«, 
 
 J U ri N N Y L. U D LO VV 
 
 /
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNlVEfiSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 I
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW.
 
 " We spake of many a vanished scene, 
 
 Of what we once had thought and said, 
 Of what had been, and might have been. 
 And wlio was changed, and who was dead." 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD, 
 
 // / 
 
 AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "THE CHANNINGS," ETC. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 Jptftfet]^ ^i)ousantr. 
 
 LONDON: 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 i^ublisfjcrs \\\ ©rtiinaru to |^rr fflajrstg i\)t ©urm. 
 
 i89S. 
 
 {All rights reserved.)

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I, Losing Lena ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 n. Finding both of them ... ... ... i6 
 
 in. Wolfe Barrington's Taming ... ... ... 28 
 
 IV. Major Parrifer ... ... ... ... 4S 
 
 V. Coming Home to him ... ... ... ... 64 
 
 VI. Lease, the Pointsman ... ... ... 80 
 
 VII. Aunt Dean ... ... ... ... ... 98 
 
 VIII, Going THROUGH THE Tunnel ... ... ... 117 
 
 IX, Dick Mitchel ... ... ... ... ... 133 
 
 X, A Hunt by Moonlight ... ... ... 150 
 
 XI. The Beginning of the End ... ... ... 165 
 
 XII. "Jerry's Gazette" ... ... ... ... 182 
 
 XIII. Sophie Chalk ... ... ... ... ... 203 
 
 XIV. At Miss Deveen's ... ... ... ... 219 
 
 XV. The Game Finished ... ... ... ... 238 
 
 XVI. Going to the Mop ... ... ... ... 256 
 
 XVII. Breaking Down ... ... ... ... ... 275 
 
 XVIII. Reality or Delusion? ... ... ... 293 
 
 XIX. David Garth's Night-Watch ... ... .308 
 
 XX. David Garth's Ghost ... ... ... 329
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 XXI. Seeing Life .. .. .. ... ... 348 
 
 XXII. Our Strike ... ... ... 368 
 
 XXIII. Bursting-Up .. ... ... .. ... 389 
 
 XXIV. Getting Away ... ... ... ... 409 
 
 XXV. Over the Water ... ... .. ... 427 
 
 XXVI. At Whitney Hall ... ... ... ... 447
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 LOSING LENA. 
 
 We lived chiefly at Dyke Manor. A fine old place, so close upon 
 the borders of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, that many people 
 did not know which of the two counties it was really in. The house 
 was in Warwickshire, but some of the land was in Worcestershire. 
 The Squire had, however, another estate, Crabb Cot, all in Worces- 
 tershire, and very many miles nearer to Worcester. 
 
 Squire Todhetley was rich. But he lived in the plain, good old- 
 fashioned way that his forefathers had lived ; almost a homely way, 
 it might be called, in contrast with the show and parade that have 
 sprung up of late years. He was respected by every one, and though 
 hotheaded and impetuous, he was simple-minded, open-handed, 
 and had as good a heart as any one ever had in this world. An 
 elderly gentleman now, was he, of middle height, with a portly 
 form and a red face ; and his hair, what was left of it, consisted of 
 a few scanty, lightish locks, standing up straight on the top of his 
 head. 
 
 The Squire had married, but not very early in life. His wife 
 died in a few years, leaving one child only ; a son, named after his 
 father, Joseph. Young Joe was just the pride of the Manor and of 
 his father's heart. 
 
 I, writing this, am Johnny Ludlow. And you will naturally want 
 to hear what I did at Dyke Manor, and why I lived there. 
 
 About three-miles' distance from the Manor was a place called 
 the Court. Not a property of so much importance as the Manor, 
 but a nice place, for all that. It belonged to my father, William 
 Ludlow. He and Squire Todhetley were good friends. I was an 
 only child, just as Tod was ; and, like him, I had lost my mother. 
 They had christened me John, but always called me Johnny. I 
 can remember many incidents of my early life now, but I cannot 
 recall my mother to my mind. She must have died — at least I 
 fancy so — when I was two years old. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow — I. -L
 
 2 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 One morning, two years after that, when I was about four, the 
 servants told me I had a new mamma. I can see her now as she 
 looked when she came home : tall, thin, and upright, with a long 
 face, pinched nose, a meek expression, and gentle voice. She was 
 a Miss Marks, who used to play the organ at church, and had 
 hardly any income at all. Hannah said she was sure she was 
 thirty-five if she was a day — she was talking to Eliza while she 
 dressed me — and they both agreed that she would probably turn 
 out to be a tartar, and that the master might have chosen better. 
 I understood quite well that they meant papa, and asked why he 
 might have chosen better; upon which they shook me and said 
 they had not been speaking of my papa at all, but of the old black- 
 smith round the corner. Hannah brushed my hair the wrong way, 
 and Eliza went off to see to her bedrooms. Children are easily 
 pi"ejudiced : and they prejudiced me against my new mother. 
 Looking at her with the eyes of maturer years, I know that though 
 she might be poor in pocket, she was good and kindly, and every 
 inch a lady. 
 
 Papa died that same year. At the end of another year, Mrs. 
 Ludlow, my step-mother, married Squire Todhetley, and we went 
 to live at Dyke Manor; she, I, and my nurse Hannah. The Court 
 was let for a term of years to the Sterlings. 
 
 Young Joe did not like the new arrangements. He was older 
 than I, could take up prejudices more strongly, and he took a 
 mighty strong one against the new Mrs. Todhetley. He had been 
 regularly indulged by his father and spoilt by all the servants ; so 
 it was only to be expected that he would not like the invasion. 
 Mrs. Todhetley introduced order into the profuse household, 
 hitherto governed by the servants. They and young Joe equally 
 resented it ; they refused to see that things were really more com- 
 fortable than they used to be, and at half the cost. 
 
 Two babies came to the Manor; Hugh first, Lena next. Joe 
 and I were sent to school. He was as big as a house, compared 
 with me, tall and strong and dark, with an imperious way and will 
 of his own. I was fair, gentle, timid, yielding to him in all things. 
 His was the master-spirit, swaying mine at will. At school the 
 boys at once, the very first day we entered, shortened his name 
 from Todhetley to Tod. I caught up the habit, and from that time 
 I never called him anything else. 
 
 And so the years went on. Tod and I at school being drilled 
 into learning ; Hugh and Lena growing into nice little children. 
 During the holidays, hot war raged between Tod and his step- 
 mother. At least sileftt war. Mrs. Todhetley was always kind to 
 him, and she never quarrelled; but Tod opposed her in many 
 things, and would be generally sarcastically cool to her in manner.
 
 LOSING LENA. 3 
 
 We did lead the children into mischief, and she complained of 
 that. Tod did, that is, and of course I followed where he led. 
 " But we can't let Hugh grow up a milksop, you know, Johnny," he 
 would say to me ; " and he would if left to his mother." So Hugh's 
 clothes in Tod's hands came to grief, and sometimes Hugh himself. 
 Hannah, who was the children's nurse now, stormed and scolded 
 over it : she and Tod had ever been at daggers drawn with each 
 other ; and Mrs. Todhetley would implore Tod with tears in her 
 eyes to be careful with the child. Tod appeared to turn a deaf ear 
 to them, and marched off wit^^ Hugh before their very eyes. He 
 really loved the children, and woL:ld have saved them from injury 
 with his hfe. The Squire drove and rode his fine horses. J\lrs. 
 Todhetley had set up a low basket-chaise drawn by a mild she- 
 donkey : it was safer for the children, she said. Tod went into fits 
 whenever he met the turn-out. 
 
 But Tod was not always to escape scot-free, or incite the children 
 to rebellion with impunity. There came a day when he brought 
 himself, through it, to a state of self-torture and repentance. 
 
 It occurred when we were at home for the summer holidays, just 
 after the crop of hay was got in, and the bare fields looked as white 
 in the blazing sun as if they had been scorched. Tod and I were 
 in the three-cornered meadow next the fold-yard. He was making a 
 bat-net with gauze and two sticks. Young Jacobson had shown us 
 his the previous day, and a bat he had caught with it ; and Tod 
 thought he would catch bats too. But he did not seem to be 
 making much hand at the net, and somehow managed to send the 
 pointea end of the stick through a corner of it. 
 
 " I don't think that gauze is strong enough. Tod." 
 
 " I am afraid it is not, Johnny. Here, catch hold of it. I'll go 
 indoors, and see if they can't find me some better. Hannah must 
 have some." 
 
 He flew off past the ricks, and leaped the little gate into the 
 fold-yard— a tall, strong fellow, Avho might leap the Avon. In a 
 few minutes I heard his voice again, and went to meet him. Tod 
 was coming away from the house with Lena. 
 
 " Have you the gauze, Tod ! " 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; the old cat won't look for any ; says she hasn't 
 time. I'll hinder her time a little. Come along, Lena." 
 
 The '"'old cat" was Hannah. I told you she and he were often 
 at daggers drawn. Hannah had a chronic complaint in the shape 
 of ill-temper, and Tod called her names to her face. Upon going 
 in to ask her for the gauze, he found her dressing Hugh and Lena 
 to go out, and she just turned him out of the nursery, and told him 
 not to bother her then with his gauze and his wants. Lena ran 
 after Tod ; she liked him better than all of us put together. She
 
 4 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 had on a blue silk frock, and a white straw hat with daisies round 
 it ; open-worked stockings were on her pretty little legs. By which 
 we saw she was about to be taken out for show, 
 
 " What are you going to do with her, Tod ? " 
 
 " I'm going to hide her," answered Tod, in his decisive way. 
 " Keep where you are, Johnny." 
 
 Lena enjoyed the rebellion. In a minute or two Tod came back 
 alone. He had left her between the ricks in the three-cornered 
 field, and told her not to come out. Then he went off to the front 
 of the house, and I stood inside the barn, talking to Mack, who was 
 hammering away at the iron of the cart-wheel. Out came Hannah 
 by-and-by. She had been dressing herself as well as Hugh. 
 
 " Miss Lena ! " 
 
 No answer. Hannah called again, and then came up the fold- 
 yard, looking about. 
 
 '• Master Johnny, have you seen the child ? " 
 
 " What child ? " I was not going to spoil Tod's sport by telling her. 
 
 " Miss Lena. She has got off somewhere, and my mistress is 
 waiting for her in the basket-chaise." 
 
 " I see her just now along of Master Joseph," spoke up Mack, 
 arresting his noisy hammer. 
 
 "See her where.''" asked Hannah. 
 
 " Close here, a-going that way." 
 
 He pointed to the palings and gate that divided the yard from 
 the three-cornered field. Hannah ran there and stood looking 
 over. The ricks were within a short stone's throw, but Lena kept 
 close. Hannah called out again, and threw her gaze over the 
 empty field. 
 
 " The child's not there. Where can she have got to, tiresome 
 little thing ? " 
 
 In the house, and about the house, and out of the house, as the 
 old riddle says, went Hannah. It was jolly to see her. Mrs. 
 Todhetley and Hugh were seated patiently in the basket-chaise 
 before the hall-door, wondering what made Hannah so long. Tod, 
 playing with the mild she-donkey's ears, and laughing to himself, 
 stood talking graciously to his step-mother. I went round. The 
 Squire had gone riding into Evesham; Dwarf Giles, who made the 
 nattiest little groom in the county, for all his five-and-thirty years, 
 behind him. 
 
 " I can't find Miss Lena," cried Hannah, coming out. 
 
 " Not find Miss Lena! " echoed Mrs. Todhetley. " What do you 
 mean, Hannah ? Have you not dressed her ? " 
 
 " I dressed her first, ma'am, before Master Hugh, and she went 
 out of the nursery. I can't think where she can have got to. I've 
 searched everywhere."
 
 LOSING LENA. 5 
 
 " But, Hannah, we must have her directly ; I am late as it is." 
 
 They were going over to the Court to a children's early party at 
 the Sterlings'. Mrs. Todhetley stepped out of the basket-chaise to 
 help in the search. 
 
 " I had better fetch her, Tod," I whispered. 
 
 He nodded yes. Tod never bore malice, and I suppose he thought 
 Hannah had had enough of a hunt for that day. I ran through the 
 fold-yard to the ricks, and called to Lena. 
 
 " You can come out now, little stupid." 
 
 But no Lena answered. There were seven ricks in a group, and 
 I went into all the openings between them. Lena was not there. It 
 was rather odd, and I looked across the field and towards the lane 
 and the coppice, shouting out sturdily. 
 
 " Mack, have you seen Miss Lena pass indoors ? " I stayed to ask 
 him, in going back. 
 
 No : Mack had not noticed her ; and I went round to the front 
 again, and whispered to Tod. 
 
 " What a muff you are, Johnny ! She's between the ricks fast 
 enough. No danger that she'd come out when I told her to stay ! " 
 
 " But she's not there indeed. Tod. You go and look." 
 
 Tod vaulted off, his long legs seeming to take flying leaps, like a 
 deer's, on his way to the ricks. 
 
 To make short of the story, Lena was gone. Lost. The house, 
 the outdoor buildings, the gardens were searched for her, and she 
 was not to be found. Mrs. Todhetley's fears flew to the ponds at 
 first ; but it was impossible she could have come to grief in either 
 of the two, as they were both in view of the barn-door where I and 
 Mack had been. Tod avowed that he had put her amid the ricks 
 to hide her ; and it was not to be imagined she had gone away. 
 The most feasible conjecture was, that she had run from between 
 the ricks when Hannah called to her, and was hiding in the lane. 
 
 Tod was in a fever, loudly threatening Lena with unheard-of 
 whippings, to cover his real concern. Hannah looked red, Mrs. 
 Todhetley white. I was standing by him when the cook came up ; 
 a sharp woman, with red-brown eyes. We called her Molly. 
 
 " Mr. Joseph," said she, " I have heard of gipsies stealing 
 children." 
 
 " Well ? " returned Tod. 
 
 "There was one at the door a while agone— an insolent one, 
 too. Perhaps Miss Lena " 
 
 " Which way did she go ? — which door was she at ? " burst forth 
 Tod. 
 
 " 'Twas a man, sir. He came up to the kitchen-door, and steps 
 inside as bold as brass, asking me to buy some wooden skewers 
 he'd cut, and saying something about a sick child. When I told
 
 6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 him to march, that we never encouraged tramps here, he wanted to 
 answer me, and I just shut the door in his face. A regular gipsy, 
 if ever I see one," continued Molly ; " his skin tawny and his 
 wild hair jet-black. Maybe, in revenge, he have stole off the little 
 
 miss." 
 
 Tod took up the notion, and his face turned white. " Don't say 
 anything of this to Mrs. Todhetley," he said to Molly. " We must 
 just scour the country." 
 
 But in departing from the kitchen-door, the gipsy man could not 
 by any possibility have made his way to the rick-field without 
 going through the fold-yard. And he had not done that. It was 
 true that Lena might have run round and got into the gipsy's 
 way. Unfortunately, none of the men were about, except Mack 
 and old Thomas. Tod sent these off in different directions ; Mrs. 
 Todhetley drove away in her pony-chaise to the lanes round, saying 
 the child might have strayed there ; Molly and the maids started 
 elsewhere; and I and Tod went flying along a by-road that 
 branched off in a straight line, as it were, from the kitchen-door. 
 Nobody could keep up with Tod, he went so fast ; and I was not 
 tall and strong as he was. But I saw what Tod in his haste did 
 not see — a dark man with some bundles of skewers and a stout 
 stick, walking on the other side of the hedge. I whistled Tod back 
 again. 
 
 " What is it, Johnny ? " he said, panting. " Have you seen 
 
 her ? " 
 
 "Not her. But look there. That must be the man Molly 
 spoke of." 
 
 Tod crashed through the hedge as if it had been so many cob- 
 webs, and accosted the gipsy. I followed more carefully, but got 
 my face scratched. 
 
 " Were you up at the great house, begging, a short time ago ? " 
 demanded Tod, in an awful passion. 
 
 The man turned round on Tod with a brazen face. I say brazen, 
 because he did it so independently ; but it was not an insolent face 
 in itself ; rather a sad one, and very sickly. 
 
 " What's that you ask me, master ? " 
 
 " I ask whether it was you who were at the Manor-house just 
 now, begging ? " fiercely repeated Tod. 
 
 " I was at a big house oftering wares for sale, if you mean that, 
 sir. I wasn't begging." 
 
 "Call it what you please," said Tod, growing white again. 
 " What have you done with the little girl ? " 
 
 For, you see. Tod had caught up the impression that the gipsy 
 had stolen Lena, and he spoke in accordance with it 
 
 " I've seen no little girl, master."
 
 LOSING LENA. 7 
 
 " You have," and Tod gave his foot a stamp. '■ What have you 
 done with her ? " 
 
 The man's only answer was to turn round and wallc off, muttering 
 to himself. Tod pursued him, calling him a thief and other names ; 
 but nothing more satisfactory could he get out of him. 
 
 "He can't have taken her. Tod. If he had, she'd be with him 
 now. He couldn't eat her, you know." 
 
 " He may have given her to a confederate." 
 
 " What to do ? What do gipsies steal children for ? " 
 
 Tod stopped in a passion, hfting his hand. " If you torment me 
 with these frivolous questions, Johnny, I'll strike you. How do I 
 know what's done with stolen children? Sold, perhaps. I'd give a 
 hundred pounds out of my pocket at this minute if I knew where 
 those gipsies were encamped." 
 
 We suddenly lost the fellow. Tod had been keeping him in sight 
 in the distance. W'hether he disappeared up a gum-tree, or into a 
 rabbit-hole, Tod couldn't tell ; but gone he was. 
 
 Up this lane, down that one ; over this moor, across that com- 
 mon; so raced Tod and I. And the afternoon wore away, and we 
 had changed our direction a dozen times : Avhich possibly was not 
 wise. 
 
 The sun was getting low as we passed Ragley gates, for we had 
 finally got into the Alcester road. Tod was going to do what we 
 ought to have done at first : report the loss at Alcester. Some one 
 came riding along on a stumpy pony. It proved to be Gruff 
 Blossom, groom to the Jacobsons. They called him " Gruff" 
 because of his temper. He did touch his hat to us, which was as 
 much as you could say, and spurred the stumpy animal on. But 
 Tod made a sign to him, and he was obliged to stop and listen. 
 
 '•'The gipsies stole off little Miss Lena!" cried old Blossom, 
 coming out of his gruffness. " That's a rum go ! Ten to one if you 
 find her for a year to come." 
 
 " But, Blossom, what do they do with the children they steal ? " 
 I asked, in a sort of agony. 
 
 " They cuts their hair off and dyes their skins brown, and then 
 takes 'em out to fairs a ballad-singing," answered Blossom. 
 
 "But why need they do it, when they have children of their 
 own ? " 
 
 "Ah, well, that's a question I couldn't answer," said old 
 Blossom. " Maybe their'n arn't pretty children— Miss Lena, she 
 is pretty." 
 
 " Have you heard of any gipsies being encamped about here ? " 
 Tod demanded of him. 
 
 " Not lately, Mr. Joseph. Five or six months ago, there was a lot 
 'camped on the Markis's ground. They warn't there long."
 
 8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Can't you ride about, Blossom, and see after the child ? " asked 
 Tod, putting something into his hand. 
 
 Old Blossom pocketed it, and went off with a nod. He was riding 
 about, as we knew afterwards, for hours. Tod made straight for the 
 police-station at Alcester, and told his tale. Not a soul was there 
 but Jenkins, one of the men. 
 
 " I haven't seen no suspicious characters about," said Jenkins, 
 who seemed to be eating something. He was a big man, with 
 short black hair combed on his forehead, and he had a habit of 
 turning his face upwards, as if looking after his nose — a square 
 ornament, that stood up straight. 
 
 " She is between four and five years old ; a very pretty child, with 
 blue eyes and a good deal of curling auburn hair," said Tod, who 
 was growing feverish. 
 
 Jenkins wrote it down — " Name, Todhetley. What Christian 
 name ? " 
 
 " Adalena, called ' Lena.' " 
 
 " Recollect the dress, sir ? " 
 
 " Pale blue silk ; straw hat with wreath of daisies round it ; 
 open-worked white stockings, and thin black shoes ; white drawers," 
 recounted Tod, as if he had prepared the list by heart coming 
 along. 
 
 " That's bad, that dress is," said Jenkins, putting down the pen. 
 
 " Why is it bad ? " 
 
 '"Cause the things is tempting. Quite half the children that 
 gets stole is stole for what they've got upon their backs. Tramps 
 and that sort will run a risk for a blue silk that they'd not run for 
 a brown holland pinafore. Auburn curls, too," added Jenkins, 
 shaking his head ; " that's a temptation also. I'veknowed children 
 sent back home with bare heads afore now. Any ornaments, 
 
 sir 
 
 ? " 
 
 " She was safe to have on her little gold neck-chain and cross. 
 They are very small, Jenkins — not worth much." 
 
 Jenkins lifted his nose — not in disdain, it was a habit he had. 
 "Not worth much to you, sir, who could buy such any day, but an 
 uncommon bait to professional child-stealers. Were the cross a 
 coral, or any stone of that sort ? " 
 
 "It was a small gold cross, and the chain was thin. They could 
 only be seen when her cloak was off. Oh, I forgot the cloak ; it 
 was white : llama, I think they call it. She was going to a child's 
 party." 
 
 Some more questions and answers, most of which Jenkins took 
 down. Handbills were to be printed and posted, and a reward 
 offered on the morrow, if she was not previously found. Then we 
 came away ; there was nothing more to do at the station.
 
 LOSING LENA. 9 
 
 "Wouldn't it have been better, Tod, had Jenkins gone out 
 seeking her and telling of the loss abroad, instead of waiting to 
 write all that down ? " 
 
 " Johnny, if we don't find her to night, I shall go mad," was all 
 he answered. 
 
 He went back down Alcester Street at a rushing pace— not a run 
 but a quick walk. 
 
 " Where are you going now ? " I asked. 
 
 " I'm going up hill and down dale until I find that gipsies' 
 encampment. You can go on home, Johnny, if you are tired." 
 
 I had not felt tired until we were in the police-station. Excite- 
 ment keeps off fatigue. But I was not going to give in, and said 
 I should stay with him. 
 
 " All right, Johnny." 
 
 Before we were clear of Alcester, Budd the land-agent came up. 
 He was turning out of the public-house at the corner. It was dusk 
 then. Tod laid hold of him. 
 
 " Budd, you are always about, in all kinds of nooks and by-lanes : 
 can you tell me of any encampment of gipsies between here and tlie 
 Manor-house ?" 
 
 The agent's business took him abroad a great deal, you know, 
 into the rural districts around. 
 
 •• Gipsies' encampment ? " repeated Budd, giving both of us a 
 stare. " There's none that I know of. In the spring, a lot of them 
 had the impudence to squat down on the Marquis's " 
 
 "Oh, I know all that," interrupted Tod. "Is there nothing of 
 the sort about now ? " 
 
 " I saw a miserable little tent to-day up Cookhill way," said 
 Budd. " It might have been a gipsy's or a travelling tinker's. 
 'Twasn't of much account, whichever it was." 
 
 Tod gave a spring. " Whereabouts ? " was all he asked. And 
 Budd explained where. Tod went off like a shot, and I after him. 
 
 If you are familiar with Alcester, or have visited at Ragley or 
 anything of that sort, you must know the long green lane 
 leading to Cookhill ; it is dark with overhanging trees, and uphill 
 all the way. We took that road— Tod first, and I next ; and we 
 came to the top, and turned in the direction Budd had described 
 the tent to be in. 
 
 It was not to be called dark; the nights never are at mid- 
 summer; and rays from the bright light in the west glimmered 
 through the trees. On the outskirts of the coppice, in a bit of low 
 ground, we saw the tent, a little mite of a thing, looking no better 
 than a funnel turned upside down. Sounds were heard within it, 
 and Tod put his finger on his lip while he listened. But we were 
 too far off, and he took his boots off, and crept up close.
 
 lo JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Sounds of wailing — of some one in pain. But that Tod had 
 been three parts out of his senses all the afternoon, he might have 
 known at once that they did not come from Lena, or from any one 
 so young. Words mingled with them in a woman's voice ; uncouth 
 in its accents, nearly unintelligible, an awful sadness in its tones. 
 
 "A bit longer! a bit longer, Corry, and he'd ha' been back. 
 
 You needn't ha' grudged it to us. Oh h ! if ye had but waited 
 
 a bit longer ! " 
 
 I don't write it exactly as she spoke ; I shouldn't know how to 
 spell it : we made a guess at half the words. Tod, who had grown 
 white again, put on his boots, and lifted up the opening of the 
 tent. 
 
 I had never seen any scene like it ; I don't suppose I shall ever 
 see another. About a foot from the ground was a raised surface 
 of some sort, thickly covered with dark green rushes, just the size 
 and shape of a gravestone. A little child, about as old as Lena, 
 lay on it, a white cloth thrown over her, and just touching the 
 white, still face. A torch, blazing and smoking away, was thrust 
 into the ground and lighted up the scene. Whiter the face looked 
 now, because it had been tawny in life. I would rather see one of 
 our faces in death than a gipsy's. The contrast between the white 
 face and dress of the child, and the green bed of rushes it lay on 
 was something remarkable. A young woman, dark too, and hand- 
 some enough to create a commotion at the fair, knelt down, her 
 brown hands uplifted ; a gaudy ring on one of the fingers, worth 
 sixpence perhaps when new, sparkled in the torchlight. Tod strode 
 up to the dead face and looked at it for full five minutes. I do 
 believe he thought at first that it was Lena. 
 
 " What is this ? " he asked. 
 • " It is my dead child ! " the woman answered. " She did not 
 wait that her father might see her die ! " 
 
 But Tod had his head full of Lena, and looked round. " Is 
 there no other child here ? " 
 
 As if to answer him, a bundle of rags came out of a corner and 
 set up a howl. It was a boy of about seven, and our going in had 
 wakened him up. The woman sat down on the ground and looked 
 at us. 
 
 " We have lost a child — a httle girl," explained Tod. " I 
 thought she might have been brought here — or have strayed here." 
 
 " I've lost my girl," said the woman. " Death has come for 
 her ! " And, when speaking to us, she spoke more intelligibly than 
 when alone. 
 
 " Yes ; but this child has been lost — lost out of doors ! Have 
 you seen or heard anything of one ? " 
 
 " I've not been in the way o' seeing or hearing, master; I've been
 
 LOSING LENA. il 
 
 in the tent alone. If folks had come to my aid, Cony might not 
 have died. I've had nothing but water to put to her lips all day ? " 
 
 " What was the matter with her ? " Tod asked, convinced at 
 length that Lena was not there. 
 
 " She have been ailing long — worse since the moon come in. 
 The sickness took her with the summer, and the strength began to 
 go out. Jake have been down, too. He couldn't get out to bring 
 us help, and we have had none." 
 
 Jake was the husband, we supposed. The help meant food, or 
 funds to get it with. 
 
 " He sat all yesterday cutting skewers, his hands a'most too 
 weak to fashion 'em. Maybe he'd sell 'em for a few ha'pence, he 
 said ; and he went out this morning to try, and bring home a morsel 
 of food." 
 
 " Tod," I whispered, '•' I wish that hard-hearted Molly had " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Johnny," he interrupted sharply. "Is Jake 
 your husband ? " he asked of the woman. 
 
 " He is my husband, and the children's father." 
 
 "Jake would not be likely to steal a child, would he?" asked 
 Tod, in a hesitating manner, for him. 
 
 She looked up, as if not understanding. " Steal a child, master ! 
 What for ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Tod. " I thought perhaps he had done it, 
 and had brought the child here." 
 
 Another comical stare from the woman. " We couldn't feed 
 these of ours ; what should we do with another ? " 
 
 "Well: Jake called at our house to sell his skewers; and, 
 directly afterwards, we missed my little sister. I have been hunt- 
 ing for her ever since." 
 
 " Was the house far from here ! " 
 
 " A few miles." 
 
 " Then he have sunk down of weakness on his way, ana can't gCu 
 back." 
 
 Putting her head on her knees, she began to sob and moan. 
 The child — the living one — began to bawl ; one couldn't call it 
 anything else ; and pulled at the green rushes. 
 
 " He knew Corry was sick and faint when he went out. He'd 
 have got back afore now if his strength hadn't failed him ; though, 
 maybe, he didn't think of death. Whist, then, whist, then, Dor," 
 she added, to the boy. 
 
