road,
to obstruct their passage, and this had clearly
been done by the direction of the lady in the
carriage.
They had now reached the point of ob-
struction, the driver pulled up, Miss Maybell
had lowered the chaise window and was
peeping. She saw a tall woman, wrapped
up and reclining, as I have said. Her face
she could not see, for it was thickly veiled,
but she held her hand, from which she had
pulled her glove, to her ear, and it was
not a young hand nor very refined,—lean
and masculine, on the contrary, and its
veins and sinews rather strongly marked.
The woman was listening, evidently, with
attention, and her face, veiled as it was,
was turned away so as to bring her ear
towards the speakers in the expected col-
loquy.
Miss Alice Maybell saw the driver ex-
C 2


20 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
change a look with hers that seemed to
betoken old acquaintance.
“I say, give us room to pass, will ye **
said Miss Maybell's man,
“Where will you be going to ?” inquired
the other, and followed the question with a
jerk of his thumb over his shoulder, toward
the lady in the tweed wrappers, putting out
his tongue and winking at the same time.
“To Church Carwell,” answered the man.
“To Church Carwell, ma'am,” repeated
the driver over his shoulder to the reclining
figure.
“What to do there ?” said she, in a sharp,
under tone, and with a decided foreign accent.
“What to do there 2° repeated the man.
“Change hosses, and go on.”
“On where 8" repeated the lady to her
driver.
“On where ?” repeated he.
“Doughton,” fibbed Miss Maybell's man,
and the same repetition ensued.
“Not going to the Grange 3’ prompted


THE GRANGE. 21
the lady, in the same under-tone and foreign
accent, and the question was transmitted as
before—
“What Grange 3" demanded the driver.
“Carwell Grange.” -
“ No.”
Miss Alice Maybell was very much fright-
ened as she heard this home-question put,
and, relieved by the audacity of her friend on
the box, who continued—
“Now then, you move out of that.”
The tall woman in the wrappers nodded,
and her driver accordingly pulled the horses
aside, with another grin and a wink to his
friend, and Miss Maybell drove by to her own
great relief.
The reclining figure did not care to turn
her face enough to catch a passing sight of
the people whom she had thus arbitrarily
detained.
She went her way toward Gryce's mill,
and Miss Maybell pursuing hers toward Car-
well Grange, was quickly out of sight.


22 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
A few minutes more and the glen expanded
gently, so as to leave a long oval pasture of
two or three acres visible beneath, with the
little stream winding its way through the
soft sward among scattered trees. Two or
three cows were peacefully grazing there, and
at the same point a converging hollow made
its way into the glen at their right, and
through this also spread the forest, under
whose shadow they had already been driving
for more than two miles.
Into this, from the main road, diverged
a ruder track, with a rather steep ascent.
This by-road leads up to the Grange, rather
a stiff pull. The driver had to dismount and
lead his horses, and once or twice expressed
doubts as to whether they could pull their
burden up the hill.
Alice Maybell, however, offered not to get
out. She was nervous, and like a frightened
child who gets its bed-clothes about its head,
the instinct of concealment prevailed, and she
trembled lest some other inquirer should


THE GRANGE. 23
cross her way less easily satisfied than the
first.
They soon reached a level platform, under
the deep shadow of huge old trees, nearly
meeting over head. The hoarse cawing of a
rookery came mellowed by short distance on
the air. For all else, the place was silence
itself.
The man came to the door of the carriage
to tell his “fare” that they had reached the
Grange.
“Stay where you are, Dulcibella, I shan’t
be away many minutes,” said the young lady,
looking pale, as if she was going to execu-
tion.
“I will, Miss Alice; but you must get a
bit to eat, dear, you're hungry, I know by
your looks; get a bit of bread and butter.”
“Yes, yes, Dulcie,” said the young lady,
not having heard a syllable of this little
speech, as looking curiously at the old place,
under whose walls they had arrived, she
descended from the chaise.


24 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
Under the leafy darkness stood two time-
stained piers of stone, with a wicket open in
the gate. Through this she peeped into a
paved yard, all grass-grown, and surrounded
by a high wall, with a fine mantle of ivy,
through which showed dimly the neglected
doors and windows of out-offices and stables.
At the right rose, three stories high, with
melancholy gables and tall chimneys, the old
stone house.
So this was Carwell Grange. Nettles grew
in the corners of the yard, and tufts of grass
in the chinks of the stone steps, and the worn
masonry was tinted with moss and lichens,
and all around rose the solemn melancholy
screen of darksome foliage, high over the
surrounding walls, and outtopping the gray
roof of the house. -
She hesitated at the door, and then raised
the latch; but a bolt secured it. Another
hesitation, and she ventured to knock with a
stone, that was probably placed there for the
purpose.


THE GRANGE. 25
A lean old woman, whose countenance did
not indicate a pleasant temper, put out her
head from a window, and asked:
“Well, an’ what brings you here ?”
“I expected—to see a friend here,” she
answered timidly; “and—and you are Mrs.
Tarnley—I think?”
“I’m the person,” answered the woman.
“And I was told to show you this—and
that you would admit me.”
And she handed her, through the iron bars
of the window, a little oval picture in a
shagreen case, hardly bigger than a penny-
piece.
The old lady turned it to the light and
looked hard at it, saying, “Ay—ay—my old
eyes—they won't see as they used to—but
it is so—the old missus—yes—it's all right,
Miss,” and she viewed the young lady with
some curiosity, but her tones were much
more respectful as she handed her back the
miniature.
“I’ll open the door, please 'm.”


26 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
And almost instantly Miss Maybell heard
the bolts withdrawn.
“Would you please to walk in-my lady ?
I can only bring ye into the kitchen. The
apples is in the parlour, and the big room's
full o' straw—and the rest o' them is locked
up. It'll be Master I know who ye’ll be
looking arter ?”
The young lady blushed deeply—the ques-
tion was hardly shaped in the most delicate
way.
“There was a woman in a barooche, I
think they call it, asking was any one here,
and asking very sharp after Master, and I
told her he wasn't here this many a day, nor
like to be—and ’twas that made me a bit shy
o' you; you'll understand, just for a bit.”
“And is he—is your master ?”—and she
looked round the interior of the house.
“No, he baint come ; but here's a letter—
what's your name 2" she added abruptly, with
a sudden access of suspicion.
“Miss Maybell,” answered she.


THE GRANGE. 27
“Yes—well—you'll excuse me, Miss, but
I was told to be sharp, and wide-awake, you
see. Will you come into the kitchen”
And without awaiting her answer the old
woman led the way into the kitchen—a
melancholy chamber, with two narrow win-
dows, darkened by the trees not far off, that
overshadowed the house.
A crooked little cur dog, with protruding
ribs, and an air of starvation, flew furiously
at Miss Maybell, as she entered, and was
rolled over on his back by a lusty kick from
the old woman's shoe ; and a cat sitting
before the fire, bounced under the table to
escape the chances of battle.
A little bit of fire smouldered in a corner
of the grate. An oak stool, a deal chair,
and a battered balloon-backed one, imported
from better company, in a crazed and faded
state, had grown weaker in the joints, and
more ragged and dirty in its antique finery
in its present fallen fortunes. There was
some cracked delf on the dresser, and some-


28 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
thing was stewing in a tall saucepan, covered
with a broken plate, and to this the old
woman directed her attention first, stirring
its contents, and peering into it for a while ;
and when she had replaced it carefully, she
took the letter from her pocket, and gave it
to Miss Maybell, who read it standing near
the window.
As she read this letter, which was a short
one, the young lady looked angry, with bright
eyes and a brilliant flush, then pale, and then
the tears started to her eyes, and turning
quite away from the old woman, and still
holding up the letter as if reading it, she
wept in silence.
The old woman, if she saw this, evinced
no sympathy, but continued to fidget about,
muttering to herself, shoving her miserable
furniture this way or that, arranging her
crockery on the dresser, visiting the saucepan
that sat patiently on the embers, and some-
times kicking the dog, with an unwomanly
curse, when he growled. Drying her eyes,


30 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
threw the melancholy tints of sunset over a
landscape, undulating and wooded, that spread
before them, as they entered the short, broad
avenue that leads through two files of noble
old trees, to the gray front of many-chimneyed
Wyvern.


CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL.
WYVERN is a very pretty old house. It is
built of a light gray stone, in the later Tudor
style. A portion of it is overgrown with
thick ivy. It stands not far away from the
high road, among grand old trees, and is one
of the most interesting features in a richly
wooded landscape, that rises into little hills,
and, breaking into rocky and forest-darkened
glens, and sometimes into dimpling hollows,
where the cattle pasture beside pleasant
brooks, presents one of the prettiest countries
to be found in England.
The old squire, Henry Fairfield, has seen
his summer and his autumn days out. It is
winter with him now.
He is not a pleasant picture of an English


32 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
squire, but such, nevertheless, as the old por-
traits on the walls of Wyvern here and there
testify, the family of Fairfield have occasion-
ally turned out.
He is not cheery nor kindly. Bleak, dark,
and austere as a northern winter, is the age
of that gaunt old man.
He is too proud to grumble, and never
asked any one for sympathy. But it is plain
that he parts with his strength and his plea-
sures bitterly. Of course, seeing the old
churchyard, down in the hollow at the left,
as he stands of an evening on the steps,
thoughts will strike him. He does not ac-
quiesce in death. He resents the order of
things. But he keeps his repinings to him-
self, and retaliates his mortification on the
people about him.
Though his hair is snowy, and his shoulders
stooped, there is that in his length of bone
and his stature that accords with the tradition
of his early prowess and activity.
He has long been a widower—fully thirty


THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL. 33
years. He has two sons, and no daughter.
Two sons whom he does not much trust—
neither of them young—Charles and Henry.
By no means young are they. The elder,
now forty-three, the younger only a year or
two less. Charles has led a wandering life,
and tried a good many things. He had been
fond of play, and other expensive follies. He
had sobered, however, people thought, and it
might be his mission, notwithstanding his
wild and wasteful young days, to pay off the
debts of the estate.
Henry, the younger son, a shrewd dealer
in horses, liked being king of his company,
condescended to strong ale, made love to the
bar-maid at the “George,” in the little town
of Wyvern, and affected the conversation of
dog-fanciers, horse-jockeys, wrestlers, and
similar celebrities.
The old Squire was not much considered,
and less beloved, by his sons. The gaunt old
man was, however, more feared by these
matured scions than their pride would have
WOL. I. D


34 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
easily allowed. The fears of childhood sur-
vive its pleasures. Something of the ghostly
terrors of the nursery haunt us through life,
and the tyrant of early days maintains a
strange and unavowed ascendancy over the
imagination, long after his real power to in-
flict pain or privation has quite come to an
end.
As this tall, grim, handsome old man moves
about the room, as he stands, or sits down, or
turns eastward at the Creed in church—as he
marches slowly toppling along the terrace,
with his gold-headed cane in his hand, sur-
veying the long familiar scenes which will
soon bloom and brown no more for him—
with sullen eyes, thinking his solitary thoughts
—as in the long summer evenings he dozes
in the great chair by the fire, which even in
the dog-days smoulders in the drawing-room
grate—looking like a gigantic effigy of winter
—a pair of large and soft gray eyes follow, or
steal towards him—removed when observed
—but ever and anon returning. People have


THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL. 35
remarked this, and talked it over, and laughed
and shook their heads, and built odd specula-
tions upon it.
Alice Maybell had grown up from orphan
childhood under the roof of Wyvern. The
old squire had been, after a fashion, kind to
that pretty waif of humanity, which a chance
wave of fortune had thrown at his door. She
was the child of a distant cousin, who had
happened, being a clergyman, to die in occu-
pation of the vicarage of Wyvern. Her young
mother lay, under the branches of the two
great trees, in the lonely corner of the
village churchyard; and not two years
later the Vicar died, and was buried beside
her.
Melancholy, gentle Vicar ! Some good
judges, I believe, pronounced his sermons
admirable. Seedily clothed, with kindly
patience visiting his poor; very frugal—his
pretty young wife and he were yet happy in
the light and glow of the true love that is
eternal. He was to her the nonpareil of
D 2


36 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
vicars—the loveliest, wisest, wittiest, and best
of men. She to him—what shall I say? The
same beautiful first love. Never a day older.
Every summer threw new gold on her rich
hair, and a softer and brighter bloom on her
cheeks, and made her dearer and dearer than
he could speak. He could only look and feel
his heart swelling with a vain yearning to tell
the love that lighted his face with its glory
and called a mist to his kind eye.
And then came a time when she had a
secret to tell her Willie. Full of a wild fear
and delight, in their tiny drawing-room,
clasped in each other's arms, they wept for
joy, and a kind of wonder and some dim
unspoken tremblings of fear, and loved one
another, it seemed, as it were more despe-
rately than ever.
"And then, as he read aloud to her in the
evenings, her pretty fingers were busy with
a new sort of work, full of wonderful and
delightful interest. A little guest was com-
ing, a little creaſſure with an immortal soul,


THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL. 37
that was to be as clever and handsome as
Willie.
“And, oh, Willie, darling, don't you hope
I may live to see it ! Ah, Willie, would not
it be sad 4 °
And then the Vicar, smiling through tears,
would put his arms round her, and comfort
her, breaking into a rapturous castle-building
and a painting of pictures of this great new
happiness and treasure that was coming.
And so in due time the little caps and
frocks and all the tiny wardrobe were finished;
and the day came when the long-pictured
treasure was to come. It was there ; but
its young mother's eyes were dim, and the
pretty hands that had made its little dress
and longed to clasp it were laid beside her,
never to stir again.
“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken
away—blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Yes, blessed be the name of the Lord for that
love that outlives the separation of death—-
that saddens and glorifies' memory with its


38 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
melancholy light, and illuminates far futurity
with a lamp whose trembling ray is the thread
that draws us toward heaven. Blessed in
giving and in taking—blessed for the yearn-
ing remembrances, and for the agony of hope.
The little baby—the relic—the treasure—
was there. Poor little forlorn baby | And
with this little mute companion to look at and
sit by, his sorrow was stealing away into a
wonderful love; and in this love a consolation
and a living fountain of sympathy with his
darling who was gone.
A trouble of a new kind had come. Squire
Fairfield, who wanted money, raised a claim
for rent for the vicarage and its little garden.
The Vicar hated law and feared it, and would
no doubt have submitted ; but this was a
battle in which the Bishop took command,
and insisted on fighting it out. It was a
tedious business.
It had lasted two years nearly, and was
still alive and angry, when the Reverend
William Maybell took a cold, which no one


40 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
forbid him the footpath across the fields of
Wyvern, that made the way to church shorter.
He walked out of church grimly when his
sermon began. He turned the Vicar's cow
off the common, and made him every way feel
the weight of his displeasure.
Well, now the Vicar was dead. He had
borne it all very gently and sadly, and it was
over, a page in the past, no line erasable, no
line addible for ever.
“So, Parson's dead and buried ; serve him
right,” said the Squire of Wyvern. “Thank-
less rascal. You go down and tell them I
must have the house up on the 24th, and
if they don't go, you bundle 'em out, Thomas
Rooke.”
“There'll be the Vicar's little child there;
who's to take it in, Squire ?” asked Tom
Rooke, after a hesitation.
“You may, or the Bishop, d
him.”
“I’m a poor man, and, for the Bishop, he's
not like to
“Let 'em try the workhouse,” said the


THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL. 41
Squire, “where many a better man's brat
is.”
And he gave Tom Rooke a look that might
have knocked him down, and turned his back
on him and walked away.
A week or so after he went down himself
to the vicarage with Tom Rooke. Old Dulci-
bella Crane went over the lower part of the
house with Tom, and the Squire strode up
the stairs, and stooping his tall head as he
entered the door, walked into the first room
he met with, in a surly mood.
The clatter of his boots prevented his hear-
ing, till he had got well into the room, the low
crying of a little child in a cradle. He stayed
his step for a moment. He had quite for-
gotten that unimportant being, and he half
turned to go out again, but changed his mind.
He stooped over the cradle, and the little
child's crying ceased. It was a very pretty
face and large eyes, still wet with tears, that
looked up with an earnest wondering gaze at
him from out the tiny blankets.


42 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
Old Dulcibella Crane had gone down, and
the solitude, no doubt, affrighted it, and there
was consolation even in the presence of the
grim Squire, into whose face those large eyes
looked with innocent trust.
Who would have thought it ! Below lay
the little image of utter human weakness;
above stooped a statue of inflexibility and
power, a strong statue with a grim contracted
eye. There was a heart, steeled against man's
remonstrance, and a pride that would have
burst into fury at a hint of reproof. Below
lay the mere wonder and vagueness of dumb
infancy. Could contest be imagined more
hopeless But “the faithful Creator,” who
loved the poor Vicar, had brought those eyes
to meet.
The little child's crying was hushed; big
tears hung in its great wondering eyes, and
the little face looked up pale and forlorn. It
was a gaze that lasted while you might count
four or five. But its mysterious work of love
was done. “All things were made by Him,


THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL. 43
and without Him was not anything made that
was made.”
Squire Fairfield walked round this room,
and went out and examined the others, and
went down-stairs in silence, and when he was
going out at the hall-door he stopped and
looked at old Dulcibella Crane, who stood
courtesying at it in great fear, and said he,
“The child’ll be better at home wi' me, up
at Wyvern, and I'll send down for it and you
in the afternoon, till—something's settled.”
And on this invitation little Alice Maybell
and her nurse, Dulcibella Crane, came to
Wyvern Manor, and had remained there now
for twenty years.


CHAPTER W.
THE TERRACE GARDEN.
ALICE MAYBELL grew up very pretty ; not
a riant beauty, without much colour, rather
pale, indeed, and a little sad. What struck
one at first sight was a slender figure, with a
prettiness in every motion. A clear-tinted
oval face, with very large dark gray eyes,
such as Chaucer describes in his beauties as
“ey-es gray as glass,” with very long lashes;
her lips of a very brilliant red, with even
little teeth, and when she smiled a great
many tiny soft dimples.
This pretty creature led a lonely life at
Wyvern. Between her and the young
squires, Charles and Henry, there intervened
the great gulf of twenty years, and she was
left very much to herself.


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 45
Sometimes she rode into the village with
the old Squire; she sat in the Wyvern pew
every Sunday; but except on those and
like occasions, the townsfolk saw little of
her.
“’ Taint after her father or mother she
takes with them airs of hers; there was no
pride in the Vicar or poor Mrs. Maybell, and
she'll never be like her mother, a nice little
thing she was.”
So said Mrs. Ford of the George Inn at
Wyvern—but what she called pride was in
reality shyness.
About Miss Maybell there was a very odd
rumour afloat in the town. It had got about
that this beautiful young lady was in love
with old Squire Fairfield—or at least with
his estate of Wyvern.
The village doctor was standing with his
back to his drawing-room fire, and the news-
paper in his left hand lowered to his knee—
as he held forth to his wife, and romantic
old Mrs. Diaper—at the tea-table.


46 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“If she is in love with that old man, as
they say, take my word for it, she'll not be
long out of a mad-house.”
“How do you mean, my dear?” asked his
wife.
“I mean it is not love at all, but incipient
mania. Her lonely life up there at Wyvern,
would make any girl odd, and it's setting her
mad—that's how I mean.”
“My dear sir,” remonstrated fat Mrs.
Diaper, who was learned as well as romantic,
“romance takes very whimsical shape at
times; Vanessa was in love with Dean Swift,
and very young men were passionately in
love with Ninon de l'Enclos.”
“Tut — stuff — did I ever hear !” ex-
claimed Mrs. Buttle, derisively, “who ever
thought of love or romance in the matter Ž
The young lady thinks it would be very well
to be mistress of Wyvern, and secure a com-
fortable jointure, and so it would ; and if she
can make that unfortunate old man fancy
her in love with him, she'll bring him to that,


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 47
I have very little doubt. I never knew a
quiet minx that wasn't sly—smooth water.”
In fact, through the little town of Wyvern,
shut out for the most part from the forest
grounds, and old gray manor-house of the
same name, it came to be buzzed abroad and
about that, whether for love, or from a
motive more sane, though less refined, pretty
Miss Alice Maybell had set her heart on
marrying her surly old benefactor, whose
years were enough for her grandfather.
It was an odd idea to get into people's
heads; but why were her large soft gray
eyes always following the Squire by stealth
And, after all, what is incredible of the
insanities of ambition ? or the subtilty of
women :
In the stable-yard of Wyvern Master
Charles had his foot in the stirrup, and the
old fellow with a mulberry-coloured face, and
little gray eyes, who held the stirrup-leather
at the other side, said, grinning—
“I wish ye may get it.”


48 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“Get what ?” said Charles Fairfield, ar-
resting his spring for a moment and turning
his dark and still handsome face, with a hard
look at the man, for there was something dry
and sly in his face and voice.
“What we was talking of-the old house
and the land,” said the man.
“Hey, is that all ?” said the young squire
as he was still called at four-and-forty,
throwing himself lightly into the saddle.
“I’m pretty easy about that, why, what's
the matter 4”
“What if the old fellow took it in his
head to marry 4” -
“Marry—eh 4 well, if he did, I don't
care ; but what the devil makes you talk like
that ? why, man, there's black and white,
seal and parchment for that, the house and
acres are settled, Tom ; and who do you
think would marry him *
“You’re the last to hear it; any child in
the town could tell you, Miss Alice Maybell.”
“Oh! do they really I did not think of


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 49
that,” said the young squire, first looking in
old Tom's hard gray eyes. Then for a mo-
ment at his own boot thoughtfully, and then
he swung himself into the saddle, and struck
his spur in his horse's side, and away he
plunged, without another word.
“He don’t like it, not a bit,” said Tom,
following him with askance look as he rode
down the avenue. “No more do I, she's
always a-watching of the Squire, and old
Harry does throw a sheep's eye at her, and
she's a likely lass; what though he be old,
it's an old rat that won't eat cheese.”
As Tom stood thus, he received a poke on
the shoulder with the end of a stick, and
looking round saw old Squire Harry.
The Squire's face was threatening. “Turn
about, d-nye, what were you saying to that
boy o' mine !”
“Nothin’ as I remember,” lied Tom,
bluntly.
“Come, what was it !” said the hard old
voice, sternly.
WOL. I. E


50 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“I said Blackie’d be the better of a
brushin-boot, that's all, I mind.”
“You lie, I saw you look over your
shoulder before you said it, and while he
was talkin' he saw me acomin', and he looked
away—I caught ye at it, ye pair of false,
pratin' scoundrels; ye were talkin' o' me—
come, what did he say, sirrah 4”
“Narra word about ye.”
“You lie ; out wi' it, sir, or I'll make your
head sing like the church bell.”
And he shook his stick in his great tre-
mulous fist, with a look that Tom well knew.
“Narra word about you from first to last,”
said Tom ; and he cursed and swore in sup-
port of his statement, for a violent master
makes liars of his servants, and the servile
vices crop up fast and rank under the shadow
of tyranny.
“I don't believe you,” said the Squire ir-
resolutely, “you're a liar, Tom, a black liar ;
ye'll choke wi' lies some day—you—fool!”
But the Squire seemed partly appeased,


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 51
and stood with the point of his stick now
upon the ground, looking down on little
Tom, with a somewhat grim and dubious
visage, and after a few moment's silence, he
asked—
“Where's Miss Alice 3’’
“Takin' a walk, sir.”
“Where, I say ?”
“She went towards the terrace-garden,”
answered Tom. -
And toward the terrace-garden walked
with a stately, tottering step the old Squire,
with his great mastiff at his heels. Under
the shadow of tall trees, one side of their
rugged stems lighted with the yellow sunset,
the other in soft gray, while the small birds
were singing pleasantly high over his head
among quivering leaves.
He entered the garden, ascending five
worn steps of stone, between two weather-
worn stone-urns. It is a pretty garden,
all the prettier though sadder for its ne-
glected state. Tall trees overtop its walls
i
E 2


52 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
from without, and those gray walls are here
and there overgrown with a luxuriant mantle
of ivy; within are yew-trees and wonderfully
tall old myrtles; laurels not headed down
for fifty years, and grown from shrubs into
straggling, melancholy trees. Its broad walls
are now overgrown with grass, and it has the
air and solitude of a ruin. -
In this conventual seclusion, seated under
the shade of a great old tree, he saw her.
The old-fashioned rustic seat on which she
sat is confronted by another, with what was
once a gravel walk between.
More erect, shaking himself up as it were,
he strode slowly toward her. Her head was
supported by her hand—her book on her lap
—she seemed lost in a reverie, as he ap-
proached unawares over the thick carpet of
grass and weeds.
“Well, lass, what brings you here ?
You'll be sneezing and coughing for this ;
won't you—sneezing and coughing—a moist,
dark nook ye've chosen,” said Squire Harry,


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 53
placing himself, nevertheless, on the seat
opposite.
She started at the sound of his voice, and
as she looked up in his face, he saw that she
had been crying.
The Squire said nothing, but stiffly scuffled
and poked the weeds and grass at his feet,
for a while, with the end of his stick, and
whistled low, some dreary old bars to him-
self.
At length he said abruptly, but in a kind
tone— -
“You’re no child, now ; you've grown up;
you're a well-thriven, handsome young woman,
little Alice. There's not one to compare wi'
ye ; of all the lasses that comes to Wyvern
Church ye bear the bell, ye do, ye bear the
bell; ye know it. Don't ye Come, say
lass; don't ye know there's none to compare
wi' ye?”
“Thank you, sir. It's very good of you
to think so—you're always so kind,” said
pretty Alice, looking very earnestly up in his


54 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
face, her large tearful eyes wider than usual,
and wondering, and, perhaps, hoping for what
might come next.
“I’ll be kinder, may-be ; never ye mind;
ye like Wyvern, lass—the old house; well,
it's snug, it is. It's a good old English
house ; none o' your thin brick walls and
Greek pillars, and scrape o’ rotten plaster,
like my Lord Wrybroke's sprawling house,
they think so fine—but they don't think it,
only they say so, and they lie, just to flatter
the peer ; d them. They go to London
and learn courtiers' ways there ; that wasn't
so when I was a boy ; a good old gentleman
that kept house and hounds here was more,
by a long score, than half a dozen fine
Lunnon lords; and you're handsomer, Alice,
and a deal better, and a better lady, too,
than the best o' them painted, fine ladies,
that's too nice to eat good beef or mutton,
and can't call a cabbage a cabbage, I’m told,
and would turn up their eyes, like a duck in
thunder, if a body told 'em to put on their


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 55
pattens, and walk out, as my mother used, to
look over the poultry. But what was that
you were saying—I forget 2"
“I don’t think, sir—I don’t remember—
was I saying anything 2 I–I don't recol-
lect,” said Alice, who knew that she had con-
tributed nothing to the talk.
“And you like Wyvern,” pursued the old
man, with a gruff sort of kindness, “well,
you're right ; it's not bin a bad home for ye,
and ye’d grieve to leave it. Ay—you're
right, there's no place like it—there's no air
like it, and ye love Wyvern, and ye shan't
leave it, Alice.”
Alice Maybell looked hard at him ; she
was frightened, and also agitated. She grew
suddenly pale, but the Squire not observing
this, continued—
“That is, unless ye be the greatest fool in
the country's side. You'd miss Wyvern, and
the old woods, and glens, and spinnies, and,
mayhap, ye'd miss the old man a bit too—
not so old as they give out though, and


56 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
'tisn't always the old dog gives in first
—mind ye—nor the young un that's the
best dog, neither. I don't care that stick for
my sons—no more than they for me—that's
reason. They're no comfort to me, nor never
was. They'd be devilish glad I was carried
out o' Wyvern Hall feet foremost.”
“Oh, sir, you can’t think—”
“Hold your little fool's tongue; I'm wiser
than you. If it warn’t for you, child, I don't
see much my life would be good for. You
don't wish me dead, like those cubs. Hold
your tongue, lass. I see some one's bin
frightenin' you ; but I'm not going to die for
a bit. Don't you take on ; gie us your
hand.”
And he took it, and held it fast in his
massive grasp.
“Ye've been cryin, ye fool. Them fellows
bin sayin' I'm breakin' up. It's a d-d lie.
I've a mind to send them about their
business. I'd do it as ready as put a horse
over a three-foot wall; but I’ve twelve years'


THE TERRACE GARDEN. 57
life in me yet. I'm good for fourteen years,
if I live as long as my father did. He took
his time about it, and no one heard me
grumble, and I'll take mine. Don't ye be a
fool; I tell you there's no one goin’ to die
here, that I know of There's gentle blood
in your veins, and you're a kind lass, and
I'll take care o' you—mind, I’ll do it, and I'll
talk to you again.”
And so saying, he gave her hand a parting
shake, and let it drop, and rising, he turned
away, and strode stiffly from the garden.
He was not often so voluble ; and now the
whole of this talk seemed to Alice Maybell
a riddle. He could not be thinking of
marrying; but was he thinking of leaving
her the house and a provision for her
life


CHAPTER WI.
THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF.
HE talked very little that night in the
old-fashioned drawing-room, where Alice
played his favourite old airs for him on the
piano, which he still called the “harpsichord.”
He sat sometimes dozing, sometimes listening
to her music, in the great chair by the fire.
He ruminated, perhaps, but he did not open
the subject, whatever it might be, which he
had hinted at.
But before ten o'clock came, he got up
and stood with his back to the fire. Is there
any age at which folly has quite done with
us, and we cease from building castles in the
air :
“My wife was a tartar,” said he rather
abruptly, “and she was always telling me


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. 59
I'd marry again before she was cold in her
grave, and I made answer, ‘I’ve had enough
of that market, I thank you; one wife in a
life is one too many.’ But she wasn't like
you—no more than chalk to cheese—a head
devil she was. Play me the ‘Week before
Easter’ again, lass.”
And the young lady thrice over played
that pretty but vulgar old air ; and when
she paused the gaunt old Squire chanted the
refrain from the hearth-rug, somewhat quaver-
ingly and discordantly.
“You should have heard Tom Snedly sing
that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a
pair o’ dull dogs—we were pleasanter fellows
then—I don't care if they was at the bottom
of the Lunnon canal. Gi'e us the ‘Lincoln-
shire Poacher, lass. Pippin-squeezing rascals
—and never loved me. I sometimes think
I don't know what the world's a comin' to.
I'd be a younger lad by a score o' years, if
neighbours were as I remember 'em.”
At that moment entered old Tom Ward,


60 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
who, like his master, had seen younger, if
not better days, bearing something hot in a
silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked
at the Squire. The Squire pointed to the
little table by the hearth-rug, and pulled out
his great gold watch, and found it was time
for his “night-cap.”
Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased
his master, and stood with his shrewd gray
eye on him, till he had swallowed his first
glass, then the Squire nodded gruffly, and he
knew all was right, and was relieved, for
every one stood in awe of old Fairfield.
Tom was gone, and the Squire drank a
second glass, slowly, and then a third, and
stood up again with his back to the fire and
filled his glass with the last precious drops
of his cordial, and placed it on the chimney-
piece, and looked steadfastly on the girl,
whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while
her slender fingers played those hilarious
airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to
listen to.


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. 61
“Down in the mouth, lass—hey : * said
the Squire with a suddenness that made the
unconscious girl start.
When she looked up he was standing
grinning upon her, from the hearth-rug, with
his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed.
“You girls, when you like a lad, you're
always in the dumps—ain't ye 2–mopin' and
moultin' like a sick bird, till the fellow comes
out wi' his mind, and then all's right, flutter
and song and new feathers, and—come, what
do you think o' me, lass 4 °
She looked at him dumbly, with a colour-
less and frightened face. She saw no object
in the room but the tall figure of the old man,
flushed with punch, and leering with a horrid
jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic-
lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning
and wagging his head with exulting encou-
ragement.
Had Squire Fairfield, as men have done,
all on a sudden grown insane ; and was that
leering mask, the furrows and contortions of


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. 63
and order your maids about ; and I’ll leave
you every acre and stick and stone, and
silver spoon, that's in or round about Wyvern
—for you're a good lass, and I'll make a
woman of you ; and I’d like to break them
young rascals' necks—they never deserved
a shilling o' mine ; so gie's your hand, lass,
and the bargain's made.”
. So the Squire strode a step or two nearer,
extending his huge bony hand, and Alice,
aghast, stared with wide open eyes fixed on
him, and exclaiming faintly, “Oh, sir!—oh,
Mr. Fairfield !”
“Oh 1 to be sure, and oh, Squire Fair-
field !” chuckled he, mimicking the young
lady, as he drew near ; “ye need not be
shy, nor scared by me, little Alice ; I like
you too well to hurt the tip o' your little
finger, look ye—and you'll sleep on't, and
tell me all to-morrow morning.”
And he laid his mighty hands, that had
lifted wrestlers from the earth, and hurled
boxers headlong in his day, tremulously on


64 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
her two little shoulders. “And ye’ll say
good-night, and gi'e me a buss ; good-night
to ye, lass, and we'll talk again in the
morning, and ye’ll say naught, mind, to
the boys, d n 'em, till all's settled—
ye smooth-cheeked, bright-eyed, cherry-lipped
little "—
And here the ancient Squire boisterously
“bussed" the young lady, as he had threat-
ened, and two or three times again, till
scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin,
she broke away, with her cheeks flaming,
and still more alarmed, reached the door.
“Say good-night, won't ye, hey : * bawled
the Squire, still in a chuckle and showing the
chairs out of his way as he stumbled after
her.
“Good-night, sir,” cried she, and made
her escape through the door, and under the
arch that opened from the hall, and up
the stairs toward her room, calling as uncon-
cernedly as she could, but with tremulous
eagerness to her old servant, “Dulcibella,


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. 65
are you there 2" and immensely relieved
when she heard her kindly old voice, and
saw the light of her candle.
“I say—hallo—why wench, what the
devil's come over ye 2 ” halloed the voice of
the old man from the foot of the stairs.
“That's the trick of you rogues all—ye run
away to draw us after ; well, it won't do—
another time. I say, good-night, ye wild
bird.”
“Thank you, sir—good night, sir—good
night, sir,” repeated the voice of Alice,
higher and higher up the stairs, and he
heard her door shut.
He stood with a flushed face, and a sar-
donic grin for a while, looking up the stairs,
with his big bony hand on the banister, and
wondering how young he was ; and he
laughed and muttered pleasantly, and re-
solved it should all be settled between them
next evening; and so again he looked at his
watch, and found that she had not gone,
after all, earlier than usual, and went back
WOL. I. F


66 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
to his fire, and rang the bell, and got a
second ‘night-cap,' as he called his flagon of
punch.
Tom remarked how straight the Squire
stood that night, with his back to the fire,
eyeing him as he entered from the corners
of his eyes, with a grin, and a wicked wag of
his head.
“A dull dog, Tom. Who's a-goin’ to hang
ye 2 D–n ye, look brighter, or I'll stir ye
up with the poker. Never shake your head,
man; ye may brew yourself a tankard o'
this, and ye’ll find you're younger than ye
think for, and some of the wenches will
be throwing a sheep's eye at you — who
knows?”
Tom did not quite know what to make
of this fierce lighting up of gaiety and be-
nevolence. An inquisitive glance he fixed
stealthily on his master, and thanked him
dubiously—for he was habitually afraid of
him ; and as he walked away through the
passages, he sometimes thought the letter
t


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. 67
that came that afternoon might have told of
the death of old Lady Drayton, or some
other relief of the estate; and sometimes his
suspicions were nearer to the truth, for in
drowsy houses like Wyvern, where events
are few, all theses of conversation are valu-
able and speculation is active, and you may
be sure that what was talked of in the town,
was no mystery in the servants' hall, though
more gossipped over than believed.
Men who are kings in very small dominions
are whimsical, as well as imperious—eccen-
tricity is the companion of seclusion—and
the Squire had a jealous custom, in his house,
which was among the oddities of his des-
potism; it was simply this: the staircase
up which Alice Maybell flew, that night, to
old Dulcibella and her room, is that which
ascends the northern wing of the house. A
strong door in the short passage leading to it
from the hall, shuts it off from the rest of the
building on that level.
For this young lady then, while she was
F 2


68 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
still a child, Squire Fairfield had easily made
an Oriental seclusion in his household, by
locking, with his own hand, that door every
night, and securing more permanently the
doors which, on other levels, afforded access
to the same wing.
He had a slight opinion of the other sex,
and an evil one of his own, and would have
no Romeo and Juliet tragedies. As he
locked this door after Miss Alice Maybell's
“good-night,” he would sometimes wag his
head shrewdly and wink to himself in the
lonely oak hall, as he dropped the key into
his deep coat pocket—“safe bind, safe find,”
“better sure than sorry,” and other wise
saws seconding the precaution.
So this night he recollected the key, as
usual, which in the early morning, when he
drank his glass of beer at his room-door, he
handed to old Mrs. Durdin, who turned it in
the lock, and restored access for the day.
This custom was too ancient—reaching
back beyond her earliest memory—to suggest


THE OLD SQUIRE UNLIKE HIMSELF. (9
the idea of an affront, and so it was acquiesced
in and never troubled Miss Maybell; the
lock was not tampered with, the door was
never passed, although the Squire, versed in
old saws, was simple to rely on that security
against a power that laughs at locksmiths.


CHAPTER WII.
THE SQUIRE's ELDEST SON COMES HOME.
THUS was old Squire Fairfield unexpectedly
transformed, and much to the horror of pretty
Alice Maybell, appeared in the character of
a lover, grim, ungainly, and without the least
chance of that brighter transformation which
ultimately more than reconciles “beauty” to
her conjugal relations with the “beast.”
Grotesque and even ghastly it would have
seemed at any time. But now it was posi-
tively dismaying, and poor troubled little
Alice Maybell, on reaching her room, sat
down on the side of her bed, and to the
horror and bewilderment of old Dulcibella,
wept bitterly and long.
The harmless gabble of the old nurse, who
placed herself by her side, patting her all the


THE SQUIRE's SON COMES HOME. 71
time upon the shoulder, was as the sound of
a humming in the woods in summer time, or
the crooning of a brook. Though her ear
was hardly conscious of it, perhaps it soothed
her.
Next day there was a little stir at Wyvern,
for Charles—or as he was oftener called,
Captain Fairfield—arrived. This “elderly
young gentleman,” as Lady Wyndale called
him, led a listless life there. He did not
much affect rustic amusements; he fished
now and then, but cared little for shooting,
and less for hunting. His time hung heavy
on his hands, and he did not well know what
to do with himself. He smoked and strolled
about a good deal, and rode into Wyvern
and talked with the townspeople. But the
country plainly bored him, and not the less
that his sojourn had been in London, and the
contrast made matters worse. Alice Maybell
had a headache that morning, and not caring
to meet the Squire earlier than was inevit-
able, chose to say so.