 " Don't cry," said Tod to the httle chap, who had the largest, 
 brightest eyes I ever saw. " That will do no good, you know." 
 
 " I want Corry," said he. " Where's Corry gone ? " 
 
 " She's gone up to God, answered Tod, speaking very gently. 
 " She's gone to be a bright angel with Him in heaven."
 
 12 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Will she fly down to me ? " asked Dor, his great eyes shining 
 through their tears at Tod. 
 
 " Yes," affirmed Tod, who had a theory of his own on the point, 
 and used to think, when a little boy, that his mother was always 
 near him, one of God's angels keeping him from harm. " And after 
 a while, you know, if you are good, you'll go to Corry, and be an 
 angel, too." 
 
 " God bless you, master! " interposed the woman. " He'll think 
 of that always." 
 
 " Tod," I said, as we went out of the tent, " I don't think they 
 are people to steal children." 
 
 " Who's to know what the man would do ? " retorted Tod. 
 
 " A man with a dying child at home wouldn't be likely to harm 
 another." 
 
 Tod did not answer. He stood still a moment, deliberating 
 which way to go. Back to Alcester ? — where a conveyance might 
 be found to take us home, for the fatigue was telling on both of us, 
 now that disappointment was prolonged, and I, at least, could 
 hardly put one foot before another. Or down to the high-road, 
 and run the chance of some vehicle overtaking us ? Or keep on 
 amidst these fields and hedgerows, which would lead us home by 
 a rather nearer way, but without chance of a lift ? Tod made up 
 his mind, and struck down the lane the way we had come up. He 
 was on first, and I saw him suddenly halt, and turn to me. 
 
 " Look here, Johnny ! " 
 
 I looked as well as I could for the night and the trees, and saw 
 something on the ground. A man had sunk down there, apparently 
 from exhaustion. His face was a tawny white, just like the dead 
 child's. A stout stick and the bundles of skewers lay beside him. 
 
 " Do you see the fellow, Johnny ? It is the gipsy." 
 
 "Has he fainted?" 
 
 " Fainted, or shamming it. I wonder if there's any water about?" 
 
 But the man opened his eyes ; perhaps the sound of voices re- 
 vived him. After looking at us a minute or two, he raised himself 
 slowly on his elbow. Tod — the one thought uppermost in his mind 
 — said something about Lena. 
 
 " The child's found, master ? " 
 
 Tod seemed to give a leap. I know his heart did. " Found ! " 
 
 " Been safe at home this long while." 
 
 " Who found her ? " 
 
 " 'Twas me, master." 
 
 " Where was she ? " asked Tod, his tone softening. " Let us 
 hear about it." 
 
 " I was making back for the town " (we supposed he meant 
 Alcester), " and missed the way ; land about here's strange to me.
 
 LOSING LENA. 13 
 
 A-going through a bit of a groove, which didn't seem as if it was 
 leading to nowhere, I heard a child crying. There was the little 
 thing tied to a tree, stripped, and " 
 
 " Stripped ! " roared Tod. 
 
 " Stripped to the skin, sir, save for a dirty old skirt that was 
 tied round her. A woman carried her off to that spot, she told me, 
 robbed her of her clothes, and left her there. Knowing where she 
 must ha' been stole from — through you're accusing me of it, master 
 — I untied her to lead her home, but her feet warn't used to the 
 rough ground, and I made shift to carry her. A matter of two 
 miles it were, and I be not good for much. I left her at home safe, 
 and set off back. That's all, master." 
 
 *' What were you doing here?" asked Tod, as considerately as if 
 he had been speaking to a lord. " Resting 1 " 
 
 " I suppose I fell, master. I don't remember nothing, since I 
 was tramping up the lane, till your voices came. I've had naught 
 inside my lips to-day but a drink o' water." 
 
 " Did they give you nothing to eat at the house when you took 
 the child home ? " 
 
 He shook his head. " I saw the woman again, nobody else. 
 She heard what I had to say about the child, and she ne\cr said 
 ' Thank ye.' " 
 
 The man had been getting on his feet, and took up the skewers, 
 that were all tied together with string, and the stick. But he reeled 
 as he stood, and would have fallen again but for Tod. Tod gave 
 him his arm. 
 
 " We are in for it, Johnny," said he aside to me. " Pity but I 
 could be put in a picture— the Samaritan helping the destitute ! " 
 
 " I'd not accept of ye, sir, but that I have a child sick at home, 
 and want to get to her. There's a piece of bread in my pocket that 
 was give me at a cottage to-day." 
 
 " Is your child sure to get well?" asked Tod, after a pause ; won- 
 dering whether he could say anything of what had occurred, so as 
 to break the news. 
 
 The man gazed right away into the distance, as if searching for 
 an answer in the far-off star shining there. 
 
 "There's been a death-look in her face this day and night past, 
 master. But the Lord's good to us all." 
 
 "And sometimes, when He takes children, it is done in mercy," 
 said Tod. " Heaven is a better place than this." 
 
 "Ay," rejoined the man, who was leaning heavily on Tod, and 
 could never have got home without him, unless he had crawled on 
 hands and knees. " I've been sickly on and off for this year past; 
 worse lately; ard I've thought at times that if my own turn was 
 coming, I'd be glad to see my children gone afore me."
 
 14 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Oh, Tod ! " I whispered, in a burst of repentance, " how could 
 we have been so hard with this poor fellow, and roughly accused 
 him of stealing Lena ? " But Tod only gave me a knock with his 
 elbow. 
 
 " I fancy it must be pleasant to think of a little child being an 
 angel in heaven — a child that we have loved," said Tod. 
 
 " Ay, ay," said the man. 
 
 Tod had no courage to say more. He was not a parson. Pre- 
 sently he asked the man what tribe he belonged to— being a gipsy, 
 
 " I'm not a gipsy, master. Never was one yet. I and my wife 
 are dark-complexioned by nature ; living in the open air has made 
 us darker; but I'm English born; Christian, too. My wife's Irish ; 
 but they do say she comes of a gipsy tribe. We used to have a 
 cart, and went about the country with crockery ; but a year ago, 
 when I got ill and lay in a lodging, the things were seized for rent 
 and debt. Since then it's been hard lines with us. Yonder's my 
 bit of a tent, master, and now I can get on alone. Thanking ye 
 kindly." 
 
 " I am sorry I spoke harshly to you to-day," said Tod. " Take 
 this : it is all I have with me." 
 
 " I'll take it, sir, for my child's sake ; it may help to put the 
 strength into her. Otherwise I'd not. We're honest; we've never 
 begged. Thank ye both, masters, once again." 
 
 It was only a shilling or two. Tod spent, and never had much 
 in his pockets. " I wish it had been sovereigns," said he to me ; 
 " but we will do something better for them to-morrow, Johnny. I 
 am sure the Pater will." 
 
 " Tod," said I, as we ran on, " had we seen the man close before, 
 and spoken with him, I should never have suspected him. He has 
 a face to be trusted." 
 
 Tod burst into a laugh. " There you are Johnny, at your faces 
 !" 
 
 I was always reading people's faces, and taking likes and dislikes 
 accordingly. They called me a muff for it at home (and for hiany 
 other things), Tod especially ; but it seemed to me that I could 
 read people as easily as a book. Duff ham, our surgeon at Church 
 Dykely, bade me U'ust to it as a good gift from God. One day, 
 pushing my straw hat up to draw his fingers across the top of my 
 brow, he quaintly told the Squire that when he wanted people's 
 characters read, to come to me to read them. The Squire only 
 laughed in answer. 
 
 As luck had it, a gentleman we knew was passing in his dog-cart 
 when we got to the foot of the hill. It was old Pitchley. He drove 
 us home •. and I could hardly get down, I was so stiff. 
 
 Lena was in bed, safe and sound. No damage, except fright and 
 
 agam !
 
 LOSING LENA. 15 
 
 the loss of her clothes. From what we could learn, the woman who 
 took her off must have been concealed amidst the ricks ; when Tod 
 put her there. Lena said the woman laid hold of her very soon, 
 caught her up, and put her hand over her mouth, to prevent her 
 crying out ; she could only give one scream. I ought to have 
 heard it, only j\Inck was making such an awful row, hammering 
 that iron. How far along fields and by-ways the woman carried 
 her, Lena could not be supposed to tell : " Miles! " she said. Then 
 the thief plunged amidst a few trees, took the child's things off, put 
 on an old rag of a petticoat, and tied her loosely to a tree. Lena 
 thought she could have got loose herself, but was too frightened to 
 try; and just then the man, Jake, came up. 
 
 " I liked /«■;//," said Lena. ''He carried me all the way home, 
 that my feet should not be hurt ; but he had to sit down sometimes. 
 He said he had a poor little girl who was nearly as badly off for 
 clothes as that, but she did not want them now, she was too sick. 
 He said he hoped my papa would find the woman, and put her in 
 prison." 
 
 It is what the Squire intended to do, chance helping him. But 
 he did not reach home till after us, when all was quiet again : which 
 was fortunate. 
 
 " I suppose you blame me for that ? " cried Tod, to his step- 
 mother. 
 
 " No, I don't, Joseph," said j\Irs. Todhetley. She called him 
 Joseph nearly always, not liking to shorten his name, as some of us 
 did. " It is so very common a thing for the children to be playing 
 in the three-cornered field amidst the ricks ; and no suspicion that 
 danger could arise from it having ever been glanced at, I do not 
 think any blame attaches to you." 
 
 " I am very sorry now for having done it," said Tod. " I shall 
 never forget the fright to the last hour of my life." 
 
 He went straight to iMolly, from IMrs. Todhetley, a look on his 
 face that, when seen there, which was rare, the servants did not 
 like. Deference was rendered to Tod in the household. When 
 anything should take off the good old Pater, Tod would be master. 
 What he said to IMolly no one heard; but the woman was banging 
 at her brass things in a tantrum for three days afterwards. 
 
 And when we went to see after poor Jake and his people, it was 
 too late. The man, the tent, the living people, and the dead child 
 — all were gone.
 
 II. 
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 
 
 Worcester Assizes were being held, and Squire Todhetley was 
 on the grand jury. You see, although Dyke Manor was just within 
 the borders of Warwickshire, the greater portion of the Squire's 
 property lay in Worcestershire. This caused him to be summoned 
 to serve. We were often at his house there, Crabb Cot. I forget 
 who was foreman of the jury that time : either Sir John Pakington, 
 or the Honourable Mr. Coventry. 
 
 The week was jolly. We put up at the Star-and-Garter when 
 we went to Worcester, which was two or three times a-year; 
 generally at the assizes, or the races, or the quarter-sessions ; one 
 or other of the busy times. 
 
 The Pater would grumble at the bills — and say we boys had no 
 business to be there ; but he would take us, if we were at home, 
 for all that. The assizes came on this time the week before our 
 summer holidays were up ; the Squire wished they had not come 
 on until the week after. Anyway, there we were, in clover ; the 
 Squire about to be stewed up in the county courts all day ; I and 
 Tod flying about the town, and doing what we liked. 
 
 The judges came in from Oxford on the usual day, Saturday. 
 And, to make clear what I am going to tell about, we must go 
 back to that morning and to Dyke Manor. It was broiling hot 
 weather, and Mrs. Todhetley, Hugh, and Lena, with old Thomas 
 and Hannah, all came on the lawn after breakfast to sec us start. 
 The open carriage was at the door, with the fine dark horses. 
 When the Squire did come out, he liked to do things well ; and 
 Dwarf Giles, the groom, had gone on to Worcester the day before 
 with the two saddle-horses, the Pater's and Tod's. They might 
 have ridden them in this morning, but the Squire chose to have his 
 horses sleek and fresh when attending the high sheriff. 
 
 " Shall I drive, sir ? " asked Tod. 
 
 " No," said the Pater. " These two have queer tempers, and 
 must be handled carefully." He meant the horses, Bob and Blister. 
 Tod looked at me ; he thought he could have managed them quite 
 as well as the Pater.
 
 FINDING BOTH OF TMEM. 17 
 
 " Papa," cried Lena, as wc were driving off, running up in her 
 white pinafore, with her pretty hair flying, " if you can catch that 
 naughty kidnapper at Worcester, you put her in prison." 
 
 The Squire nodded emphatically, as much as to say, " Trust me 
 for that." Lena alluded to the woman who had taken her off and 
 stolen her clothes two or three weeks before. Tod said, afterwards, 
 there must have been some prevision on the child's mind when she 
 said this. 
 
 We reached Worcester at twelve. It is a long drive, you know. 
 Lots of country-people had arrived, and the Squire went off with 
 some of them. Tod and I thought we'd order luncheon at the Star 
 — a jolly good one ; stewed lampreys, kidneys, and cherry-tart ; and 
 let it go into the Squire's bill. 
 
 I'm afraid I envied Tod. The old days of travelling post were 
 past, when the sheriff's procession would go out to Whittington to 
 meet the judges' carriage. They came now by rail from Oxford, 
 and the sheriff and his attendants received them at the railway 
 station. It was the first time Tod had been allowed to make one 
 of the gentlemen-attendants. The Squire said now he was too 
 young ; but he looked big, and tall, and strong. To see him mount 
 his horse and go cantering off with the rest sent me into a state of 
 envy. Tod saw it. 
 
 " Don't drop your mouth, Johnny," said he. " You'll make one 
 of us in another year or two." 
 
 , I stood about for half-an-hour, and the procession came back, 
 passing the Star on its way to the county courts. The bells were 
 ringing, the advanced heralds blew their trumpets, and the javelin- 
 guard rode at a foot-pace, their lances in rest, preceding the high 
 sheriff's grand carriage, with its four prancing horses and their 
 silvered harness. Both the judges had come in, so we knew that 
 business was over at Oxford ; they sat opposite to the sheriff and 
 his chaplain. I used to wonder whether they travelled all the way 
 in their wigs and gowns, or robed outside Worcester. Squire Tod- 
 hetley rode in the line next the carriage, with some more old ones 
 of consequence ; Tod on his fine bay was nearly at the tail, and he 
 gave me a nod in passing. The judges were going to open the 
 commission, and Foregate Street was crowded. 
 
 The high sheriff that year was a friend of ours, and the Pater 
 had an invitation to the banquet he gave that evening. Tod 
 thought he ought to have been invited too. 
 
 " It's sinfully stingy of him, Johnny. When I am pricked for 
 sheriff — and I suppose my turn will come some time, either for 
 Warwickshire or Worcestershire — I'll have more young fellows to 
 my dinner than old ones." 
 
 The Squire, knowing nothing of our midday luncheon, was sur- 
 
 Johnny Ludlow.— I. 2 ^
 
 i8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 prised that we chose supper at eight instead of dinner at six ; but 
 he told the waiter to give us a good one. We went out while it 
 was getting ready, and walked arm-in-arm through the crowded 
 streets. Worcester is always full on a Saturday evening ; it is 
 market-day there, as every one knows ; but on Assize Saturday the 
 streets are almost impassable. Tod, tall and strong, held on his 
 way, and asked leave of none. 
 
 " Now, then, you two gents, can't you go on proper, and not 
 elbow respectable folks like that ? "' 
 
 "Holloa!" cried Tod, turning at the voice. "Is it you, old 
 Jones ? " 
 
 Old Jones, the constable of our parish, touched his hat when he 
 saw it was us, and begged pardon. We asked what he was doing 
 at Worcester; but he had only come on his own account. "On 
 the spree," Tod suggested to him. 
 
 " Young Mr. Todhetley," cried he — the way he chiefly addressed 
 Tod — " I'd not be sure but that woman's took — her that served out 
 little IVIiss Lena." 
 
 " That woman ! " said Tod. " Why do you think it } " 
 
 Old Jones explained. A woman had been apprehended near 
 Worcester the previous day, on a charge of stripping two little 
 boys of their clothes in Perry Wood. The description given of her 
 answered exactly, old Jones thought, to that given by Lena. 
 
 " She stripped 'em to the skin," groaned Jones, drawing a long 
 face as he recited the mishap . " two poor little chaps of three 
 years, they was, living in them cottages under the Wood — not as 
 much as their boots did she leave on 'em. When they got home 
 their folks didn't know 'em ; quite naked they was, and bleating 
 with terror, like a brace of shorn sheep." 
 
 Tod put on his determined look. " And she is taken, you say, 
 Jones?" 
 
 " She was took yesterday, sir. They had her before the justices 
 this morning, and the little fellows knowed her at once. As the 
 'sizes was on, leastways as good as on, their worships committed 
 her for trial there and then. Policeman Cripp told me all about it ; 
 it was him that took her. She's in the county goal." 
 
 We carried the tale to the Pater that night, and he despatched 
 a messenger to Mrs. Todhetley, to say that Lena must be at Wor- 
 cester on the INIonday morning. But there's something to tell about 
 the Sunday yet. 
 
 If you have been in W^orcester on Assize Sunday, you know how 
 the cathedral is on that morning crowded. Enough strangers are 
 in the town to fill it : the inhabitants who go to the churches at 
 other times attended it then; and King I^Iob flocks in to seethe 
 show.
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 19 
 
 Squire Todhetley was put in the stalls ; Tod and I scrambled for 
 places on a bench. The alterations in the cathedral (going on for 
 years before that, and going on for years since, and going on still) 
 caused space to be limited, and it was no end of a cram. While 
 people fought for standing-places, the procession was played in to 
 the crash of the organ. The judges came, glorious in their wigs 
 and gowns ; the mayor and aldermen were grand as scarlet and 
 gold chains could make them ; and there was a large attendance 
 of the clergy in their white robes. The Bishop had come in from 
 Hartlebury, and was on his throne, and the service began. The 
 Rev. Mr. Wheeler chanted ; the Dean read the lessons. Of course 
 the music was all right ; they put up fine services on Assize Sun- 
 days now , and the sheriff's chaplain went up in his black gown to 
 preach the sermon. Three-quarters of an hour, if you'll believe 
 me, before that sermon came to an end ! 
 
 Ere the organ had well played its Amen to the Bishop's blessing, 
 the crowd began to push out. We pushed with the rest and took 
 up our places in the long cathedral nave to see the procession pass 
 back again. It came winding down between the line of javelin-men. 
 Just as the judges were passing. Tod motioned me to look opposite. 
 There stood a young boy in dreadful clothes, patched all over, but 
 otherwise clean ; with great dark wondering eyes riveted on the 
 judges, as if they had been stilted peacocks ; on their wigs, their 
 solemn countenances, their held-up scarlet trains. 
 
 Where had I seen those eyes, and their brightness ? Recollec- 
 tion flashed over me before Tod's whisper: "Jake's boy; the 
 youngster we saw in the tent." 
 
 To get across the line was impossible ; manners would not permit 
 it, let alone the javelin-guard. And when the procession had passed, 
 leaving nothing but a crowd of shuffling feet and the dust on the 
 white cathedral floor, the boy was gone. 
 
 " I say, Johnny, it is rather odd we should come on those tent- 
 people, just as the woman has turned up," exclaimed Tod, as we 
 got clear of the cathedral. 
 
 '• But you don't think they can be connected, Tod?" 
 
 "Well, no ; I suppose not. It's a queer coincidence, though." 
 
 T/n's we also carried to the Squire, as we had the other news. 
 He was standing in the Star gateway, 
 
 " Look here, you boys," said he, after a pause given to thought ; 
 " keep your eyes open ; you may come upon the lad again, or some 
 of his folk. I should like to do something for that poor man ; I've 
 wished it ever since he brought home Lena, and that confounded 
 I\Iolly drove him out by way of recompense." 
 
 " And if they should be confederates, sir ? " suggested Tod. 
 
 " Who confederates ? What do you mean, Joe ? "
 
 20 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "These people and the female-stripper. It seems strange they 
 should both turn up again in the same spot." 
 
 The notion took away the Pater's breath. " If I thought that ; 
 if I find it is so," he broke forth, " I'll— I'll— transport the lot." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley arrived with Lena on Sunday afternoon. Early 
 on Monday, the Squire and Tod took her to the governor's house 
 at the county prison, where she was to see the woman, as if acci- 
 dentally, nothing being said to Lena. 
 
 The woman was brought in : a bold jade with a red face : and 
 Lena nearly went into convulsions at the sight of her. There 
 could be no mistake the woman was the same ; and the Pater 
 became redhot with anger; especially to think he could not punish 
 her in Worcester. 
 
 As the fly went racing up Salt Lane after the interview, on its 
 way to leave the Squire at the county courts, a lad ran past. It 
 was Jake's boy ; the same we had seen in the cathedral. Tod 
 leaped up and called to the driver to stop, but the Pater roared 
 out an order to go on. His appearance at the court could not be 
 delayed, and Tod had to stay with Lena. So the clue was lost 
 again. Tod brought Lena to the Star, and then he and I went to 
 the criminal court, and bribed a fellow for places. Tod said it 
 would be a sin not to hear the kidnapper tried. 
 
 It was nearly the first case called on. Some of the lighter cases 
 were taken first, while the grand jury deliberated on their bills for 
 the graver ones. Her name, as given in, was Nancy Cole, and she 
 tried to excite the sympathies of the judge and jury by reciting a 
 whining account of a deserting husband and other ills. The evidence 
 was quite clear. The two children (little shavers in petticoats) set 
 up a roar in court at sight of the woman, just as Lena had done in 
 the governor's house ; and a dealer in marine stores produced their 
 clothes, which he had bought of her. Tod whispered to me that he 
 should go about Worcester after this in daily dread of seeing Lena's 
 blue-silk frock and open-worked stockings hanging in a shop window. 
 Something was said during the trial about the raid the prisoner had 
 also recently made on the little daughter of Mr. Todhetley, of Dyke 
 Manor, Warwickshire, and of Crabb Cot, Worcestershire, " one of 
 the gentlemen of the grand jury at present sitting in deliberation in 
 an adjoining chamber of the court." But, as the judge said, that 
 could not be received in evidence. 
 
 I\Irs. Cole brazened it out : testimony was too strong for her to 
 attempt denial. " And if she had took a few bits o' things, 'cause she 
 was famishing, she didn't hurt the childern. She'd never hurt a child 
 in her life ; couldn't do it. Just contrairy to that ; she gave 'em 
 sugar plums — and candy— and a piece of a wig,* she did. W^hat 
 * A small plain bun sold in Worcester.
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 21 
 
 was she to do ? Starve ? Since her wicked husband, that she 
 hadn't seen for this five year, deserted of her, and her two boys, 
 fine grown lads both of 'em, had been accused of theft and got put 
 away from her, one into prison, t'other into a 'formitory, she hadn't 
 no soul to care for her nor help her to a bit o' bread. Life was 
 hard, and times was bad ; and — there it was. No good o' saying 
 more." 
 
 "Guilty," said the foreman of the jury, without turning round. 
 " We find the prisoner guilty, my lord." 
 
 The judge sentenced her to six months' imprisonment with hard 
 labour. Mrs. Cole brazened it out still. 
 
 " Thank you," said she to his lordship, dropping a curtsey as they 
 were taking her from the dock ; " and I hope you'll sit there, old 
 gentleman, till I come out again." 
 
 When the Squire was told of the sentence that evening, he said 
 it was too mild by half, and talked of bringing her also to book at 
 Warwick. But Mrs. Todhetley said, " No ; forgive her." After all, 
 it was only the loss of the clothes. 
 
 Nothing whatever had come out during the trial to connect Jake 
 with the woman. She appeared to be a waif without friends. "And 
 I watched and listened closely for it, mind you, Johnny," remarked 
 Tod. 
 
 It was a day or two after this — I think, on the Wednesday 
 evening. The Squire's grand-jury duties were over, but he stayed 
 on, intending to make a week of it ; Mrs. Todhetley and Lena 
 had left for home. We had dined late, and Tod and I went for 
 a stroll afterwards ; leaving the Pater, and an old clergyman, who 
 had dined with us, to their wine. In passing the cooked-meat 
 shop in High-street, we saw a little chap looking in, his face 
 flattened against the panes. Tod laid hold of his shoulder, and 
 the boy turned his brilliant eyes and their hungry expression 
 upon us. 
 
 " Do you remember me. Dor?" You see, Tod had not forgotten 
 his name. 
 
 Dor evidently did remember. And whether it was that he felt 
 frightened at being accosted, or whether the sight of us brought 
 back to him the image of the dead sister lying on the rushes, was 
 best known to himself ; but he burst out crying. 
 
 " There's nothing to cry for," said Tod ; " you need not be afraid. 
 Could you eat some of that meat ? " 
 
 Something like a shiver of surprise broke over the boy's face at 
 the question ; just as though he had had no food for weeks. Tod 
 gave him a shilling, and told him to go in and buy some. But the 
 boy looked at the money doubtingly.
 
 23 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " A whole shilling ! They'd think I stole it." 
 
 Tod took back the money, and went in himself. He was as 
 proud a fellow as you'd find in the two counties, and yet he would 
 do all sorts of things that many another glanced askance at. 
 
 " I want half-a-pound of beef," said he to the man who was 
 carving, "and some bread, if you sell it. And I'll take one of those 
 small pork-pies." 
 
 " Shall I put the meat in paper, sir ? " asked the man : as if 
 doubting whether Tod might prefer to eat it there. 
 
 ■' Yes," said Tod. And the customers, working-men and a woman 
 in a drab shawl, turned and stared at him. 
 
 Tod paid ; took it all in his hands, and we left the shop. He 
 did not mind being seen carrying the parcels ; but he would have 
 minded letting them know that he was feeding a poor boy. 
 
 " Here, Dor, you can take the things now," said he, when we had 
 gone a few yards. " Where do you live ? " 
 
 Dor explained after a fashion. We knew Worcester well, but 
 failed to understand. " Not far from the big church," he said ; and 
 at first we thought he meant the cathedral. 
 
 " Never mind," said Tod ; " go on, and show us." 
 
 He went skimming along. Tod keeping him within arm's-length, 
 lest he should try to escape. Why Tod should have suspected he 
 might, I don't know ; nothing, as it turned out, could have been 
 farther from Dor's thoughts. The church he spoke of proved to be 
 All Saints' ; the boy turned up an entry near to it, and we found 
 ourselves in a regular rookery of dirty, miserable, tumble-down 
 houses. Loose men stood about, pipes in their mouths , women, in 
 tatters, their hair hanging down. 
 
 Dor dived into a dark den that seemed to be reached through a 
 hole you had to stoop under. My patience ! what a close place it 
 was, with a smell that nearly knocked you backwards. There 
 was not an earthly thing in the room that we could see, except 
 some straw in a corner, and on that Jake was lying. The boy 
 appeared with a piece of lighted candle, which he had been upstairs 
 to borrow. 
 
 Jake was thin enough before ; he was a skeleton now. His eyes 
 were sunk, the bones of his face stood out, the skin glistened on 
 his shapely nose, his voice was weak and hollow. He knew us, and 
 smiled. 
 
 " What's the matter } " asked Tod, speaking gently. " You look 
 very ill." 
 
 " I be very ill, master; I've been getting worse ever since." 
 
 His history was this. The same night that we had seen the tent 
 at Cookhill, some travelling people of Jake's fraternity happened to 
 encamp close to it for the night. By their help, the dead child was
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 23 
 
 removed as far as Evesham, and there buried. Jake, his wife, and 
 son, went on to Worcester, and there the man was taken worse ; 
 they had been in this room since ; the wife had found a place to go 
 to twice a week washing, earning her food and a shiUing each time. 
 It was all they had to depend upon, these two shillings weekly; and 
 the few bits o' things they had, to use Jake's words, had been taken 
 by the landlord for rent. But to see Jake's resignation was some- 
 thing curious. 
 
 " He was very good," he said, alluding to the landlord and the 
 seizure ; " he left me the straw. When he saw how bad I was, he 
 wouldn't take it. We had been obliged to sell the tent, and there 
 was a'most nothing for him." 
 
 " Have you had no medicine ? no advice ? " cried Tod, speaking 
 as if he had a lump in his throat. 
 
 Yes, he had had medicine ; the wife went for it to the free place 
 (he meant the dispensary) twice a week, and a young doctor had 
 been to see him. 
 
 Dor opened the paper of meat, and showed it to his father. " The 
 gentleman bought it me," he said ; " and this, and this. Couldn't 
 you eat some ? " 
 
 I saw the eager look that arose for a moment to Jake's face at 
 sight of the meat : three slices of nice cold boiled beef, better 
 than what we got at school. Dor held out one of them; the 
 man broke off a morsel, put it into his mouth, and had a choking 
 fit. 
 