72 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
The Captain, who, travelling by the mail,
had arrived at eight o'clock, took his place at
the breakfast-table at nine, and received for
welcome a gruff nod from the Squire, and the
tacit permission to grasp the knuckles which
he grudgingly extended to him to shake.
In that little drama in which the old Squire
chose now to figure, his son Charles was con-
foundedly in the way.
“Well, and what were you doin' in Lunnon
all this time !” grumbled Squire Harry when
he had finished his rasher and his cup of
coffee, after a long, hard look at Charles,
who, in happy unconsciousness, crunched his
toast, and read the county paper.
“I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't hear—
you were saying 2" said Charles, looking up
and lowering the paper.
“Hoo—yes—I was saying, I don't think
you went all the way to Lunnon to say your
prayers in St. Paul's; you've bin losing
money in those hells and places; when your
pocket's full away you go and leave it wi'


74 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
never grudged him his home at Wyvern
before.
“Much he knows about it,” thought
Charles; “time enough, though. If I’m de
trop here I can take my portmanteau and
umbrella, and make my bow and go cheer-
fully.”
The tall Captain, however, did not look
cheerful, but pale and angry, as he stood up
and kicked the newspaper, which fell across
his foot, fiercely. He looked out of the
window, with one hand in his pocket, in sour
rumination. Then he took his rod and flies
and cigar-case, and strolled down to the
river, where, in that engrossing and monoto-
nous delight, celebrated of old by Wenables
and Walton, he dreamed away the dull hours.
Blessed resource for those mysterious mor-
tals to whom nature accords it—stealing
away, as they wander solitary along the
devious river-bank, the memory, the remorse,
and the miseries of life, like the flow and
music of the shadowy Lethe.


THE SQUIRE's SON COMES HOME. 75
This Captain did not look like the man his
father had described him—an anxious man,
rather than a man of pleasure—a man who
was no sooner alone than he seemed to brood
over some intolerable care, and, except during
the exercise of his “gentle craft,” his looks
were seldom happy or Serene.
The hour of dinner came. A party of
three, by no means well assorted. The old
Squire in no genial mood and awfully silent.
Charles silent and abstracted too; his body
sitting there eating its dinner, and his soul
wandering with black care and other phan-
toms by far-off Styx. The young lady had
her own thoughts to herself, uncomfortable
thoughts.
At last the Squire spoke to the intruder,
with a look that might have laid him in the
Red Sea.
“In my time young fellows were more
alive, and had something to say for them-
selves. I don't want your talk myself over
my victuals, but you should 'a spoke to her—


76 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
'tisn't civil—'tweren't the way in my day. I
don't think ye asked her ‘How are ye?’
since ye came back. Lunnon manners, may
be.”
“Oh, but I assure you I did. I could not
have made such an omission. Alice will tell
you I was not quite so stupid,” said Charles,
raising his eyes, and looking at her.
“Not that it signifies, mind ye, the crack
of a whip, whether ye did or no,” continued
the Squire; “but ye may as well remember
that ye're not brother and sister exactly,
and yell call her Miss Maybell, and not
Alice no longer.”
The Captain stared. The old Squire
looked resolutely at the brandy-flask from
which he was pouring into his tumbler.
Alice Maybell's eyes were lowered to the
edge of her plate, and with the tip of her
finger she fiddled with, the crumbs on the
table-cloth. She did not know what to say,
or what might be coming.
So soon as the Squire had quite com-


THE SQUIRE's SON COMES HOME. 77
pounded his brandy-and-water he lifted his
surly eyes to his son with a flush on his aged
cheek, and wagged his head with oracular
grimness, and silence descended again for a
time upon the three kinsfolk.
This uncomfortable party, I suppose, were
off again, each on their own thoughts, in
another minute. But no one said a word
for some time.
“By-the-bye, Alice—Miss Maybell, I mean
—I saw in London a little picture that would
have interested you,” said the Captain, “an
enamelled miniature of Marie Antoinette, a
pretty little thing, only the size of your
watch ; you can't think how spirited and
beautiful it was.”
“And why the dickens didn't ye buy it,
and make her a compliment of it ! Much
good tellin' her how pretty it was,” said the
Squire, sulkily; “’twasn't for want o' money.
D
ashamed to talk o' such a thing without he
had it in his pocket to make an offer of; ”
it, in my day a young fellow ’d be


78 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
and the old Squire muttered sardonically to
his brandy-and-water, and neither Miss Alice
nor Captain Fairfield knew well what to say.
The old man seemed bent on extinguishing
every little symptom of a lighting up of the
gloom which his presence induced.
They came at last into the drawing-room.
The Squire took his accustomed place by the
fire. In due time came his “night-cap.”
Miss Alice played his airs over and over on
the piano. The Captain yawned stealthily
into his hand at intervals, and at last stole
away.
“Well, Ally, here we are at last, girl.
That moping rascal's gone to his bed; I
thought he'd never 'a gone. And now come
here, ye little fool, I want to talk to ye. Come,
I say, what the devil be ye afeared on ? I'd
like to see the fellow ’d be uncivil to you.
My wife, as soon as the lawyers can write
out the parchments, the best settlements has
ever bin made on a Fairfield's wife since
my great uncle's time. Why, ye look as


THE SQUIRE's SON COMES HOME. 79
frightened, ye pretty little fool, as if I was
a-going to rob ye, instead of making ye lady
o' Wyvern, and giving ye every blessed thing
I have on earth. That's right !” -
He had taken her timid little hand in his
bony and tremulous grasp.
“I’ll have ye grander than any that ever
has been *—he was looking in her face with
an exulting glare of admiration—“and I'll
give ye the diamonds for your own, mind,
and I’ll have your picture took by a painter.
There was never a lady o' Wyvern fit to hold
a candle to ye, and I'm a better man than
half the young fellows that's going; and yell
do as ye like—wi' servants, and house, and
horses and all—I’ll deny ye in nothing.
And why, sweetheart, didn't you come down
this morning 2 Was you ailing, child—was
pretty Ally sick in earnest ?”
“A headache, sir. I—I have it still—if-
if you would not mind, I’ll be better, sir, in my
room. I’ve had a very bad headache. It will
be quite well, I dare say, by to-morrow. You


80 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
are very kind, sir; you have always been
very kind, sir; I never can thank you—
never, never, sir, as I feel.”
“Tut, folly, nonsense, child; wait till all's
done, and thank me then, if ye will. I’ll
make ye as fine as the queen, and finer.”
Every now and then he emphasized his
harangue by kissing her cheeks and lips,
which added to her perplexity and terror,
and made her skin flame with the boisterous
rasp of his stubbled chin. “And yell be my
little duchess, my beauty; ye will, my queen
o' diamonds, you roguey-poguey-woguey, as
cunning as a dog-fox ; ” and in the midst of
these tumultuous endearments she managed
to break away from the amorous ogre, and
was out of the door, and up the stairs to her
room, and old Dulcibella, before his tardy
pursuit had reached the cross-door.
An hour has passed, and the young lady
stood up, and placing her arms about her
neck, kissed old Dulcibella.
“Will you take a candle, darling,” she


THE SQUIRE's SON COMES HOME. 81
said, “and go down and see whether the
cross-door is shut 7 °
Down went Dulcibella, the stairs creaking
under her, and the young lady, drying her
eyes, looked at her watch, drew the curtain
at the window, placed the candle on the table
near it, and then, shading her eyes with her
hand, looked out earnestly.
The window did not command the avenue,
it was placed in the side of the house. A
moonlighted view she looked out upon ; a
soft declivity, from whose grassy slopes rose
grand old trees, some in isolation, some in
groups of twos and threes, all slumbering in
the hazy light and still air, and beyond rose,
softer in the distance, gentle undulating up-
lands, studded with trees, and near their
summits, more thickly clothed in forest.
She opened the window softly, and looking
out, sighed in the fresh air of night, and
heard from the hollow the distant rush and
moan of running waters, and her eye searched
the foreground of this landscape. The trunk
WOL. I. G


CHAPTER VIII.
NEWER DID RUN SMOOTH.
SWIFTLY she went to the window and
raised it without noise, and in a moment they
were locked in each other's arms.
“Darling, darling,” was audible ; and
“Oh, Ryl do you love me still?”
“Adore you, darling ! adore you, my little
violet, that grew in the shade—my only, only
darling.”
“And I have been so miserable. Oh,
Ry—that heart-breaking disappointment—
that dreadful moment—you'll never know
half I felt ; as I knocked at that door,
expecting to see my own darling's face
—and then—I could have thrown myself
from the rock over that glen. But you're
here, and I have you after all—and now
G 2


84 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
I must never lose you again—never,
never.” -
“Lose me, darling; you never did, and
never shall; but I could not go—I dare not.
Every fellow, you know, owes money, and
I'm in that sorry plight like the rest, and
just what I told you would have happened,
and that you know would have been worse;
but I think that's all settled, and lose me !
not for one moment ever can you lose me,
my beautiful idol.”
“Oh, yes—that's so delightful, and Ry and
his poor violet will be so happy, and he'll
never love anyone but her.”
“Never, darling, never.”
And he never did.
“Never—of course, never.”
“And I’m sure it could not be helped your
not being at Carwell.”
“Of course it couldn't—how could it !
Don't you know everything 4 You're my
own reasonable, wise little girl, and you
would not like to bore and worry your poor


NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH. 85
Ry. I wish to God I were my own master,
and you'd soon see then who loves you best
in all the world.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, darling, you are ; if we are to be
happy, you must be sure of it. If there's
force in language, or proof in act, you can't
doubt me—you must know how I adore you
—what motive on earth could I have in
saying so, but one 3"
“None, none, darling, darling Ry—it's
only my folly, and you'll forgive your poor
foolish little bird; and oh, Ry, is not this
dreadful—but better, I suppose, that is, when
a few miserable hours are over, and I gone—
and we happy—your poor little violet and
Ry happy together for the rest of our
lives.”
“I think so, I do, all our days; and you
understand everything I told you ?”
“Everything — yes — about to-morrow
morning—quite.”
“The walk isn't too much 3’


86 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“Oh, nothing”
“And old Dulcibella shall follow you early
in the day to Draunton—you remember the
name of the house 2"
“Yes, the Tanzy Well.”
“Quite right, wise little woman, and you
know, darling, you must not stir out—quiet
as it is, you might be seen ; it is only a few
hours' caution, and then we need not care ;
but I don't want pursuit, and a scene, and to
agitate my poor little fluttered bird more
than is avoidable. Even when you look out
of the window keep your veil down ; and—
and just reach the Tanzy House, and do as I
say, and you may leave all the rest to me.
Wait a moment—who's here ? No-no—
nothing. But I had better leave you now—
yes, darling—it is wiser—some of the people
may be peeping, and I'll go.”
And so a tumultuous good-night, wild
tears, and hopes, and panic, and blessings,
and that brief interview was over. -
The window was shut, and Alice Maybell


NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH. 87
in her room—the lovers not to meet again
till forty miles away; and with a throbbing
heart she lay down, to think and cry, and
long for the morning she dreaded.
Morning came, and the breakfast hour,
and the old Squire over his cup of coffee and
rasher, called for Mrs. Durdin, the house-
keeper, and said he—
“Miss Alice, I hear, is ailing this morning;
ye can see old Dulcibella, and make out
would she like the doctor should look in, and
would she like anything nice for breakfast—
a slice of the goose-pie, or what? and send
down to the town for the doctor if she or old
Dulcibella thinks well of it, and if it should
be in church time, call him out of his pew,
and find out what she'd like to eat or
drink;” and with his usual gruff nod he
dismissed her.
“I should be very happy to go to the
town if you wish, sir,” said Charles Fairfield,
desiring, it would seem, to re-establish his
character for politeness, “and I’m extremely


S8 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
sorry, I'm sure, that poor Ally—I mean,
that Miss Maybell—is so ill.”
“You won't cry though, I warrant; and
there's people enough in Wyvern to send of
her messages without troubling you,” said
the Squire.
The Captain, however fiercely, had let this
unpleasant speech pass unchallenged.
The old Squire was two or three times
at the foot of the stairs before church-time,
bawling inquiries after Miss Alice's health,
and messages for her private ear, to old
Dulcibella.
The Squire never missed church. He was
as punctual as his ancestor, old Sir Thomas
Fairfield, who was there every Sunday and
feast-day, lying on his back praying, in
tarnished red, blue, and gold habiliments of
the reign of James I., in which he died, and
took form of painted stone, and has looked
straight up, with his side to the wall, and
his hands joined in supplication ever since.
If the old Squire did not trouble himself


NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH. 89
with reading, nor much with prayer, and
thought over such topics as suited him,
during divine service—he at least went
through the drill of the rubrics decorously,
and stood erect, sat down, or kneeled,
as if he were the ordained fugleman
of his tenantry assembled in the old
church.
Captain Fairfield, a handsome fellow, not-
withstanding his years, with the keen blue
eye of his race—a lazy man, and reserved,
but with the hot blood of the Fairfields in
his veins, which showed itself dangerously on
occasion, occupied a corner of this great oak
enclosure, at the remote end from his father.
Like him he pursued his private ruminations
with little interruption from the liturgy in
which he ostensibly joined. These rumina-
tions were, to judge from his countenance, of
a saturnine and sulky sort. He was thinking
over his father's inhospitable language, and
making up his mind, for though indolent, he
was proud and fiery, to take steps upon it,


NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH. 91
suddenly into fire and thunder in the manor-
house of Wyvern.
There is, we know, an estate of £6,000 a
year, in a ring fence, round this old house.
It owes something alarming, but the parish,
village, and manor of Wyvern have belonged,
time out of mind, to the Fairfield family.
A very red sunset, ominous of storm, floods
the western sky with its wild and sullen
glory. The leaves of the great trees from
whose recesses the small birds are singing
their cheery serenade, flash and glimmer in
it, as if a dew of fire had sprinkled them,
and a blood-red flush lights up the brown
feathers of the little birds.
These Fairfields are a handsome race—
showing handsome, proud English faces.
Brown haired, sometimes light, sometimes
dark, with generally blue eyes, not mild, but
fierce and keen.
They are a race of athletes; tall men,
famous all that country round, generation
after generation, for prowess in the wrestling


CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS GOLD-
HEADED CANE.
THE sun, as I have said, was sinking among
the western clouds with a melancholy glare;
Captain Fairfield was pacing slowly to and
fro upon the broad terrace that extends, with
a carved balustrade, and many a stone
flower-pot, along the rear of the old house.
The crows were winging their way home, and
the air was vocal with their faint cawings
high above the gray roof, and the summits
of the mighty trees, now glowing in that tran-
sitory light. His horse was ready saddled,
and his portmanteau and other trifling effects
had been despatched some hours before.
“Is there any good in bidding him good-
bye ** hesitated the Captain.


94 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
He was thinking of descending the terrace
steps at the further end, and as he mounted
his horse, leaving his valedictory message
with the man who held it. But the spell of
childhood is not easily broken when it has
been respected for so many after-years. The
Captain had never got rid of the childish awe
which began before he could remember. The
virtues are respected; but such vices as pride,
violence, and hard-heartedness in a father,
are more respected still.
Charles could approach a quarrel with that
old despot; he could stand at the very brink,
and with a resentful and defiant eye scan the
abyss ; but he could not quite make up his
mind to the plunge. The old beast was so
utterly violent and incalculable in his anger
that no one could say to what weapons and
extremities he might be driven in a combat
with him, and where was the good in avowed
hostilities : Must not a very few years,
now, bring humiliation and oppression to an
end ?


THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS CANE. 95
Charles Fairfield was saved the trouble of
deciding for himself, however, by the appear-
ance of old Squire Harry, who walked forth
from the handsome stone door-case upon the
terrace, where his son stood ready for de-
parture.
The old man was walking with a measured
tread, holding his head very high, with an
odd flush on his face, and a Sardonic Smile,
and he was talking inaudibly to himself.
Charles saw in all this the signs of storm.
In the old man's hand was a letter firmly
clutched. If he saw his son, who expected
to be accosted by him, he passed him by
with as little notice as he bestowed on the
tall rose-tree that grew in the stone pot by
his side.
The Squire walked down the terrace,
southward, towards the steps, the wild sun-
set sky to his right, the flaming windows of
the house to his left. When he had gone on
a few steps, his tall son followed him. Per-
haps he thought it better that Squire Harry


96 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
should be informed of his intended departure
from his lips than that he should learn it
from the groom who held the bridle of his
horse.
The Squire did not descend the steps, how-
ever; he stopped short of them, and sat down
in one of the seats that are placed at inter-
vals under the windows. He leaned with
both hands on his cane, the point of which
he ground angrily into the gravel; in his
fingers was still crumpled the letter. He
was looking down with a very angry face,
illuminated by the wild western sky, shaking
his head and muttering.
The tall, brown Captain stalked towards
him, and touched his hat, according to his
father's reverential rule.
“May I say a word, sir?” he asked.
The old man stared in his face and nodded
fiercely, and with this ominous invitation he
complied.
“You were pleased, sir,” said he, “yester-
day to express an opinion that, with the


9S THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“So I had, sir—so I had. Don't suppose
I care a rush, sir, who goes—not a d-d rush
—not I. Better an empty house than a bad
tenant.”
Up rose the old man as he spoke, “Away
with them, say I; bundle 'em out—off wi'
them, bag and baggage ; there's more like
ye—read that,” and he thrust the letter at
him like a pistol, and leaving it in his hand,
turned and stalked slowly up the terrace,
while the Captain read the following note:–
“SIR-I hardly venture to hope that you
will ever again think of me with that kind-
ness which circumstances compel me so un-
gratefully to requite. I owe you more than
I can ever tell. I began to experience your
kindness in my infancy, and it has never
failed me since. Oh, sir, do not, I entreat,
deny me one last proof of your generosity—
your forgiveness. I leave Wyvern, and before
these lines are in your hand, I shall have
found another home. Soon, I trust, I shall


THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS CANE. 99
be able to tell my benefactor where. In the
meantime may God recompense you, as I
never can, for all your goodness to me. I
leave the place where all my life has passed
amid continual and unmerited kindness with
the keenest anguish. Aggravated by my
utter inability at present to repay your
goodness by the poor acknowledgment of
my confidence. Pray, sir, pardon me; pray
restore me to your good opinion, or, at least
if you cannot forgive and receive me again into
your favour, spare me the dreadful affliction of
your detestation, and in mercy try to forget
“Your unhappy, but ever grateful
“ALICE MAYBELL.”
When Charles Fairfield, having read this
through, raised his eyes, they lighted on the
old man, returning, and now within a few
steps of him.
“Well, there's a lass for ye | I reared her
like a child o' my own—better, kinder than
ever child was reared, and she's hardly come
H 2


100 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
to her full growth when she serves me like
that. D–n ye, are ye tongue-tied ? what do
you think of her ? »'
“It would not be easy, sir, on that letter,
to pronounce,” said Charles Fairfield, discon-
certed. “There's nothing there to show
what her reasons are.”
“Ye'r no Fairfield—ye'r not, ye'r none.
If ye were, ye'd know when ye'r house was
insulted; but ye'r none; ye'r a cold-blooded
sneak, and no Fairfield.”
“I don't see that anything I could say, sir,
would mend the matter,” said the Captain.
“Like enough ; but I'll tell ye what I
think of her,” thundered the old man, half
beside himself. And his language became so
opprobrious and frantic, that his son said,
with a proud glare and a swarthy flush on
his face,
“I take my leave, sir; for language like
that I’ll not stay to hear.”
“But ye’ll not take ye'r leave, sir, till I
choose, and ye shall stay,” yelled the old


THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS CANE. 101
Squire, placing himself between the Captain
and the steps. “And I’d like to know why
ye shouldn't hear her called what she is—a
— and a —.”
“Because she's my wife, sir,” retorted
Charles Fairfield, whitening with fury.
“She is, is she 4” said the old man, after
a long gaping pause. “Then ye'r a worse
scoundrel, ye black-hearted swindler, than I
took you for—and ye’ll take that—”
And trembling with fury, he whirled his
heavy cane in the air. But before it could
descend, Charles Fairfield caught the hand
that held it.
“None o’ that—none o' that, sir,” he said
with grim menace, as the old man with both
hands and furious purpose sought to wrest
the cane free.
“Do you want me to do it?”
The gripe of old Squire Harry was still
powerful, and it required an exertion of the
younger man's entire strength to wring the
walking-stick from his grasp.


THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS CANE. 103
figure swaying a little, had drawn himself
up and held his head high and defiantly.
There was a little quiver in his white old
features, a wild smile in his eyes, and on
his thin, hard lips, showing the teeth that
time had left him ; and the blood that
patched his white hair trickled down over
his temple.
Charles Fairfield was agitated, and felt
that he could have burst into tears—that it
would have been a relief to fall on his knees
before him for pardon. But the iron pride of
the Fairfields repulsed this better emotion.
He did, however, approach hurriedly, with an
excited and troubled countenance, and he
said hastily—
“I’m awfully sorry, but it wasn't my
fault; you know it wasn't. No Fairfield
ever stood to be struck yet; I cnly took
the stick, sir. D–n it, if it had been
my mother I could not have done it more
gently. I could not help your tripping. I
couldn't ; and I’m awfully sorry, by
2


104 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
and you won't remember it against me?
Say you won't. It's the last time you'll
ever see me in life, and there's no use in
parting at worse odds than we need; and
—and—won't you shake hands, sir?”
“I say, son Charlie, ye’ve spilled my
blood,” said the old man. “May God damn
ye for it; and if ever ye come into Wyvern
after this, while there's breath in my body
I'll shoot ye like a poacher.”
And with this paternal speech, Squire
Harry turned his back and tottered stately
and grimly into the house.


CHAPTER X.
THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON BY
MOONLIGHT.
THE old Squire of Wyvern wandered from
room to room, and stood in this window and
that. An hour after the scene on the ter-
race, he was trembling still and flushed, with
his teeth grimly set, sniffing, and with a
stifling weight at his heart.
Night came, and the drawing-room was
lighted up, and the Squire rang the bell, and
sent for old Mrs. Durdin.
That dapper old woman, with a neat little
cap on, stood prim in the doorway and curt-
sied. She knew, of course, pretty well what
the Squire was going to tell her, and waited
in some alarm to learn in what tone he would
make his communication.


106 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“Well,” said the Squire, sternly, hold-
ing his head very high, “Miss Alice is
gone. I sent for you to tell ye, as y're
housekeeper here. She's gone ; she's left
Wyvern.”
“She’ll be coming again, sir, soon P” said
the old woman after a pause.
“No, not she-no,” said the Squire.
“Not returnin’ to Wyvern, sir?”
“While there's breath in my body she'll
never darken these doors.”
“Sorry she should a displeased you, sir,”
said the good-natured little woman with a
curtsey.
“Displease ye! Who said she displeased
me . It ain't the turning of a pennypiece to
Ha, ha! that's funny.”
“And—what do you wish done with the
bed and the furniture, sir? Shall I leave it
still in the room, please ?”
“Out o' window wi't—pitch it after her;
me—me, by
let the work’us people send up and cart it off
for the poor-house, where she should 'a bin,


THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON. 107
if I hadn't a bin the biggest fool in the
parish.”
“I’ll have it took down and moved, sir,”
said the old woman, interpreting more mode-
rately ; “and the same with Mrs. Crane's
room ; Dulcibella, she's gone too !”
“Ha, ha! well for her—plotting old witch.
I'll have her ducked in the pond if she's
found here ; and never you name them, one
or t'other more, unless you want to go
yourself. I’m fifty pounds better. I didn't
know how to manage or look after her—
they’re all alike. If I chose it I could send a
warrant after her for the clothes on her back ;
but let her be. Away wi' her—a good rid-
dance; and get her who may, I give him joy
o’ her.”
The Squire was glad to see Tom Ward
that night, and had a second tankard of
punch.
“Old servant, Tom ; I believe the old
folk's the best after all,” said he. “It’s a
d—d changed world, Tom. Things were


10S THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
otherwise in our time; no matter, I’ll pay
'em off yet.”
And old Harry Fairfield fell asleep in his
chair, and after an hour wakened up with a
dream of little Ally's music still in his ears.
“Play it again, child, play it again,” he
said, and listened—to silence and looked
about the empty room, and the sudden pain
came again, with a dreadful yearning mixed
with his anger.
The Squire cursed her for a devil, a wild-
cat, a viper, and he walked round the room
with his hands clenched in his coat pockets,
and the proud old man was crying. With
straining and Squeezing the tears oozed and
trickled from his wrinkled eyelids down his
rugged cheeks. -
“I don't care a d-n, I hate her ; I don’t
know what it's for, I be such a fool; I'm glad
she's gone, and I pray God the sneak she's
gone wi' may break her heart, and break his
own d-d neck after, over Carwell scaurs.”
The old man took his candle and from old


THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON. 109
habit, in the hall, was closing the door of the
staircase that led up to her room.
“Ay, ay,” said he, bitterly, recollecting
himself, “the stable-door when the nag's
stole. I don't care if the old house was
blown down to-night—I wish it was. She
was a kind little thing before that d-d
fellow—what could she see in him—good for
nothing—old as I am, I'd pitch him over my
head like a stook o' barley. Here was a plot,
she was a good little thing, but see how she
was drew into it, d-n her, they're all so
false. I’ll find out who was in it, I will; I'll
find it all out. There's Tom Sherwood,
he's one. I’ll pitch 'em all out, neck and
crop, out o' Wyvern doors. I'd rather
fill my house wi' rats than the two-legged
vermin. Let 'em pack away to Carwell
and starve with that big pippin-squeez-
ing ninny. I hope in God's justice he'll
never live to put his foot in Wyvern. I
could shoot myself, I think, but for that.
She might a waited till the old man died,


110 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
at any rate; I was kind to her—a fool—a
fool.”
And the tall figure of the old man, candle
in hand, stalked slowly from the dim hall
and vanished up the other staircase.
While this was going on at Wyvern, nearly
forty miles away, under the bright moon-
light, a chaise, in which were seated the
young lady whose departure had excited so
strange a sensation there, and her faithful
old servant, Dulcibella Crane, was driving
rapidly through a melancholy but not un-
pleasing country.
A wide undulating plain, with here and
there patches of picturesque natural wood,
oak, and whitethorn, and groups of silver-
stemmed birch-trees spread around them.
Those were the sheep-walks of Cressley Com-
mon. The soil is little better than peat, over
which grows a short velvet verdure, alto-
gether more prized by lovers of the pic-
turesque than by graziers of Southdowns.
Could any such scene look prettier than it


THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON. lll
did in the moonlight ! The solitudes, so sad
and solemn, the lonely clumps and straggling
trees, the gentle hollows and hills, and the
misty distance in that cold illusive light
acquire the interest and melancholy of
mystery.
The young lady's head was continually
out of the window, sometimes, looking for-
ward, sometimes back, upon the road they
had traversed. With an anxious look and
a heavy sigh she threw herself back in her
Seat.
“You’re not asleep, Dulcibella 3’ she said,
a little peevishly.
“No Miss, no dear.”
“You don't seem to have much to trouble
you ?” continued the young lady.
“I & Law bless you, dear, nothing, thank
God.”
“None of your own, and my troubles don't
vex you, that's plain,” said her young mistress,
reproachfully.
“I did not think, dear, you was troubled


112 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
about anything—law I hope nothing's gone
wrong, darling,” said the old woman with
more energy and a simple stare in her mis-
tress's face.
“Well, you know he said he'd be with us
as we crossed Cressley Common, and this is
it, and he's not here, and I see no sign of
him.”
And the young lady again popped her head
out of the window, and, her survey ended,
threw herself back once more with another
melancholy moan.
“Why, Miss Alice, dear, you're not frettin'
for that ?” said Dulcibella. “Don’t you
know, dear, if he isn't here he's somewhere
else? We're not to be troubling ourselves
about every little thing like, and who knows,
poor gentleman, what's happened to delay
him P’’
“That's just what I say, Dulcibella; you'll
set me mad! Something has certainly hap-
pened. You know he owes money. Do you
think they have arrested him : If they have,


THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON. 113
what's to become of us ; Oh ' Dulcibella, do
tell me what you really think.” -
“No, no, no—there now—there's a darling,
don't you be worrying yourself about nothing ;
look out again, and who knows but he's
coming 2 °
So said old Dulcibella, who was constitu-
tionally hopeful and contented, and very easy
about Master Charles, as she still called
Charles Fairfield.
She was not remarkable for prescience, but
here the worthy creature fluked propheti-
cally; for Alice Maybell, taking her advice,
did look out again, and she thought she saw
the distant figure of a horseman in pursuit.
She rattled at the window calling to the
driver, and the man who sat beside him, and
succeeded in making them hear her, and pull
the horses up.
“Look back and see if that is not your
master coming,” she cried eagerly.
He was still too distant for recognition, but
the rider was approaching fast. The gentle-
WOL. I. I


114 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
men of the road, once a substantial terror,
were now but a picturesque tradition ; the
appearance of the pursuing horseman over
the solitudes of Cressley Common would else
have been anything but a source of pleasant
anticipation. On he came, and now the clink
of the horse-shoes sounded sharp on the clear
night air. And now the rider passed the
straggling trees they had just left behind
them, and now his voice was raised and recog-
nised, and in a few moments more, pale and
sad in the white moonlight as Leonora's
phantom trooper, her stalwart lover pulled up
his powerful hunter at the chaise window.
A smile lighted up his gloomy face as he
looked in.
“Well, darling, I have overtaken you at
Cressley Common; and is my little woman
quite well, and happy to see her Ry once
more ?”
His hand had grasped hers as he murmured
these words through the window.
“Oh, Ry, darling---I'm so happy—you


THE DRIVE OVER CRESSLEY COMMON. 115
must let Tom ride the horse on, and do you
come in and sit here, and Dulcibella can take
my cloaks and sit by the driver. Come, dar-
ling, I want to hear everything.”
And so this little arrangement was com-
pleted, as she said, and Charles Fairfield sat
himself beside his beautiful young wife, and
as they drove on through the moonlit scene,
he pressed her hand and kissed her lovingly.


118 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
gun, and kill a hare or a rabbit, and we'll
live like the old Baron and his daughters in
the fairy-tale—on the produce of the streams,
and solitudes about us—quite to ourselves;
and I’ll read to you in the evenings, or we'll
play chess, or we'll chat while you work, and
I'll tell you stories of my travels, and you'll
sing me a song, won't you ?”
“Too delighted—singing for joy,” said
little Alice, in a rapture at his story of
the life that was opening to them, “oh, tell
more.”
& 4 Well—yes
flowers.”
and you'll have such pretty
“Oh, yes—flowers—I love them—not ex-
pensive ones—for we are poor, you know ;
and you’ll see how prudent I’ll be—but an-
nuals, they are so cheap—and I’ll sow them
myself, and I’ll have the most beautiful you
ever saw. Don't you love them, Ry 2"
“Nothing so pretty, darling, on earth, ex-
cept yourself.”
“What is my Ry looking out for "


HOME. 119
Charles Fairfield had more than once put
his head out of the window, looking as well
as he could along the road in advance of the
horses.
“Oh, nothing of any consequence, I only
wanted to see that our man had got on with
the horse, he might as well knock up the old
woman, and see that things were, I was going
to say, comfortable, but less miserable than
they might be.”
He laughed faintly as he said this, and
he looked at his watch, as if he did not
want her to see him consult it, and then he
said—
“Well, and you were saying—oh—about
the flowers—annuals—Yes.”
And so they resumed. But somehow it
seemed to Alice that his ardour and his
gaiety were subsiding, that his thoughts were
away, and pale care stealing over him like the
chill of death. Again she might have re-
membered the ghostly Wilhelm, who grew
more ominous and spectral as he and his


120 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
bride neared the goal of their nocturnal
journey.
“I don't think you hear me, Ry, and some-
thing has gone wrong,” she said at last in a
tone of disappointment, that rose even to
alarm. -
“Oh tell me, Charlie, if there is anything
you have not told me yet 2 you're afraid of
frightening me.” ºr ) .”
“Nothing, nothing, I assure yóu, darling;
what nonsense you do talk, you poor foolish
little bird. No, I mean nothing, but I’ve had
a sort of quarrel with the old man ; you need
not have written that letter, or at least it
would have been better if you had told me
about it.”
“But, darling, I couldn't, I had no oppor-
tunity, and I could not leave Wyvern, where
he had been so good to me all my life, with-
out a few words to thank him, and to entreat
his pardon ; you're not angry, darling, with
your poor little bird 7"
“Angry, my foolish little wife, you little


HOME. 121
know your Ry; he loves his bird too well to
be ever angry with her for anything, but it
was unlucky, at least his getting it just when
he did, for, you may suppose, it did not
improve his temper.”
“Very angry, I'm afraid, was he But
though he's so fiery, he's generous; I'm sure
he'll forgive us, in a little time, and it will all
be made up ; don't you think so?”
“No, darling, I don't. Take this hill
quietly, will you ?” he called from the win-
dow to the driver; “you may walk them a
bit, there's near two miles to go still.”
Here was another anxious look out, and
he drew his head in, muttering, and then he
laid his hand on hers, and looked in her face
and smiled, and he said—
“They are such fools, aren't they 2 and—
about the old man at Wyvern—oh, no, you
mistake him, he's not a man to forgive ; we
can reckon on nothing but mischief from that
quarter, and, in fact, he knows all about it,
for he chose to talk about you as if he had


122 THE WY VERN MYSTERY.
a right to scold, and that I couldn't allow,
and I told him so, and that you were my
wife, and that no man living should say a
word against you.”
“My own brave Ry; but oh! what a grief
that I should have made this quarrel ; but I
love you a thousand times more ; oh, my
darling, we are everything now to one
another.”
“Ho! never mind,” he exclaimed with a
sudden alacrity, “there he is. All right,
Tom, is it !”
“All right, sir,” answered the man whom
he had despatched before them on the horse,
and who was now at the roadside still
mounted.
“He has ridden back to tell us she'll have
all ready for our arrival—oh, no, darling,”
he continued gaily, “don’t think for a moment
I care a farthing whether he's pleased or
angry. He never liked me, and he cannot
do us any harm, none in the world, and
sooner or later Wyvern must be mine;” and


HOME. 123
he kissed her and smiled with the ardour of
a man whose spirits are, on a sudden, quite
at ease.
And as they sat, hand pressed in hand,
she sidled closer to him, with the nestling
instinct of the bird, as he called her, and
dreamed that if there were a heaven on
earth, it would be found in such a life as that
on which she was entering, where she would
have him “all to herself.” And she felt now,
as they diverged into the steeper road and
more sinuous, that ascended for a mile the
gentle wooded uplands to the grange of
Carwell, that every step brought her nearer
to Paradise.
Here is something paradoxical; is it? that
this young creature should be so in love with
a man double her own age. I have heard of
cases like it, however, and I have read, in
some old French writer—I have forgot who
he is — the rule laid down with solemn
audacity, that there is no such through-fire-
and-water, desperate love as that of a girl


124 THE WY VERN MYSTERY.
for a man past forty. Till the hero has
reached that period of autumnal glory, youth
and beauty can but half love him. This
encouraging truth is amplified and em-
phasized in the original. I extract its
marrow for the comfort of all whom it may
COn Cern.
On the other hand, however, I can't forget
that Charles Fairfield had many unusual aids
to success. In the first place, by his looks,
you would have honestly guessed him at
from four or five years under his real age.
He was handsome, dark, with white even
teeth, and fine dark blue eyes, that could
glow ardently. He was the only person at
Wyvern with whom she could converse. He
had seen something of the world, something
of foreign travel; had seen pictures, and
knew at least the names of some authors;
and in the barbarous isolation of Wyvern,
where squires talked of little but the last
new plough, fat oxen, and kindred subjects,
often with a very perceptible infusion of the


HOME. 125
country patois—he was to a young lady with
any taste either for books or art, a resource,
and a companion.
And now the chaise was drawing near to
Carwell Grange. With a childish delight
she watched the changing scene from the
window. The clumps of wild trees drew
nearer to the roadside. Winding always
upward, and steeper and steeper, was the
narrow road. The wood gathered closer
around them. The trees were loftier and
more solemn, and cast sharp shadows of
foliage and branches on the white roadway.
All the way her ear and heart were filled
with the now gay music of her lover's talk.
At last through the receding trees that
crowned the platform of the rising grounds
they had been ascending, gables, chimneys,
and glimmering windows showed themselves
in the broken moonlight ; and now rose
before them, under a great ash tree, a gate-
house that resembled a small square tower
of stone, with a steep roof, and partly


126 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
clothed in ivy. No light gleamed from its
windows. Tom dismounted, and pushed open
the old iron gate that swung over the
grass-grown court with a long melancholy
Screak.
It was a square court with a tolerably high
wall, overtopped by the sombre trees, whose
summits, like the old roofs and chimneys,
were silvered by the moonlight.
This was the front of the building, which
Alice had not seen before, the great entrance
and hall-door of Carwell Grange.