 " It's of no use, Dor." 
 
 " Is his name ' Dor ' ? " asked Tod. 
 
 " His name is James, sir ; same as mine," answered Jake, panting 
 a little from the exertion of swallowing. " The wife, she has called 
 him ' Dor ' for ' dear,' and I've fell into it. She has called me Jake 
 all along " 
 
 Tod felt something ought to be done to help him, but he had no 
 more idea what than the man in the moon. 1 had less. As Dor 
 piloted us to the open street, we asked him where his mother was. 
 It was one of her working-days out, he answered; she was always 
 kept late. 
 
 " Could he drink wine, do you think. Dor ? " 
 
 " The gentleman said he was to have it," answered Dor, alluding 
 to the doctor. 
 
 " How old are you, Dor ? " 
 
 " I'm anigh ten." He did not look it. 
 
 " Johnny, I wonder if there's any place where they sell beef-tea ? " 
 cried Tod, as we went up Broad Street. " My goodness ! lying there 
 in that state, with no help at hand ! " 
 
 " I never saw anything so bad before. Tod."
 
 24 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "Do you know what I kept thinking of all the time ? I could not 
 get it out of my head." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 '' Of Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Johnny, lad, there seems 
 an awful responsibility lying on some of us." 
 
 To hear Tod say such a thing was stranger than all. He set off 
 running, and burst into our sitting-room in the Star, startling the 
 Pater, who was alone and reading one of the Worcester papers with 
 his spectacles on. Tod sat down and told him all. 
 
 " Dear me ! dear me ! " cried the Pater, growing red as he listened. 
 " W^hy, Joe, the poor fellow must be dying ! " 
 
 "He may not have gone too far for recovery, father," was Tod's 
 answer. " If we had to lie in that close hole, and had nothing to 
 eat or drink, we should probably soon become skeletons also. He 
 may get well yet with proper care and treatment." 
 
 " It seems to me that the first thing to be done is to get him into 
 the Infirmary," remarked the Pater. 
 
 " And it ought to be done early to-morrow morning, sir ; if it's 
 too late to-night." 
 
 The Pater got up in a bustle, put on his hat, and went out. He 
 was going to his old friend, the famous surgeon, Henry Garden. 
 Tod ran after him up Foregate Street, but was sent back to me. 
 We stood at the door of the hotel, and in a few moments saw them 
 coming along, the Pater arm-in-arm with Mr. Garden. He had 
 come out as readily to visit the poor helpless man as he would to 
 visit a rich one. Perhaps more so. They stopped when they saw 
 us, and Mr. Garden asked Tod some of the particulars. 
 
 "You can get him admitted to the Infirmary at once, can you 
 not?" said the Pater, impatiently, who was all on thorns to have 
 something done. 
 
 "By what I can gather, it is not a case for the Infirmary," was 
 the answer of its chief surgeon. " We'll see." 
 
 Down we went, walking fast : the Pater and Mr. Garden in front, 
 I and Tod at their heels ; and found the room again with some 
 difficulty. The wife was in then, and had made a handful of fire in 
 the grate. What with the smoke, and what with the other agreeable 
 accompaniments, we were nearly stifled. 
 
 If ever I wished to be a doctor, it was when I saw Mr. Garden 
 with that poor sick man. He was so gentle with him, so cheery 
 and so kind. Had Jake been a duke, I don't see that he could 
 have been treated differently. There was something superior about 
 the man, too, as though he had seen better days. 
 
 " What is your name ? " asked Mr. Garden. 
 
 "James Winter, sir, a native of Herefordshire, I was on my 
 way there when I was taken ill in this place,"
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 35 
 
 " What to do there ? To get work ? " 
 
 "No, sir; to die. It don't much matter, though; God's here as 
 well as there." 
 
 " You are not a gipsy ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no, sir. From my dark skin, though, I've been taken 
 for one. My wife's descended from a gipsy tribe." 
 
 "We are thinking of placing you in the Infirmary, Jake," cried 
 the Pater. " You will have every comfort there, and the best of 
 attendance. This gentleman " 
 
 " We'll see — we'll see," interposed Mr. Garden, breaking in hastily 
 on the promises. " I am not sure that the Infirmary will do for 
 him." 
 
 " It is too late, sir, I think," said Jake, quietly, to Mr. Garden. 
 
 I\Ir. Garden made no reply. He asked the woman if she had 
 such a thing as a tea-cup or wine-glass. She produced a cracked 
 cup with the handle off and a notch in the rim. Mr. Garden poured 
 something into it that he had brought in his pocket, and stooped 
 over the man. Jake began to speak in his faint voice. 
 
 " Sir, I'd not seem ungrateful, but I'd like to stay here with the 
 wife and boy to the last. It can't be for long now." 
 
 " Drink this ; it will do you good," said Mr. Garden, holding the 
 cup to his lips. 7% 
 
 " This close place is a change from the tent," I said to the 
 woman, who was stooping over the bit of fire. 
 
 Such a look of regret came upon her countenance as she lifted 
 it : just as if the tent had been a palace. " When we got here, 
 master, it was after that two days' rain, and the ground was sopping. 
 It didn't do for /n'm " — glancing round at the straw. " He was 
 getting mighty bad then, and we just put our heads into this place 
 — bad luck to us ! " 
 
 The Squire gave her some silver, and told her to get anything 
 in she thought best. It was too late to do more that night. The 
 church clocks were striking ten as we went out. 
 
 "Won't it do to move him to the Infirmary?" were the Pater's 
 first words to Mr. Garden. 
 
 " Gertainly not. The man's hours are numbered." 
 
 " There is no hope, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Not the least. He may be said to be dying now." 
 
 No time was lost in the morning. When Squire Todhetley took 
 a will to heart he carried it out, and speedily. A decent room with 
 an airy window was found in the same block of buildings. A bed 
 and other things were put in it ; some clothes were redeemed ; 
 and by twelve o'clock in the day Jake was comfortably lying there. 
 The Pater seemed to think that this was not enough : he wanted 
 to do more,
 
 26 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " His humanity to my child kept him from seeing the last 
 moments of his," said he. " The httle help we can give him now 
 is no return for that." 
 
 Food and clothes, and a dry, comfortable room, and wine and 
 proper things for Jake— of which he could not swallow much. The 
 woman was not to go out to work again while he lasted, but to stay 
 at home and attend to him. 
 
 " I shall be at liberty by the hop-picking time," she said, with a 
 sigh. Ah, poor creature ! long before that. 
 
 When Tod and I went in later in the afternoon, she had just 
 given Jake some physic, ordered by Mr. Garden. She and the boy 
 sat by the fire, tea and bread-and-butter on the deal table between 
 them. Jake lay in bed, his head raised on account of his breathing, 
 1 thought he was better ; but his thin white face, with the dark, 
 earnest, glistening eyes, was almost painful to look upon. 
 
 "The reading-gentleman have been in," cried the woman 
 suddenly. " He's coming again, he says, the night or the 
 morning." 
 
 Tod looked puzzled, and Jake explained. A good young clergy- 
 man, who had found him out a day or two before, had been in each 
 day since with his Bible, to read and pray. '' God bless him ! " said 
 Jake, w 
 
 " Why did you go away so suddenly ? " Tod asked, alluding to 
 the hasty departure from Cookhill. " My father was mtending to 
 do something for you." 
 
 " I didn't know that, sir. Many thanks all the same. I'd like 
 to thank _you too, sir," he went on, after a fit of coughing. " I've 
 wanted to thank you ever since. When you gave me your arm up 
 the lane, and said them pleasant things to me about having a little 
 child in heaven, you knew she was gone." 
 
 u Yes." 
 
 " It broke the trouble to me, sir. My wife heard me coughing 
 afar off, and came out o' the tent. She didn't say at first what 
 there was in the tent, but began telling how you had been there. 
 It made me know what had happened ; and when she set on 
 a-grieving, I told her not to : Carry was gone up to be an angel in 
 heaven." 
 
 Tod touched the hand he put out, not speaking. 
 
 " She's waiting for me, sir," he continued, in a fainter voice. 
 " I'm as sure of it as if I saw her. The little girl I found and 
 carried to the great house has rich friends and a fine home to 
 shelter her; mine had none, and so it was for the best that she 
 should go. God has been very good to me. Instead of letting me 
 fret after her, or murmur at lying helpless like this. He only gives 
 me peace."
 
 FINDING BOTH OF THEM. 27 
 
 " That man must have had a good mother," cried out Tod, as we 
 went away down the entry. And I looked up at him, he spoke so 
 queerly. 
 
 " Do you think he will get better. Tod ? He does not seem as 
 bad as he did last night." 
 
 " Get better ! " retorted Tod. " You'll always be a muff, Johnny. 
 Why, every breath he takes threatens to be his last. He is miles 
 worse than he was when we found him. This is Thursday : I don't 
 believe he can last out longer than the week ; and I think ]\Ir. Garden 
 knows it." 
 
 He did not last so long. On the Saturday morning, just as we 
 were going to start for home, the wife came to the Star with the 
 news. Jake had died at ten the previous night. 
 
 " He went off quiet," said she to the Squire. " I asked if he'd 
 not like a dhrink; but he wouldn't have it: the good gentleman 
 had been there giving him the bread and wine, and he said he'd take 
 nothing, he thought, after that. 'I'm going, Mary,' he suddenly 
 says to me about ten o'clock, and he called Dor up and shook 
 hands with him, and bade him be good to me, and then he 
 shook hands with me. ' God bless ye both,' says he, 'for Christ's 
 sake ; and God bless the friends who have been kind to us ! ' And 
 with that he died." 
 
 That's all, for now. And I hope no one will think I invented 
 this account of Jake's death, for I should not like to do it. The 
 wife related it to us in the exact words written. 
 
 " And I able to da so little for him " broke forth the Squire, 
 suddenly, when" we were about half-way home ; and he lashed up 
 Bob and Blister regardless of their tempers. Which the animals 
 did not relish. 
 
 And so that assize week ended the matter. Bringing imprison- 
 ment to the kidnapping woman, and to Jake death.
 
 III. 
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 
 
 This is an incident of our school life; one that I never care to 
 look back upon. All of us have sad remembrances of some kind 
 living in the mind ; and we are apt in our painful regret to say, 
 " If I had but done this, or had but done the other, things might 
 have turned out differently." 
 
 The school was a large square house, built of rough stone, 
 gardens and playgrounds and fields extending around it. It was 
 called Worcester House : a title of the fancy, I suppose, since it 
 was some miles away from Worcester. The master was Dr. Frost, 
 a tall, stout man, in white frilled shirt, knee-breeches and buckles ; 
 stern on occasion, but a gentleman to the back-bone. He had 
 several under-masters. Forty boys were received; we wore the 
 college cap and Eton jacket. Mrs. Frost was delicate : and Hall, 
 a sour old woman of fifty, was manager of the eatables. 
 
 Tod and I must have been in the school two years, I think, 
 when Archie Hearn entered. He was eleven years old. We had 
 seen him at the house sometimes before, and liked him. A regular 
 good little fellow was Archie. 
 
 Hearn's father was dead. His mother had been a Miss Stock- 
 hauscn, sister to Mrs. Frost. The Stockhausens had a name in 
 Worcestershire : chiefly, I think, for dying ofi". There had been six 
 sisters ; and the only two now left were Mrs. Frost and Mrs. 
 Hearn: the other four quietly faded away one after another, not 
 living to see thirty. Mr. Hearn died, from an accident, when 
 Archie was only a year old. He left no will, and there ensued a 
 sharp dispute about his property. The Stockhausens said it all 
 belonged to the little son; the Hearn family considered that a 
 portion of it ought to go back to them. The poor widow was the 
 only quiet spirit amongst them, willing to be led either way. What 
 the disputants did was to put it into Chancery : and I don't much 
 think it ever came out again. 
 
 It was the worst move they could have made for Mrs. Hearn. 
 For it reduced her to a very slender income indeed, and the world 
 ^yondered how she got on at all. She lived in a cottage about
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 29 
 
 three miles from the Frosts, with one servant and the Httle child 
 Archibald. In the course of years people seemed to forget all about 
 the property in Chancery, and to ignore her as quite a poor woman. 
 
 Well, wc— I and Tod— had been at Dr. Frost's two years or so, 
 when Archibald Hearn entered the school. He was a slender little 
 lad with bright brown eyes, a delicate face and pink cheeks, very 
 sweet-tempered and pleasant in manner. At first he used to go 
 home at night, but when the winter weather set in he caught a 
 cough, and then came into the house altogether. Some of the 
 big ones felt sure that old Frost took him for nothing : but as little 
 Hearn was Mrs. Frost's nephew and we liked her, no talk was made 
 about it. The lad did not much like coming into the house : w^e 
 could see that. He seemed always to be hankering after his 
 mother and old Betty the servant. Not in words : but he'd stand 
 with his arms on the play-yard gate, his eyes gazing out towards the 
 quarter where the cottage was ; as if he would like his sight to 
 penetrate the wood and the two or three miles beyond, and take a 
 look at it. When any of us said to him as a bit of chaff, " You are 
 staring after old Betty," he would say Yes, he wished he could see 
 her and his mother ; and then tell no end of tales about what Betty 
 had done for him in his illnesses. Any way, Hearn was a straight- 
 forward little chap, and a favourite in the school. 
 
 He had been with us about a year when Wolfe Barrington came. 
 Quite another sort of pupil. A big, strong fellow who had never 
 had a mother : rich and overbearing, and cruel. He was in 
 mourning for his father, who had just died : a rich Irishman, given 
 to company and fast living. Wolfe came in for all the money ; so 
 that he had a fine career before him and might be expected to set 
 the world on fire. Little Hearn's stories had been of home ; of 
 his mother and old Betty. Wolfe's were different. He had had 
 the run of his father's stables and knew more about horses and dogs 
 than the animals knew about themselves. Curious things, too, 
 he'd tell of men and women, who had stayed at old Barrington's 
 place : and what he said of the public school he had been at might 
 have made old Frost's hair stand on end. Why he left the public 
 school we did not find out : some said he had run away from it, and 
 that his father, who'd indulged him awfully, would not send him 
 back to be punished ; others said the head-master would not receive 
 him back again. In the nick of time the father died ; and Wolfe's 
 guardians put him to Dr. Frost's. 
 
 " I shall make you my fag," said Barrington, the day he entered, 
 catching hold of little Hearn in the playground, and twisting him 
 round by the arm. 
 
 "What's that?" asked Hearn, rubbing his arm— for Wolfe's 
 grasp had not been a light one.
 
 30 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "What's that!" repeated Barrington, scornfully. "What a 
 precious young fool you must be, not to know. Who's your 
 mother ? " 
 
 " She lives over there," answered Hearn, taking the question 
 literally, and nodding beyond the wood. 
 
 "Oh!" said Barrington, screwing up his mouth. "What's her 
 name ? And what's yours ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Hearn. Mine's Archibald." 
 
 " Good, Mr. Archibald. You shall be my fag. That is, my 
 servant. And you'll do every earthly thing that I order you to 
 do. And mind you do it smartly, or may be that girl's face of 
 yours will show out rather blue sometimes." 
 
 " I shall not be anybody's servant," returned Archie, in his mild, 
 inoffensive way. 
 
 " Won't you ! Youll tell me another tale before this time 
 to-morrow. Did you ever get licked into next week .'' " 
 
 The child made no answer. He began to think the new fellow 
 might be in earnest, and gazed up at him in doubt. 
 
 " When you can't see out of your two eyes for the swelling round 
 them, and your back's stiff with smarting and aching — thafs the 
 kind of licking I mean," went on Barrington. " Did you ever 
 taste it ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Good again. It will be all the sweeter when you do. Now look 
 you here, Mr. Archibald Hearn. I appoint you my fag in ordinary. 
 You'll fetch and carry for me • you'll black my boots and brush 
 my clothes ; you'll sit up to wait on me when I go to bed, and 
 read me to sleep ; you'll be dressed before I am in the morning, 
 and be ready with my clothes and hot water. Never mind 
 whether the rules of the house are against hot wSiitx^youUl have to 
 provide it, though you boil it in the bedroom grate, or out in the 
 nearest field. You'll attend me at my lessons ; look out words for 
 me ; copy my exercises in a fair hand — and if you were old enough 
 to do them, you'd have to. That's a few of the items ; but there arc 
 a hundred other things, that I've not time to detail. If I can get 
 a horse for my use, you'll have to groom him. And if you don't 
 put out your mettle to serve me in all these ways, and don't hold 
 yourself in readiness to fly and obey me at any minute or hour of 
 the day, you'll get daily one of the lickings I've told you of, until 
 you are licked into shape." 
 
 Barrington meant what he said. Voice and countenance alike 
 wore a determined look, as if his v/ords were law. Lots of the 
 fellows, attracted by the talking, had gathered round. Hearn, 
 honest and straightforward himself, did not altogether understand 
 what evil might be in store for him, and grew seriously frightened.
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 31 
 
 The captain of the school walked up— John Whitney. " What 
 is that you say Hearn has to do " he asked. 
 
 ''He knows now," answered Barrington, "That's enough. 
 They don't allow servants here : I must have a fag in place 
 of one." 
 
 In turning his fascinated eyes from Barrington, Hearn saw Blair 
 standing by, our mathematical master — of whom you will hear 
 more later. Blair must have caught what passed : and little 
 Hearn appealed to him. 
 
 "Am I obliged to be his fag, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Blair put us leisurely aside with his hands, and confronted 
 the new fellow. " Your name is Barrington, I think," he said. 
 
 " Yes, it is," said Barrington, staring at him defiantly. 
 
 " Allow me to tell you that ' fags ' are not permitted here. The 
 system would not be tolerated by Dr. Frost for a moment. Each 
 boy must wait on himself, and be responsible for himself : seniors 
 and juniors alike. You are not at a public-school now, Barrington. 
 In a day or two, when you shall have learnt the customs and rules 
 here, I dare say you will find yourself c^uite sufficiently comfortable, 
 and see that a fag would be an unnecessary appendage." 
 
 " Who is that man?" cried Barrington, as Blair turned away. 
 
 " Mathematical master. Sees to us out of hours," answered Bill 
 Whitney. 
 
 " And what the devil did you mean by making a sneaking appeal 
 to himV continued Barrington, seizing Hearn roughly. 
 
 " I did not mean it for sneaking ; but I could not do what you 
 wanted," said Hearn. " He had been listening to us." 
 
 " I wish to goodness that confounded fool, Taptal, had been 
 sunk in his horse-pond before he put me to such a place as this," 
 cried Barrington, passionately. "As to you, you sneaking little 
 devil, it seems I can't make you do what I wanted, fags being 
 forbidden fruit here, but it shan't serve you much. There's to 
 begin with." 
 
 Hearn got a shake and a kick that sent him flying. Blair was 
 back on the instant. 
 
 "Are you a coward, Mr. Barrington?" 
 
 " A coward ! " retorted Barrington, his eyes flashing. " You had 
 better try whether I am or not." 
 
 " It seems to me that you act like one, in attacking a lad so 
 much younger and weaker than yourself. Don't let me have to 
 report you to Dr. Frost the first day of your arrival. Another 
 thing — I must request you to be a little more careful in your 
 language. You have come amidst gentlemen here, not black- 
 guards." 
 The matter ended here; but Barrington looked in a frightful
 
 ^1 JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 rage. It was unfortunate that it should have occurred the day he 
 entered ; but it did so, word for word, as I have Vvritten it. It set 
 some of us rather against Barrington, and it set /tz'm against 
 Hearn. He didn't "lick him into next week," but he gave him 
 many a blow that the boy did nothing to deserve. 
 
 Barrington won his way, though, as the time went on. He had 
 a liberal supply of money, and was open-handed with it ; and he 
 would often do a generous turn for one and another. The worst of 
 him was his roughness. At play he was always rough ; and, when 
 put out, savage as well. His strength and activity were something 
 remarkable ; he would not have minded hard blows himself, and he 
 showered them out on others with no more care than if we had 
 been made of pumice-stone. 
 
 It was Barrington who introduced the new system at football. 
 We had played it before in a rather mild way, speaking com- 
 paratively, but he soon changed that. Dr. Frost got to know of 
 it in time, and he appeared amongst us one day when we were in 
 the thick of it, and stopped the game with a sweep of his hand. 
 They play it at Rugby now very much as Barrington made us play 
 it then. The Doctor — standing with his face unusually red, 
 and his shirt and necktie unusually white, and his knee-buckles 
 gleaming — asked whether we were a pack of cannibals, that we 
 should kick at one another in that dangerous manner. If we ever 
 attempted it again, he said, football should be stopped. 
 
 So we went back to the old way. But we had tried the new, you 
 see : and the consequence was that a great deal of rough play 
 would creep into it now and again. Barrington led it on. No 
 cannibal (as old Frost put it) could have been more carelessly 
 furious at it than he. To see him with his sallow face in a heat, 
 his keen black eyes flashing, his hat off, and his straight hair flung 
 back, was not the pleasantest sight to my mind. Snepp said one 
 day that he looked just like the devil at these times. Wolfe 
 Barrington overheard him, and kicked him right over the hillock. 
 I don't think he was -ill-intentioned ; but his strong frame had been 
 untamed ; it required a vent for its superfluous strength : his 
 animal spirits led him away, and he had never been taught to 
 put a curb on himself or his inclinations. One thing was certain 
 — that the name, Wolfe, for such i nature as his, was singularly 
 appropriate. Some of us told him so. He laughed in answer ; 
 never saying that it was only shortened from Wolfrey, his real 
 name, as we learnt later. He could be as good a fellow and 
 comrade as any of them when he chose, and on the whole we 
 liked him a great deal better than we had thought we should at 
 first. 
 
 As to his animosity against little Hearn, it was wearing off. The
 
 WOLFE l5ARRtNGT0N-'S TAMIXG. 33 
 
 /ad was too young to retaliate, and Barrington grew tired of knock- 
 ing him about : perhaps a httle ashamed of it when there was no 
 return. In a twelvemonth's time it had quite subsided, and, to the 
 surprise of many of us, Barrington, coming back from a visit to old 
 Taptal, his guardian, brought Hearn a handsome knife with three 
 blades as a present. 
 
 And so it would have gone on but for an unfortunate occurrence. 
 I shall always say and think so. But for that, it might have been 
 peace between them to the end. Barrington, who was defiantly 
 independent, had betaken himself to Evesham, one half-holiday, 
 without leave. He walked straight into some mischief there, and 
 broke a street boy's head. Dr. Frost was appealed to by the boy's 
 father, and of course there was a row. The Doctor forbade 
 Barrington ever to stir beyond bounds again without first obtaining 
 permission ; and Blair had orders that for a fortnight to come 
 Barrington was to be confined to the playground in after-hours. 
 
 Very good. A day or two after that — on the next Saturday after- 
 noon — the school went to a cricket-match ; Doctor, masters, boys, 
 and all ; Barrington only being left behind. 
 
 Was he one to stand this ? No. He coolly walked away to the 
 high-road, saw a public conveyance passing, hailed it, mounted it, 
 and was carried to Evesham. There he disported himself for an 
 hour or so, visited the chief fruit and tart shops ; and then 
 chartered a gig to bring him back to within half-a-mile of the 
 school. 
 
 The cricket-match was not over when he got in, for it lasted up 
 to the twilight of the summer evening, and no one would have 
 known of the escapade but for one miserable misfortune — Archie 
 Hearn happened to have gone that afternoon to Evesham with his 
 mother. They were passing along the street, and he saw Barring- 
 ton amidst the sweets. 
 
 " There's Wolfe Barrington ! " said Archie, in the surprise of the 
 moment, and would have halted at the tart-shop ; but Mrs. Hearn, 
 who was in a hurry, did not stop. On the Monday, she brought 
 Archie back to school : he had been at home, sick, for more than 
 a week, and knew nothing of Barrington's punishment. Archie 
 came amongst us at once, but Mrs. Hearn stayed to take tea with 
 her sister and Dr. Frost. Without the slightest intention of making 
 mischief, quite unaware that she was doing so, Mrs. Hearn men- 
 tioned incidentally that they had seen one of the boys — Barrington 
 — at Evesham on the Saturday, Dr. Frost pricked up his ears at 
 the news; not believing it, however : but Mrs. Hearn said yes, for 
 Archie had seen him eating tarts at the confectioner's. The Doctor 
 finished his tea, went to his study, and sent for Barrington. Bar- 
 rington denied it. He was not in the habit of telling lies, was too 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. •'
 
 34 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 fearless of consequences to do anything of the sort ; but he denied 
 it now to the Doctor's face ; perhaps he began to think he might 
 liave gone a Httle too far. Dr. Frost rang the bell and ordered 
 Archie Hearn in. 
 
 " Which shop was Barrington in when you saw him on Satur- 
 day?" questioned the Doctor. 
 
 " The pastrycook's," said Archie, innocently. 
 
 '• What was he doing?" blandly went on the Doctor. 
 
 " Oh ! no harm, sir ; only eating tarts," Archie hastened to say. 
 
 Well — it all came out then, and though Archie was quite innocent 
 of wilfully telling tales ; would have cut out his tongue rather than 
 have said a word to injure Barrington, he received the credit of it 
 now. Barrington took his punishment without a word ; the hardest 
 caning old Frost had given for many a long day, and heaps of 
 work besides, and a promise of certain expulsion if he ever again 
 went off surreptitiously in coaches and gigs. But Barrington 
 thrashed Hearn worse when it was over, and branded him with the 
 name of Sneak. 
 
 " He will never believe otherwise," said Archie, the tears of pain 
 and mortification running down his cheeks, fresh and delicate as a 
 girl's. " But I'd give the world not to have gone that afternoon to 
 Evesham." 
 
 A week or two later we went in for a turn at " Hare and 
 Hounds." Barrington's term of punishment was o\er then. Snepp 
 was the hare; a fleet, wiry fellow who could outrun most of us. 
 But the hare this time came to grief. After doubling and turning, 
 as Snepp used to like to do, thinking to throw us off the scent, he 
 sprained his foot, trying to leap a hedge and dry ditch beyond it. 
 We were on his trail, whooping and halloaing like mad ; he kept 
 quiet, and we passed on and never saw him. But there was no 
 more scent to be seen, and we found we had lost it, and went back. 
 Snepp showed up then, and the sport was over for the day. Some 
 went home one way, and some another ; all of us \vere as hot as 
 lire, and thirsting for water. 
 
 " If you'll turn down here by the great oak-tree, we shall come 
 to my mother's house, and you can have as much water as you 
 like," said little Hearn, in his good-nature. 
 
 So we turned down. There were only six or seven of us, for 
 Snepp and his damaged foot made one, and most of them had gone 
 on at a quicker pace. Tod helped Snepp on one side, Barrington 
 on the other, and he limped along between them. 
 
 It was a narrow red-brick house, a parlour window on each side 
 the door, and three windows above; small altogether, but very 
 pretty, with jessamine and clematis climbing up the walls. Archie 
 Hearn opened the door, and we trooped in, without regard to
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 35 ■ 
 
 ceremony. Mrs. Hcarn — she had the same delicate face as Archie, 
 the same pink colour and bright brown eyes — came out of the 
 kitchen to stare at us. As Avell she might. Her cotton sleeves 
 were turned up to the elbows, her fingers were stained red, and she 
 had a coarse kitchen cloth pinned round her. She was pressing 
 black currants for jelly. 
 
 We had plenty of water, and Mrs. Hearn made Snepp sit down, 
 and looked at his foot, and put a wet bandage round it, kneehng 
 before him to do it. I thought I had never seen so nice a face as 
 hers ; very placid, with a sort of sad look in it. Old Betty, that 
 Hearn used to talk about, appeared in a short blue petticoat and a 
 kind of brown print jacket. I have seen the homely servants in 
 France, since, dressed very similarly. Snepp thanked Mrs. Hearn 
 for giving his foot relief, and we took off our hats to her as we went 
 away. 
 
 The same night, before Blair called us in for prayers, Archie 
 Hearn heard Barrington giving a sneering account of the visit to 
 some of the fellows in the playground. 
 
 "Just like a cook, you know. Might be taken for one. Some 
 coarse bunting tied round her waist, and hands steeped in reel 
 
 citchen stuff.' 
 