CHAPTER XII.
THE OMEN OF CARWELL GRANGE.
THE high wall that surrounded the court-
yard, and the towering foliage of the old
trees, were gloomy. Still if the quaint stone
front of the house had shown through its
many windows the glow of life and welcome,
I dare say the effect of those sombre acces-
sories would have been lost in pleasanter
associations, and the house might have showed
cheerily and cozily enough. As it was, with
no relief but the cold moonlight that mottled
the pavement and tipped the chimney tops,
the silence and deep shadow were chilling,
and it needed the deep enthusiasm of true
love to see in that dismal frontage the de-
lightful picture that Alice Maybell's eyes
beheld.


128 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“Welcome, darling, to our poor retreat,
made bright and beautiful by your presence,”
said he, with a gush of tenderness; “but
how unworthy to receive you none knows
better than your poor Ry. Still for a short
time—and it will be but short—you will
endure it. Delightful your presence will make
it to me; and to you, darling, my love will
perhaps render it tolerable. Take my hand,
and get down ; and welcome to Carwell
Grange.”
Lightly she touched the ground, with her
hand on his strong arm, for love rather than
for assistance.
“I know how I shall like this quaint, quiet
place,” said she, “love it, and grow perhaps
fit for no other, if only my darling is always
with me. You'll show it all to me in day-
light to-morrow—won't you ?”
Their little talk was murmured, and un-
heard by others, under friendly cover of the
snorting horses, and the talk of the men
about the luggage.


130 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
been called in to help the crone who stood
in the foreground. With a grave, observing
stare, she was watching the young lady,
who, Smiling, stepped into the hall.
“Welcome, my lady—very welcome to
Carwell,” said the old woman. “Welcome,
Squire, very welcome to Carwell.”
“Thank you very much. I'm sure I shall
like it,” said the young lady, smiling happily;
“it is such a fine old place; and it's so quiet
—I like quiet.”
“Old enough and quiet enough, anyhow,”
answered the old woman. “You’ll not see
many new faces to trouble you here, Miss—
Ma'am, my lady, I mean.”
“But we'll all try to make her as pleasant
and as comfortable as we can ” said Charles
Fairfield, clapping the old woman on the
shoulder a little impatiently.
“There don’t lay much in my way to make
her time pass pleasant, Master Charles; but I
suppose we'll all do what we can 2"
“And more we can’t,” said Charles Fair-


132 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
a rapture that Charles Fairfield could not
forbear laughing, though he felt also very
grateful.
“Well, I admit,” he said, looking round,
“it does look wonderfully comfortable, all
things considered ; but here, I am afraid, is
the beginning and the end of our magni-
ficence—for the present, of course, and by-
and-by, little by little, we may improve and
extend ; but I don't think in the whole house
there's a habitable room—sitting-room I mean
—but this,” he laughed.
“It is the pleasantest room I ever was in,
Charlie—a delightful room—I’m more than
content,” said she.
“You are a good little creature,” said he,
“at all events, the best little wife in the
world, determined to make the best of every-
thing, and as I said, we certainly shall be
better very soon, and in the mean time, good
humour and cheerfulness will make our
quarters, poor as they are, brighter and
better than luxury and ill-temper could find


THE OMEN OF CARWELL GRANGE. 133
in a palace. Here are tea-things, and a
kettle boiling—very primitive, very cosy—
we'll be more like civilised people to-morrow
or next day, when we have had time to look
about us, and in the mean time, suppose I
make tea while you run upstairs and put off
your things—what do you say ?”
“Yes, certainly,” and she looked at the old
woman, who stood with her ominous smile at,
the door.
“I ought to have told you her name, Mil-
dred Tarnley—the genius loci. Mildred, you'll
show your mistress to her room.”
And he and his young wife smiled a
mutual farewell. A little curious she was to
see something more of the old house, and she
peeped about her as she went up, and asked
a few questions as they went along. “And
this room,” she asked, peeping into a door
that opened from the back stairs which they
were ascending, “it has such a large fire-
place and little ovens, or what are they : *
“It was the still-room once, my lady, my


134 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
mother remembered the time, but it was
always shut up in my day.”
“Oh, and can you tell me—I forget—
where is my servant : *
“Upstairs, please, with your things,
ma'am, when the man brought up your
boxes.”
Still looking about her and delaying, she
went on. There was nothing stately about
this house ; but there was that about it
which, if Alice had been in less cheerful and
happy spirits, would have quelled and awed
her. Thick walls, windows deep sunk, double
doors now and then, wainscoting, and oak
floors, warped with age.
On the landing there was an archway
admitting to a gallery. In this archway was
no door, and, on the landing, Alice Fairfield,
as I may now call her, stood for a moment
and looked round.
Happy as she was, I cannot tell what
effect these faintly lighted glimpses of old
and desolate rooms, aided by the repulsive


THE OMEN OF CARWELL GRANGE. 135
companionship of her ancient guide, may have
insensibly wrought upon her imagination,
or what a trick that faculty may have just
then played upon her senses, but turning round
to enter the gallery under the open arch, the
old woman standing by her, with the candle
raised a little, Alice Fairfield stepped back,
startled, with a little exclamation of surprise.
The ugly face of old Mildred Tarnley
peeped curiously over the young lady's
shoulder. She stepped before her, and
peered, right and left, into the gallery; and
then, with ominous inquiry into the young
lady's eyes, “I thought it might be a bat, my
lady; there was one last night got in,” she
said; “but there's no such a thing now—
was you afeard of anything, my lady ?”
“I—didn't you see it !” said the young
lady, both frightened and disconcerted.
“I saw’d nothing, ma'am.”
“It's very odd. I did see it; I swear I
saw it, and felt the air all stirred about my
face and dress by it.”


136 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“On here, miss—my lady; was it !”
“Yes; here, before us. I—weren't you
looking 4°
“Not that way, miss—I don't know,” she
said.
“Well, something fell down before us—
all the way—from the top to the bottom of
this place.”
And with a slight movement of her hand
and eyes, she indicated the open archway
before which they stood.
“Oh, lawk! Well, I dare to say it may a
bin a fancy, just.”
“Yes; but it's very odd–-a great heavy
curtain of black fell down in folds from the
top to the floor just as I was going to step
through. It seemed to make a little cloud of
dust about our feet; and I felt a wind from
it quite distinctly.”
“Hey, then it was a black curtain, I sup-
pose,” said the old woman, looking hard at
her.
“Yes—but why do you suppose so 2°


THE OMEN OF CARWELL GRANGE. lä7
“Sich nonsense is always black, ye know.
I see'd nothing—nothing—no more there
was nothing. Didn't ye see me walk
through 1 °
And she stepped back and forward, candle
in hand, with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Oh, I know perfectly well there is no-
thing; but I saw it. I—I wish I hadn't,
said the young lady.
“I wish ye hadn't, too,” said Mildred
Tarnley, pale and lowering. “Them as says
their prayers, they needn't be afeard 'o sich
things; and, for my part, I never see’d any-
thing in the Grange, and I’m an old woman,
and lived here girl, and woman, good sixty
years and more.”
“Let us go on, please,” said Alice.
“At your service, my lady,” said the
crone, with a courtesy, and conducted her to
her room.


AN INSPECTION OF CARWELL GRANGE. 139
leather room; but they're not so dry as this,
though it's wainscot.”
“Oak, I think—isn't it !” said the young
lady, looking round.
“Yes, ma'am ; and there's the pink paper
chamber and dressing room; but they're
gone very poor—and the bed and all that
being in here, I thought 'twas the best 'o the
lot ; an' there's lots o' presses and cupboards
in the wall, and the keys in them, and
the locks all right; and I do think it's the
most comfortablest room, my lady. That is
the dressing-room in there, please ; and do
you like some more wood or coal on the fire,
ma'am : ” -
“Not any ; it is very nice—thanks.”
And Alice sat down before the fire, and
the Smile seemed to evaporate in its glow, and
she looked very grave—and even anxious.
Mildred Tarnley made her courtesy, looked
round the room, and withdrew.
“Well, Dulcibella, when are you going to
have your tea : ” asked Alice, kindly.


140 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“I’ll make a cup here, dear, if you think I
may, after I’ve got your things in their places,
in a few minutes' time.”
“Would you like that better than taking it
downstairs with the servant 2 °
“Yes, dear, I would.”
“I don't think you like her, Dulcibella 2"
“I can't say I mislike her, dear; I han’t
spoke ten words wi' her—she may be very
nice—I don't know.”
“There's something not very pleasant
about her face, don't you think 2 " said Alice.
“Well, dear, but you are sharp ; there's
no hiding my thoughts from you; but there's
many a face we gets used to that doesn't
seem so agreeable-like at first. I think this
rack 'll do very nice for hanging your cloak
on,” she said, taking it from the young lady's
hands. “You’re tired a bit, I'm afeard; ye
look a bit tired—ye do.”
“No, nothing,” said her young mistress,
“only I can’t help feeling sorry for poor old
Wyvern and the Squire, old Mr. Fairfield—it


AN INSPECTION OF CARWELL GRANGE. 141
seems so unkind ; and there was a good deal
to think about ; and, I don’t know how, I
feel a little uncomfortable, in spite of so much
that should cheer me ; and now I must run
down and take a cup of tea—come with me
to the top of the stairs, and just hold the
candle till I have got down.”
When she reached the head of the stairs
she was cheered by the sound of Charles
Fairfield's voice, singing, in his exuberant
jollity, the appropriate ditty, “Jenny, put
the kettle on, —Barney, blow the bellows
strong,” &c.
And, hurrying downstairs, she found him
ready to make tea, with his hand on the
handle of the tea-pot, and the fire brighter
than ever. -
“Well, you didn't stay very long, good
little woman. I was keeping up my spirits
with a song ; and, in spite of my music,
beginning to miss you.”
And, meeting her as she entered the room,
he led her, with his arm about her waist,


142 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
to a chair, in which, with a kiss, he placed
her.
“All this seems to me like a dream. I
can’t believe it ; but, if it be, woe to the fool
who wakes me ! No, darling, it's no dream,
is it !” he said, Smiling, and kissed her again.
“The happiest day of my life,” he said, and
through his eyes smiled upon her a flood of
the tenderest love.
A little more such talk, and then they sat
down to that memorable cup of tea—“the
first in our own house.”
The delightful independence—the excite-
ment, the importance—all our own—cups,
spoons, room, servants—and the treasure
secured, and the haven of all our hopes no
longer doubtful or distânt. Glorious, beau-
tiful dream from which death, wrinkles,
duns, are quite obliterated. Sip while you
may, your pleasant cup of madness, from
that fragile, pretty china, and may the silver
spoon wherewith you stir it, prove to have
come into the world at the moment of your


AN INSPECTION OF CARWELL GRANGE. 143
birth, where fortune is said to place it some-
times. Next morning the sun shone clear
over Carwell Grange, bringing into sharp
relief the joints and wrinkles of the old gray
masonry, the leaves and tendrils of the ivy,
and the tufts of grass which here and there
sprout fast in the chinks of the parapet, and
casting, with angular distinctness upon the
shingled roof, the shadows of the jackdaws
that circled about the old chimney. A twit-
tering of small birds fills the air, and the
Solemn cawing comes mellowed on the ear
from the dark rookery at the other side of
the ravine, that, crossing at the side of the
Grange, debouches on the wider and deeper
glen that is known as the Vale of Carwell.
Youth enjoys a change of abode, and with
the instinct of change and adventure proper
to its energies, delights in a new scene.
Charles Fairfield accompanied his young
wife, who was full of curiosity, and her head
busy with a hundred plans, as in gay and
eager spirits she surveyed her little empire.


AN INSPECTION OF CARWELL GRANGE. 145
one—to make them grow here ; but, if you
won't be persuaded, by all means let us try.
I think there's sunshine wherever you go, and
I should not wonder, after all, if nature
relented, and beautiful miracles were accom-
plished under your influence.”
“I know you are laughing at me,” she
said.
“No, darling—I’ll never laugh at you—
you can make me believe whatever you
choose ; and now that we have looked over
all the wild beauties of our neglected para-
dise, in which, you good little creature, you
are resolved to see all kinds of capabilities
and perfections—suppose we go now to the
grand review of our goods and chattels, that
you planned at breakfast—cups, saucers,
plates, knives, forks, spoons, and all such
varieties.”
“Oh, yes, let us come, Ry, it will be such
fun, and so useful, and old Mrs. Tarnley said
she would have a list made out,” said Alice,
to whom the new responsibilities and digni-
VOL. I. L


146 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
ties of her married state were full of interest
and importance.
So in they came together, and called for
old Mildred, with a list of their worldly
goods ; and they read the catalogue toge-
ther, with every now and then a peal of irre-
pressible laughter.
“I had not an idea how near we were to
our last cup and saucer,” said Charles, “and
the dinner-service is limited to seven plates,
two of which are cracked.”
The comic aspect of their poverty was
heightened, perhaps, by Mrs. Tarnley's pecu-
liar spelling. The old woman stood in the
doorway of the sitting-room while the revision
was proceeding, mightily displeased at this
levity, looking more than usually wrinkled
and bilious, and rolling her eyes upon them,
from time to time, with a malignant ogle.
“I was never good at the pen—I know
that—but your young lady desired me, and
I did my best, and very despickable it be, no
doubt,” said Mildred, with grizzly scorn.


CHAPTER XIV.
A LETTER.
ALICE looked a little paler, her husband
a little discontented. Each had a different
way of reading her unpleasant speech.
“Don’t mind that old woman, darling,
don't let her bore you. I do believe she has
some as odious faults as are to be found on
earth.”
“I don't know what she means by a
warning,” said Alice.
“Nor I, darling, I am sure ; perhaps she
has had a winding-sheet on her candle, or
a coffin flew out of the fire, or a death-watch
ticked in the wainscot,” he answered.
“A warning, what could she mean * *
repeated Alice, slowly, with an anxious gaze
in his eyes.


150 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“My darling, how can you ? A stupid
old woman l’” said he a little impatiently,
“and thoroughly ill-conditioned. She's in
one of her tempers, just because we laughed,
and fancied it was at her ; and there's no-
thing she'd like better than to frighten you,
if she could. I’ll pack her off, if I find her
playing any tricks.”
“Oh, the poor old thing, not for the
world; she'll make it up with me, you'll
find ; I don’t blame her the least, if she
thought that, and I’ll tell her we never
thought of such a thing.”
“Don’t mind her, she's not worth it—
we'll just make out a list of the things that
we want ; I'm afraid we want a great deal
more than we can get, for you have married
a fellow, in all things but love, as poor as
a church mouse.”
He laughed, and kissed her, and patted
her smiling cheek. -
“Yes, it will be such fun buying these
things; such a funny little dinner service,


152 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
about it, and, in fact, it doesn't matter a
farthing where we get them.”
Our friend Charles seemed put out a little,
and his slight unaccountable embarrassment
piqued her curiosity, and made her ever so
little uncomfortable. She was still, however,
a very young wife, and in awe of her hus-
band. It was, therefore, rather timidly that
she said,
“And why, darling Ry, can't we decide
now, and go to-morrow, and choose our
plates, and cups, and saucers ? it would be
such a pleasant little adventure to look for-
ward to.”
“So it might, but we'll have to make up our
minds to have many days go by, and weeks
too, here, with nothing pleasant to look for-
ward to. You knew very well,” he con-
tinued, not so sharply, “when you married
me, that I owed money, and was a poor
miserable devil, and not my own master, and
you really must allow me to decide what is to
be done, when a trifle might any day run us


A LETTER. 153
into mischief. There now, your eyes are full
of tears, how can you be so foolish : ”
“But, indeed, Ry, I'm not,” she pleaded,
smiling through them. “I was only sorry,
I was afraid I had vexed you.”
“Wexed me ! you darling; not the least,
I am only teased to think I am obliged to
deny you anything, much less to hesitate
about gratifying so trifling a wish as this ;
but so it is, and such my hard fate ; and
though I seem to be vexed, it is not with
you, you must not mistake, never, darling,
with you ; but in proportion as I love you,
the sort of embarrassment into which you
have ventured with your poor Ry, grieves
and even enrages him, and the thought, too,
that so small a thing would set it all to
rights. But we are not the only people, of
course, there are others as badly off, and a
great deal worse; there now, darling, you
must not cry, you really mustn't ; you must
never fancy for a moment when anything
happens to vex me, that I could be such a


154 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
brute as to be angry with you; what's to
become of me, if you ever suffer such a
chimera to enter your pretty little head 2
I do assure you, darling, I’d rather blow my
brains out, than inflict a single unhappy hour
upon you ; there now, won't you kiss me,
and look quite happy again 7 and come, we'll
go out again ; you did not see the kennel,
and the brewhouse, and fifty other interest-
ing ruins ; we must be twice as happy as
ever for the rest of the day.”
And so this little cloud, light and swift,
but still a cloud, blew over, and the sun shone
out warm and brilliant again.
The buildings, which enclosed three sides
of the quadrangle which they were now
examining, were, with the exception of the
stables, in such a state of dilapidation as very
nearly to justify in sober earnest the term
“ruins,” which he had half jocularly applied
to them.
“You may laugh as you will,” said Alice,
“but I think this might be easily made


A LETTER. 155
quite a beautiful place—prettier even than
Wyvern.”
“Yes, very easily,” he laughed, “if a
fellow had two or three thousand pounds
to throw away upon it. Whenever I have—
and I may yet,-you may restore, and trans-
form, and do what you like, I'll give you carte
blanche, and in better hands I believe neither
house nor money could be placed. No one
has such taste—though it is hardly for me
to say that.”
Just at that moment the clank of a horse-
shoe was heard on the pavement, and, turn-
ing his head, Charles saw his man, Tom
Sherwood, ride into the yard. Tom touched
his hat and dismounted.
“A letter, sir.”
“Oh 1” said Charles, letting go his wife's
arm, and walking quickly towards him.
The man handed him a letter. Alice was
standing, forgotten for the time, on the
middle of the pavement, while her husband
opened and read his letter.


156 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
When he had done he turned about and
walked a few steps towards her, but still
thinking anxiously and plainly not seeing
her, and he stopped and read it through
again.
“Oh, darling, I beg your pardon, I'm so
stupid. What were we talking about 4 Oh!
yes, the house, this old place. If I live to
succeed to Wyvern you shall do what you
like with this place, and we'll live here if you
like it best.”
“Well, I don’t think I should like to live
here always,” she said, and paused.
She was thinking of the odd incident of
the night before, and there lurked in one
dark corner of her mind just the faintest
image of horror, very faint, but still genuine,
and which, the longer she looked at it grew
the darker; “and I was going to ask you if
we could change our room.”
“I think, darling,” said he, looking at her
steadily, “the one we have got is almost the
only habitable bed-room in the house, and


A LETTER. 157
certainly the most comfortable, but if you
like any other room better—have you been
looking 2*
“No, darling, only I’m such a coward,
and so foolish; I fancied I saw something
when I was going into it last night—old Mrs.
Tarnley was quite close to me.”
“If you saw her it was quite enough to
frighten any one. But what was it—robber,
or only a ghost 4” he asked.
“Neither, only a kind of surprise and a
fright. I did not care to talk about it last
night, and I thought it would have quite
passed away by to-day ; but I can’t quite
get rid of it—and, shall I tell it all to you
now 4° answered Alice.
“You must tell me all, by-and-by,” he
laughed ; “you shall have any room you
like better, only remember they’re all equally
old; and now, I have a secret to tell you.
Harry is coming to dine with us; he'll be
here at six—and—look here, how oddly my
letters come to me.”