 " My mother could never be taken for anything but a lady,'' 
 spoke up Archie bravely. " A lady may make jelly. A great many 
 ladies prefer to do it themselves." 
 
 " Now you be off,'' cried Barrington, turning sharply on him. 
 '• Keep at a distance from your betters." 
 
 •' There's nobody in the world better than my mother," returned 
 the boy, standing his ground, and flushing painfully : for, in truth, 
 the small way they were obliged to live in, through Chancery 
 retaining the property, made a sore place in a corner of Archie's 
 heart. " Ask Joseph Todhetley what he thinks of her. Ask John 
 Whitney. TJicy recognize her for a lady." 
 
 " But then they are gentlemen themselves." 
 
 It was I who put that in. I couldn't help having a fling at 
 Barrington. A bit of applause followed, and stung him. 
 
 '•' If you shove in your oar, Johnny Ludlow, or presume to inter- 
 fere with me, I'll pummel you to powder. There." 
 
 Barrington kicked out on all sides, sending us backward. The 
 bell rang for prayers then, and we had to go in. 
 
 The game the next evening was football. We went out to it as 
 soon as tea was over, to the field by the river towards Vale Farm. 
 I can't tell much about its progress, except that the play seemed 
 rougher and louder than usual. Once there was a regular 
 skirmish : scores of feet kicking out at once ; great struegling-, 
 pushing and shouting : and when the ball got off, and the tail
 
 36 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 after it in full hue and cry, one was left behind lying on the 
 ground. 
 
 I don't know why I turned my head back ; it was the merest 
 chance that I did so : and I saw Tod kneeling on the grass, raising 
 the boy's head. 
 
 "Holloa!" said I, running back. "Anything wrong? Who 
 is it?" 
 
 It was little Hearn. He had his eyes shut. Tod did not 
 speak. 
 
 " What's the matter, Tod ? Is he hurt ? " 
 
 " Well, I think he's hurt a little," was Tod's answer. "He has 
 had a kick here." 
 
 Tod touched the left temple with his finger, drawing it down as 
 far as the back of the ear. It must have been a good wide kick, 
 I thought. 
 
 " It has stunned him, poor little fellow. Can you get some water 
 from the river, Johnny ? " 
 
 " I could if I had anything to bring it in. It would leak out of 
 my straw hat long before I got here." 
 
 But little Hearn made a move then, and opened his eyes. Pre- 
 sently he sat up, putting his hands to his head. Tod was as tender 
 with him as a mother. 
 
 " How do you feel, Archie ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right, I think. A bit giddy." 
 
 Getting on to his feet, he looked from me to Tod in a bewildered 
 manner. I thought it odd. He said he wouldn't join the game 
 again, but go in and rest. Tod went with him, ordering me to 
 keep with the players. Hearn walked all right, and did not seem 
 to be much the worse for it. 
 
 " What's the matter now ?" asked Mrs. Hall, in her cranky way ; 
 for she happened to be in the yard when they entered. Tod 
 marshalling little Hearn by the arm. 
 
 "He has had a blow at football," answered Tod. "Here" — 
 indicating the place he had shown me. 
 
 "A kick, I suppose you mean," said Mother Hall. 
 
 " Yes, if you like to call it so. It was a blow with a foot." 
 
 " Did you do it. Master Todhetley ? " 
 
 " No, I did not," retorted Tod. 
 
 " I wonder the Doctor allows that football to be played ! " §he 
 went on, grumbling. " I wouldn't, if I kept a school ; I know that. 
 It is a barbarous game, only fit for bears." 
 
 " I am all right," put in Hearn. " I needn't have come in, but for 
 feeling giddy." 
 
 But he was not quite right yet. For without the slightest 
 warning, before he had time to stir from where he stood^ he became
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 37 
 
 frightfully sick. Hall ran for a basin and some warm water. Tod 
 held his head. 
 
 "This is through having gobbled down your tea in such a mortal 
 hurry, to be off to that precious football,'' decided Hall, resentfully. 
 '• The wonder is, that the whole crew of you are not sick, swallowing 
 your food at the rate you do." 
 
 " I think I'll lie on the bed for a bit," said Archie, when the 
 sickness had passed. " I shall be up again by supper-time." 
 
 They went with him to his room. Neither of them had the 
 slightest notion that he was seriously hurt, or that there could be 
 any danger. Archie took off his jacket, and lay down in his clothes, 
 Mrs. Hall offered to bring him up a cup of tea ; but he said it 
 might make him sick again, and he'd rather be quiet. She went 
 down, and Tod sat on the edge of the bed. Archie shut his eyes, 
 and kept still. Tod thought he was dropping off to sleep, and began 
 to creep out of the room. The eyes opened then, and Archie called 
 to him. 
 
 " Todhetley .- " 
 
 '■ I am here, old fellow. What is it ? " 
 
 "You'll tell him I forgive him," said Archie, speaking in an 
 earnest whisper. " Tell him I know he didn't think to hurt me." 
 
 " Oh, I'll tell him," answered Tod, lightly. 
 
 " And be sure give my dear love to mamma." 
 
 " So I will." 
 
 "And now I'll go to sleep, or I shan't be down to supper. You 
 will come and call me if I am not, won't you ? " 
 
 " All right," said Tod, tucking the counterpane about him. " Are 
 you comfortable, Archie ? " 
 
 " Quite. Thank you." 
 
 Tod came on to the field again, and joined the game. It was a 
 little less rough, and there were no more mishaps. We got home 
 later than usual, and supper stood on the table. 
 
 The suppers at Worcester House were always the same — bread 
 and cheese. And not too much of it. Half a round off the loaf, 
 with a piece of cheese, for each fellow ; and a drop of beer or water. 
 Our other meals were good and abundant ; but the Doctor waged 
 war with heavy suppers. If old Hall had had her way, we should 
 have had none at all. Little Hearn did not appear; and Tod went 
 up to look after him. I followed. 
 
 Opening the door without noise, we stood listening and looking. 
 Not that there was much good in looking, for the room was in 
 darkness. 
 
 " Archie," whispered Tod. 
 
 No answer. No sound. 
 
 " Are you asleep, old fellQ\v ? "
 
 38 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Not a word still. The dead might be there, for all the sound 
 there was. 
 
 " He's asleep, for certain," said Tod, groping his way towards the 
 bed. " So much the better, poor little chap. I won't wake him." 
 
 It was a small room, two beds in it ; Archie's was the one at the 
 end by the wall. Tod groped his way to it : and, in thinking of 
 it afterwards, I wondered that Tod did go up to him. The most 
 natural thing would have been to come away, and shut the door. 
 Instinct must have guided him — as it guides us all. Tod bent 
 over him, touching his face, I think. I stood close behind. Now 
 that our eyes were accustomed to the darkness, it seemed a bit 
 lighter. 
 
 Something like a cry from Tod made me start. In the dark, and 
 holding the breath, one is easily startled. 
 
 " Get a light, Johnny. A light ! — quick ! for the love of 
 Heaven." 
 
 I believe I leaped the stairs at a bound. I believe I knocked 
 over Mother Hall at the foot. I know I snatched the candle that 
 was in her hand • and she screamed after me as if I had murdered 
 her. 
 
 " Here it is, Tod." 
 
 He was at the door waiting for it, every atom of colour gone clean 
 out of his face. Carrying it to the bed, he let its light fall full on 
 Archie Hearn. The face was white and cold ; the mouth covered 
 with froth. 
 
 " Oh, Tod ! What is it that's the matter with him ? " 
 
 "Hush", Johnny! I fear he's dying. Good Lord! to think we 
 should have been such ignorant fools as to leave him by himself ! — 
 as not have sent for Featherstone ! " 
 
 We were down again in a moment. Hall stood scolding still, 
 demanding her candle. Tod said a word that silenced her. She 
 backed against the wall. 
 
 " Don't play your tricks on me, Mr. Todhetley." 
 
 " Go and see," said Tod. 
 
 She took the light from his hand quietly, and went up. Just 
 then, the Doctor and Mrs. Frost, who had been walking all the way 
 home from Sir John Whitney's, where they had spent the evening, 
 came m , and learnt what had happened. 
 
 Featherstone was there in no time, so to sa\-, and shut himself 
 into the bedroom with the Doctor and Mrs. Frost and Hall, and I 
 don't know how many more. Nothing could be done for Archibald 
 Hearn : he was not quite dead, but close upon it. He was dead 
 before any one thought of sending to Mrs. Hearn. It came to the 
 same. Could she have come upon telegraph wires, she would still 
 have come too late.
 
 WOLFE EARRL\GTOX"S TAMING. 39 
 
 When 1 look back upon that evening — and a good many years 
 have gone by since then — nothing arises in my mind but a picture of 
 confusion, tinged with a feehng of terrible sorrow ; ay, and of horror. 
 If a death happens in a school, it is generally kept from the pupils, 
 as far as possible ; at any rate they are not allowed to see any of its 
 attendant stir and details. But this was different. Upon masters 
 and boys, upon mistress and household, it came with the same 
 startling shock. Dr. Frost said feebly that the boys ought to go up 
 to bed, and then Blair told us to go ; but the boys stayed on where 
 they were. Hanging about the passages, stealing upstairs and peep- 
 ing into the room, questioning Featherstone (when we could get the 
 chance of coming upon him), as to whether Hearn would get well 
 or not. No one checked us. 
 
 I went in once. Mrs. Frost was alone, kneeling b\- the bed ; I 
 thought she must have been saying a prayer. Just then she lifted 
 her head to look at him. As I backed awa)' again, she began to 
 speak aloud — and oh ! what a sad tone she said it in I 
 
 *• The only son of his mother, and she was a widow ' " 
 
 There had to be an inquest. It did not come to much. The 
 most that could be said was that he died from a kick at football. 
 " A most unfortunate but an accidental kick," quoth the coroner. 
 Tod had said that he saw the kick given : that is, had seen some 
 foot come flat down with a bang on the side of little Hearn's head ; 
 and when Tod was asked if he recognized the foot, he replied No : 
 boots looked very much alike, and a great many were thrust out in 
 the skirmish, all kicking together. 
 
 Not one would own to having given it. For the matter of that, 
 the fellow might not have been conscious of what he did. No 
 end of thoughts glanced towards Barrington : both because he 
 was so ferocious at the game, and that he had a spite against 
 Hearn. 
 
 '• I never touched him,"' said Barrington, when this leaked out ; 
 and his face and voice were boldly defiant. " It wasn't me. I never 
 so much as saw that Hearn was down." 
 
 And as there were others quite as brutal at football as Barrington, 
 he was believed. 
 
 We could not get over it any way. It seemed so dreadful that he 
 should have been left alone to die. Hall was chiefly to blame for 
 that ; and it cowed her. 
 
 - Look here," said Tod to us, '■ 1 have a message for one of 
 you. Whichever the cap fits may take it to himself. When Hearn 
 was dying he told me to say that he forgave the fellow who kicked 
 him." 
 
 This was the evening of the inquest-day. Wc had all gathered 
 in the porch by the stone bench, and Tod took the opportunity to
 
 40 JOHxNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 relate what he had not related before. He repeated every word that 
 Hearn had said. 
 
 " Did Hearn know who it was, then ? " asked John Whitney. 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Then why didn't you ask him to name him ! " 
 
 " Why didn't I ask him to name him," repeated Tod, in a fume. 
 " Do you suppose I thought he was going to die, Whitney .'' — or that 
 the kick was to turn out a serious one? Hearn was erowins' bi<r 
 enough to fight his own battles : and I never thought but he would 
 be up again at supper-time." 
 
 John Whitney pushed his hair back, in his quiet, thoughtful way, 
 and said no more. He was to die, himself, the following year — but 
 that has nothing to do with the present matter. 
 
 I was standing away at the gate after this, looking at the sunset, 
 when Tod came up and put his arms on the top bar. 
 
 "What are you gazing at, Johnny?" 
 
 "At the sunset. How red it is ! I was thinking that if Hearn's 
 up there now he is better off. It is very beautiful." 
 
 ■' I should not like to have been the one to send him there, 
 though," was Tod's answer. "Johnny, I am certain Hearn knew 
 who it was," he went on in a low tone. '" I am certain he thouglu 
 the fellow, himself, knew, and that it had been done for the purpose. 
 I think I know also." 
 
 " Tell us," 1 said. And Tod glanced over his shoulders, to make 
 sure no one was within hearing before he replied. 
 
 " Wolfe Barrington." 
 
 " Why don't you accuse him. Tod ? " 
 
 " It wouldn't do. And I am not absolutely sure. What I saw, 
 was this. In the rush, one of them fell : I saw his head lying on 
 the ground. Before I could shout out to the fellows to take care, a 
 boot with a grey trouser over it came stamping down (not kicking) 
 on the side of the head. If ever anything was done deliberately, 
 that stamp seemed to be ; it could hardly have been chance. I 
 know no more than that : it all passed in a moment. I didn't see 
 that it was Barrington. But — what other fellow is there among us 
 who would have wilfully harmed little Hearn? It is that thought 
 that brings conviction to me." 
 
 I looked round to where a lot of them stood at a distance. 
 '■ Wolfe has got on grey trousers, too." 
 
 "That does not tell much," returned Tod. "Half of us wear 
 the same. Yours are grey; mine arc grey. It's just this: While 
 I am convinced in my own mind that it was Barrington, there's no 
 sort of proof that it was so, and he denies it. So it must rest, and 
 die away. Keep counsel, Johnny." 
 The funeral took place froai the school, All of us weiU to it.
 
 WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING. 41 
 
 In the evening, Mrs. Hearn, who had been staying at the house, 
 surprised us by coming into the tea-room. She looked very small 
 in her black gown. Her thin cheeks were more flushed than usual, 
 and her eyes had a great sadness in them. 
 
 " I wished to say good-bye to you ; and to shake hands with you 
 before I go home," she began, in a kind tone, and we all got up 
 from the table to face her. 
 
 " I thought you would like me to tell you that I feel sure it 
 must have been an accident ; that no harm was intended. My 
 dear little son said this to Joseph Todhetley when he was dying — 
 and I fancy that some prevision of death must have lain then upon 
 his spirit and caused him to say it, though he himself might not 
 have been quite conscious of it. He died in love and peace with 
 all ; and, if he had anything to forgive — he forgave freely. I wish 
 to let you know that I do the same. Only try to be a little less 
 rough at play— and God bless you all. Will you shake hands witli 
 me .? " 
 
 John Whitney, a true gentleman always, went up to her first, 
 meeting her offered hand. 
 
 '• If it had been anything but an accident, Mrs. Hearn," he began 
 in tones of deep feeling: "'if any one of us had done it wilfully. I 
 think, standing to hear you now, we should shrink to the earth in 
 our shame and contrition. You cannot regret Archibald much more 
 than we do." 
 
 "In the midst of my grief, I know one thing: that God has 
 taken him from a world of care to peace and happiness ; I try to 
 rest in that. Thank you all. Good-bye." 
 
 Catching her breath, she shook hands with us one by one, giving 
 each a smile ; but did not say more. 
 
 And the only one of us who did not feel her visit as it was in- 
 tended, was Barrington. But he had no feeling : his body was too 
 strong for it, his temper too fierce. He would have thrown a sneer 
 of ridicule after her, but Whitney hissed it down. 
 
 Before another day had gone over, Barrington and Tod had a 
 row. It was about a crib. Tod could be as overbearing as 
 Barrington when he pleased, and he was cherishing ill-feeling 
 towards him. They went and had it out in private — but it did not 
 come to a fight. Tod was not one to keep in matters till they 
 rankled, and he openly told Barrington that he believed it was he 
 who had caused Hearn's death. Barrington denied it out-and-out ; 
 lirst of all swearing passionately that he had not, and then calming 
 down to talk about it quietly. Tod felt less sure of it after that : a.5 
 he confided to me in the bedroom. 
 
 Dr. Frost forbid football. And the time went on.
 
 42 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 What I have further to relate may be thought a made-up story, 
 such as we find in fiction. It is so very Uke a case of retribution. 
 But it is all true, and happened as I shall put it. And somehow 
 I never care to dwell long upon the calamity. 
 
 It was as nearly as possible a year after Hearn died. Jessup 
 was captain of the school, for John Whitney was too ill to come. 
 Jessup was almost as rebellious as Wolfe; and the two would ridi- 
 cule Blair, and call him " Baked pie "to his face. One morning, 
 when they had given no end of trouble to old Frost over their 
 Greek, and laid the blame upon the hot weather, the Doctor said 
 he had a great mind to keep them in until dinner-time. However, 
 they ate humble-pie, and were allowed to escape. Blair was taking 
 us for a walk. Instead of keeping with the ranks, Barrington and 
 Jessup fell out, and sat down on the gate of a field where the wheat 
 was being carried. Blair said they might sit there if they pleased, 
 but forbid them to cross the gate. Indeed, there was a standing 
 interdiction against our entering any field whilst the crops were 
 being gathered. We went on and left them. 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards, before we got back, Barrington had 
 been carried home, dying. 
 
 Dying, as was supposed. He and Jessup had disobeyed Blair, 
 disregarded orders, and rushed into the field, shouting and leaping 
 like a couple of mad fellows— as the labourers afterwards said. 
 Making for the waggon, laden high with wheat, they mounted it, 
 and started on the horses. In some way, Barrington lost his 
 balance, slipped over the side and the hind wheel went over him. 
 
 I shall never forget the house when we got back. Jessup, in his 
 terror, had made off for his home, running most of the way — seven 
 miles. He was in the same boat as Wolfe, except that he escaped 
 injury— had gone over the stile in defiance of orders, and got on the 
 waggon. Barrington was lying in the blue-room ; and Mrs. Frost, 
 frightened out of bed, stood on the landing in her night-cap, a 
 shawl wrapped round her loose white dressing-gown. She was ill 
 at the time. Featherstone came striding up the road wiping his 
 hot face. 
 
 " Lord bless me ! " cried Featherstone when he had looked at 
 Wolfe and touched him. '* I can't deal with this single-handed, 
 Dr. Frost." 
 
 The doctor had guessed that. And Roger was already away on 
 a galloping horse, flying for another. He brought little Pink : a 
 shrimp of a man, with a fair reputation in his profession. But the 
 two were more accustomed to treating rustic ailments than grave 
 cases, and Dr. Frost knew that. Evening drew on, and the dusk 
 was gathering, when a carriage with post-horses came thundering 
 in at the front gates, bringing Mr. Garden.
 
 WOLFE BARRIXGTOX'S TAMING. 43 
 
 They did not give to us boys the particulars of the injuries ; 
 and I don't know them to this day. The spine was hurt ; the right 
 ankle smashed : we heard that much. Taptal, Barrington's guardian, 
 came over, and an uncle from London. Altogether it was a miserable 
 time. The masters seized upon it to be doubly stern, and read us 
 lectures upon disobedience and rebellion — as though we had been 
 the offenders ! As to Jessup, his father handed him back again to 
 Dr. Frost, saying that in his opinion a taste of birch would much 
 conduce to his benefit. 
 
 Barrington did not seem to suffer as keenly as some might have 
 done; perhaps his spirits kept him up, for they were untamed. On 
 the very day after the accident, he asked for some of the fellows to 
 go in and sit with him, because he was dull. " By-and-by," the 
 doctors said. And the next day but one, Dr. Frost sent mc in. 
 The paid nurse sat at the end of the room. 
 
 '• Oh, it's you, is it, Ludlow! Where's Jessup.^" 
 
 ''Jessup's under punishment."' 
 
 His face looked the same as ever, and that was all that could be 
 seen of him. He lay on his back, covered over. As to the low 
 bed, it might have been a board, to judge by its flatness. And 
 perhaps was so. 
 
 " I am very sorry about it, Barrington. We all are. Are you in 
 much pain ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," was his impatient answer. " One has to 
 grin and bear it. The cursed idiots had stacked the wheat sloping 
 to the sides, or it would never have happened. What do you hear 
 about me ? " 
 
 " Nothing but regret that it " 
 
 " I don't mean that stuff. Regret, indeed ! regret won't undo it. 
 I mean as to my getting about again. Will it be ages first ? " 
 
 " We don't hear a word." 
 
 " If they were to keep me here a month, Ludlow, I should go mad. 
 Rampant. You shut up, old woman." 
 
 For the nurse had interfered, telling him he must not excite 
 himself. 
 
 " My ankle's hurt ; but I believe it is not half as bad as a regular 
 fracture : and my back's bruised. Well, what's a bruise ? Nothing. 
 Of course there's pain and stiffness, and all that ; but so there is 
 after a bad fight, or a thrashing. And they talk about my lying 
 here for three or four weeks ! Catch me.'" 
 
 One thing was evident : they had not allowed Wolfe to suspect 
 the gravity of the case. Downstairs we had an inkling, I don't 
 remember whence gathered, that it might possibly end in death. 
 There was a suspicion of some internal injury that we could not 
 get to know of j and it is said that even Mr, Garden, with all his
 
 44 JOHN XV LUDLOW. 
 
 surgical skill, could not get at it, either. Any way, the prospect of 
 recovery for Harrington was supposed to be of the scantiest ; and it 
 threw a gloom over us. 
 
 A sad mishap was to occur. Of course no one in their senses 
 would have let Barrington learn the danger he was in ; especially 
 while there was just a chance that the peril would be surmounted. 
 I read a book lately — I, Johnny Ludlow — where a little child met 
 with an accident; and the first thing the people around him did, 
 father, doctors, nurses, was to inform him that he would be a 
 cripple for the rest of his days. That was common sense with a 
 vengeance : and about as likely to occur in real life as that I could 
 turn myself into a Dutchman. However, something of the kind did 
 happen in Barrington's case, but through inadvertence. Another 
 uncle came over from Ireland ; an old man ; and in talking with 
 Featherstone he spoke out too freely. They were outside Bairing- 
 ton's door, and besides that, supposed that he was asleep. But he 
 had awakened then ; and heard more than he ought. The blue- 
 room always seemed to have an echo in it. 
 
 "So it's all up with me, Ludlow?" 
 
 I was by his bedside when he suddenly said this, in the twilight 
 of the summer evening. He had been lying quite silent since I 
 entered, and his face had a white, still look on it, never before 
 noticed there. 
 
 " What do you mean, Barrington ? " 
 
 " None of your shamming here. I know ; and so do you, Johnny 
 Ludlow. I say, though it makes one feel queer to find the world's 
 slipping away. I had looked for so much jolly life in it." 
 
 " Barrington, you may get well yet ; you may, indeed. Ask 
 Pink and Featherstone, else, when they next come ; ask Mr. Garden. 
 I can't think what idea you have been getting hold of." 
 
 " There, that's enough," he answered. " Don't bother. I want 
 to be quiet." 
 
 He shut his eyes ; and the darkness grew as the minutes passed. 
 Presently some one came into the room with a gentle step ; a lady 
 in a black-and-white gown that didn't rustle. It was Mrs. Hearn. 
 Barrington looked up at her. 
 
 " I am going to stay with you for a day or two," she said in a low 
 sweet voice, bending over him and touching his forehead with 
 her cool fingers. " I hear you have taken a dislike to the nurse : 
 and Mrs. Frost is really too weakly just now to get about." 
 
 " She's a sly cat," said Barrington, alluding to the nurse, " and 
 watches me out of the tail of her eye. Hall's as bad. They are in 
 league together." 
 
 " Well, they shall not corne in more than I can help. I will nurs^ 
 you myselfj"
 
 Wolfe barrixgton's taming. 45 
 
 " No ; not you," said Barrington, his face looking red and uneasy, 
 " I'll not trouble _you." 
 
 She sat down in my chair, just pressing my hand in token of 
 greeting. And I left them. 
 
 In the ensuing days his life trembled in the balance : and even 
 when part of the more immediate danger was surmounted, part 
 of the worst of the pain, it was still a toss-up. Barrington had no 
 hope whatever : I don't think Mrs. Hearn had, either. 
 
 She hardly left him. At first he seemed to resent her presence ; 
 to wish her away ; to receive unwillingly what she did for him : but, 
 in spite of himself he grew to look round for her, and to let his hand 
 lie in hers whenever she chose to take it. 
 
 Who can tell what she said to him ? Who can know how she 
 softly and gradually awoke the better feelings within him, and won 
 his heart from its hardness? She did do it, and that's enough. 
 The way was paved for her. What the accident had not done, the 
 fear of death had. Tamed him. 
 
 One evening when the sun had sunk, leaving only a fading light 
 in the western sky, and Barrington had been watching it from his 
 bed, he suddenly burst into tears. Mrs. Hearn busy amongst the 
 physic bottles, was by his side in a moment. 
 
 " Wolfe ! " 
 
 " It's very hard to have to die." 
 
 '' Hush, my dear, you are not worse : a little better. I think 
 you may be spared ; I do indeed. And — in any case — you know 
 what I read to you this evening : that to die is gain." 
 
 " Yes, for some. I've never had my thoughts turned that way." 
 
 " They are turned now. That is quite enough." 
 
 '•' It is such a little while to have lived," went on Barrington, 
 after a pause. '• Such a little while to have enjoyed earth. What 
 are my few years compared with the ages that have gone by, witli 
 the ages and ages that are to come. Nothing. Not as much as a 
 drop of water to the ocean." 
 
 ■' Wolfe, dear, if you live out the allotted years of man, three 
 score and ten, what would even that be in comparison .'' As you 
 say — nothing. It seems to me that our well-being or ill-being 
 here need not much concern us : the days, whether short or long. 
 will pass as a dream. Eternal life lasts for ever ; soon we must ail 
 be departing for it." 
 
 Wolfe made no answer. The clear sky was assuming its pale 
 tints, shading off one into another, and his eyes were looking at 
 them. But it was as if he saw nothing. 
 
 " Listen, my dear. When Archibald died, / thought I should 
 have died ; died of grief and pain. I grieved to think how short 
 had been his span of life on this fair earth; how cruel his fate in
 
 46 jOHNxW LUDLOW. 
 
 being taken from it so early. But, oh, Wolfe, God has shown me my 
 mistake. I would not have him back again if I could." 
 
 Wolfe put up his hand to cover his face. Not a word spoke 
 he. 
 
 " I wish you could see things as I see them, now that they have 
 been cleared for me," she resumed. "It is so much better to be in 
 heaven than on earth. We, who are here, have to battle with 
 cares and crosses ; and shall have to do so to the end. Archie has 
 thrown-off all care. He is in happiness amidst the redeemed." 
 
 The room was growing dark. Wolfe's face was one of intense 
 pain. 
 
 "Wolfe, dear, do not mistake me; do not think me hard if I 
 say that you would be happier there than here. There is nothing 
 to dread, dying in Christ. Believe me, I would not for the world 
 have Archie back again : how could I then make sure what the 
 eventual ending would be ? You and he will know each other up 
 there." 
 
 " Don't," said Wolfe. 
 
 "Don't what?" 
 
 Wolfe drew her hand close to his face, and she knelt down to 
 catch his whisper. 
 
 " I killed him." 
 
 A pause : and a sort of sob in her throat. Then, drawing away 
 her hand, she laid her cheek to his. 
 
 " My dear, I think I have known it." 
 
 " You — have — known — it ? " stammered Wolfe in disbelief. 
 
 " Yes. I thought it was likely. I felt nearly sure of it. Don't 
 let it trouble you now. Archie forgave, you know, and I forgave ; 
 and God will forgive." 
 ^ " How could you come here to nurse me — knowing that?" 
 
 " It made mc the more anxious to come. You have no mother." 
 
 " No." Wolfe was sobbing bitterly. " She died when I was 
 born. I've never had anybody. I've never had a chapter read to 
 me, or a prayer prayed." 
 
 " No, no, dear. And Archie — oh, Archie had all that. From 
 the time he could speak, I tried to train him for heaven. It has 
 seemed to me, since, just as though I had foreseen he would go 
 early, and was preparing him for it." 
 
 " I never meant to kill him," sobbed Wolfe. " I saw his head 
 down, and I put my foot upon it without a moment's thought. If I 
 had taken thought, or known it would hurt him seriously, I wouldn't 
 have done it." 
 
 " He is better off, dear," was all she said. " You have that 
 comfort." 
 
 " Any way, I am paid out for it. At the best, I suppose I shall
 
 WOLFE ByVRRIXGTON'S TAMING. 47 
 
 go upon crutches for life. That's bad enough : but dying's worse. 
 Mrs. Hearn, I am not ready to die." 
 
 '• Be you very sure God will not take you until you are ready, if 
 vou only wish and hope to be made so from your very heart," she 
 whispered. "' I pray to Him often for you, Wolfe."' 
 
 " I think you must be one of heaven's angels,"' said Wolfe, with a 
 burst of emotion. 
 
 " No, dear ; only a weak woman. I have had so much sorrow 
 and care, trial upon trial, one disappointment after another, that it 
 has left me nothing but Heaven to lean upon. Wolfe, I am trying 
 to show you a little bit of the way there ; and I think— I do indeed 
 — that this accident, which seems, and is, so dreadful, may have 
 been sent by God in mercy. Perhaps, else, you might never have 
 found Him : and where would you have been in all that long, long 
 eternity? A few years here, never-ending ages hereafter! — Oh, 
 Wolfe ! bear up bravely for the little span, even though the cross 
 may be heavy. Fight on manfully for the real life to come." 
 
 " If you will help me." 
 
 " To be sure I will." 
 
 Wolfe got about again, and came out upon crutches. After 
 a while they were discarded, first one, then the other, and he took 
 permanently to a stick. He would never go without that. He 
 would never run or leap again, or kick much either. The doctors 
 looked upon it as a wonderful cure — and old Featherstone was apt 
 to talk to us boys as if it were he who had pulled him through. 
 But not in Henry Garden's hearing. 
 
 The uncles and Taptal said he would be better now at a private 
 tutor's. But Wolfe would not leave Dr. Frost's. A low pony- 
 carriage was bought for him, and all his spare time he would go 
 driving over to iNIrs. Hearn's. He was as a son to her. His great 
 animal spirits had been taken out of him, you see ; and he had to 
 find his happiness in quieter grooves. One Saturday afternoon he 
 drove me over. Mrs. Hearn had asked me to stay with her until 
 the Monday morning. Barrington generally stayed. 
 
 It was in November. Considerably more than a year after the 
 accident. The guns of the sportsmen were heard in the wood ; a 
 pack of hounds and their huntsmen rode past the cottage at a 
 gallop, in full chase after a late find. Barrington looked ami 
 listened, a sigh escaping him. 
 
 " These pleasures are barred to me now." 
 
 " But a better one has been opened to you," said Mrs. Hearn, 
 with a meaning smile, as she took his hand in hers. 
 
 And on Wolfe's face, when he glanced at her in answer, there 
 sat a look of satisfied rest that I am sure had never been seen on 
 it before he fell oft" the waggon.
 
 IV. 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 
 
 He was one of the worst magistrates that ever sat upon the bench 
 of justices. Strangers were given to wonder how he got his com- 
 mission. But, you see, men are fit or unfit for a post according to 
 their doings in it ; and, generally speaking, people cannot tell what 
 those doings will be beforehand. 
 
 They called him Major: Major Parrifer : but he only held rank 
 ill a militia regiment, and every one knows what that is. He had 
 bought the place he lived in some years before, and christened it 
 Parrifer Hall. The worst title he could have hit upon ; seeing that 
 the good old Hall, with a good old family in it, was only a mile or 
 two distant. Parrifer Hall was only a stone's throw, so to say, 
 beyond our village. Church Dykely. 
 
 They lived at a high rate ; money was not wanting ; the Major, 
 liis wife, six daughters, and a son who did not come home very 
 much. Mrs. Parrifer was stuck-up : it is one of our county sayings, 
 and it applied to her. When she called on people her silk gowns 
 rustled as if lined with buckram ; her voice was loud, her manner 
 patronizing; the Major's voice and manner were the same; and 
 the girls took after them. 
 
 Close by, at the corner of Piefinch Lane, was a cottage that 
 belonged to me. To me, Johnny Ludlow. Not that I had as yet 
 control over that or any other cottage I might possess. George 
 Reed rented the cottage. It stood in a good large garden which 
 touched Major Parrifer's side fence. On the other side the garden, 
 a high hedge divided it from the lane : but it had only a low hedge 
 in front, with a low gate in the middle. Trim, well-kept hedges : 
 George Reed took care of that. 
 
 There was quite a history attaching to him. His father had 
 liecn indoor servant at the Court. When he married and left it. 
 my grandfather gave him a lease of this cottage, renewable every 
 seven years. George was the only son, had been very decently 
 educated, but turned out wild when he grew up and got out of 
 everything. The result was, that he was only a day-labourer, and 
 never likely to be anything else. He took to the cottage after old
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 49 
 
 Reed's death, and worked for Mr. Sterling ; who had the Court 
 now. George Reed was generally civil, but uncommonly inde- 
 pendent. His first wife had died, leaving a daughter, Cathy : later 
 on he married again. Reed's wild oats had been sown years ago ; 
 he was thoroughly well-conducted and industrious now, working in 
 his own garden early and late. 
 
 When Cathy's mother died, she was taken to by an aunt, who 
 lived near Worcester. At fifteen she came home again, for the 
 aunt had died. Her ten years' training there had done very little 
 for her, except make her into a pretty girl. Cathy had been trained 
 to idleness, but to very little else. She could sing ; self-taught of 
 course ; she could embroider handkerchiefs and frills ; she could 
 write a tolerable letter without many mistakes, and was great at 
 reading, especially when the literature was of the halfpenny kind 
 issued weekly. These acquirements (except the last) were not bad 
 things in themselves, but quite unsuited to Cathy Reed's condition 
 and her future prospects in life. The best that she could aspire to, 
 the best her father expected for her, was that of entering on a light 
 respectable service, and later to become, perhaps, a labourer's 
 wife. 
 
 The second Mrs. Reed, a quiet kind of young woman, had one 
 little girl only when Cathy came home. She was almost struck 
 dumb when she found what had been Cathy's acquirements in the 
 way of usefulness ; or rather what were her deficiencies. The facts 
 unfolded themselves by degrees. 
 
 " Your father thinks he'd like you to get a service with some of 
 the gentlefolks, Cathy," her step-mother said to her. " Perhaps 
 at the Court, if they could make room for you; or over at Squire 
 Todhetley's. Meanwhile you'll help me with the work at home for 
 a few weeks first; won't you, dear .'' When another little one comes, 
 there'll be a good deal on my hands." 
 
 " Oh, I'll help," answered Cathy, who was a good-natured, ready- 
 speaking girl. 
 
 " That's right. Can you wash ? " 
 
 '• No," said Cathy, with a very decisive shake of the head. 
 
 " Not wash ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no." 
 
 " Can you iron ? " 
 
 '• Pocket-handkerchiefs." 
 
 " Your aunt was a seamstress; can you sew well ? " 
 
 " I don't like sewing." 
 
 Mrs. Reed looked at her, but said no more then, rather leaving 
 practice instead of theory to develop Cathy's capabilities. But 
 w^hen she came to put her to the test, she found Cathy could not, 
 or would not, do any kind of useful work whatever, Cathy could 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 4
 
 50 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 not wash, iron, scour, cook, or sweep ; or even sew plain coarse 
 things, such as are required in la-bourers' families. Cathy could do 
 several kinds of fancy-work. Cathy could idle away her time at 
 the glass, oiling her hair, and dressing herself to the best advan- 
 tage ; Cathy had a smattering of history and geography and 
 chronology ; and of polite literature, as comprised in the pages 
 of the aforesaid halfpenny and penny weekly romances. The aunt 
 had sent Cathy to a cheap day-school where such learning was 
 supposed to be taught : had let her run about when she ought to 
 have been cooking and washing; and of course Cathy had acquired 
 a distaste for work. Mrs. Reed sat down aghast, her hands falling 
 helpless on her lap, a kind of fear of what might be Cathy's future 
 stealing into her heart. 
 
 '•' Child, what is to become of you ? " 
 
 Cathy had no qualms upon the point herself. She gave a laugh- 
 ing kiss to the little child, toddling round the room by the chairs, 
 and took out of her pocket one of those halfpenny serials, whose 
 thrilling stories of brigands and captive damsels she had learnt to 
 make her chief delight. 
 
 " I shall have to teach her everything," sighed disappointed Mrs. 
 Reed. " Catherine, I don't think the kind of useless things your 
 aunt has taught you are good for poor folk like us." 
 
 Good ! INIrs. Reed might have gone a little further. She began 
 lier instruction, but Cathy would not learn. Cathy was always 
 good-humoured ; but of work she would do none. If she attempted 
 it, Mrs. Reed had to do it over again. 
 
 " Where on earth will the gentlefolks get their servants from, if 
 the girls are to be like you ? " cried honest Mrs. Reed. 
 
 Well, time went on ; a year or two. Cathy Reed tried two or 
 three services, but did not keep them. Young Mrs. Sterling at the 
 Court at length took her. In three months Cathy was home again, 
 as usual. " I do not think Catherine will be kept anywhere," Mrs. 
 Sterling said to her step-mother. " When she ought to have been 
 minding the baby, the nurse would find her with a strip of 
 embroidery in her hand, or buried in the pages of some bad story 
 that can only do her harm." 
 
 Cathy was turned seventeen when the warfare set in between her 
 father and Major Parrifer. The Major suddenly cast his eyes on 
 the little cottage outside his own land and coveted it. Before this, 
 young Parrifer (a harmless young man, with no whiskers, and sandy 
 hair parted down the middle) had struck up an acquaintance with 
 Cathy. When he left Oxford (where he got plucked twice, and at 
 length took his name off the books) he would often be seen leaning 
 over the cottage-gate, talking to Cathy in the garden, with the two 
 little half-sisters that she pretended to mind. There wa.s no harm :
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 51 
 
 but perhaps Major Parrifer feared it might grow into it ; and he 
 badly wanted the plot of ground, that he might pull down the 
 cottage and extend his own boundaries to Piefinch Lane. 
 
 One fine day in the holidays, when Tod and I were indoors 
 making flies for iishing, our old servant, Thomas, appeared, and 
 said that George Reed had come over and wanted to speak to mc. 
 Which set us wondering. What could he want with me ? 
 
 " Show him in here," said Tod. 
 
 Reed came in: a tall, powerful man of forty; with dark, curling 
 hair, and a determined, good-looking face. He began saying that 
 he had heard Major Parrifer was after his cottage, wanting to buy 
 it; so he had come over to beg me to interfere and stop the sale. 
 
 " Why, Reed, what can I do ? " I asked. " You know I have no. 
 power." 
 
 " You wouldn't turn me out of it yourself, 1 know, sir." 
 
 " That I wouldn't." 
 
 Neither would I. I liked George Reed. And I remembered 
 that he used to have me in his arms sometimes when I was a little 
 fellow at the Court. Once he carried me to my mother's grave in 
 the churchyard, and told me she had gone to live in heaven. 
 
 " When a rich gentleman sets his mind on a poor man's bit of 
 a cottage, and says, ' That shall be mine,' the poor man has not 
 much chance against him, sir, unless he that owns the cottage will 
 be his friend. I know you have no power at present. Master 
 Johnny ; but if you'd speak to Mr. Brandon, perhaps he would 
 listen to you." 
 
 " Sit down, Reed," interrupted Tod, putting his catgut out of hand. 
 " I thought you had the cottage on a lease." 
 
 "And so I have, sir. But the lease will be out at Michaelmas 
 next, and Mr. Brandon can turn me from it if he likes. My father 
 and mother died there, sir ; my wife died there ; my children were 
 born there ; and the place is as much like my homestead as if it 
 was my own." 
 
 " How do you know old Parrifer wants it ? " continued Tod. 
 
 " I have heard it from a safe source. I've heard, too, that his 
 lawyer and Mr. Brandon's lawyer have settled the matter between 
 their two selves, and don't intend to let me as much as know I'm 
 to go out till the time comes, for fear I should make a row over it. 
 Nobody on earth can stop it except Mr. Brandon," added Reed, 
 with energy. 
 
 " Have you spoken to Mr. Brandon, Reed ? " 
 
 '• No, sir. I was going up to him ; but the thought took me that 
 I'd better come off at once to Master Ludlow ; his word might be 
 of more avail than mine. There's no time to be lost. If once the 
 lawyers get Mr. Brandon's consent, he may not be able to recall it."
 
 52 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " What does Parrifer want with the cottage ? " 
 
 " I fancy he covets the bit of garden, sir ; he sees the order I've 
 brought it into. If it's not that, I don't know what it can be. The 
 cottage can be no eyesore to him ; he can't see it from his windows."' 
 
 " Shall I go with you, Johnny ? " said Tod, as Reed went home, 
 after drinking the ale old Thomas had given him. " We will cir- 
 cumvent that Parrifer, if there's law or justice in the Brandon land." 
 
 We went off to Mr. Brandon's in the pony-carriage. Tod driving. 
 He lived near Alcester, and had the management of my property 
 whilst I was a minor. As we went along who should ride past, 
 meeting us, but Major Parrifer. 
 
 " Looking like the bull-dog that he is," cried Tod, who could not 
 bear the man. " Johnny, what will you lay that he has not been to 
 Mr. Brandon's ? The negotiations are becoming serious." 
 
 Tod did not go in. On second thought, he said it might be better 
 to leave it to me. The Squire must try, if I failed. Mr. Brandon 
 was at home ; and Tod drove on into Alcester by way of passing 
 the time. 
 
 " But I don't think you can see him," said the housekeeper, when 
 she came to me in the drawing-room. " This is one of his bad days. 
 A gentleman called just now, and I went in to the master, but it was 
 of no use." 
 
 " I know ; it was Major Parrifer. We thought he might have 
 been calling here." 
 
 Mr. Brandon was thin and little, with a shrivelled face. He 
 lived alone, except for three or four servants, and always fancied 
 himself ill with one ailment or another. When I went in, for he 
 said he'd see me, he was sitting in an easy-chair, with a geranium- 
 coloured Turkish cap on his head, and two bottles of medicine at 
 his elbow. 
 
 " Well, Johnny, an invalid as usual, you see. And what is it you 
 so particularly want ? " 
 
 " I want to ask you a favour, Mr. Brandon, if you'll be good 
 enough to grant it me." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " You know that cottage, sir, at the corner of Piefinch Lane. 
 George Reed's." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I have come to ask you not to let it be sold." 
 
 " Who wants to sell it ? " asked he, after a pause. 
 
 " Major Parrifer wants to buy it ; and to turn Reed out. The 
 lawyers are going to. arrange it." 
 
 Mr. Brandon pushed the cap up on his brow and gave the tassel 
 (wer his ear a twirl as he looked at me. People thought him in- 
 capable; but it was only because he had no work to do that he
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. S3 
 
 seemed so. He would get a bit irritable sometimes; very rarely 
 though ; and he had a squeaky voice : but he was a good and just 
 man. 
 
 " How did you hear this, Johnny ? " 
 
 I told him all about it. What Reed had said, and of our having 
 met the Major on horseback as we drove along. 
 
 " He came here, but I did not feel well enough to see him," said 
 Mr. Brandon. " Johnny, you know that I stand in place of your 
 father, as regards your property ; to do the best I can with it." 
 
 " Yes, sir. And I am sure you do it." 
 
 " If Major Parrifer — I don't like the man," broke off Mr. Bran- 
 don, " but that's neither here nor there. At the last magistrates' 
 meeting I attended he was so overbearing as to shut us all up. My 
 nerves were unstrung for four-and-twenty hours afterwards." 
 
 " And Squire Todhetley came home swearing," I could not help 
 putting in. 
 
 '• Ah," said Air. Brandon. " Yes ; some people can throw bile 
 off in that way. I can't. But, Johnny, all that goes for nothing, 
 in regard to the matter in hand : and I was about to point out to 
 you that if Major Parrifer has set his mind upon buying Reed's 
 cottage and the bit of land attached to it, he is no doubt prepared 
 to ofter a good price; more, probably, than it is worth. If so, I 
 should not, in your interests, be justified in refusing this." 
 
 I could feel my face flush with the sense of injustice, and the 
 tears come into my eyes. They called me a muff for many things. 
 
 '• I would not touch the money myself, sir. And if you used it 
 for me, I'm sure it would never bring any good." 
 
 '• What's that, Johnny ? " 
 
 " Money got by oppression or injustice never does. There was 
 a fellow at school " 
 
 "Never mind the fellow at school. Go on with your own argu- 
 ment." 
 
 " To turn Reed out of the place where he has always lived, out 
 of the garden he has done so wellby, just because a rich man wants 
 to get possession of it, would be fearfully unjust, sir. It would be 
 as bad as the story of Naboth's vineyard, that we heard read in 
 church last Sunday, for the First Lesson. Tod said so as we came 
 along." 
 
 " Who's Tod ? " 
 
 "Joseph Todhetley. If you turned Reed out, sir, for the sake 
 of benefiting me, I should be ashamed to look people in the face 
 when they talked of it. If you please, sir, I do not think my father 
 would allow it if he were living. Reed says the place is like his 
 homestead." 
 
 Mr. Brandon measured two tablespoonfuls of medicine into a
 
 54 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 glass, drank it off, and ate a French plum afterwards. The plums 
 were on a plate, and he handed them to me. I took one, and tried 
 to crack the stone. 
 
 "You have taken up a strong opinion on this matter, ALaster 
 Johnny." 
 
 " Yes, sir. I like Reed. And if I did not, he has no more right 
 to be turned out of his home than Major Parrifer has out of his. 
 How would he like it, if some rich and powerful man came down 
 on his place and turned him out ? " 
 
 " Major Parrifer can't be turned out of his, Johnny. It is his 
 own." 
 
 " And Reed's place is mine, sir — if you won't be angry with me 
 for saying it. Please don't let it be done, Mr. Brandon." 
 
 The pony-carriage came rattling up at this juncture, and we saw 
 Tod look at the windows impatiently. I got up, and Mr. Brandon 
 shook hands with me. 
 
 "What you have said is all very good, Johnny, right in principle ; 
 but I cannot let it quite outweigh your interests. When this pro- 
 posal shall be put before me — as you say it will be — it must have 
 my full consideration." 
 
 I stopped when I got to the door and turned to look at him. If 
 he would only have given me an assurance ! He read in my face 
 what I wanted. 
 
 " No, Johnny, I can't do that. You may go home easy for the 
 present, however; for I will promise not to accept the offer to 
 purchase without first seeing you again and showing you my 
 reasons." 
 
 " I may have gone back to school, sir." 
 
 " I tell you I will see you again if I decide to accept the offer," 
 he repeated emphatically. And I went out to the pony-chaise. 
 
 '• Old Brandon means to sell," said Tod, when I told him. And 
 he gave the pony an angry cut, that made him fly off at a gallop. 
 
 Will anybody believe that I never heard another word upon the 
 subject, except what people said in the way of gossip ? It was soon 
 known that Mr. Brandon had declined to sell the cottage ; and 
 when his lawyer wrote him word that the sum, offered for it, was 
 increased to quite an unprecedented amount, considering the value 
 of the cottage and garden in question, Mr. Brandon only sent a 
 peremptory note back again, saying he was not in the habit of 
 changing his decisions, and the place was not for sale. Tod threw 
 up his hat. 
 
 " Bravo, old Brandon I I thought he'd not go quite over to the 
 enemy." 
 
 George Reed wanted to thank me for it. One evening, in passing 
 his cottage on my way home from the Court. 1 leaned o\-er the gate
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 55 
 
 to speak to his little ones. He saw me and came running out. 
 The rays of the setting sun shone on the children's white corded 
 bonnets. 
 
 " I have to thank you for this, sir. They are going to renew my 
 lease." 
 
 " Are they ? All right. But you need not thank me ; I know 
 nothing about it.'' 
 
 George Reed gave a decisive nod. " If you hadn't got the ear of 
 Mr. Brandon, sir, I know what box I should have been in now. 
 Look at them girls ! " 
 
 It was not a very complimentary mode of speech, as applied to 
 the Misses Parrifer. Three of them were passing, dressed out- 
 rageously in the fashion as usual. I lifted my straw hat, and one 
 of them nodded in return, but the other two only looked out of the 
 tail of their eyes. 
 
 " The Major has been trying it on with me now," remarked Reed, 
 watching them out of sight. " When he found he could not buy 
 the place, he thought he'd tiy and buy out me. He wanted the bit 
 of land for a kitchen-garden, he said ; and would give me a five- 
 pound bank-note to go out of it. Much obliged, Major, I said ; but 
 I'd not go for fifty."' 
 
 " As if he had not heaps of land himself to make kitchen-gardens 
 of!" 
 
 " But don't you see, TNIaster Johnny, to a man like Major Parrifer, 
 who thinks the world was made for him, there's nothing so morti- 
 fying as being balked. He set his mind upon this place; he can't 
 get it ; and he is just boiling over. He'd poison me if he could. 
 Now then, what's wanted ? " 
 
 Cathy had come up, with her pretty dark eyes, whispering some 
 question to her father. I ran on ; it was growing late, and the 
 j\Ianor ever-so-far off. 
 
 From that time the feud grew between Major Parrifer and George 
 Reed. Not openly ; not actively. It could not well be either when 
 their relative positions were so diiTcrent. Major Parrifer was a 
 wealthy landed proprietor, a county magistrate (and an awfully 
 overbearing one) ; and George Reed was a poor cottager who 
 worked for his bread as a day-labourer. But that the Major grew 
 to abhor and hate Reed ; that the man, inhabiting the place at his 
 very gates in spite of him, and looking at him independently, as if 
 to say he knew it, every time he passed, had become an eyesore to 
 him ; was easily seen. 
 
 The Major resented it on us all. He was rude to Mr. Brandon 
 when they met; he struck out his whip once when he was on horse-
 
 5^1 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 back, and I passed him, as if he would like to strike me. I don't 
 know whether he was aware of my visit to Mr. Brandon ; but the 
 cottage was mine, I was friendly with Reed, and that was enough. 
 Months, however, went on, and nothing came of it. 
 
 One Sunday morning in winter, when our church-bells were 
 going for service. Major Parrifer's carriage turned out with the 
 ladies all in full fig. The Major himself turned out after it, walk- 
 ing, one of his daughters with him, a young man who was on a 
 visit there, and a couple of servants. As they passed George Reed"s, 
 the sound of work being done in the garden at the back of the 
 cottage caught the Major's quick ears. He turned softly down 
 Piefinch Lane, stole on tiptoe to the high hedge, and stooped to 
 peep through it. 
 
 Reed was doing something to his turnips ; hoeing them, the 
 Major said. He called the gentleman to him and the two servants, 
 and bade them look through the hedge. Nothing more. Then 
 the party came on to church. 
 
 On Tuesday, the Major rode out to take his place on the magis- 
 terial bench at Alcester. It was bitterly cold January weather, and 
 only one magistrate besides himself was on it ; a clergyman. Two 
 or three petty offenders were brought before them, who were severely 
 sentenced — as prisoners always were when INLajor Parrifer was 
 presiding. Another magistrate came in afterwards. 
 
 Singular to say, Tod and I had gone to the town that day about 
 a new saddle for his horse ; singular on account of what happened. 
 In saying we were there I am telling the truth ; it is not invented to 
 give colour to the tale. Upon turning out of the saddler's, which is 
 near the justice-room, old Jones the constable was coming along 
 with a prisoner handcuffed, a tail after him. 
 
 " Halloa ! " cried Tod. " Here's fun 1 " 
 
 But I had seen what Tod did not, and rubbed my eyes, wonder- 
 ing if they saw double. 
 
 '• TodI It is George Reed ! " 
 
 Reed's face was as white as a sheet, and he walked along, not 
 unwillingly, but as one in a state of sad shame, of awful rage. Tod 
 made only one bound to the prisoner; and old Jones knowing us, 
 did not push him back again. 
 
 "As I'm a living man, I do not know what this is for, or why I 
 am paraded through the town in disgrace," spoke Reed, in answer 
 to Tod's question. " If I'm charged with wrong-doing, I am willing 
 to appear and answer for it, without being turned into a felon in the 
 face and eyes of folks, beforehand." 
 
 "Why do you bring Reed up in this manner — handcufled ? "' de- 
 manded Tod of the constable. 
 
 " Because the Major telled me to, young Mr. Todhetley."
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 57 
 
 Be you very sure Tod pushed after them into the justice-room : 
 the poHce saw him, but he was a magistrate's son. The crowd 
 would have hked to push in also, but were sent to the right-about. 
 I waited, and was presently admitted surreptitiously. Reed was 
 standing before Major Parrifer and the other two, handcuffed still; 
 and I gathered what the charge was. 
 
 It was preferred by Major Parrifer, who had his servants there 
 and a gentleman as witnesses. George Reed had been working in 
 his garden on the previous Sunday morning — which was against 
 the law. Old Jones had gone to Mr. Sterling's and taken him on 
 the Major's warrant, as he was thrashing corn. 
 
 Reed's answer was to the following eftect. 
 
 He was not working. His wife was ill — her little boy being only 
 four days old — and Dr. Duffham ordered her some mutton broth. 
 He went to the garden to get the turnips to put into it. It was only 
 on account of her illness that he didn't go to church himself, he 
 and Cathy. They might ask Dr. Duffham. 
 
 "Do you dare to tell me you were not hoeing turnips.'" cried 
 Major Parrifer. 
 
 " I dare to say I was not doing it as work," independently 
 answered the man. " If you looked at me, as you say. Major, 
 through the hedge, you must have seen the bunch of turnips I had 
 got up, lying near. I took the hoe in my hand, and I did use it for 
 two or three minutes. Some dead weeds had got thrown along the 
 bed, by the children, perhaps, and I pulled them away. I went 
 indoors directly : before the clock struck eleven the turnips were on, 
 boiling with the scrag of mutton. I peeled them and put them in 
 myself." 
 
 " I see the bunch of turnips," cried one of the servants. " They 
 was lying " 
 
 "Hold your tongue, sir," roared his master; "if your further 
 evidence is wanted, you'll be asked for it. As to this defence " — 
 and the Major turned to his brother-magistrates with a scornful 
 smile — " it is quite ingenious ; one of the clever excuses we usually 
 get here. But it will not serve your turn, George Reed. When the 
 sanctity of the Sabbath is violated — — " 
 
 " Reed is not a man to say he did not do a thing if he did," 
 interrupted Tod. 
 
 The Major glared at him for an instant, and then put out of hand 
 a big gold pencil he was waving majestically. 
 
 " Clear the room of spectators," said he to the policeman. 
 
 Which was all Tod got for interfering. We had to go out : and 
 in a minute or two Reed came out also, handcuffed as before ; not 
 in charge of old Jones, but of the county police. He had been 
 sentenced to a month's imprisonment. INIajor Parrifer had wanted
 
 S8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to make it three months ; he said something about six ; but the 
 other two thought they saw some shghtly extenuating circumstances 
 in the case. A sohcitor who was intimate with the Sterhngs, and 
 knew Reed very Avell, had been present towards the end. 
 
 "Could you not have spoken in my defence, sir?" asked Reed, 
 as he passed this gentleman in coming out. 
 
 " I would had I been able. But you see, my man, when the law 
 gets broken " 
 
 '' The devil take the law," said Reed, savagely, " What I want is 
 justice." 
 
 " And the administrators of it are determined to uphold it, what 
 can be said ? " went on the solicitor equably, as if there had been 
 no interruption. 
 
 " You would make out that I broke the law, just doing what I 
 did ; and I swear it was no more ? That I can be legally punished 
 for it ? " * 
 
 " Don't Reed ; it's of no use. The Major and his witnesses swore 
 you were at work. And it appears that you were." 
 
 " I asked them to take a fine — if I must be punished. I might 
 have found friends to advance it for me." 
 
 "Just so. And for that reason of course they did not take it," 
 said the candid lawyer. 
 
 "What is my wife to do while I am in prison? And the 
 children ? I may come out to find them starved. A month's long 
 enough to starve them in such weather as this." 
 
 Reed was allowed time for no more. He would not have been 
 allowed that, but for having been jammed by the crowd at the 
 doorway. He caught my eye as they were getting clear. 
 