158 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
And he held the envelope he had just
now opened by the corner before her eyes.
It was thus:—
“Mr. Thomas Sherwood,
“Post Office,
“Naunton,
“To be called for.”
“There's evidence of the caution I'm
obliged to practise in that part of the world.
The world will never be without sin, poverty,
and attorneys; and there is a cursed fellow
there with eyes wide open and ears erect,
and all sorts of poisoned arrows of the law
to shoot at poor wayfarers like me ; and
that's the reason why I'd rather buy our
modest teacups in London, and not be
so much as heard of in Naunton. Don't
look so frightened, little woman, every fellow
has a dangerous dun or two, and I’m not
half so much in peril as fifty I could name.
Only my father's angry, you know, and when


A LETTER. 159
that quarrel gets to be known it mayn't help
my credit, or make duns more patient. So
I must keep well earthed here till the dogs
are quiet again ; and now, my wise little
housekeeper will devise dinner enough for
our hungry brother, who will arrive, in two
hours' time, with the appetite that Cressley
Common gives every fellow with as little to
trouble him as Harry has.” .


HARRY ARRIVES. 161
Rayther slow I used to think it; but you two
wise heads are so in love wi' one another ye’d
put up in the pound, or the cow-house, or the
horse-pond, for sake o’ each other's company.
“I loved her sweet company better than meat,’
as the song says ; and that reminds me—can
the house afford a hungry man a cut o' beef
or mutton and a mug of ale 2 I asked myself
to dinner, ye know, and that's a bargain
there's two words to, sometimes.”
Master Harry was a wag, after a clumsy
rustic fashion—an habitual jester, and never
joked more genially than when he was letting
his companion in for what he called a “soft.
thing,” in the shape of an unsound horse or a
foolish wager.
His jocularity was supposed to cover a great
deal of shrewdness, and some dangerous quali-
ties also.
While their homely dinner was being got
upon the table, honest Harry quizzed the
lord and lady of Carwell Grange in the same
vein of delicate banter, upon all their domestic
WOL. I. M


162 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
arrangements, and when he found that there
was but one sitting-room in a condition to
receive them, his merriment knew no bounds.
“Upon my soul, you beat the cobbler in
the song that ‘lived in a stall, that served
him for parlour, and kitchen, and hall,” for
there's no mention of the cobbler's wife, and
he, being a single man, you know, you and
your lady double the wonder, don't ye, Alice,
two faces under a hood, and a devilish pinched
little hood, too, heh 4 ha, ha, ha!”
“When did you get to Wyvern ?” asked
Charles Fairfield, after a considerable pause.
“Last night,” answered his brother.
“You saw the old man 2°
“Not till morning,” answered Henry, with
a waggish leer, and a sly glance at Alice.
It was lost, however, for the young lady
was looking dreamily and sadly away, think-
ing, perhaps, of the old Squire, not without
self-upbraidings, and hearing nothing, I am
sure, of all they said.
“Did you breakfast with him : *


HARRY ARRIVES. 163
“By Jove, I did, sir.”
“Well ?”
“Well? Nothing particular, only let me
see how long his stick his—his stick and his
arm, together—say five feet six. Well, I
counsel you, brother, not to go within five
foot six inches of the old gentleman till he
cools down a bit, anyhow.”
“No, we'll not try that,” said Charles,
“and he may cool down, as you say, or nurse
his wrath, as he pleases, it doesn't much
matter to me; he was very angry, but some-
times the thunder and flame blow off, you
know, and the storm hurts no one.”
“I hope so,” said Henry, with a sort of
laugh. “When I tell you to keep out of the
way, mind, I’m advising you against myself.
The more you and the old boy wool each
other the better for Hal.”
“He can't unsettle the place, Harry—not
that I want to see him—I never owed him
much love, and I think now he'd be glad to
see me a beggar.”


164 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
Harry laughed again.
“Did you ever hear of a bear with a sore
head : " said Harry. “Well, that's him, at
present, and I give you fair notice, I think
he'll leave all he can away from you.”
“So let him ; if it's to you, Harry, I don't
grudge it,” said the elder son.
“That's a handsome speech, bless the
speaker. Can you give me a glass of brandy?
This claret I never could abide,” said Harry,
with another laugh; “besides it will break you.”
“I’ve but two bottles, and they have been
three years here. Yes, you can have brandy,
it's here.”
“I’ll get it,” said Alice, brightening up in
the sense of her house-keeping importance,
“It’s—I think it's in this, ain’t it?” she said,
opening one of the presses inserted in the
wainscot.
“Let me, darling, it's there, I ought to
know, I put it there myself,” said Charles,
getting up, and taking the keys from her and
opening another cupboard.


HARRY ARRIVES. 165
“I’m so stupid ' " said Alice, blushing, as
she surrendered them, “and so useless ; but
you're always right, Charlie.”
“He’s a wonderful fellow, ain't he 4” said
Harry, winking agreeably at Charles ; “I
never knew a bran new husband that wasn't.
Wait a bit and the gold rubs off the ginger-
bread—Didn't old Dulcibella—how's she 4–
never buy you a ginger-bread husband down
at Wyvern Fair 2 and they all went, I
warrant, the same road ; the gilding rubs
away, and then off with his head, and eat
him up slops! That's not bad cognac—
where do you get it 4–don't know, of
course ; well, it is good.”
“Glad you like it, Harry,” said his brother.
“It was very kind of you coming over here
so soon ; you must come often—won't you?”
“Well, you know, I thought I might as
well, just to tell you how things was—but,
mind, is anyone here !”
He looked over his shoulder to be sure that
the old servant was not near.


166 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“Mind you're not to tell the folk over at
Wyvern that I came here, because you know
it wouldn't serve me, noways, with the old
chap up there, and there's no use.”
“You may be very easy about that, Harry.
I'm a banished man, you know. I shall
never see the old man's face again; and
rely on it, I shan’t write.”
“I don’t mean him alone,” said Harry, re-
plenishing his glass; “but don't tell any of
them Wyvern people, nor you, Alice. Mind
—I’m going back to-night, as far as Barnsley,
and from there I'll go to Dawling, and round,
d'ye mind, south, by Leigh Watton, up to
Wyvern, and I'll tell him a thumpin' lie if he
asks questions.”
“Don’t fear any such thing, Harry,” said
Charles.
“Fear ! I’m not afeard on him, nor
never was.”
“Fancy, then,” said Charles.
“Only,” continued Harry, “I’m not like
you—I han’t a house and a bit o' land to fall


HARRY AREIVES. 167
back on ; d'ye see ? He'd have me on the
ropes if I vexed him. He'd slap Wyvern
door in my face, and stop my allowance, and
sell my horses, and leave me to the 'sizes and
the lawyers for my rights; and I couldn't be
comin' here spongin' on you, you know.”
“You’d always be welcome, Harry,” said
Charles.
“Always,” echoed his wife, in whom every-
one who belonged to Charlie had a welcome
claim.
But Harry went right on with his speech
without diverging to thank them.
“And you'll be snug enough here, you see,
and I might go whistle, and dickins a chance
I'll ha' left but to go list or break horses, or
break stones, by jingo ; and I ha' run risks
enough in this thing o' yours—not but I'm
willin' to run more, if need be ; but there's
no good in getting myself into pound, you
know.”
“By me, Harry. You don't imagine I
could be such a fool," exclaimed Charles.


168 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“Well, I think ye'll allow I stood to ye like
a brick, and didn't funk nothin’ that was
needful—and I’d do it over again—I would.”
Charles took one hand of the generous.
fellow, and Alice took the other, and the
modest benefactor smiled gruffly and flushed
a little, and looked down as they poured
forth in concert their acknowledgments.
“Why, see how you two thanks me. I
always says to fellows, ‘keep your thanks to
yourselves, and do me a good turn when it
lies in your ways.” There's the sort o' thanks
that butters a fellow's parsnips—and so—say
no more.”


CHAPTER XVI.
A PARTY OF THREE.
“I’D tip you a stave, only I’ve got a hoarse-
ness since yesterday, and I’d ask Alice to
play a bit, only there's no piano here to kick
up a gingle with, and Charlie never sang a
note in his life, and "-standing before the
fire, he yawned long and loud—“by Jove,
that wasn't over civil of me, but old friends
need not be stiff, and I vote we yawn all
round for company; and I’ll forgive ye, for
my hour's come, and I'll be taking the road.”
“I wish so much I had a bed to offer you,
Harry; but you know all about it—there
hasn’t been time to arrange anything,” said
Charles.
“Won't you stay and take some tea : *
urged Alice.


A PARTY OF THREE. 17 l
the off side, and a fellow with an eye in his
head won't mistake his action.”
“You will do the best you can for me,
Harry, I know,” said Charles, who knew
nothing about horses, and was lazy in dis-
cussion. “But it's rather a blow just now,
when a poor devil wants every shilling he
can get together, to find himself fifty pounds
nearly out of pocket.”
Was it fancy, or did Alice's pretty ear hear
truly 2 It seemed to her that the tone in
which Charlie spoke was a little more sour
than need be, that it seemed to blame her as
the cause of altered circumstances, and to
hint, though very faintly, an unkind repent-
ance. His eye met hers; full and sad it
looked, and his heart smote him, for the in-
tangible reproof was deserved.
“And here's the best little wife in the
world,” he said, “who would save a lazy man
like me a little fortune in a year, and make
that unlucky fifty pounds, if I could but get
it, do as much as a hundred.”


A PARTY OF THREE. 137
girl, and I’ll look in again whenever I have a
bit o' news to tell ye.”
And with that elegant farewell, he shook
Alice by the hand and clapped her on the
shoulder, and “chucked ” her under the chin.
“And don't ye be faint-hearted, mind,
'twill all come right, and I didn't think this
place was so comfortable as it is. It is a
snug old house with a bit o' coal and a faggot
o' wood, and a pair o' bright eyes, and a
glass o’ that, a man might make shift for a
while. I’d do it myself. I didn't think it
was so snug by half, and I’d rayther stay here
to-night by a long chalk than ride to Barns-
ley, I can tell ye. Come, Charlie, it's time I
should be on the road; and she says, don't you,
Alice, you may see me a bit o the way.”
And so the leave-taking came to an end,
and Charlie and Harry went out together;
and Alice wondered what had induced Harry
to come all that way for so short a visit, with
so very little to tell. Perhaps, however, his
own business, for he was always looking after


174 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
horses, and thought nothing of five-and-thirty
miles, had brought him to the verge of Cress-
ley Common, and if so, he would have come
on the few additional miles, if only to bait
his horse and get his dinner.
Perhaps the old Squire at Wyvern had
broken out more angrily, and was threaten-
ing something in which their was real danger
to Charlie, which the brothers did not choose
to tell her. A kindly secrecy and consider-
ate, but seldom unsuspected, and being so
often fifty-fold more torturing than downright
ghastly frankness.
There had been a little chill and shadow
over the party of three, she thought. Charlie
thought his brother Harry the most thorough
partisan that ever man had, and the most
entirely sympathetic. If that were so, and
should not he know best ? Harry had cer-
tainly laughed and joked after his fashion,
and enjoyed himself, and there could not be
much wrong. But Charlie—was not there
something more upon his mind than she quite
—----


A PARTY OF THREE. 177
She went to the door, and opening it,
listened. She heard a step enter the passage
from the stable-yard, and called to ask who
was there. It was only Tom, who had let
out Master Harry's horse, and opened the
gate for him. He led it out, and they walked
together—Master Harry with the bridle in
his hand, and Master Charles walking be-
side him. They took the narrow way along
the little glen towards Cressley Common.
She knew that he would return probably
in a few minutes; and more and more she
wondered what those minutes might contain,
she partly wondered at her own anxiety. So
she returned to the room and waited there
for him. But he remained longer away than
she expected. The tea-things were on the
table deserted. The fire flickered its genial
invitation in vain, and she, growing more un-
comfortable and lonely, and perhaps a little
high at being thus forsaken, went upstairs to
pay old Dulcibella Crane a visit.
WOL. I. N


180 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
about this old house. You remember what
happened when I was coming upstairs with
you—when I was so startled.”
“I didn't see it, miss—ma'am. I only
heard you say summat,” answered Mildred
Tarnley.
“Oh, yes, I know ; but you spoke to-day
of a warning, and you looked when it hap-
pened as if you had heard of it before.”
The old woman raised her chin, and with
her hands folded together made another cour-
tesy, which mutually seemed to say,+
“If you have anything to ask, ask it.”
“Do you remember,” inquired Alice,
“having ever heard of anything strange being
seen at that passage near the head of the
stairs ?”
“I ought, ma'am,” answered the old woman
discreetly.
“And what was it !” inquired Alice.
“I don’t know, ma'am, would the master
be pleased if he was to hear I was talkin' o'
such things to you,” suggested Mildred.


MILDRED TARNLEY’s WARNING STORY. 181
“He’d only laugh as I should, I assure you.
I'm not the least a coward; so you need not
be afraid of my making a fool of myself.
Now, do tell me what it was 1”
“Well, ma'am, you'll be pleased to remem-
ber 'tis you orders me, in case Master Charles
should turn on me about it ; but, as you say,
ma'am, there's many thinks 'tis all nothin' but
old 'oman's tales and fribble-frabble ; and
22
'tisn't for me to say
“I’ll take all the blame to myself,” said
Alice.
“There's no blame in’t as I’m aware on ;
and if there was I wouldn't ask no one to take
it on themselves more than their right share;
and that I'd take leave to lay on them myself,
without stoppin' to ask whether they likes it or
no ; but only I told you, ma'am, that I should
have your orders, and wi' them I'll comply.”
“Yes, certainly, Mrs. Tarnley—and now
do kindly go on,” said Alice.
“Well, please, ma'am, you'll tell me what
you saw 2°


182 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“A heavy black drapery fell from the top
of the arch through which we pass to the
gallery outside the door, and for some seconds
closed up the entire entrance,” answered the
young lady.
“Ay, ay, no doubt that's it; but there was
no drapery there, ma'am, sich as this world's
loom ever wove. Them as weaves that web
is light o' hand and heavy o' heart, and the
de'el himself speeds the shuttle,” and as she
said this the old woman smiled sourly. “I
was talking o' that very thing to Mrs. Crane
here when you came up, ma'am.”
“Yes,” said old Dulcibella, quietly; “it
was very strange, surely.”
“And there came quite a cloud of dust
from it rolling along the floor,” continued
Alice.
“Yes, so there would—so there does; ’tis
always so,” said Mrs. Tarnley, with the same
faint ugly smile ; “not that there's a grain
o’ dust in all the gallery, for the child Lily
Dogger and me washed it out and swept it


MILDRED TARNLEY's WARNING STORY. 183
clean. Dust ye saw; but that's no real dust,
like what the minister means when he says,
“Dust to dust. No, no, a finer dust by far
—the dust o' death. No more clay in that
than in yon smoke, or the mist in Carwell
Glen below; no dust at all, but sich dust as
a ghost might shake from its windin’ sheet
—an appearance, ye understand; that's all,
ma'am—like the rest.”
Alice smiled, but old Mildred's answering
smile chilled her, and she turned to Dulci-
bella; but good Mrs. Crane looked in her
face with round eyes of consternation and a
very solemn countenance. -
“I see, Dulcibella, if my courage fails I'm
not to look to you for support. Well, Mrs.
Tarnley, don't mind—I shan't need her help;
and I’m not a bit afraid, so pray go on.”
“Well, ye see, ma'am, this place and the
house came into the family, my grandmother
used to say, more than a hundred years ago ;
and I was a little thing when I used to hear
her say so, and there's many a year added to


184 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
the tale since then ; but it was in the days o'
Sir Harry Fairfield. They called him Harry
Boots in his day, for he was never seen ex-
cept in his boots, and for the matter o’ that
seldom out o' the saddle ; for there was
troubles in them days, and militia and
yeomanry, and dear knows what all—and
the Fairfields was ever a bold, dare-devil
stock, and them dangerous times answered
them well—and what with dragooning, and
what with the hunting-field, I do suppose his
foot was seldom out o' the stirrup. So my
grandmother told me some called him Booted
Fairfield and more called him Harry Boots—
that was Sir Harry Fairfield o' them days.”
“I think I’ve seen his picture, haven't I?
—at Wyvern. It's in the hall, at the far
end from the door, near the window, with a
long wig and lace cravat, and a great steel
breast-plate 7 ° inquired Alice.
“Like enough, miss—ma'am, I mean—I
don't know, I'm sure—but he was a great
man in his time, and would have his picture


MILDRED TARNLEY's waRNING STORY. 185
took, no doubt. His wife was a Carwell—an
heiress—there's not a Carwell in this country
now, nor for many a day has been. 'Twas
she brought Carwell Grange and the Vale o'
Carwell to the Fairfields—poor thing—pretty
she was. Her picture was never took to
Wyvern, and much good her land, and houses,
and good looks done her. The Fairfields
was wild folk. I don't say there wasn't good
among 'em, but whoever else they was good
to, they was seldom kind to their wives.
Hard, bad husbands they was—that's sure.”
Alice smiled, and stirred the fire quietly,
but did not interrupt, and as the story went
on, she sighed.
“They said she was very lonesome here.
Well, it is a lonesome place, you know—
awful lonesome, and always the same. For
old folk like me it doesn't matter, but young
blood's different, you know, and they likes to
see the world a bit, and talk and hear what's
a-foot, be it fun or change, or what not ; and
she was very lonesome, mopin' about the old


MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY. 187
Harry Boots, far away, and cunning, as all
was done, come clear to light, so as she could
no longer have hope or doubt in the matter.
Poor thing—she loved him better than life—
better than her soul, mayhap, and that's all
she got by't—a bad villain that was.”
“He was untrue to her ?” said Alice.
“Lawk | to be sure he was,” replied Mrs.
Tarnley, with a cynical scorn.
“And so she had that to think of all alone,
along with the rest—for she might have had
a greater match than Sir Harry—a lord he
was. I forget his name, but he’d a given his
eyes almost to a got her. But a' wouldn't
do, for she loved Booted Harry Fairfield, and
him she’d have, and wouldn't hear o' no
other, and so she had enough to think on
here, in Carwell Grange. The house she had
brought the Fairfields—poor bird alone, as
we used to say—but the rest of her time
wasn't very long—it wasn't to be—she used
to walk out sometimes, but she talked to no
one, and she cared for nothin' after that ;


188 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
and there's the long sheet o' water, in the
thick o' the trees, with the black yew-hedge
round it.”
“I know,” said Alice, “a very high hedge,
and trees behind it—it is the darkest place I
ever saw—beyond the garden. Isn't that
the place Z"
“Yes, that's it ; she used to walk round
it—sometimes cryin'—sometimes not; and
there she was found drowned, poor thing.
Some said 'twas by mischance, for the bank
was very steep and slippery—it had been
rainy weather—where she was found, and
more said she made away wi' herself, and
that's what was thought among the Carwell
folk, as my grandmother heared ; for what's
a young creature to do wi' nothing more to
look to, and all alone, wi' no one ever to
talk to, and the heart quite broke 7"
“You said, I think, that there was a picture
here 7 ° inquired Alice.
“I said 'twasn't took to Wyvern, ma'am;
there was a picture here they said 'twas hers