 " Master Johnny, will you go to the Court for me — your own 
 place, sir — and tell the master that I swear I am innocent? Perhaps 
 he'll let a few shillings go to the wife weekly ; tell him with my duty 
 that I'll work it out as soon as I am released. All this is done out 
 of revenge, sir, because Major Parrifer couldn't get me from my 
 cottage. May the Lord repay him ! " 
 
 It caused a commotion, I can tell you, this imprisonment of 
 Reed's ; the place was ringing with it between the Court and Dyke 
 Manor. Our two houses seemed to have more to do with it than 
 other people's ; first, because Reed worked at the Court ; secondly, 
 because I, ,vho owned both the Court and the cottage, lived at the 
 Manor. People took it up pretty warmly, and Mrs. Reed and the 
 children were cared for. ]\Ir. Sterling paid her five shillings a 
 week; and Mr. Brandon and the Squire helped her on the quiet, 
 and there were others also. In small country localities gentlemen 
 don't like to say openly that their neighbours are in the wrong : 
 at any rate, they rarely do anything by way of remedy. Some
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER, 59 
 
 spoke of an appeal to the Home Secretary, but it came to nothing, 
 and no steps were taken to hberate Reed. Bill Whitney, who was 
 staying a week with us, wrote and told his mother about it ; she 
 sent back a sovereign for Mrs. Reed ; we three took it to her, and 
 went about saying old Parrifer ought to be kicked, which was a 
 relief to our feelings. 
 
 But there's something to tell about Cathy. On the day that 
 Reed was taken up, it was not known at his home immediately. 
 The neighbours, aware that the wife was ill, said nothing to her — - 
 for old Duff ham thought she was going to have a fever, and 
 ordered her to be kept quiet. For one thing, they did not know 
 what there was to tell ; except that Reed had been marched off 
 from his work in handcuffs by Jones the constable. In the evening, 
 when news came of his committal, it was agreed that an exxuse 
 should be made to Mrs. Reed that her husband had gone out on 
 a business job for his master ; and that Cathy — who could not fail 
 to hear the truth from one or another — should be warned not to say 
 anything. 
 
 "Tell Cathy to come out here," said the woman, looking over 
 the gate. It was the little girl they spoke to ; who could talk well : 
 and she answered that Cathy was not there. So Ann Perkins, Mrs, 
 Reed's sister, was called out. 
 
 "Where's Cathy?" cried they. 
 
 Ann Perkins answered in a passion — that she did not know 
 where Cathy was, but would uncommonly like to know, and she 
 only wished she was behind her — keeping her there with her sister 
 when she ought to be at her own home ! Then the women told 
 Ann Perkins what they had intended to tell Cathy, and looked out 
 for the latter. 
 
 She did not come back. The night passed, and the next day 
 passed, and Cathy was not seen or heard of. The only person who 
 appeared to have met her was Goody Picker. It was about two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, Tuesday, and Cathy had her best bonnet 
 on. Mother Picker remarked upon her looking so smart, and asked 
 where she was going to. Cathy answered that her uncle (who lived 
 at Evesham) had sent to say she must go over there at once. " But 
 when she came to the two roads, she turned off quite on the contrairy 
 way to Evesham, and I thought the young woman must be daft," 
 concluded Mrs. Pickei*. 
 
 The month passed away, and Reed came out ; but Cathy had 
 not returned. He got home on foot, in the afternoon, his hair 
 cut close, and seemed as quiet as a lamb. The man had been 
 daunted. It was an awful insult to put upon him ; a slur on 
 his good name for life ; and some of them said George Reed 
 would never hold up his head again. Had he been cruel or
 
 6o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 vindictive, he might have revenged himself on Major Parrifer, 
 personally, in a manner the Major would have found it difficult to 
 forget. 
 
 The wife was about again, but sickly : the little ones did not at 
 first know their father. One of the first people he asked after 
 was Cathy. The girl was not at hand to welcome him, and he took 
 it in the light of a reproach. When men come for the first time out 
 of jail, they are sensitive. 
 
 " Mr. Sterling called in yesterday, George, to say you were to go 
 to your work again as soon as ever you came home," said the wife, 
 evading the question about Cathy. " Everybody has been so kind ; 
 they know you didn't deserve what you got." 
 
 " Ah," said Reed, carelessly. " Where's Cathy ? " 
 
 Mrs. Reed felt obliged to tell him. No diplomatist, she brought 
 out the news abruptly ; Cathy had not been seen or heard of 
 since the afternoon he was sent to prison. That aroused Reed : 
 nothing else seemed to have done it : and he got up from his 
 chair. 
 
 " Why, where is she ? What's become of her ? " 
 
 The neighbours had been indulging in sundry speculations on 
 the same question, which they had obligingly favoured Mrs. Reed 
 with ; but she did not think it necessary to impart them to her 
 husband. 
 
 " Cathy was a good girl on the whole, George ; putting aside that 
 she'd do no work, and spent her time reading good-for-nothing 
 books. What I think is this — that she heard of your misfortune 
 after she left, and wouldn't come home to face it. She is eighteen 
 now, you know." 
 
 '• Come home from where .'' " 
 
 Mrs. Reed had to tell the whole truth. That Cathy, dressed up 
 in her best things, had left home without saying a word to any one, 
 stealing out of the house unseen ; she had been met in the road by 
 Mrs. Picker, and told her what has already been said. But the 
 uncle at Evesham had seen nothing of her. 
 
 Forgetting his cropped hair — as he would have to forget it until 
 it should grow again — George Reed went tramping off, there and 
 then, the nearly two miles of way to Mother Picker's. She could 
 not tell him much more than he already knew. " Cathy was all in 
 her best, her curls 'iled, and her pink ribbons as fresh as her cheeks, 
 and said in answer to questions that she had been sent for sudden 
 to her uncle's at Evesham : but she had turned off quite the con- 
 trairy road." From thence. Reed walked on to his brother's at 
 Evesham ; and learnt that Cathy had not been sent for, and had 
 not come. 
 
 When Reed got home, he was dead-beat. How many miles the
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 6i 
 
 man had walked that bleak February day, he did not stay to think 
 — perhaps twenty. When excitement buoys up the spirit, tlic body 
 docs not feel fatigue. Mrs. Reed put supper before her husband, 
 and he ate mechanically, lost in thought. 
 
 " It fairly 'mazes me," he said, presently, in local phraseology, 
 '• But for going out in her best, I should think some accident had 
 come to her. There's ponds about, and young girls might slip in 
 unawares. But the putting on her best things shows she was going 
 somewhere." 
 
 " She put 'em on, and went off unseen," repeated Mrs. Reed, 
 snuffing the candle. " / should have thought she'd maybe gone off 
 to some wake — only there wasn't one agate within range." 
 
 "Cathy had no bad acquaintance to lead her astray," he resumed. 
 '• The girls about here are decent, and mind their work." 
 
 "Which Cathy didn't," thought Mrs. Reed. "Cathy held her 
 head above 'em," she said, aloud. " It's my belief she used to fancy 
 herself one o' them fine ladies in her halfpenny books. She didn't 
 seem to make acquaintance with nobody but that young Parrifer. 
 She'd talk to him by the hour together, and I couldn't get her 
 indoors." 
 
 Reed lifted his head. " Young Parrifer ! — what — his son ? " turn- 
 ing his thumb in the direction of Parrifer Hall. " Cathy talked to 
 him ? " 
 
 " By the hour together," reiterated Mrs. Reed. " He'd be on that 
 side the gate, a-talking, and laughing, and leaning on it ; and Cathy, 
 she'd be in the path by the tall hollyhocks, talking back to him, and 
 fondling the children." 
 
 Reed rose up. a strange look on his face. " How long was that 
 going on ? " 
 
 "Ever so long; I can't just remember. But young Parrifer is 
 only at the Hall by fits and starts." 
 
 " And you never told me, woman ! " 
 
 " I thought no harm of it. I don't think harm of it now," em- 
 phatically added IMrs. Reed. " The worst of young Parrifer, that 
 I've seen, is that he's as soft as a tomtit." 
 
 Reed put on his hat without another word, and walked out. Late 
 as it was, he was going to the Hall. He rang a peal at it, more like 
 a lord than a labourer just let out of prison. There was some delay 
 in opening the door : the household had gone upstairs; but a man 
 came at last, 
 
 " I want to see IMajor Parrifer." 
 
 The words were so authoritative ; the man's appearance so strange, 
 with his tall figure and his clipped hair, as he pushed forward into 
 the hall, that the servant momentarily lost his wits. A light, in a 
 room on the left, guided Reed ; he entered it, and found himself face
 
 63 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to face with Major Parrifer, who was seated in an easy-chair before 
 a good fire, spirits on the table, and a cigar in his mouth. What 
 with the smoke from that, what with the faint hght — for all the 
 candles had been put out but one — the Major did not at first dis- 
 tinguish his late visitor's face. When the bare head and the resolute 
 eyes met his, he certainly paled a little, and the cigar fell on to the 
 carpet. 
 
 " I want my daughter, Major Parrifer." 
 
 To hear a demand made for a daughter when the Major had 
 possibly been thinking the demand might be for his life, was un- 
 doubtedly a relief. It brought back his courage. 
 
 " What do you mean, fellow ? " he growled, stamping out the fire 
 of the cigar. " Are you out of your mind ? " 
 
 " Not quite. You might have driven some men out of theirs, 
 though, by wJiat you've done. IVe'/l let thai part be, Major. 1 
 have come to-night about my daughter. Where is she ? " 
 
 They stood looking at each other. Reed stood just inside the 
 door, hat in hand ; he did not forget his manners even in the 
 presence of his enemy ; they were a habit with him. The Major, 
 who had risen in his surprise, stared at him : he really knew nothing 
 whatever of the matter, not even that the girl was missing ; and he 
 did think Reed's imprisonment must have turned his brain. Per- 
 haps Reed saw that he was not understood. 
 
 " I come home from prison, into which you put me. Major 
 Parrifer, to find my daughter Catherine gone. She went away the 
 day I was taken up. Where she went, or what she's doing. Heaven 
 knows ; but you or yours are answerable for it, whichever way it 
 may be." 
 
 " You have been drinking," said Major Parrifer. 
 
 " You have, maybe," returned Reed, glancing at the spirits on the 
 table. " Either Cathy went out on a harmless jaunt, and is staying 
 away because she can't face the shame at home which you have put 
 there ; or else she went out to meet your son, and has been taken 
 away by him. I think it must be the last ; my fears whisper it to 
 me; and, if so, you can't be off knowing something of it. Major 
 Parrifer, I must have my daughter." 
 
 Whether the hint given about his son alarmed the Major, causing 
 him to forget his bluster for once, and answer civilly, he certainly 
 did it. His son was in Ireland with his regiment, he said ; had not 
 been at the Hall for weeks and weeks; he could answer for it that 
 Lieutenant Parrifer knew nothing of the girl. 
 
 " He was here at Christmas," said George Reed. " I saw him." 
 
 "And left two or three days after it. How dare you. fellow, 
 charge him with such a thing? He'd wring your neck for you if 
 he were here."
 
 MAJOR PARRIFER. 63 
 
 " Perhaps I might find cause to wring his first. Major Parrifcr, 
 I want my daughter." 
 
 " If you do not get out of my house, I'll have you brought before 
 me to-morrow for trespassing, and give you a second month's 
 imprisonment," roared the Major, gathering bluster and courage. 
 " You want another month of it : this one does not appear to have 
 done you the good it ought. Now — go ! " 
 
 " I'll go," said Reed, who began to see the Major really did not 
 know anything of Cathy — and it had not been very probable that 
 he did. "But I'd like to leave a word behind me. You have suc- 
 ceeded in doing me a great injury, Major Parrifer. You are rich 
 and powerful, I am poor and lowly. You set your mind on my bit 
 of a home, and because you could not drive me from it, you took 
 advantage of your magistrate's post to sentence me to prison, and 
 so be revenged. It has done me a great deal of harm. What good 
 has it done you ? " 
 
 IMajor Parrifer could not speak for rage. 
 
 " It will come home to you, sir , mark me if it does not. God 
 has seen my trouble, and my wife's trouble, and I don't believe He 
 ever let such a wrong pass unrewarded. It will come home to you, 
 Major Parrifer P 
 
 George Reed went out, quietly shutting the hall-door behind him, 
 and walked home through the thick flakes of snow that had begun 
 to foil.
 
 V. 
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 
 
 The year was getting on. Summer fruits were ripening. It had 
 been a warm spring, and hot weather was upon us early. 
 
 One fine Sunday morning, George Reed came out of his cottage 
 and turned up Piefinch Lane. His little girls were with him, one in 
 cither hand, in their clean cotton frocks and pinafores and straw 
 hats. People had gone into church, and the bells had ceased. 
 Reed had not been constant in attendance since the misfortune in 
 the winter, when Major Parrifer put him into prison. The month's 
 imprisonment had altered him; his daughter Cathy's mysterious 
 absence had altered him more ; he seemed unwilling to face people, 
 and any trifle was made an excuse to himself for keeping away from 
 service. To-day it was afforded by the baby's illness. Reed said to 
 his wife that he would take the little girls out a bit to keep the place 
 quiet. 
 
 Rumours were abroad that he had heard once from Cathy ; that 
 she told him she should come back some day and surprise him and 
 the neighbours, that she was " all right, and he had no call to fret 
 after her." Whether this was true or pure fiction, Reed did not say ; 
 he was a closer man than he used to be. 
 
 Lifting the children over a stile in Piefinch Lane, just beyond his 
 garden. Reed strolled along the by-path of the field. It brought 
 him to the high hedge skirting the premises of Major Parrifer. The 
 man had taken it by chance, because it was a quiet walk. He was 
 passing along slowly, the children running about the field, on which 
 the second crop of grass was beginning to grow, when voices on the 
 other side of the hedge struck on his ear. Reed quietly put some 
 of the foliage aside, and looked through ; just as Major Parrifer had 
 looked through the hedge in Piefinch Lane at him, that Sunday 
 morning some few months before. 
 
 Major Parrifer had been suffering from a slight temporary 
 indisposition. He did not consider himself sufficiently recovered 
 to attend service, but neither was he ill enough to lie in bed. 
 With the departure of his family for church, the Major had come
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 65 
 
 strolling out in the garden in an airy dressing-gown, and there saw 
 his gardener picking peas. 
 
 " Halloa, Hotty ! This ought to have been done before." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I know it ; I'm a little late," answered Hotty ; " I shall 
 have done in two or three minutes. The cook makes a fuss if I pick 
 'em too early ; she says they don't eat so well." 
 
 The peas were for the gratification of the Major's own palate, so 
 he found no more fault. Hotty went on with his work, and the 
 Major gave a general look round. On a near wall, at right angles 
 with the hedge through which Reed was then peering, some fine 
 apricots were growing, green yet, 
 
 " These apricots want thinning, Hotty," observed the Major. 
 
 *' I have thinned 'em some, sir." 
 
 " Not enough. Our apricots were not as fine last year as they 
 ought to have been. I said then they had not had sufficient room 
 to grow. Green apricots are always useful ; they make the best tart 
 known." 
 
 Major Parrifer walked to the greenhouse, outside which a small 
 basket was hanging, brought it back, and began to pick some of the 
 apricots where they looked too thick. Reed, outside, watched the 
 process— not alone. As luck had it, a man appeared on the field- 
 path, who proved to be Gruff Blossom, the Jacobsons' groom, coming 
 home to spend Sunday with his friends. Reed made a sign to 
 Blossom to be silent, and caused him to look on also. 
 
 With the small basket half full, the Major desisted, thinking 
 possibly he had plucked enough, and turned away carrying it. Hotty 
 came out from the peas, his task finished. They strolled slowly down 
 the path by the hedge; the Major first, Hotty a step behind, talking 
 about late and early peas, and whether Prussian blues or marrowfats 
 were the best eating. 
 
 " Do you see those weeds in the onion-bed ? " suddenly asked the 
 Major, stopping as they were passing it. 
 
 Hotty turned his head to look. A few weeds certainly had sprung 
 up. He'd attend to it on the morrow, he told his master ; and 
 then said something about the work accumulating almost beyond 
 him, since the under-gardener had been at home ill. 
 
 "Pick them out now," said the Major; "there's not a dozen of 
 them." 
 
 Hotty stooped to do as he was bid. The Major made no more 
 ado but stooped also, uprooting quite half the weeds himself. Not 
 much more, in all, than the dozen he had spoken of: and then they 
 went on with their baskets to the house. 
 
 Never had George Reed experienced so much gratification since 
 the day he came out of prison. " Did you see the Major at it ?— 
 thinning his apricots and pulling up his weeds ? " he asked of Gruff 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. "
 
 66 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Blossom. And Blossom's reply, gruff as usual, was to ask what 
 might be supposed to ail his eyes that he shouldn't see it. 
 " Very good," said Reed. 
 
 One evening in the following week, when we were sitting out on 
 the lawn, the Squire smoking, Mrs. Todhetley nursing her face in 
 her hand, with toothache as usual, Tod teasing Hugh and Lena, 
 and I up in the beech-tree, a horseman rode in. It proved to be 
 Mr. Jacobson. Giles took his horse, and he came and sat down on 
 the bench. The Squire asked him what he'd take, and being thirsty, 
 he chose cider. Which Thomas brought. 
 
 " Here's a go," began Mr. Jacobson. " Have you heard what's 
 up?" 
 
 " I've not heard anything," answered the Squire. 
 " Major Parrifer has a summons served on him for working in 
 his garden on a Sunday, and is to appear before the magistrates at 
 Alcester to-morrow," continued old Jacobson, drinking off a glass 
 of cider at a draught. 
 
 " No ! " cried Squire Todhetley. 
 
 " It's a fact. Blossom, our groom, has also a summons served on 
 him to give evidence." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley lifted her face ; Tod left Hugh and Lena to 
 themselves : I slid down from the beech-tree ; and we listened for 
 more. 
 
 But Mr. Jacobson could not give particulars, or say much more 
 than he h""i already said. All he knew was, that on Monday 
 morning 'jeorge Reed had appeared before the magistrates and 
 made a complaint. At first they were unwilling to grant a sum- 
 mons ; laughed at it ; but Reed, in a burst of reproach, civilly 
 delivered, asked why there should be a law for the poor and not for 
 the rich, and in what lay the difference between himself and Major 
 Parrifer; that the one should be called to account and punished for 
 doing wrong, and the other was not even to be accused when he 
 had done it. 
 
 " Brandon happened to be on the bench," continued Jacobson. 
 "He appeared struck with the argument, and signed the sum- 
 mons." 
 
 The Squire nodded. 
 
 " My belief is," continued old Jacobson, with a wink over the rim 
 of the cider glass, "that granting that summons was as good as a 
 play to Brandon and the rest. I'd as lieve, though, that they'd not 
 brought Blossom into it." 
 
 " Why?" asked Mrs. Todhetley, who had been grieved at the time 
 at the injustice done to Reed. 
 
 " Well, Parrifer is a disagreeable man to offend. And he is sure 
 to visit Blossom's part in this on me."
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. (i^ 
 
 " Let him," said Tod, with enthusiasm. " Well done, George 
 Reed ! " 
 
 Be you very sure we went over to the fight. Squire Todhetley 
 did not appear : at which Tod exploded a little : he only wished he 
 was a magistrate, wouldn't he take his place and judge the Major ! 
 But the Pater said that when people had lived to his age, they 
 liked to be at peace with their neighbours— not but what he 
 hoped Parrifer would " get it," for having been so cruelly hard upon 
 Reed. 
 
 Major Parrifer came driving to the Court-house in his high carriage 
 with a great bluster, his iron-grey hair standing up, and two grooms 
 attending him. Only the magistrates who had granted the sum- 
 mons sat. The news had gone about like wild-fire, and several of 
 them were in and about the town, but did not take their places. 
 I don't believe there was one would have lifted his finger to save 
 the Major from a month's imprisonment ; but they did not care to 
 sentence him to it. 
 
 It was a regular battle. Major Parrifer was in an awful passion 
 the whole time ; asking, when he came in, how they dared summon 
 him. Him! Mr. Brandon, cool as a cucumber, answered in his 
 squeaky voice, that when a complaint of breaking the law was 
 preferred before them and sworn to by witnesses, they could only 
 act upon it. 
 
 First of all, the Major denied the facts. He work in his garden 
 on a Sunday ! — the very supposition was preposterous ! Upon 
 which George Reed, who was in his best clothes, and looked every 
 bit as good as the Major, and far pleasanter, testified to what he 
 had seen. 
 
 Major Parrifer, dancing with temper when he found he had been 
 looked at through the hedge, and that it was Reed who had looked, 
 gave the lie direct. He called his gardener, Richard Hotty, order- 
 ing him to testify whether he, the Major, ever worked in his garden, 
 either on Sundays or week-days. 
 
 " Hotty was working himself, gentlemen," interposed George 
 Reed. " He was picking peas ; and he helped to weed the onion- 
 bed. But it was done by his master's orders, so it would be unjust 
 to punish him." 
 
 The Major turned on Reed as if he would strike him, and 
 demanded of the magistrates why they permitted the fellow to 
 interrupt. They ordered Reed to be quiet, and told Hotty to 
 proceed. 
 
 But Hotty was one of those slow men to whom anything like 
 evasion is difficult. His master had thinned the apricot tree that 
 Sunday morning; he had helped to weed the onion-bed; Hotty,
 
 68 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 conscious of the fact, but not liking to admit it, stammered and 
 stuttered, and made a poor figure of himself. Mr. Brandon thought 
 he would help him out. 
 
 " Did you see your master pick the apricots ? " 
 
 " I see him pick — ^just a few ; green 'uns," answered Hotty, 
 shuffling from one leg to the other in his perplexity. " 'Twarn't to 
 be called work, sir." 
 
 " Oh ! And did he help you to weed the onion-bed ? " 
 
 " There warn't a dozen weeds in it in all, as the Major said to me 
 at the time," returned Hotty. "He see 'em, and stooped down on 
 the spur o' the moment, and me too. We had 'em up in a twinkling. 
 'Twarn't work, sir ; couldn't be called it nohow. The Major, he 
 never do work at no time." 
 
 Blossom had not arrived, and it was hard to tell how the thing 
 would terminate : the Major had this witness, Hotty, such as he 
 was, protesting that nothing to be called work was done. Reed 
 had no witness, as yet. 
 
 " Old Jacobson is keeping Blossom back, Johnny," whispered 
 Tod. " It's a sin and a shame." 
 
 " No, he is not," I said. " Look there ! " 
 
 Blossom was coming in. He had walked over, and not hurried 
 himself. Major Parrifer plunged daggers into him, if looks could 
 do it, but it made no difference to Blossom. 
 
 He gave his evidence in his usual surly manner. It was clear 
 and straightforward. Major Parrifer had thinned the apricot tree 
 for its own benefit ; and had weeded the onion-bed, Hotty helping 
 at the weeds by order. 
 
 "What brought you spying at the place, James Blossom?" 
 demanded a lawyer on the Major's behalf. 
 
 " Accident," was the short answer. 
 
 "Indeed! You didn't go there on purpose, I suppose? — and 
 skulk under the hedge on purpose ? — and peer into the Major's 
 garden on purpose ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't," said Blossom. "The field is open to every one, 
 and I was crossing it on my way to old father's. George Reed 
 made me a sign afore I came up to him, to look in, as he was 
 doing; and I did so, not knowing what there might be to see. It 
 would be nothing to me if the Major worked in his garden of a 
 Sunday from sunrise to sunset ; he's welcome to do it ; but if you 
 summon me here and ask me, did I see him working, I say yes, I 
 did. Why d'you send me a summons if you don't want me to 
 tell the truth? Let me be, and I'd ha' said nothing to mortal 
 man." 
 
 Evidently nothing favourable to the defence could be got out of 
 James Blossom. Mr. Brandon began saying to the Major that he
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 69 
 
 feared there was no help for it ; they should be obliged to convict 
 him : and he was met by a storm of reproach. 
 
 Convict him ! roared the Major. For having picked two or three 
 green apricots— and for stooping to pull up a couple or so of worth- 
 less weeds? He would be glad to ask which of them, his brother- 
 magistrates sitting there, would not pick an apricot, or a peach, or 
 what not, on a Sunday, if he wanted to eat one. The thing was 
 utterly preposterous. 
 
 "And what was it / did?" demanded George Reed, drowning 
 voices that would have stopped him. " I went to the garden to 
 get up a bunch of turnips for my sick wife, and seeing some withered 
 weeds flung on the bed I drew them off with the hoe. What was 
 that, I ask? And it was no more. No more, gentlemen, in the 
 sight of Heaven." 
 
 No particular answer was given to this ; perhaps the justices had 
 none ready. Mr. Brandon was beginning to confer with the other 
 two in an undertone, when Reed spoke again. 
 
 " I was dragged up here in handcuffs, and told I had broken the 
 law ; Major Parrifer said to me himself that I had violated the 
 sanctity of the Sabbath (those were the words), and therefore I 
 must be punished ; there was no help for it. What has he done ? 
 I did not do as much as he has." 
 
 " Now you know. Reed, this is irregular," said one of the justices. 
 " You must not interrupt the Court." 
 
 " You put me in prison for a month, gentlemen," resumed Reed, 
 paying no attention to the injunction. " They cut my hair close in 
 the prison, and they kept me to hard labour for the month, as if I 
 did not have enough of hard labour out of it. My wife was sick 
 and disabled at the time, my three little children are helpless : it was 
 no thanks to the magistrates who sentenced me, gentlemen, or to 
 Major Parrifer, that they did not starve." 
 
 '• Will you be quiet, Reed ? " 
 
 " If I deserved one month of prison," persisted Reed, fully bent 
 on saying what he had to say, " Major Parrifer must deserve two 
 months, for his offence is greater than mine. The law is the same 
 for both of us, I suppose. He " 
 
 " Reed, if you say another word, I will order you at once from the 
 room," interrupted Mr. Brandon, his thin voice sharp and deter- 
 mined. " How dare you persist in addressing the Bench when told 
 to be quiet!" 
 
 Reed fell back and said no more. He knew that Mr. Brandon 
 had a habit of carrying out his own authority, in spite of his nervous 
 health and querulous way of speaking. The justices spoke a few 
 words together, and then said they found the offence proved, and 
 inflicted a fine on Major Parrifer.
 
 70 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 He dashed the money down on the table, in too great a rage to 
 do it pohtely, and went out to his carriage. No other case was on, 
 that day, and the justices got up and mixed with the crowd. Mr. 
 Brandon, who felt chilly on the hottest summer's day, and was 
 afraid of showers, buttoned on a light overcoat. 
 
 " Then there are two laws, sir ? " said Reed to him, quite civilly, 
 but in a voice that every one might hear. " When the law was 
 made against Sabbath-breaking, those that made it passed one for 
 the rich and another for the poor ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, Reed." 
 
 "Nonsense, sir? I don't see it. / was put in prison; Major 
 Parrifcr has only to pay a bit of money, which is of no more 
 account to him than dirt, and that he can't feel the loss of. And 
 my offence — if it was an offence — was less than his." 
 
 " Two wrongs don't make a right," said Mr. Brandon, dropping 
 his voice to a low key. " You ought not to have been put in prison. 
 Reed ; had I been on the bench it should not have been done." 
 
 " But it was done, sir, and my life got a blight on it. It's on me 
 yet ; will never be lifted off me." 
 
 Mr. Brandon smiled one of his quiet smiles, and spoke in a 
 •whisper. " He has got it too, Reed, unless I am mistaken. He'll 
 carry that fine about with him always. Johnny, are you there 1 
 Don't go and repeat what you've heard me say." 
 
 Mr. Brandon was right. To have been summoned before the 
 Bench, where he had pompously sat to summon others, and for 
 working on a Sunday above all things, to have been found guilty 
 and fined, was as the most bitter potion to ]\Iajor Parrifer. The 
 bench would never again be to him the seat it had been ; the 
 remembrance of the day when he was before it would, as JVIr. 
 Brandon expressed it, be carried about with him always. 
 
 They projected a visit to the sea-side at once. Mrs. Parrifer, 
 with three of the Miss Parrifers, came dashing up to people's 
 houses in the carriage, finer and louder than ever ; she said that she 
 had not been well, and was ordered to Aberystwith for six weeks. 
 The next day they and the Major were off; and heaps of cards were 
 sent round with " P.P.C." in the corner. I think Mr. Brandon must 
 have laughed when he got his. 
 