MILDRED TARNLEY’s WARNING STORY. 189
—my grandmother said so, and she should
know. 'Twas the only picture I remember
in the Grange.”
“And where is it !” inquired Alice.
“Dropped to pieces long ago. 'Twas in
the room they called the gun-room, in my
day. The wall was damp; 'twas gone very
poor and rotten in my time, and so black you
could scarce make it out. Many a time
when I was a bit of a girl, some thirteen or
fourteen years old, I stood on the table, for
a long time together a-looking at it. But it
was dropping away that time in flakes, and
the canvas as rotten as tinder, and every
time it got a stir it lost something, till ye
couldn't make nothing of it. It's all gone
long ago, and the frame broke up I do
suppose.”
“What a pity!” said Alice. “Oh, what
a pity! Can you, do you think, remember
anything of it !”
“She was standin’—you could see the
point o' the shoe—white satin it looked like,


MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY. 191
at that distance of time did not care to
invade the sinister sanctity of the lady's
TOOIm.
“No, not this, the room at t'other end o'
the gallery; ’t would require a deal o' doing
up, and plaster, and paper, before you could
lie in’t. But Harry Boots made a woundy
fuss about his dead wife. They was cunning
after a sort, them Fairfields, and I suppose he
thought 'twas best to make folk think he
loved his wife, at least to give 'em something
good to say o' him if they liked, and he gave
alms to the poor, and left a good lump o'
money they say for the parish, both at
Cressley Church and at Carwell Priory—
they call the vicarage so—and he had a
grand funeral as ever was seen from the
Grange, and she was buried down at the
priory, which the Carwells used to be, in a
new vault, where she was laid the first, and
has been the last, for Booted Fairfield
married again, and was buried with his
second wife away at Wyvern. So the poor


192 THF WYVERN MYSTERY.
thing, living and dying, has been to her-
self.”
“But is there any story to account for
what I saw as I came into the gallery with
you?” asked Alice.
“I told you, miss, it was hung with black,
as I heard my grandmother say, and there-
upon the story came, for there was three
ladies of the Fairfield family at different
times before you, ma'am, as saw the same
thing. Well, ma'am, at the funeral, as I’ve
heard say, the young lord that liked her well,
if she’d a had him—and liked her still in
spite of all—gave Sir Harry a lick or two wi'
the rough side o' his tongue, and a duel came
out o' them words more than a year after-
wards, and Harry Boots was killed, and he's
buried away down at Wyvern.”
“Well, see there ! Ain't it a wonder how
gentlemen that has all this world can give,
will throw away their lives at a word, like
that,” moralized Dulcibella Crane—“ and not
knowing what's to become o' them, when


MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY. 193
they've lost all here—all in the snap of a
pistol. If it was a poor body, 'twould be
another matter, but—well it does make a
body stare.”
“You mentioned, Mrs. Tarnley, that some-
thing had occurred about some ladies of the
Fairfield family; what was it?” inquired
Alice.
“Well, they say Sir Harry—that's Booted
Fairfield, you know—brought his second wife
down here, only twelve months after the
first one died, and she saw, at the very same
place, when she was setting her first step on
the gallery, the same thing ye seen your-
self; and two months after he was in his
grave, and she in a madhouse.”
“Well, I think, Mrs. Tarnley, ye needn't
be tellin' all that to frighten the young
lady.”
“Frighten the young lady ? And why
not, if she's frighted wi' truth. She has
asked for the truth, and she's got it. Better
to fright the young lady than fool her,”
WOL. I. o


194 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
answered Mildred Tarnley coldly and
sternly.
“I don't say you should fool her, by no
chance,” answered honest Dulcibella ; “but
there's no need to be filling her head wi'
them frightful fancies. Ye ha’ scared her,
and ye saw her turn pale.”
“Ay, and so well she ought. There was
three other women o’ the Fairfields seen the
same thing, in the self-same place, and every-
one to her sorrow. One fell over the pixie's
cliff; another died in fits, poor thing, wi' her
first baby; and the last was flung beside the
quarry in Cressley Common, ridin' out to see
the hunt, and was never the better o’t in
brain or bone after. Don't tell me, woman.
I know rightly what I’m doin’.”
“Pray, Dulcibella, don't. I assure you,
Mrs. Tarnley, I'm very much obliged,” inter-
posed Alice Fairfield, frighted at the malig-
nant vehemence of the old woman.
“Obliged Not you; why should you ?”
retorted Mildred Tarnley. “Ye're not


MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY. 195
obliged; ye're frightened, I dare say. But
'tis all true ; and no Fairfield has any
business bringing his wife to Carwell Grange;
and Master Charles knows that as well as
me ; and, now, the long and the short o't 's
this, ma'am—ye've got your warning, and ye
had better quit this without letting grass grow
under your feet. You've seen your warnin',
ma'am, and I a' told you, stark enough, the
meanin' o't. My conscience is clear, and ye’ll
do as ye like ; and if, after this, ye expect me
to spy for you, and fetch and carry stories,
and run myself into trouble with other
people, to keep you out of it, ye're clean out
o' your reckoning. Ye'll have no more warn-
ings, mayhap—none from me—and so ye
may take it, ma'am, or leave it, as ye see fit;
and now Mildred Tarnley's said her say. Ye
have my story, and ye have my counsel; and
if ye despise both one and t'other, and your
own eye-sight beside, ye’ll even take what's
coming.”
“Ye shouldn't be frightening Miss Alice like
o 2


196 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
that, I tell you, you should not. Don't grow
frightened at any such a story, dear. I say
it's a shame. Don't you see how ye have her
as white as a handkercher, in a reg'lar state.”
“No, Dulcibella, indeed,” said Alice, smil-
ing, very pale, and her eyes filled up with
tears.
“I’ll frighten her no more; and that you
may be sure on ; and if what I told her be
frightful, 'tisn't me as made it so. Thankless
work it be ; but 'tisn't her nor you I sought
to please, but just to take it off my shoulders,
and leave her none to blame but herself if
she turns a deaf ear. It's ill offering counsel
to a wilful lass. Ye'll excuse me, ma'am, for
speaking so plain, but better now than too
late,” she added, recollecting herself a little.
“And can I do anything, please, ma'am,
below stairs ? I should be going, for who
knows what that child may be a-doing all
this time !”
“Thanks, very much ; no, not anything,”
said Alice.


MILDRED TARNLEY'S WARNING STORY. 197
And Mildred Tarnley, with a hard, dark
glance at her, dropped another stiff little
courtesy, and withdrew.
“Well, I never see such a one as that,”
said old Dulcibella, gazing after her, as it
were through the panel of the door. “You
must not let her talk that way to you, my
darling. She's no business to talk up to her
mistress that way. I don't know what sort
o' manners people has in these here out o'
the way places, I'm sure ; but I think ye'll
do well, my dear, to keep that one at arm's
length, and make her know her place. No-
thing else but encroaching and impudence,
and domineering from such as her, and no
thanks for any condescension, only the more
affable you'll be, the more saucy and con-
ceited she'll grow, and I don't think she likes
you, Miss Alice, no more I do.”
It pains young people, and some persons
always, to hear from an impartial observer
such a conclusion. There is much mortifica-
tion, and often some alarm.


198 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
“Well, it doesn’t much matter,” said
Alice. “I don't think she can harm me
much. I don't suppose she would if she
could, and I don't mind such stories.”
“Why should you, my dear ! No one
minds the like now-a-days.”
“But I wish she liked me ; there are SO
few of us here. It is such a little world,
and I have never done anything to vex her.
I can't think what good it can do her hating
me.”
“No good, dear; but she's bin here so
long—the only hen in the house, and she
doesn’t like to be drove off the roost, I sup-
pose ; and I don't know why she told you
all that, if it wasn't to make your mind
uneasy ; and, dear knows, there's enough to
trouble it in this moping place without her
riggamarolin' sich a yarn.”
“Hush, Dulcibella ; isn’t that a horse ?
Perhaps Charles is coming home.”
She opened the window, which com-
manded a view of the stable-yard.


THE BROTHERS’ WALK. 203
“Never saw a fellow so riled,” answered
Harry; “you know what he is when he is riled,
and I never saw him so angry before. If he
knew I was here—but you'll take care of me?”
“It’s very kind of you, old fellow ; I won't
forget it, indeed I won’t, but I ought to have
thought twice : I ought not to have brought
poor Alice into this fix; for d=- me, if I
know how we are to get on.”
“Well, you know, it's only just a pinch,
an ugly corner, and you are all right—it can't
last.”
“It may last ten years, or twenty for that
matter,” said Charlie. “I was a fool to sell out.
I don't know what we are to do; do you?”
“You’re too down in the mouth ; can’t
ye wait and see ? there's nothing yet, and it
won't cost ye much carrying on down here.”
“Do you think, Harry, it would be well to
take up John Wauling's farm, and try whether
I could not make something of it in my own
hands !” asked Charles.
Harry shook his head.


204 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“You don't 7" said Charlie.
“Well, no, I don't ; you'd never make the
rent of it,” answered Harry; “besides, if you
begin upsetting things here, the people will
begin to talk, and that would not answer;
you'll need to be d d quiet.”
There was here a pause, and they walked
on in silence until the thick shadows of the
trees began to break a little before them, and
the woods grew more scattered ; whole trees
were shadowed in distinct outline, and the
wide common of Cressley, with its furze and
fern, and broad undulations, stretched mistily
before them.
“About money—you know, Charlie, there's
money enough at present and no debts to
signify ; I mean, if you don’t make them you
needn't. You and Alice, with the house and
garden, can get along on a trifle. The tenants
give you three hundred a year, and you can
manage with two.”
“Two hundred a year !” exclaimed Charlie,
opening his eyes.


206 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
dred a year,’ but you know and I know that
won't do, and never did,” exclaimed Charles,
breaking forth bitterly, and then looking hur-
riedly over his shoulder.
“Upon my soul, Charlie, I don't know a
curse about it,” answered Harry, good-
humouredly; “but if it won't do, it won't,
that's certain.”
“Quite certain,” said Charles, and sighed
very heavily; and again there was a little
silence.
“I wish I was as sharp a fellow as you are,
Harry,” said Charles, regretfully.
“Do you really think I'm a sharp chap—
do you though 4 I al’ays took myself for a
bit of a muff, except about cattle — I did,
upon my soul,” said Harry, with an innocent
laugh.
“You are a long way a cleverer fellow than
I am, and you are not half so lazy; and tell
me what you'd do if you were in my situa-
tion ?”
“What would I do if I was in your place 7"


208 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“Just what we agreed,” he answered.
“Well, there was nothing in that that was
not kind and conciliatory, and common sense
—was there?” pleaded Charles.
“It did not so seem to strike the plenipo-
tentiary,” said Harry.
“You seem to think it very pleasant,” said
Charles.
“I wish it was pleasanter,” said Harry;
“but pleasant or no, I must tell my story
straight. I ran in in a hurry, you know, as if
I only wanted to pay over the twenty pounds
—you mind.”
“Ay,” said Charles, “I wish to heaven I
had it back again.”
“Well, I don’t think it made much differ-
ence in the matter of love and liking, I’ll not
deny ; but I looked round, and I swore I
wondered anyone would live in such a place
when there were so many nice places where
money would go three times as far in foreign
countries; and I wondered you did not think
of it, and take more interest yourself, and


THE BROTHERS' WALK. 209
upon that I could see the old soger was think-
ing of fifty things, suspecting poor me of foul
play among the number ; and I was afraid
for a minute I was going to have half a dozen
claws in my smeller; but I turned it off, and
I coaxed and wheedled a bit. You'd a laughed
yourself black, till I had us both a purring
like a pair of old maid's cats.”
“I tell you what, Harry, there's madness
there—literal madness,” said Charles, grasp-
ing his arm as he stopped and turned towards
him, so that Harry had to come also to a
standstill. “Don’t you know it—as mad as
Bedlam : Just think | *
Harry laughed.
“Mad enough, by jingo,” said he.
“But don't you think so—actually mad {"
repeated Charles.
“Well, it is near the word, maybe, but I
would not say quite mad—worse than mad, I
dare say, by chalks; but I wouldn't place the
old soger there,” said Harry.
“Where?” said Charles.
WOL. I. P


THE BROTHERS’ WALK. 211
me. Old Pipeclay doesn't think I have any
reason to play false.”
“Rather the contrary,” said Charles, who
was attentively listening.
“No interest at all,” pursued Harry, turn-
ing his eyes towards the distant knoll of
Torston, and going on without minding
Charles' suggestion,-
“Look, now, that beast ’ll follow my hand
as sweet as sugary-candy, when you'd have
nothing but bolting and baulking, and rearin',
or worse. There's plenty o' them little French
towns or German—and don't you be botherin'
your head about it; only do just as I tell ye,
and I’ll take all in hands.”
“You’re an awfully good fellow, Harry;
for, upon my soul, I was at my wit’s end
almost ; having no one to talk to, and not
knowing what anyone might be thinking of ;
and I feel safe in your hands, Harry, for I
think you understand that sort of work so
much better than I do—you understand
people so much better—and I never was good
P 2


212 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
at managing anyone, or anything for that
matter ; and—and when will business bring
you to town again 3"
“Three weeks or so, I wouldn’t wonder,”
said Harry.
“And I know, Harry, you won't forget me.
I'm afraid to write to you almost ; but if
you'd think of any place we could meet and
have a talk, I'd be ever so glad. You have
no idea how fidgety and miserable a fellow
grows that doesn’t know what's going on.”
“Ay, to be sure ; well, I’ve no objection.
My book's made for ten days or so—a lot of
places to go to—but I’ll be coming round
again, and I’ll tip you a stave.”
“That's a good fellow ; I know you won't
forget me,” said Charles, placing his hand on
his brother's arm.
“No—of course. Good-night, and take
care of yourself, and give my love to Ally.”
“And—and Harry : *
“Well ?” answered Harry, backing his
restless horse a little bit.


THE BROTHERS' WALK. 213
“I believe that’s all.”
“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night,” echoed Charles.
Harry touched his hat with a smile, and
was away the next moment, flying at a ring-
ing trot over the narrow unfenced road that
traverses the common, and dwindling in the
distant moonlight.
“There he goes—light of heart; nothing
to trouble him—life a holiday—the world a
toy.” -
He walked a little bit slowly in the direc-
tion of the disappearing horseman, and paused
again, and watched him moodily till he was
fairly out of sight.
“I hope he won't forget; he's always so
busy about those stupid horses—a lot of
money he makes, I dare say. I wish I knew
something about them. I must beat about
for some way of turning a penny. Poor little
Alice I hope I have not made a mull of it?
I'll save every way I can—of course that's
due to her; but when you come to think of


THE BROTHERS’ WALK. 215
well Grange; but he was not quite sure
that he had power, and did not half like ask-
ing his attorney, to whom he already owed
something. He thought how snug and
pleasant they might be comparatively in
one of those quaint little toy towns in Ger-
many, where dull human nature bursts its
cerements, and floats and flutters away into
a butterfly life of gold and colour—where the
punter and the croupier assist at the worship
of the brilliant and fickle goddess, and bands
play sweetly, and people ain't buried alive in
deserts and forests among dogs and “chaw-
bacons”—where little Alice would be all
wonder and delight. Was it quite fair to
bring her down here, to immure her in the
mouldering cloister of Carwell Grange 2
He had begun now to re-enter the wooded
ascent toward that melancholy mansion ; his
cigar was burnt out, and he said, looking
toward his home through the darkness,
“Poor little Alice I she does love me, I
think—and that's something.”


COMING IN. 217
*
going to sell, and I'm afraid, from what he
says, it won't be very much ; really, twenty
pounds, one way or other, seems ridiculous,
but it does make a very serious difference
just now, and if I hadn't such a clever,
careful little woman as you, I don't really
know what I should do.” -
He added this little complimentary qualifi-
cation with an instinctive commiseration for
the pain he thought he saw in her pretty
face.
“These troubles won't last very long,
Charlie, perhaps. Something, I’m sure, will
turn up, and you'll see how careful I will be.
I’ll learn everything old Mildred can teach
me, ever so much, and you'll see what a
manager I will be.” -
“You are my own little treasure. You
always talk as if you were in the way, some-
how, I don't know how. A wife like you is
a greater help to me than one with two
thousand a year and the reckless habits of a
fine lady. Your wise little head and loving


218 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
heart, my darling, are worth whole fortunes
to me without them, and I do believe you
are the first really good wife that ever a Fair-
field married. You are the only creature I
have on earth, that I’m quite sure of the only
creature.”
And so saying he kissed her, folding her in
his arms, and, with a big tear filling each
eye, she looked up, smiling unutterable affec-
tion, in his face. As they stood together in
that embrace his eyes also filled with tears
and his smile met hers, and they seemed
wrapt for a moment in one angelic glory, and
she felt the strain of his arm draw her
closer.
Such moments come suddenly and are
gone ; but, remaining in memory, they are
the lights that illuminate a dark and troublous
retrospect for ever.
“We'll make ourselves happy here, little
Ally, and I—in spite of everything, my
darling!—and I don't know how it happened
that I staid away so long ; but I walked


COMING IN. 223
exercised. But in this indoor administra-
tion the man is incompetent and in the way.
His ordained activities are out of doors; and
if these are denied him, he mopes away his
days and feels that he cumbers the ground.
With little resource but his fishing-rod, and
sometimes, when a fit of unwonted energy in-
spired him, his walking-stick, and a lonely
march over the breezy expanse of Cressley
Common, days, weeks, and months, loitered
their drowsy way into the past.
There were reasons why he did not care
to court observation. Under other circum-
stances he would have ridden into the neigh-
bouring towns and heard the news, and
lunched with a friend here or there. But
he did not want anyone to know that he was
at the Grange ; and if it should come out that
he had been seen there, he would have had it
thought that it was but a desultory visit.
A man-less indolent, and perhaps not much
more unscrupulous, would have depended upon
a few offhand lies to account for his appear-


224 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
ance, and would not have denied himself an
occasional excursion into human society in
those rustic haunts within his reach. But
Charles Fairfield had not decision to try it,
nor resource for a system of fibbing, and the
easiest and dullest course he took.
In Paradise the man had his business—“to
dress and to keep ’’ the garden—and, no
doubt, the woman hers, suitable to her sex.
It is a mistake to fancy that it is either a
sign of love or conducive to its longevity that
the happy pair should always pass the entire
four-and-twenty hours in each other's com-
pany or get over them in anywise without
variety or usefulness.
Charles Fairfield loved his pretty wife.
She made his inactive solitude more en-
durable than any man could have imagined.
Still it was a dull existence, and being also
darkened with an ever-present anxiety, was
a morbid one.
Small matters harassed him now. He
brooded over trifles, and the one care, which


226 THE WY VERN MYSTERY.
mately concern her, and did immediately
concern her husband, she was jealously ex-
cluded.
Sometimes she felt angry—oftener pained
—always troubled with untold fears and sur-
mises. Poor little Alice It was in the
midst of these secret misgivings that a new
care and hope visited her—a trembling, de-
lightful hope, that hovers between life and
death—sometimes in sad and mortal fear—
sometimes in delightful anticipation of a new
and already beloved life, coming so helplessly
into this great world—unknown, to be her
little comrade, all dependent on that beautiful
love with which her young heart was already
overflowing.
So almost trembling—hesitating—she told
her little story with smiles and tears, in a
pleading, beseeching, almost apologetic way,
that melted the better nature of Charles, who
told her how welcome to him, and how be-
loved for her dear sake the coming treasure
should be, and held her beating heart to his


230 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
“They say he liked Ally—they do upon
my soul, and I wouldn't wonder, 'tis an old
rat won't eat cheese—only you took the bit
out o' his mouth, when you did, and that's
enough to rile a fellow, you know.”
“Who says so : " asked Charles, with a
flush on his face.
“The servants — yes — and the town's
people—it's pretty well about, and I think if
it came to the old boy's ears there would be
black eyes and bloody noses about it,
I do.”
“Well, it's a lie,” said Charles ; “and don’t,
like a good fellow, tell poor little Alice
there's any such nonsense talked about her
at home, it would only vex her.”
“Well, I won’t, if I think of it. Where's
Tom ? But 'twouldn't vex her—not a bit—
quite 'tother way—there's never a girl in
England wouldn't be pleased if old Parr him-
self wor in love wi' her, so she hadn't to
marry him. But the governor, by Jove, I
don't know a girl twelve miles round Wy-


HARRY APPEARS AT THE GRANGE. 231
vern, as big an old brute as he is, would turn
up her nose at him, wi' all he has to grease
her hand. But where's Tom ? the nag must
have a feed.”
So they bawled for Tom, and Tom ap-
peared, and took charge of the horse, receiv-
ing a few directions about his treatment from
Master Harry, and then Charles led his
brother in.
“I’m always glad to see you, Harry, but
always, at the same time, a little anxious
when you come,” said Charles, in a low tone,
as they traversed the passage toward the
kitchen.
“'T'aint much—I have to tell you some-
thing, but first gi' me a mouthful, for I’m as
hungry as a hawk, and a mug o' beer
wouldn't hurt me while I’m waitin'. It's good
hungry air this ; you eat a lot I dessay;
the air alone stands you in fifty pounds a
year, I reckon ; that's paying pretty smart
for what we're supposed to have for the
takin’.”