 The winter holidays came round again. We went home for 
 Christmas, as usual, and found George Reed down with some sort 
 of illness. There's an old saying, " When the mind's at ease the 
 body's delicate," but Mr. Duffham always maintained that though 
 that might apply to a short period of time, in the long-run mind 
 and body sympathized together. George Reed had been a very
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 71 
 
 healthy man, and as free from care as most people ; this last year 
 care and trouble and mortification had lain on his mind, and at the 
 beginning of winter his health broke down. It was quite a triumph 
 (in the matter of opinion) for old Duff ham. 
 
 The illness began with a cough and low fever, neither of which 
 can labourers afford time to lie up for. It went on to more fever, 
 and to inflammation of the lungs. There was no choice then, and 
 Reed took to his bed. For the most part, when our poor people 
 fell ill, they had to get well again without notice being taken of 
 them ; but events had drawn attention to Reed, and made him a 
 conspicuous character. His illness was talked of, and so he 
 received help. Ever since the prison affair I had felt sorry for 
 Reed, as had Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " I have had some nice strong broth made for Reed, Johnny," 
 she said to me one day in January ; "it's as good and nourishing 
 as beef-tea. If you want a walk, you might take it to him." 
 
 Tod had gone out with the Squire ; I felt dull, as I generally did 
 without him, and put on my hat and coat. Mrs. Todhetley had the 
 broth put into a bottle, and brougut it to me wrapped in paper. 
 
 " I would send him a drop of wine as well, Johnny, if you'd take 
 care not to break the bottles, carrying two of them." 
 
 No fear. I put the one bottle in my breast-pocket, and took the 
 other in my hand. It was a cold afternoon, the sky of a steely-blue, 
 the sun bright, the ground hard. Major Parrifer and two of his 
 daughters, coming home from a ride, were cantering in at the gates 
 as I passed, the groom riding after them. I lifted my hat to the 
 girls, but they only tossed their heads. 
 
 Reed was getting over the worst then, and I found him sitting by 
 the kitchen fire, muffled in a bed-rug. Mrs. Reed took the bottles 
 from me in the back'us — as they called the place where the washing 
 was done — for Reed was sensitive, and did not like things to be sent 
 to him. 
 
 " Please God, I shall be at v.-ork next week," said Reed, with a 
 groan : and I saw he knev/ that I had brought something. 
 
 He had been saying that all along ; four or five weeks now. I 
 sat down opposite to him, and took up the boy, Georgy. The little 
 shaver had come round to me, holding by the chairs. 
 
 " It's going to be a hard frost, Reed." 
 
 " Is it, sir? Out-o'-door weather don't seem to be of much odds 
 to me now." 
 
 "And a fall o' some sort's not far off, as my wrist tells me," 
 put in Mrs. Reed. Years ago she had broken her wTist, and felt 
 it always in change of weather. " Maybe some snow's coming." 
 
 I gave Georgy a biscuit ; the two little girls, who had been 
 standing against the press, began to come slowly forward. They
 
 72 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 guessed there was a supply in my pocket. I had dipped into the 
 biscuit-basket at home before coming away. The two put out a 
 hand each without being told, and I dropped a biscuit into them. 
 
 It had taken neither time nor noise, and yet there was some 
 one standing inside the door when I looked up again, who must 
 have come in stealthily ; some one in a dark dress, and a black 
 and white plaid shawl. Mrs. Reed looked and the children looked ; 
 and then Reed turned his head to look also. 
 
 I think I was the first to know her. She had a thick black veil 
 before her face, and the room was not light. Reed's illness had left 
 him thin, and his eyes appeared very large : they assumed a sort of 
 frightened stare. 
 
 " Father ! you are sick ! " 
 
 Before he could answer, she had rurr across the brick floor and 
 thrown her arms round his neck. Cathy ! The two girls were 
 frightened and flew to their mother ; one began to scream and the 
 other followed suit. Altogether there was a good deal of noise and 
 commotion. Georgy, like a brave little man, sucked his biscuit 
 through it all with great composure. 
 
 What Reed said or did, I had not noticed ; I think he tried to 
 fling Cathy from hini — to avoid suffocation perhaps. She burst out 
 laughing in her old light manner, and took something out of the 
 body of her gown, under the shawl. 
 
 " No need, father : I am as honest as anybody," said she. " Look 
 at this." 
 
 Reed's hand shook so that he could not open the paper, or un- 
 derstand it at first when he had opened it. Cathy flung off her 
 bonnet and caught the children to her. They began to know her 
 then and ceased their cries. Presently Reed held the paper across 
 to me, his hand trembling more than before, and his face, that ill- 
 ness had left white enough, yet more ghastly with emotion. 
 
 " Please read it, sir." 
 
 I did not understand it at first either, but the sense came to me 
 soon. It was a certificate of the marriage of Spencer Gervoise 
 Daubeney Parrifer and Catherine Reed. They had been married 
 at Liverpool the very day after Cathy disappeared from home ; now 
 just a year ago. 
 
 A sound of sobbing broke the stillness. Reed had fallen back in 
 his chair in a sort of hysterical fit. Defiant, hard, strong-minded 
 Reed ! But the man was three parts dead from weakness. It 
 lasted only a minute or two ; he roused himself as if ashamed, and 
 swallowed down his sobs. 
 
 " How came he to marry you, Cathy ? " 
 
 *' Because I would not go away with him without it father. We 
 have been staying in Ireland."
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 73 
 
 " And be you repenting of it yet?" asked Mrs. Reed, in ungracious 
 tones. 
 
 " Pretty near," answered Cathy, with candour. 
 
 It appeared that Cathy had made her way direct to Liverpool 
 when she left home the previous January, traveUing all night. 
 There she met young Parrifer, who had preceded her and made 
 arrangements for the marriage. They were married that day, and 
 afterwards went on to Ireland, where he had to join his regiment. 
 
 To hear all this, sounding like a page out of a romance, would 
 be something wonderful for our quiet place when it came to be 
 told. You meet with marvellous stories in towns now and then, 
 but with us they are almost unknown. 
 
 " Where's your husband ? " asked Reed. 
 
 Cathy tossed her head. "Ah! Where! That's what I've come 
 home about," she answered : and it struck me at once that some- 
 thing was wrong. 
 
 What occurred next we only learnt from hearsay. I said good 
 day to them, and came away, thinking it might have been better 
 if Cathy had not married and left home. It was a fancy of mine, 
 and I don't know why it should have come to me, but it proved to 
 be a right one. Cathy put on her bonnet again to go to Parrifer 
 Hall : and the particulars of her visit were known abroad later. 
 
 It was growing rather dark when she approached it ; the sun 
 had set, the grey of evening was drawing on. Two of the Misses 
 Parrifer were at the window and saw Iier coming, but Cathy had 
 her veil down and they did not recognize her. The actions and 
 manners and air of a lady do not come suddenly to one who has 
 been differently bred ; and the IMisses Parrifer supposed the visitor 
 to be for the servants. 
 
 " Like her impudence ! " said Miss Jemima. " Coming to the 
 front entrance ! " 
 
 For Cathy, whose year's experience in Ireland had widely changed 
 her, had no notion of taking up her old position. She meant to 
 hold her own ; and was capable of doing it, not being deficient in 
 the quality just ascribed to her by Miss Jemima Parrifer. 
 
 "What next!" cried Miss Jemima, as a ring and a knock re- 
 sounded through the house, waking up the Major : who had been 
 dozing over the fire amongst his daughters. 
 
 The next was, that a servant came to the room and told the 
 Major a lady wanted him. She had been shown into the library. 
 
 " What name ? " asked the Major. 
 
 " She didn't give none, sir. I asked, but she said never mind 
 the name." 
 
 " Go and ask it again." 
 
 The man went and came back. " It is Mrs. Parrifer, sir."
 
 74 . JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "Mrs. who?" 
 
 " Mrs. Parrifer, sir." 
 
 The Major turned and stared at his servant. They had no rela- 
 tives whatever. Consequently the only Mrs. Parrifer within know- 
 ledge was his wife. 
 
 Staring at the man would not bring him any elucidation. Major 
 Parrifer went to the library, and there saw the lady standing on 
 one side of the fender, holding her foot to the fire. She had her 
 back to him, did not turii, and so the Major went round to the 
 other side of the hearth-rug where he could see her. 
 
 " My servant told me a Mrs. Parrifer wanted me. Did he make 
 a mistake in the name ? " 
 
 " No mistake at all, sir," said Cathy, throwing up her thick veil, 
 and drawing a step or two back. " I am Mrs. Parrifer." 
 
 The Major recognized her then. Cathy Reed ! He was a man 
 whose bluster rarely failed him, but he had none ready at that 
 moment. Three-parts astounded, various perplexities held him 
 tongue-tied. 
 
 " That is to say, Mrs. Spencer Parrifer," continued Cathy. " And 
 I have come over from Ireland on a mission to you, sir, from your 
 son." 
 
 The ivlajor thought that of all the audacious women it had ever 
 been his lot to meet, this one was the worst : at least as much as 
 he could think anything, for his wits were a little confused just 
 then. A moment's pause, and then the storm burst forth. 
 
 Cathy was called various agreeable names, and ordered out of 
 the room and the house. The Major put up his hands to " hurrish" 
 her out— as we say in Worcestershire by the cows, though I don't 
 think you would find the word in the dictionary. But Cathy stood 
 her ground. He then went ranting towards the door, calling for the 
 servants to come and put her forth. Cathy, quicker than he, gained 
 it first and turned to face him, her back against it. 
 
 " You needn't call me those names. Major Parrifer. Not that I 
 care — as I might if I deserved them. I am your son's wife, and 
 have been such ever since I left father's cottage last year ; and my 
 baby, your grandson, sir, which it's seven weeks old he is, is now at 
 the Red Lion, a mile off. I've left it there with the landlady." 
 
 He could not put her out of the room unless by force ; he looked 
 ready to kick and strike her ; but in the midst of it a horrible dread 
 rose up in his heart that the calmly spoken words were true. Per- 
 haps from the hour when Reed had presented himself at the house 
 to ask for his daughter, the evening of the day he was discharged 
 from prison, up to this time. Major Parrifer had never thought of 
 the girl. It had been said in his ears now and again that Reed 
 was grieving for his daughter ; but the matter was altogether too
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 75 
 
 contemptible for Major Parrifer to take note of. And now to hear 
 that the girl had been with his son all the time, his wife ! But that 
 utter disbelief came to his aid, the IMajor might have fallen into a 
 fit on the spot. For young Mr. Parrifer had cleverly contrived that 
 neither his father away at home nor his friends on the spot should 
 know anything about Cathy. He had been with his regiment in 
 quarters ; she had lived privately in another part of the town. Mrs. 
 Reed had once called Lieutenant Parrifer as soft as a tomtit. He 
 was a great deal softer. 
 
 " Woman ! if you do not quit my house, with your shameless lies, 
 you shall be flung out of it." 
 
 " I'll quit it as soon as I have told you what I came over the sea 
 to tell. Please to look at this first, sir ? " 
 
 Major Parrifer snatched the paper that she held out, carried it 
 to the window, and put his glasses across his nose. It was a copy 
 of the certificate of marriage. His hands shook as he read it, just 
 as Reed's had shaken a short time before ; and he tore it passion- 
 ately in two. 
 
 " It is only the copy," said Cathy calmly, as she picked up the 
 pieces. " Your son — if he lives — is about to be tried for his life, sir. 
 He is in custody for wilful murder ! " 
 
 " How dare you ! " shrieked Major Parrifer. 
 
 " It is what they have charged him with. I have come all the 
 way to tell it you, sir." 
 
 Major Parrifer, brought to his senses by fright, could only listen. 
 Cathy, her back against the door still, gave him the heads of the 
 story. 
 
 Young Parrifer was so soft that he had been made a butt of by 
 sundry of his brother-officers. They might not have tolerated him 
 at all, but for winning his money. He drank, and played cards, and 
 bet upon horses ; they encouraged him to drink, and then made him 
 play and bet, and altogether cleared him out : not of brains, he had 
 none to be cleared of: but of money. Ruin stared him in the face: 
 his available cash had been parted with long ago ; his commission 
 (it was said) was mortgaged : how many promissory notes, bills, 
 I O U's he had signed could not even be guessed at. In a quarrel 
 a few nights before, after a public-house supper, when some of them 
 were the worse for drink, young Parrifer, who could on rare occasions 
 go into frightful passions, flung a carving-knife at one of the others, 
 a lieutenant named Cook; it struck a vital part and killed him. Mr. 
 Parrifer was arrested by the police at once ; he was in plain clothes 
 and there was nothing to show that he was an officer. They had 
 to strap him down to carry him to prison : between drink, rage, and 
 fever, he was as a maniac. The next morning he was lying in brain 
 fever, and when Cathy left he had been put into a strait-waistcoat.
 
 76 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 She gave the heads of this account in as few words as it is 
 written. Major Parrifer stood hke a helpless man. Taking one 
 thing with another, the blow was horrible. Parents don't often 
 see the defects in their own children, especially if they are only 
 sons. Far from having thought his son soft, unfit (as he nearly 
 was) to be trusted about, the Major had been proud of him as his 
 heir, and told the world he was perfection. Soft as young Parrifer 
 was, he had contrived to keep his ill-doings from his father. 
 
 Of course it was only natural that the Major's first relief should 
 be abuse of Cathy. He told her all that had happened to his son 
 she was the cause of, and called her a few more genteel names in 
 doing it. 
 
 "Not at all," said Cathy; "you are wrong there, sir. His 
 marriage with me was a little bit of a stop-gap and served to keep 
 him straight for a month or two ; but for that, he would have done 
 for himself before now. Do you think I've had a bargain in him, 
 sir.? No. Marriage is a thing that can't be undone, Major Par- 
 rifer : but I wish to my heart that I was at home again in father's 
 cottage, light-hearted Cathy Reed." 
 
 The Major made no answer. Cathy went on. 
 
 " When the news was brought to me by his servant, that he had 
 killed a man and was lying raving, I thought it time to go and 
 see about him. They would not let me into the lock-up where he 
 was lying — and you might have heard his ravings outside. / did. 
 I said I was his wife; and then they told me I had better see 
 Captain Williams. I went to head-quarters and saw Captain 
 Williams. He seemed to doubt me ; so I showed him the certificate, 
 and told him my baby was at home, turned six weeks old. He 
 was very kind then, sir ; took me to see my husband ; and advised 
 me to come over here at once and give you the particulars. I told 
 him what was the truth — that I had no money, and the lodgings 
 were owing for. He said the lodgings must wait : and he would 
 lend me enough money for the journey." 
 
 " Did you see him?" growled Major Parrifer. 
 
 Cathy knew that he alluded to his son, though he would not 
 speak the name. 
 
 " I saw him, sir ; I told you so. He did not know me or any- 
 body else ; he was raving mad, and shaking so that the bed shook 
 under him." 
 
 " How is it that they have not written to me?" demanded Major 
 Parrifer. 
 
 " I don't think anybody liked to do it. Captain Williams said 
 the best plan would be for me to come over. He asked me if I'd 
 like to hear the truth of the past as regarded my husband ; or if I 
 would just come here and tell you the bare facts that were known
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. ^y 
 
 about his illness and the charge against him. I said I'd prefer to 
 hear the truth — it couldn't be worse than I suspected. Then he 
 went on to the drinking and the gambling and the debts, just as 
 I have repeated it to you, sir. He was very gentle; but he said he 
 thought it would be mistaken kindness not to let me fully under- 
 stand the state of things. He said ]\Ir. Parrifer's father, or some 
 other friend, had better go over to Ireland." 
 
 In spite of himself, a groan escaped Major Parrifer. The blow 
 was the worst that could have fallen upon him. He had not cared 
 much for his daughters ; his ambition was centred in his son. 
 Visions of a sojourn at Dublin, and of figuring off at the Vice- 
 Regal Court, himself, his wife, and his son, had floated occasion- 
 ally in rose-coloured clouds before his eyes, poor pompous old 
 simpleton. And now — to picture the visit he must set out upon 
 ere the night was over, nearly drove him wild with pain. Cathy 
 unlatched the door, but waited to speak again before she opened it. 
 
 " I'll rid the house of me now that I have broke it to you, sir. If 
 you wan't me I shall be found at father's cottage ; I suppose they'll 
 let me stay there : if not, you can hear of me at the place where 
 I've left my baby. And if your son should ever wake out of his 
 delirium, Major Parrifer, he will be able to tell you that if he had 
 listened to me and heeded me, or even only come to spend his 
 evenings with me — which it's months since he did — he would not 
 have been in this plight now. Should they try him for murder; 
 and nothing can save him from it if he gets well; I " 
 
 A succession of screams cut short what Cathy was about to add. 
 In her surprise she drew wide the door, and was confronted by Miss 
 Jemima Parrifer. That young lady, curious upon the subject of the 
 visit and visitor, had thought it well to put her ear to the library 
 door. With no effect, however, until Cathy unlatched it. And then 
 she heard more than she had thought for. 
 
 "Is it j'<7«.'"' roughly cried Miss Jemima, recognizing her for 
 the ill-talked-of Cathy Reed, the daughter of the Major's enemy. 
 " What do you want here ? " 
 
 Cathy did not answer. She walked to the hall-door and let her- 
 self out. Miss Jemima went on into the library. 
 
 " Papa, what was it she was saying about Spencer, that vile girl? 
 What did she do here .^ Why did she send in her name as Mrs. 
 Parrifer ? " 
 
 The Major might have heard the questions, or he might not ; he 
 didn't respond to them. Miss Jemima, looking closely at him in 
 the darkness of the room, saw a grey, worn, terror-stricken face, 
 that looked as her father's had never looked yet. 
 
 " Oh, papa ! what is the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 He walked towards her in the quietest manner possible, took her
 
 78 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 arm and pushed her out at the door. Not rudely ; softly, as one 
 might do who is in a dream. 
 
 " Presently, presently," he muttered in quite an altered voice, low 
 and timid. And Miss Jemima found the door bolted against her. 
 
 It must have been an awful moment with him. Look on what 
 side he would, there was no comfort. Spencer Parrifer was ruined 
 past redemption. He might die in this illness, and then, what of 
 his soul ? Not that the Major was given to that kind of reflection. 
 Escaping the illness, he must be tried — for his life, as Cathy had 
 phrased it. And escaping that, it the miracle were possible, there 
 remained the miserable debts and the miserable wife he had clogged 
 himself with. 
 
 Curiously enough, as the miserable Major, most miserable in that 
 moment, pictured these things, there suddenly rose up before his 
 mind's eye another picture. A remembrance of Reed, who had 
 stood in that very room less than twelve months ago, in the dim 
 light of late night, with his hair cut close, and his warning : " It 
 will come home to you, Major Parrifer.'''' Had it come home to 
 him? Home to him already.'' The drops of agony broke out on 
 his face as he asked the question. It seemed to him, in that 
 moment of excitement, so very like some of Heaven's own 
 lightning. 
 
 One grievous portion of the many ills had perhaps not fallen, but 
 for putting Reed in prison — the marriage ; and that one was more 
 humiliating to Major Parrifer's spirit than all the rest. Had Reed 
 been at liberty, Cathy might not have made her escape untracked, 
 and the bitter marriage might, in that case, have been avoided. 
 
 A groan, and now another, broke from the Major. How it had 
 come home' to him ! not his selfishness and his barbarity and his 
 pride, but this sorrowful blow. Reed's month in prison, compared 
 with this, was as a drop of water to the ocean. As to the girl — 
 when Reed had come asking for tidings of her, it had seemed to 
 the Major not of the least moment whither she had gone or what 
 ill she had entered on : was she not a common labourer's daughter, 
 and that labourer George Reed .'' Even then, at that very time, 
 she was his daughter-in-law, and his son the one to be humiliated. 
 Major Parrifer ground his teeth, and only stopped when he re- 
 membered that something must be done about that disgraceful son. 
 He started that night for Ireland. Cathy, affronted at some 
 remark made by Mrs. Reed, took herself off from her father's 
 cottage. She had a Httle money still left from her journey, and 
 could spend it. 
 
 Spencer Gervoise Daubeney Parrifer (the Major and his wife had 
 bestowed the fine names upon him in pride at his baptism) died in 
 prison. He lived only a day after ]\Iajor Parrifer's arrival, and
 
 COMING HOME TO HIM. 79 
 
 never recognized him. Of course it saved the trial, when he would 
 probably have been convicted of manslaughter. It saved the pay- 
 ment of his hundreds of debts too ; post-obits and all ; he died 
 before his father. But it could not save exposure ; it could not 
 keep the facts from the world. Major and Mrs. Parrifer, so to say, 
 would never lift up their heads again ; the sun of their life had set. 
 Neither would Cathy lift hers yet awhile. She contrived to 
 quarrel with her father ; the Parrifers never took the remotest 
 notice of her ; she was nearly starved and her baby too. What little 
 she earned was by hard work : but it would not keep her, and she 
 applied to the parish. The parish in turn applied to INIajor Parrifer, 
 and forced from him as much as thi law allowed, a few shillings a 
 week. Having to apply to the parish was, for Cathy, a humiliation 
 never to be forgotten. The neighbours made their comments. 
 " Cathy Reed had brought her pigs to a fine market I " 
 So she had ; and she felt it more than the loss of her baby, who 
 died soon after. Better that she had married an honest day- 
 labourer : and Cathy knew it now.
 
 VI. 
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 
 
 Ir happened when we were staying at our other house, Crabb Cot. 
 In saying " we " were staying at it, I mean the family, for Tod and 
 I were at school. 
 
 Crabb Cot lay beyond the village of Crabb. Just across the 
 road, a few yards higher up, was the large farm of Mr. Coney ; and 
 his house and ours were the only two that stood there. Crabb Cot 
 was a smaller and more cosy house than Dyke Manor ; and, when 
 there, we were not so very far from Worcester : less than half-way, 
 comparing it with the Manor. 
 
 Crabb was a large and straggling parish. North Crabb, which 
 was nearest to us, had the church and schools in it, but very few 
 houses. South Crabb, further off, was more populous. Nearly a 
 mile beyond South Crabb, there was a regular junction of rails. 
 Lines, crossing each other in a most bewildering manner, led off in 
 all directions : and it required no little manoeuvring to send the 
 trains away right at busy times. Which of course was the points- 
 man's affair. 
 
 The busiest days had place in summer, when excursion trains 
 were in full swing: but they would come occasionally at other 
 times, driving the South Crabb station people off their heads with 
 bother before night. 
 
 The pointsman was Harry Lease. I dare say you have noticed 
 how certain names seem to belong to certain places. At North 
 Crabb and South Crabb, and in the district round about, the 
 name of Lease was as common as blackberries in a hedge ; and if 
 the different Leases had been cousins in the days gone by, the 
 relationship was lost now. There might be seven-and-twenty 
 Leases, in and out, but Harry Lease was not, so far as he knew, 
 akin to any of them. 
 
 South Crabb was not much of a place at best. A part of it, 
 Crabb Lane, branching off towards Massock's brickfields, was 
 crowded as a London street. Poor dwellings were huddled to- 
 gether, and children jostled each other on the door-steps. Squire 
 Todhetley said he remembered it when it really was a lane, hedges
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 8l 
 
 on either side and a pond that was never dry. Harry Lease lived 
 in the last house, a thatched hut with three rooms in it. He was a 
 steady, civil, hard-working man, superior to some of his neighbours, 
 who were given to reeling home at night and beating their wives on 
 arrival. His wife, a nice sort of woman to talk to, was a bad 
 manager ; but the five children were better behaved and better 
 kept than the other grubbers in the gutter. 
 
 Lease was the pointsman at South Crabb Junction, and helped 
 also in the general business there. He walked to his work at six in 
 the morning, carrying his breakfast with him ; went home to dinner 
 at twelve, the leisure part of the day at the station, and had his tea 
 taken to him at four; leaving in general at nine. Sometimes his 
 wife arrived with the tea ; sometimes the eldest child, Polly, an in- 
 telligent girl of six. But, one afternoon in September, a crew of 
 mischievous boys from the brickfields espied what Polly was carry- 
 ing. They set upon her, turned over the can of tea in fighting for 
 it, ate the bread-and-butter, tore her pinafore in the skirmish, and 
 frightened her nearly to death. After that. Lease said that the 
 child should not be sent with the tea : so, when his wife could not 
 take it, he went without tea. Polly and her father were uncom- 
 monly alike, too quiet to battle much with the world : sensitive, in 
 fact : though it sounds odd to say that. 
 
 During the month of November one of the busy days occurred 
 at South Crabb Junction. There was a winter meeting on 
 Worcester race-course, a cattle and pig show in a town larger than 
 Worcester, and two or three markets and other causes of increased 
 traffic, all falling on the same day. What with cattle-trains, ordi- 
 nary and special trains, and goods-trains, and the grunting of 
 obstinate pigs, Lease had plenty to do to keep his points in 
 order. 
 
 How it fell out he never knew. Between eight and nine o'clock, 
 when a train was expected in on its way to Worcester, Lease forgot 
 to shift the points. A goods-train had come in ten minutes before, 
 for which he had had to turn the points, and he never turned them 
 back again. On came the train, almost as quickly as though it had 
 not to pull up at South Crabb Junction. Watson, the station- 
 master, came out to be in readiness. 
 
 " The engine has her steam on to-night," he remarked to Lease as 
 he watched the red lights, like two great eyes, come tearing on. 
 " She'll have to back." 
 
 She did something worse than back. Instead of slackening on 
 the near lines, she went flying off at a tangent to some outer ones 
 on which the goods-train stood, waiting until the passenger train 
 should pass. There was a short, sharp sound from the whistle, a 
 great collision, a noise of steam hissing, a sense of dire confusion : 
 
 Johnny Ludlow.— I. t»
 
 82 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 and for one minute afterwards a dead lull, as if every one and every, 
 thing were paralyzed, 
 
 " You never turned the points ! " shouted the station-master to 
 Lease. 
 
 Lease made no rejoinder. He backed against the wall like a 
 man helpless, his arms stretched out, his face and eyes wild with 
 horror. Watson thought he was going to have a fit, and shook him 
 roughly. 
 
 " You've done it nicely, you have ! " he added, as he flew off to 
 the scene of disaster, from which the steam was beginning to clear 
 away. But Lease reached it before him. 
 
 " God forgive me ! God have mercy upon me ! " 
 
 A porter, running side by side with Lease, heard him say it. In 
 telling it afterwards the man described the tone as one of intense, 
 piteous agony. 
 
 The Squire and Mrs. Todhetley, who had been a few miles off to 
 spend the day, were in the train with Lena. The child did nothing 
 but cry and sob; not with damage, but fright. Mr. Coney also 
 happened to be in it ; and Massock, who owned the brickfields. 
 They were not hurt at all, only a little shaken, and (as the Squire 
 put it afterwards,) mortally scared. Massock, an under-bred man, 
 who had grown rich by his brickfields, was more pompous than a 
 lord. The three seized upon the station-master. 
 
 " Now then, Watson," cried Mr. Coney, " what was the cause of 
 all this ? " 
 
 " If there have been any negligence here— and I know there have 
 —you shall be transported for it, Watson, as sure as I'm a living 
 man," roared Massock. 
 
 '' I'm afraid, gentlemen, that something was wrong with the 
 points," acknowledged Watson, willing to shift the blame from him- 
 self, and too confused to consider policy. "At least that's all I 
 can think." 
 
 " With the points ! " cried Massock. " Them's Harry Lease's 
 work. Was he on to-night ? " 
 
 " Lease is here as usual, Mr. Massock. I don't say this lies at 
 his door," added Watson, hastily. " The points might have been 
 out of order ; or something else wrong totally different. I should 
 like to know, for my part, what possessed Roberts to bring up his 
 train at such speed." 
 
 Darting in and out of the heap of confusion like a mad spirit ; 
 now trying by his own effort to lift the broken parts of carriages off 
 some sufferer, now carrying a poor fellow away to safety, but always 
 in the thick of danger ; went Harry Lease. Braving the heat and 
 steam as though he felt them not, he flew everywhere, himself and 
 his lantern alike trembling with agitation.
 
 LEASE, THE- POINTSMAN. 83 
 
 "Come and look here, Harry; I'm afraid he's dead," said a 
 porter, throwing his light upon a man's face. The words arrested 
 Mr. Todhetley, who was searching for Lease to let off a little of his 
 anger. It was Roberts, the driver of the passenger-train, who lay 
 there, his face white and still. Somehow the sight made the Squire 
 still, too. Raising Roberts's head, the men put a drop of brandy 
 between his lips, and he moved. Lease broke into a low glad 
 cry. 
 