232 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
And Harry laughed at his joke as they
entered the dark old dining-room.
“Ally not here * * said Harry, looking
round.
“She can't be very far off, but I'll manage
something if she's not to be found.”
So Charles left Harry smiling out of the
window at the tops of the trees, and drum-
ming a devil's tattoo on the pane.
“Ho! Dulcibella. Is your mistress up
stairs : ”
“I think she is gone out to the garden,
sir; she took her trowel and garden gloves,
and the little basket wi' her,” answered the
old woman.
“Well, don't disturb her, we'll not mind,
I'll see old Mildred.”
So to old Mildred he betook himself.
“Here's Master Harry come very hungry,
so send him anything you can make out,
and in the mean time some beer, for he's
thirsty too, and like a good old soul, make all
the haste you can. ”


234 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
gone wi' them—they were grand things for
drinking beer out of the pewter, while ye
live—there's nothing like it for beer—or
porter, by Jove. Have you got any
porter "
“No, not any ; but do, like a good old
fellow, tell me anything you have picked up
that concerns me—there's nothing pleasant, I
know—there can be nothing pleasant, but if
there's anything, I should rather have it now,
than wait, be it ever so bad.”
“I wish you’d put some other fellow on
this business, I know—for you'll come to
hate the sight of me if I’m always bringing
you bad news; but it is not good, that's a
fact ; that beast is getting unmanageable. By
the law, here comes something for a hungry
fellow; thank ye, my lass, God bless ye,
feeding the hungry. How can I pay ye
back, my dear? I don't know, unless by
taking ye in—ha, ha, ha!—whenever ye
want shelter, mind; but you're too sharp, I
warrant, to let any fellow take you in, with


HARRY APPEARS AT THE GRANGE. 235
them roguish eyes you've got. See how she
blushes, the brown little rogue !” he giggled
after her with a leer, as Lilly Dogger, having
placed his extemporized luncheon on the
table, edged hurriedly out of the room.
“Devilish fine eyes she's got, and a nice little
set of ivories, sir. By Jove, I didn't half see
her; pity she's not a bit taller ; and them
square shoulders. But hair—she has nice
hair, and teeth and eyes goes a long
way.”
He had stuck his fork in a rasher while
making his pretty speech, and was champing
away greedily by the time he had come to
the end of his sentence.
“But what has turned up in that quarter ?
You were going to tell me something when
this came in,” asked Charles.
“About the old soger ? Well, if you don't
mind a fellow's talkin' with his mouth full,
I'll try when I can think of it; but the noise
of eating clears a fellow's head of everything,
I think.”


236 | THE wyverN MYSTERY.
“Do, like a dear fellow. I can hear you
perfectly,” urged Charles.
“I’m afraid,” said Harry, with his mouth
full, as he had promised, “ she'll make herself
devilish troublesome.”
“Tell us all about it,” said Charles, un-
easily.
“I told you I was running up to London
—we haven't potatoes like these up at Wy-
vern—and so I did go, and as I promised, F
saw the old beast at Hoxton ; and hang me
but I think some one has been putting her
up to mischief.”
“How do you mean 2–what sort of mis-
chief?” asked Charles.
“I think she's got uneasy about you. She
was asking all sorts of questions.”
“Yes—well ?”
“And I wouldn’t wonder if some one was
telling her—I was going to say lies—but I
mean something like the truth—ha, ha, ha!
By the law, I've been telling such a hatful
of lies about it myself, that I hardly
,”
*


HARRY APPEARS AT THE GRANGE. 237
know which is which, or one end from
t’other.”
“Do you mean to say she was abusing me,
or what?” urged Charles, very uncom-
fortably. *
“I don't suppose you care very much what
the old soger says of you. It ain't pretty,
you may be sure, and it don't much signify.
But it ain't all talk, you know. She's always
grumblin', and I don't mind that—her tic-
dooleroo, and her nerves, and her nonsense.
She wants carriage exercise, she says, and
the court doctor—I forget his name—ha, ha,
hal and she says you allow her next to no-
thing, and keeps her always on the starving
line, and she won't stand it no longer, she
swears; and you'll have to come down with
the dust, my boy.”
And florid, stalwart Harry laughed again
as if the affair was a good joke.
“I can't help it, Harry, she has always had
more than her share. I've been too generous,
I've been a d-d fool always.”


240 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
Charles, as we know, was a lazy man, with
little suspicion, and rather an admiration of
his brother's worldly wisdom and activity—
with a wavering belief in Harry's devotion to
his cause, sometimes a little disturbed when
Harry seemed for a short time hard and
selfish, or careless, but generally returning
with a quiet self-assertion, like the tide on a
summer day.
For my part I don't exactly know how
much or how little Harry cared for Charles.
The Fairfields were not always what is
termed a “united" family, and its individual
members, in prosecuting their several objects,
sometimes knocked together, and occasionally,
in the family history, more violently and
literally than was altogether seemly.


CHAPTER XXI.
HARRY'S BEER AND CONVERSATION.
AT last Harry, looking out of the window as
he leaned back in his chair, said, in a careless
sort of way, but in a low tone—
“Did you ever tell Alice anything about it
before you came here 4 °
“Alice 7" said Charles, wincing and look-
ing very pale. “Well, you know, why
should I ?”
“You know best of course, but I thought
you might, maybe,” answered Harry, stretch-
ing himself with an imperfect yawn.
“No,” said Charles, looking down with a
flush.
“She never heard anything about it at any
time, then –and mind, my dear fellow, I'm
only asking. You know much better than
VOL. I. R


242 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
me what's best to be done ; but the old brute
will give you trouble, I'm afeard. She'll be
writing letters, and maybe printing things;
but you don't take in the papers here, so it
won't come so much by surprise like.”
“Alice knows nothing of it. She never
heard of her,” said Charles.
“I wish she may have heard as little of
Alice,” said Harry.
“Why, you don't mean to say”—began
Charles, and stopped.
“I think the woman has got some sort
of a maggot in her head. I think she has,
more than common, and you'll find I’m right.”
Charles got up and stood at the window
for a little. -
“I can’t guess what you mean, Harry.
I don't know what you think. Do tell me,
if you have any clear idea, what is she
thinking of ?”
“I don't know what to think, and upon
my soul that one's so deep,” said Harry.
“But I’d bet something she's heard more


HARRY'S BEER AND CONVERSATION. 245
“I think, Harry, if you really thought she
and I were married, that was too important a
question for you, wasn't it, to be forgotten so
easily " said Charles.
“Important, how so 2° asked Harry.
“How so, my dear Harry : Why, you can't
be serious—you haven't forgot that the suc-
cession to Wyvern depends on it,” exclaimed
Charles Fairfield.
“Bah! Wyvern, indeed why, man, the
thought never came near me—me Wyvern
Sich pure rot! We Fairfields lives good long
lives mostly, and marries late sometimes;
there's forty good years before ye. Gad,
Charlie, you must think o' summat more
likely if you want folk to believe ye. Ye'll
not hang me on that count, no, no.”
And he laughed.
“Well, I think so; I'm glad of it, for you
know I wrote to tell you about what is, I
hope, likely to be, it has made poor little
Alice so happy, and if there should come an
heir, you know he'd be another squire of


246 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
Wyvern in a long line of Fairfields, and it
wouldn't do, Harry, to have a doubt thrown
on him, and I’m glad to hear you say the
pretence of that d d woman's marriage is
a lie.”
“Well, you know best,” said Harry.
“I’m very sorry for Alice, poor little
thing, if there's ever any trouble at all
about it.”
And he looked through the windows along
the tops of the tufted trees that caught the
sunlight softly, with his last expression of
condolence.
“You have said more than once, I don’t
say to-day, that you were sure—that you
knew as well as I did there was nothing in
that woman's story.”
“Isn't that some one coming : " said
Harry, turning his head toward the door.
“No, no one,” said Charles after a moment's
silence. “But you did say so, Harry—you
know you did.”
“Well, if I did I did, that's all, but I don’t


HARRY's BEER AND CONVERSATION. 253
'twouldn't hurt you, I think, if you kept fifty
pounds or so in your pocket to give her the
slip, if she should begin manoeuvring with
any sort o' dodges that looked serious ; and
if I hear any more I'll let you know; and
I've staid here longer than I meant; and I
ha’n’t seen Ally; but you'll make my com-
pliments, and tell her I was too hurried ;
and my nag's had his feed by this time ; and
I’ve staid too long.”
“Well, Harry, thank you very much. It's
a mere form asking you to remain longer ;
there's nothing to offer you worth staying
for ; and this is such a place, and I so heart-
broken—and—we part good friends—don't
we ??”
“The best,” said Harry, carelessly. “Have
you a cigar or two 2 Thanks ; you may as
well make it three—thank ye—jolly good
'uns. I’ve a smart ride before me ; but I
think I'll make something of it, rayther. My
hands are pretty full always. I'd give ye more
time if they wasn't ; but keep your powder


254 ºw
o
THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
dry, and a sharp look out, and so will I, and
gi’ my love to Ally, and tell her to keep up
her heart, and all will go right, I dare say.”
By this time they had threaded the
passage, and were in the stable-yard again ;
and mounting his horse, Harry turned, and
with a wag of his head and a farewell grin,
rode slowly over the pavement, and dis-
appeared through the gate.
Charles was glad that he had gone with-
out seeing Alice. She would certainly have
perceived that something was wrong. He
thought for a moment of going to the garden
to look for her, but the same consideration
prevented his doing so, and he took his
fishing-rod instead, and went off the other
way, to look for a trout in the brook that
flows through Carwell Glen.


256 THE WYVERN MYSTERY.
peace : He was so cunning and so ener-
getic, that Charles stood in awe of him, and
thought if his sword were pointed at his
breast, that he might as well surrender and
think no more of safety. Harry had been too
much in his confidence, and had been too often
in conference with that evil person whom he
called “the old soger,” to be otherwise than
formidable as an enemy. An enemy he
trusted he never would see him. An unscru-
pulous one in his position could work fearful
mischief to him by a little colouring and per-
version of things that had occurred. He
would not assume such a transformation
possible. -
But always stood before him Harry in his
altered mien and estranged looks, as he
had seen him, sullen and threatening, that
day.
What would he not have given to be sure
that the wicked person whom he now dreaded
more than he feared all other powers, had
formed no actual design against him : If she


258 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
Raising his eyes he did see a carriage
following that unfrequented track. A thin
screen of scattered trees prevented his
seeing this carriage very distinctly. But
the road is so little a thoroughfare that
except an occasional cart, few wheeled
vehicles ever traversed it. A little anxiously
he watched this carriage till it disappeared
totally in the wood. He felt uncomfortably
that its destination was Carwell Grange,
and at that point conjecture failed
him.
This little incident was, I think, the only
one that for a moment disturbed the serene
abstraction of his trout-fishing.
And now the Sun beginning to approach
the distant hills warned him that it was
time to return. So listlessly he walked
homeward, and as he ascended the narrow
and melancholy track that threads the
glen of Carwell, his evil companions, the
fears and cares that tortured him, re-
turned.


THE TROUT. 261
even dangerous ! Here was a very necessary
privacy violated, with what ulterior conse-
quences who could calculate.
This was certainly Alice's doing. Women
are such headstrong, silly creatures


CHAPTER, XXIII.
THE VISITOR.
THE carriage which Charles Fairfield had
seen rounding the picturesque ruin of Gryce's
Mill, was that of Lady Wyndale. Mrs. Tarn-
ley opened the door to her summons, and
acting on her general instructions said “not
at home.”
But good Lady Wyndale was not so to be
put off. She had old Mildred to the side of
the carriage.
“I know my niece will be glad to see me,”
she said. “I’m Lady Wyndale, and you are
to take this card in, and tell my niece, Mrs.
Fairfield, I have come to see her.”
Mrs. Tarnley looked with a dubious scru-
tiny at Lady Wyndale, for she had no idea
that Alice could have an aunt with a title


264 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
the good housekeeper at Wyvern, to whom
I wrote, I suppose I should have lived and
died within fifteen miles of you, thinking all
the time that you had gone to France.”
“We were thinking of that, I told you,”
pleaded Alice, eagerly.
“Well, here you have been for three
months, and I’ve been living within a two
hours drive of you, and dreading all the time
that you were four hundred miles away. I
have never once seen your face. I don't
think that was good-natured.”
“Oh, dear aunt, forgive me,” entreated
Alice. “You will when you know all. If
you knew how miserable I have often been,
thinking how ungrateful and odious I must
have appeared, how meanly reserved and
basely suspicious, all the time longing for
nothing on earth so much as a sight of your
beloved face, and a good talk over everything
with you, my best and truest friend.”
“There, kiss me, child; I’m not angry,
only sorry, darling, that I should have lost


THE VISITOR. 265
so much of your society, which I might have
enjoyed often very much,” said the placable
old lady.
“But, darling aunt, I must tell you how it
was–you must hear me. You know how
I idolize you, and you can't know, but you
may imagine, what, in this solitary place, and
with cares and fears so often troubling me,
your kind and delightful society would have
been to me; but my husband made it a
point, that just for the present I should
divulge our retreat to no one on earth. I
pleaded for you, and in fact there is not
another person living to whom I should have
dreamed of disclosing it ; but the idea made
him so miserable and he urged it with so
much entreaty and earnestness that I could
not without a quarrel have told you, and he
promised that my silence should be enforced
only for a very short time.”
“Dear me ! I'm so sorry,” said Lady
Wyndale, very much concerned. “It must
be that the poor man is very much dipped


266 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
and is literally hiding himself here. You
poor little thing ! Is he in debt 2"
“I am afraid he is. I can't tell you how
miserable it sometimes makes me; not that
he allows me ever to feel it, except in these
precautions, for we are, though in a very
homely way, perfectly comfortable—you
would not believe how comfortable—but we
really are,” said poor, loyal little Alice,
making the best of their frugal and self-
denying life.
“Your room is very snug. I like an old-
fashioned room,” said the good-natured old
lady, looking round ; “and you make it so
pretty with your flowers. Is there any orna-
ment like them : And you have such an
exquisite way of arranging them. It is an
art ; no one can do it like you. You know
I always got you to undertake ours at
Oulton, and you remember Tremaine stand-
ing beside you, trying, as he said, to learn
the art, though I fancy he was studying
something prettier.”


THE VISITOR. 267
Alice laughed; Lord Tremaine was a dis-
tant figure now, and this little triumph a
dream of the past. But is not the spirit of
woman conquest ? Is not homage the air
in which she lives and blooms ? So Alice's
dark, soft eyes dropped for a moment side-
long with something like the faintest blush,
and a little dimpling smile.
“But all that's over, you know,” said Lady
Wyndale ; “you would insist on putting a
very effectual extinguisher upon it, so there's
an end of my match-making, and I hope
you may be very happy your own way, and
I'm sure you will, and you know any little
money trouble can't last long; for old Mr.
Fairfield you know can't possibly live very
long, and then I'm told Wyvern must be his ;
and the Fairfields were always thought to
have some four or five thousand a year, and
although the estate, they say, owes some-
thing, yet a prudent little woman like you,
will get all that to rights in time.”
“You are always so kind and cheery,


272 THE WYWERN MYSTERY.
this kind of invitation is never attended to,
and you would think nothing of going away
and leaving your old auntie to shift for her-
self; and if you will come it will be the
kindest thing you ever did, for I’m growing
old and strangers don't amuse me quite as
much as they did, and I really want a little
home society to exercise my affections and
prevent my turning into a selfish old cat.”
So the tea came in and they sipped it to
the accompaniment of their little dialogue,
and time glided away unperceived, and
the door opened and Charles Fairfield, in
his careless fishing costume, entered the
I’OOIn .
He glanced at Alice a look which she
understood; her visitor also perceived it; but
Charles had not become a mere Orson in
this wilderness, so he assumed an air of
welcome.
“We are so glad to see you here, Lady
Wyndale, though, indeed, it ain't easy to see
anyone, the room is so dark. It was so very


THE VISITOR. 275
tion into the Wale of Carwell, and passes in
the other, with some windings, to the wide
heath of Cressley Common.
This visit, untoward as it was, was, never-
theless, a little stimulus. He felt his spirits
brightening, his pulse less sluggish, and some-
thing more of confidence in his future.
“There's time enough in which to tell her
my trouble,” thought he, as he turned toward
the house; “and by Jovel we haven't had
our dinner. I must choose the time. To-
night it shall be. We will both be, I think,
less miserable when it is told,” and he sighed
heavily.
He entered the house through the back
gate, and as he passed the kitchen door,
called to Mildred Tarnley the emphatic word
“ dinner l’’
END OF WOL. I.
BRADBURY, Evans, AND Co., PRINTERs, whiteFRIARS.


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