 " He is not dead ! he is not dead ! " 
 
 The angry reproaches died away on the Squire's tongue : it did 
 not seem quite the time to speak them. By-and-by he came upon 
 Lease again. The man had halted to lean against some palings, 
 feeling unaccountably strange, much as though the world around 
 were closing to him. 
 
 " Had you been drinking to-night, Lease ? " 
 
 The question was put quietly : which was, so to say, a feather in 
 the hot Squire's cap. Lease only shook his head byway of answer. 
 He had a pale, gentle kind of face, with brown eyes that always 
 wore a sad expression. He never drank, and the Squire knew it. 
 
 " Then how came you to neglect the points. Lease, and cause 
 this awful accident ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir," answered Lease, rousing out of his lethargy, 
 but speaking as one in a dream. " I can't think but what I turned 
 them as usual." 
 
 " You knew the train was coming ? It was the ordinary train." 
 
 " I knew it was coming," assented Lease. " I watched it come 
 along, standing by the side of Mr. Watson. If I had not set the 
 points right, why, I should have thought surely of them then ; it 
 stands to reason I should. But never such a thought came into my 
 mind, sir. I waited there, just as if all was right ; and I believe I 
 did shift the points." 
 
 Lease did not put this forth as an excuse : he only spoke aloud 
 the problem that was working in his mind. Having shifted the 
 points regularly for five years, it seemed simply impossible that he 
 .could have neglected it now. And yet the man could not re- 
 member to have done it this evening. 
 
 " You can't call it to mind ? " said Squire Todhetley, repeating 
 his last words. 
 
 " No, I can't, sir : and no wonder, with all this confusion around 
 me and the distress I'm in. I may be able to do so to-morrow." 
 
 " Now look you here. Lease," said the Squire, getting just a little 
 cross : " if you had put the points right you couldn't fail to 
 remember it. And what causes your distress, I should like to ask, 
 but the knowledge that you did?ifj and that all this wreck is owing 
 to you ? "
 
 84 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " There is such a thing as doing things mechanically, sir, without 
 the mind being conscious of it." 
 
 " Doing things wilfully," roared the Squire. " Do you want to 
 tell me I am a fool to my face ? " 
 
 " It has often happened, sir, that when I have wound up the 
 mantel-shelf clock at night in our sleeping-room, I'll not know the 
 next minute whether I've wound it or not, and I have to try it again, 
 or else ask the wife," went on Lease, looking straight out into the 
 darkness, as if he could see the clock then. " I can't think but 
 what it must have been just in that way that I put the points right 
 to-night." 
 
 Squire Todhetley, in his anger, which was growing hot again, felt 
 that he should like to give Lease a sound shaking. He had no 
 notion of such talk as this. 
 
 " I don't know whether you are a knave or a fool. Lease. Killing 
 men and women and children ; breaking arms and legs ; putting a 
 whole trainful into mortal fright ; smashing property and engines to 
 atoms ; turning the world, in fact, upside down, so that people don't 
 know whether they stand on their heads or their heels ! You may 
 think you can do this with impunity perhaps, but the law will soon 
 teach you better. I should not like to go to bed with human lives 
 on my soul." 
 
 The Squire disappeared in a whirlwind. Lease — who seemed to 
 have taken a leaf out of his own theory, and listened mechanically 
 — closed his eyes and put his head back against the palings, hke 
 one who has had a shock. He went home when there was nothing 
 more to be done. Not down the highway, but choosing the field- 
 path, where he would not be likely to meet a soul. Crabb Lane, 
 accustomed to put itself into a state of commotion for nothing at 
 all, had got something at last, and was up in arms. All the men 
 employed at the station lived in Crabb Lane. The wife and 
 children of Bowen, the stoker of the passenger-train, — dead — also 
 inhabited a room in that noisy locality. So that when Lease came 
 in view of the place, he saw an excited multitude, though it was 
 then long after ordinary bed-time. Groups stood in the highway ; 
 heads, thrust forth at upper windows, were shouting remarks across 
 the street and back again. Keeping on the far side of the hedge. 
 Lease got in by the back-door unseen. His wife was sitting by the 
 fire, trembling and frightened. She started up. 
 
 " Oh, Harry ! what is the truth of this ? " 
 
 He did not answer. Not in neglect ; Lease was as civil indoors 
 as out, which can't be said of every one ; but as if he did not hear. 
 The supper ; bread and half a cold red-herring ; was on the table. 
 Generally he was hungry enough for supper, but he never glanced 
 at it this evening.
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 85 
 
 Sitting down, he looked into the fire and remained still, listening 
 perhaps to the outside hubbub. His wife, half dead with fear and 
 apprehension, could keep silence no longer, and asked again. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered then. " They say that I never 
 turned the points ; I'm trying to remember doing it, Mary. My 
 senses have been scared out of me." 
 
 " But donH you remember doing it ? " 
 
 He put his hands to his temples, and his eyes took that far-off, 
 sad look, often seen in eyes when the heart is troubled. With all 
 his might and main, the man was trying to recall the occurrence 
 which would not come to him. A dread conviction began to dawn 
 within him that it never would or could come ; and Lease's face 
 grew damp with drops of agony." 
 
 " I turned the points for the down goods-train," he said pre- 
 sently; " I remember that. When the goods came in, I know I was 
 in the signal-house. Then I took a message to Hoar; and next I 
 stepped across with some oil for the engine of an up-train that 
 dashed in ; they called out that it wanted some. I helped to do it, 
 and took the oil back again. It would be then that I went to put 
 the points right," he added after a pause. " I hope I did." 
 
 " But, Harry, don't you remember doing it?" 
 
 " No, I don't ; there's where it is." 
 
 " You always put the points straight at once after the train has 
 passed ? " 
 
 " Not if I'm called off by other work. It ought to be done. A 
 pointsman should stand while the train passes, and then step off to 
 right the points at once. But when you are called off half-a-dozen 
 ways to things crying out to be done, you can't spend time in 
 waiting for the points. We've never had a harder day's work at the 
 station than this has been, Mary ; trains in, trains out ; the place 
 has hardly been free a minute together. And the extra telegraph- 
 ing! — half the passengers that stopped seemed to want to send 
 messages. When six o'clock came I was worn out ; done up ; fit 
 to drop." 
 
 Mrs. Lease gave a start. An idea flashed into her mind, causing 
 her to ask mentally whether she could have had indirectly a hand 
 in the calamity. For that had been one of the days when her 
 husband had had no tea taken to him. She had been very busy 
 washing, and the baby was sick and cross : that had been quite 
 enough to fill incapable Mrs. Lease's hands, without bothering about 
 her husband's tea. And, of all days in the year, it seemed that he 
 had, on this one, most needed tea. Worn out ! done up ! 
 
 The noise in Crabb Lane was increasing, voices sounded louder, 
 and Mrs. Lease put her hands to her ears. Just then a sudden 
 interruption occurred. Polly, supposed to be safe asleep upstairs,
 
 S6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 burst into the kitchen in her night-gown, and flew into her father's 
 arms, sobbing and crying. 
 
 " Oh, father, is it true ? — is it true ? " 
 
 " Why — Polly ! " cried the man, looking at her, in astonishment. 
 " What's this ? " 
 
 She hid her face on his waistcoat, her hands clinging round him. 
 Polly had awakened and heard the comments outside. She was too 
 nervous and excitable for Crabb Lane. 
 
 " They are saying you have killed Kitty Bowen's father. It isn't 
 true, father ! Go out and tell them that it isn't true ! " 
 
 His own nerves were unstrung; his strength had gone out of 
 him ; it only needed something of this kind to finish up Lease ; and 
 he broke into sobs. Holding the child to him with a tight grasp, 
 they cried together. If Lease had never known agony before in his 
 life, he knew it then. 
 
 The days went on. There was no longer any holding-out on 
 Lease's part on the matter of points : all the world said he had been 
 guilty of neglecting to turn them ; and he supposed he had. He 
 accepted the fate meekly, without resistance, his manner strangely 
 still, as one who has been utterly subdued. When talked to, he 
 freely avowed that it remained a puzzle to him how he could have 
 forgotten the points, and what made him forget them. He shrank 
 neither from reproach nor abuse ; listening patiently to all who 
 chose to attack him, as if he had no longer any right to claim a 
 place in the world. 
 
 He was not spared. Coroner and jury, friends and foes, all 
 went on at him, painting his sins in flaring colours, and calling 
 him names to his face. " Murderer " was one of the least of 
 them. Four had died in all ; Roberts was not expected to live ; 
 the rest were getting well. There would have been no trouble 
 over the inquest (held at the Bull, between Crabb Lane and the 
 station), it might have been finished in a day, and Lease com- 
 mitted for trial, but that one of those who had died was a lawyer ; 
 and his brother (also a lawyer) and other of his relatives (likewise 
 lawyers) chose to make a commotion. Mr. Massock helped them. 
 Passengers must be examined ; rails tried ; the points tested ; every 
 conceivable obstacle was put in the way of a conclusion. Fifteen 
 times had the jury to go and look at the spot, and see the working 
 of the points tested. And so the inquest was adjourned from 
 time to time, and might be finished perhaps something under a 
 year. 
 
 The public were like so many wolves, all howling at Lease; 
 from the aforesaid relatives and Brickfield Massock, down to the 
 men and women of Crabb Lane. Lease was at home on bail, sur- 
 rendering himself at every fresh meeting of the inquest. A few
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 87 
 
 wretched malcontents had begun to hiss him as he passed In and 
 out of Crabb Lane. 
 
 When we'got home for the Christmas hoHdays, nothing met us 
 but tales of Lease's wickedness, in having sent one train upon the 
 other. The Squire grew hot in talking of it. Tod, given to be con- 
 trary, said he should like to have Lease's own version of the affair. 
 A remark that affronted the Squire. 
 
 " You can go off and get it from him, sir. Lease won't refuse it ; 
 he'd give it to the dickens, for the asking. He hkes nothing better 
 than to talk about it." 
 
 "After all, it was only a misfortune," said Tod. "It was not 
 wilfully done." 
 
 " Not wilfully done ! " stuttered the Pater in his rage. " When I, 
 and Lena, and her mother were in the train, and might have been 
 smashed to atoms ! W^hen Coney, and Massock (not that I like 
 the fellow), and scores more were put in jeopardy, and some were 
 killed; yes, sir, killed. A misfortune! Johnny, if you stand there 
 grinning like an idiot, I'll send you back to school : you shall both 
 pack off this very hour. A misfortune, indeed ! Lease deserves 
 hanging." 
 
 The next morning we came upon Lease accidentally in the fields. 
 He was leaning over the gate amongst the trees, as Tod and I 
 crossed the rivulet bridge — which was nothing but a plank or two. 
 A couple of bounds, and we were up with him. 
 
 " Now for it, Lease ! " cried Tod. " Let us hear a bit about the 
 matter." 
 
 How Lease Avas altered ! His cheeks were thin and white, his 
 eyes had nothing but despair in them. Standing up he touched his 
 hat respectfully. 
 
 "Ay, sir, it has been a sad time," answered Lease, in a low, 
 patient voice, as if he felt worn out. " I little thought when I last 
 shut you and Master Johnny into the carriage the morning you left, 
 that misfortune was so close at hand." For, just before it happened, 
 we had been at home for a day's holiday. 
 
 " Well, tell us about it." 
 
 Tod stood with his arm round the trunk of a tree, and I sat down 
 on an opposite stump. Lease had very little to say; nothing, 
 except that he must have forgotten to change the points. 
 
 And that made Tod stare. Tod, like the Pater, was hasty by 
 nature. Knowing Lease's good character, he had not supposed 
 him guilty ; and to hear the man quietly admit that he ic/as excited 
 Tod's ire. 
 
 " What do you mean, Lease ? "
 
 88 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 *• Mean, sir ? " returned Lease, meekly. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you did not attend to the points ? — 
 that you just let one train run on to the other? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; that is how it must have been. I didn't believe it, 
 sir, for a long time afterwards : not for several hours." 
 
 " A long time, that," said Tod, an unpleasant sound of mockery 
 in his tone. 
 
 " No, sir ; I know it's not much, counting by time," answered 
 Lease patiently. " But nobody can ever picture how long those 
 hours seemed to me. They were like years. I couldn't get the idea 
 into me at all that I had not set the points as usual ; it seemed a 
 thing incredible ; but, try as I would, I was unable to call to mind 
 having done it." 
 
 " Well, I must say that is a nice thing to confess to, Lease ! And 
 there was I, yesterday afternoon, taking your part and quarrelling 
 with my father." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, sir. I am not worth having my part taken 
 in anything, since that happened." 
 
 " But how came you to do it ? " 
 
 " It's a question I shall never be able to answer, sir. We had a 
 busy day, were on the run from morning till night, and there was a 
 great deal of confusion at the station : but it was no worse than 
 many a day that has gone before it." 
 
 "Well, I shall be off," said Tod. "This has shut me up. I 
 thought of going in for you, Lease, finding every one else was dead 
 against you. A misfortune is a misfortune, but wilful carelessness 
 is sin : and my father and his wife and my little sister were in the 
 train. Come along, Johnny." 
 
 "Directly, Tod. I'll catch you up. I say. Lease, how will it 
 end ? " I asked, as Tod went on. 
 
 "It can't end better than two years' imprisonment for me, sir; 
 and I suppose it may end worse. It is not that I think of." 
 
 " What else, then ? " 
 
 " Four dead already, sir ; four — and one soon to follow them, 
 making five," he answered, his voice hushed to a whisper. " Master 
 Johnny, it lies on me always, a dreadful weight never to be got rid 
 of. \Vhen I was young, I had a sort of low fever, and used to see 
 in my dreams some dreadful task too big to be attempted, and yet I 
 had to do it ; and the weight on my mind was awful. I didn't think, 
 till now, such a weight could fall in real life. Sleeping or waking, 
 sir, I see those four before me dead. Squire Todhetley told me 
 that I had their lives on my soul. And it is so." 
 
 I did not know what to answer. 
 
 " So you see, sir, I don't think much of the imprisonment ; if I 
 did, I might be wanting to get the suspense over. It's not any
 
 LEASE THE POINTSMAN. 89 
 
 term of imprisonment, no, not though it were for life, that can wash 
 out the past. I'd give my own life, sir, twice over if that could 
 undo it." 
 
 Lease had his arm on the gate as he spoke, leaning forward. I 
 could not help feeling sorry for him. 
 
 " If people knew how I'm punished within myself, Master Johnny, 
 they'd perhaps not be so harsh upon me. I have never had a 
 proper night's rest since it happened, sir. I have to get up and 
 walk about in the middle of the night because I can't lie. The 
 sight of the dawn makes me sick, and I say to myself. How shall I 
 get through the day ? When bed-time comes, I wonder how I shall 
 lie till morning. Often I wish it had pleased God to take me before 
 that day had happened." 
 
 " Why don't they get the inquest over. Lease ? " 
 
 " There's something or other always brought up to delay it, sir. 
 I don't see the need of it. If it would bring the dead back to life, 
 why, they might delay it ; but it won't. They might as well let it 
 end, and sentence me, and have done with it. Each time when I 
 go back home through Crabb Lane, the men and women call out, 
 ' What, put off again ! ' ' What, ain't he in gaol yet ! ' Which is the 
 place they say I ought to have been in all along." 
 
 " I suppose the coroner knows you'll not run away. Lease." 
 
 " Everybody knows that, sir." 
 
 " Some would, though, in your place." 
 
 " I don't know where they'd run to," returned Lease. " They 
 couldn't run away from their own minds — and that's the worst part 
 of it. Sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever get it off mine, sir, 
 or if I shall have it on me, like this, to the end of my life. The 
 Lord knows what it is to me ; nobody else does." 
 
 You cannot always make things fit into one another. I was 
 thinking so as I left Lease and went after Tod. It was awful care- 
 lessness not to have set the points ; causing death, and sorrow, and 
 distress to many people. Looking at it from their side, the points- 
 man was detestable ; only fit, as the Squire said, to be hanged. 
 But looking at it side by side with Lease, seeing his sad face, his 
 self-reproach, and his patient suffering, it seemed altogether 
 different ; and the two aspects would not by any means fit in 
 together. 
 
 Christmas week, and the absence of a juror who had gone out 
 visiting, made another excuse for putting off the inquest to the next 
 week. When that came, the coroner was ill. There seemed to be 
 no end to the delays, and the public steam was getting up in con- 
 sequence. As to Lease, he went about like a man who is looking 
 for something that he has lost and cannot find. 
 
 One day, when the ice lay in Crabb Lane, and I was taking the
 
 go JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 slides on my way through it to join Tod, who had gone rabbit- 
 shooting, a Httle girl ran across my feet, and was knocked down. 
 I fell too ; and the child began to cry. Picking her up, I saw it 
 was Polly Lease. 
 
 " You little stupid ! why did you run into my path like that ? " 
 
 " Please, sir, I didn't see you," she sobbed. " I was running after 
 father. Mother saw him in the field yonder, and sent me to tell him 
 we'd got a bit o' fire." 
 
 Polly had grazed both her knees ; they began to bleed just a little, 
 and she nearly went into convulsions at sight of the blood. I 
 carried her in. There was about a handful of fire in the grate. The 
 mother sat on a low stool, close into it, nursing one ®f the children, 
 and the rest sat on the floor. 
 
 " I never saw such a child as this in all my life, Mrs. Lease. 
 Because she has hurt her knees a bit, and sees a drop of blood, she's 
 going to die of fright. Look here." 
 
 Mrs. Lease put the boy down and took Polly, who was trembling 
 all over with her deep low sobs. 
 
 " It was always so, sir," said Mrs. Lease; "always since she was 
 a baby. She is the timorest-natured child possible. We have tried 
 everything ; coaxing and scolding too ; but we can't get her out of 
 it. If she pricks her finger her face turns white." 
 
 " I'd be more of a wo.aan than cry at nothing, if I were you, 
 Polly," said I, sitting on the window-ledge, while Mrs. Lease washed 
 the knees ; which were hardly damaged at all when they came to be 
 examined. But Polly only clung to her mother, with her face 
 hidden, and giving a deep sob now and then. 
 
 " Look up, Polly. What's this ! " 
 
 I put it into her hand as I spoke ; a bath bun that I had been 
 carrying with me, in case I did not get home to luncheon. Polly 
 looked round, and the sight dried the tears on her swollen face. 
 You never saw such a change all in a moment, or such eager, glad 
 little eyes as hers. 
 
 " Divide it mother," said she. " Leave a bit for father." 
 
 Two of them came flocking round like a couple of young wolves ; 
 the youngest couldn't get up, and the one Mrs. Lease had been 
 nursing stayed on the floor where she put him. He had a sickly 
 face, with great bright grey eyes, and hot, red lips. 
 
 " What's the matter with him, Mrs. Lease?" 
 
 " With Httle Tom, sir ? I think it's a kind of fever. He never 
 was strong ; none of them are : and of course these bad times can 
 but tell upon us." 
 
 " Don't forget father, mother," said Polly. " Leave the biggest 
 piece for father." 
 
 " Now I tell you all what it is," said I to the children, when Mrs.
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 91 
 
 Lease began to divide it into half-a-dozen pieces, " that bun's for 
 Polly, because she has hurt herself: you shall not take any of it 
 from her. Give it to Polly, Mrs. Lease." 
 
 Of all the uproars ever heard, those little cormorants set up the 
 worst. Mrs. Lease looked at me. 
 
 " They must have a bit, sir : they must indeed. Polly wouldn't 
 eat all herself, Master Ludlow ; you couldn't get her to do it." 
 
 But I was determined Polly should have it. It was through me 
 she got hurt ; and besides, I liked her. 
 
 " Now just listen, you little pigs. I'll go to Ford's, the baker's, 
 and bring you all a bun a-piece, but Polly must have this one. 
 They have lots of currants in them, those buns, for children that 
 
 don't squeal. How many are there of you ? One, two, three, 
 
 four." 
 
 Catching up my cap, I was going out when Mrs. Lease touched 
 me. " Do you really mean it, sir ? " she asked in a whisper. 
 
 "Mean what.'' That I am going to bring the buns? Of course 
 I mean it. I'll be back with them directly." 
 
 " Oh, sir— but do forgive me for making free to ask such a thing 
 — if you would only let it be a half-quartern loaf instead ? " 
 
 " A half-quartern loaf! " 
 
 " They've not had a bit between their lips this day, Master Lud- 
 low," she said, catching her breath, as her face, which had flushed, 
 turned pale again. " Last night I divided between the four of them 
 a piece of bread half the size of my hand ; Tom, he couldn't eat." 
 
 I stared for a minute. " How is it, Mrs. Lease ? can you not get 
 enough food ? " 
 
 " I don't know where we should get it from, sir. Lease has not 
 broken his fast since yesterday at midday." 
 
 Dame Ford put the loaf in paper for me, wondering what on 
 earth I wanted with it, as I could see by her inquisitive eyes, but 
 not liking to ask ; and I carried it back with the four buns. They 
 were little wolves and nothing else when they saw the food. 
 
 " How has this come about, Mrs. Lease ? " I asked, while they 
 were eating the bread she cut them, and she had taken Tom on her 
 lap again, 
 
 " Why, sir, it is eight weeks now, or hard upon it, since my hus- 
 band earned anything. They didn't even pay him for the last week 
 he was at work, as the accident happened in it. We had nothing 
 in hand ; people with only eighteen shillings a week and five 
 children to feed, can't save ; and we have been living on our things. 
 But there's nothing left now to make money of — as you may see by 
 the bare room, sir." 
 
 " Does not any one help you ? " 
 
 "Help us!" returned Mrs. Lease. "Why, Master Ludlow
 
 93 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 people, for the most part, are so incensed against my husband, 
 that they'd take the bread out of our mouths, instead of putting a 
 bit into them. All their help goes to poor Nancy Bowen and her 
 children : and Lease is glad it should be so. When I carried Tom 
 to Mr. Cole's yesterday, he said that what the child wanted was 
 nourishment." 
 
 " This must try Lease." 
 
 " Yes," she said, her face flushing again, but speaking very 
 quietly. " Taking one thing with another, I am not sure but it is 
 killing him." 
 
 After this break, I did not care to go to the shooting, but turned 
 back to Crabb Cot. Mrs. Todhetley was alone in the bow-windowed 
 parlour, so I told her of the state the Leases were in, and asked if 
 she would not help them. 
 
 " I don't know what to say about it, Johnny," she said, after a 
 pause. " If I were willing, you know Mr. Todhetley would not 
 be so. He can't forgive Lease for his carelessness. Every time 
 Lena wakes up from sleep in a fright, fancying it is another accident, 
 his anger returns to him. We often hear her crying out, you know, 
 down here in an evening." 
 
 " The carelessness was no fault of Lease's children, that they 
 should suffer for it." 
 
 "When you grow older, Johnny, you will find that the conse- 
 quences of people's faults fall more on others than on themselves. 
 It is very sad the Leases should be in this state ; I am sorry for 
 them." 
 
 " Then you'll help them a bit, good mother." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley was always ready to help any one, not needing 
 to be urged ; on the other hand, she liked to )'ield implicitly to 
 the opinions of the Squire. Between the two, she went into a 
 dilemma. 
 
 " Suppose it were Lena, starving for want of food and warmth ? " 
 I said. " Or Hugh sick with fever, as that young Tom is.'' Those 
 children have done no more harm than ours." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley put her hand up to her face, and her mild eyes 
 looked nearly as sad as Lease's. 
 
 " Will you take it to them yourself, Johnny, in a covered basket, 
 and not let it be seen ? That is, make it your own doing ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Go to the kitchen then, and ask Molly. There are some odds 
 and ends of things in the larder that will not be particularly wanted. 
 You see, Johnny, I do not like to take an active part in this ; it 
 would seem like opposing the Squire." 
 
 Molly was stooping before the big fire, basting the meat, in one 
 of her vile numours. If I wanted to rob the larder, I must do it,
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 93 
 
 she cried ; it was my business, not hers ; and she dashed the 
 basting spoon across the table by way of accompaniment. 
 
 I gave a good look round the larder, and took a raised pork-pie 
 that had a piece cut out of it, and a leg of mutton three parts 
 eaten. On the shelf were a dozen mince-pies, just out of their 
 patty-pans ; I took six and left six. Molly, screwing her face round 
 the kitchen-door, caught sight of them as they went into the basket, 
 and rushing after me out of the house, shrieked out for her mince-pies. 
 
 The race went on. She was a woman not to be daunted. Just 
 as we turned round by the yellow barn, I first, she raving behind, 
 the Squire pounced upon us, asking what the uproar meant. Molly 
 told her tale. I was a thief, and had gone off with the whole larder, 
 more particularly with her mince-pies. 
 
 " Open the basket, Johnny," said the Squire : which was the one 
 Tod and I used when we went fishing. 
 
 No sooner was it done than Molly marched off with the pies in 
 triumph. The Pater regarded the pork-pie and the meat with a 
 curious gaze. 
 
 " This is for you and Joe, I suppose. I should like to know for 
 how many more." 
 
 I was one of the worst to conceal things, when taken-to like this, 
 and he got it all out of me in no time. And then he put his hand 
 on my shoulder and ordered me to say who the things were for. 
 Which I had to do. 
 
 Well, there was a row. He wanted to know what I meant by 
 being wicked enough to give food to Lease. I said it was for the 
 children. I'm afraid I almost cried, for I did not like him to be 
 angry with me, but I know I promised not to eat any dinner at 
 home for three days if he would let me take the meat. Molly's 
 comments, echoing through the house, betrayed to Mrs. Todhetley 
 what had happened, and she came down the road with a shawl 
 over her head. She told the Squire the truth then : that she had 
 sanctioned it. She said she feared the Leases were quite in 
 extremity, and begged him to let the meat go. 
 
 " Be off for this once, you young thief," stamped the Squire, 
 " but don't let me catch you at anything of this sort again." 
 
 So the meat went to the Leases, and two loaves that Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley whispered me to order for them at Ford's. When I reached 
 home with the empty basket, they were going in to dinner. I took 
 a book and stayed in the parlour. In a minute or two the Squire 
 sent to ask what I was doing that for. 
 
 " It's all right, Thomas. I don't want any dinner to-day." 
 
 Old Thomas went away and returned again, saying the master 
 ordered me to go in. But I wouldn't do anything of the sort. If 
 he forgot the bargain, I did not.
 
 91 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Out came the Squire, his face red, napkin in hand, and laid hold 
 of me by the shoulders. 
 
 " You obstinate young Turk ! How dare you defy me ? Come 
 along." 
 
 " But it is not to defy you, sir. It was a bargain, you know ; 
 I promised." 
 
 " What was a bargain ? " 
 
 " That I should not have any dinner for three days. Indeed I 
 meant it." 
 
 The Squire's answer was to propel me into the dining-room. 
 " Move down, Joe," he said, " I'll have him by me to-day. I'll see 
 whether he is to starve himself out of bravado." 
 
 " Why, what's up ? " asked Tod, as he went to a lower seat. 
 " What have you been doing, Johnny ? " 
 
 " Never mind," said the Squire, putting enough mutton on my 
 plate for two. " You eat that, Mr. Johnny ? " 
 
 It went on so throughout dinner. Mrs. Todhetley gave me a 
 big share of apple pudding ; and, when the macaroni came on, the 
 Squire heaped my plate. And I know it was all done to show he 
 was not really angry with me for having taken the things to the 
 Leases. 
 
 Mr. Cole, the surgeon, came in after dinner, and was told of my 
 wickedness. Lena ran up to me and said might she send her new 
 sixpence to the poor little children who had no bread to eat. 
 
 " What's that Lease about, that he does not go to work ? " asked 
 the Squire, in loud tones. " Letting folks hear that his young ones 
 are starving ! " 
 
 " The man can't work," said Mr. Cole. " He is out on probation, 
 you know, waiting for the verdict, and the sentence on him that 
 is to follow." 
 
 " Then why don't they return their verdict and sentence him ? " 
 demanded the Squire, in his hot way. 
 
 "Ah !" said Mr. Cole, "it's what they ought to have done long 
 ago." 
 
 "■ What will it be ! Transportation ? " 
 
 " I should take care it was not, if I were on the jury. The man 
 had too much work on him that day, and had had nothing to eat or 
 drink for too many hours." 
 
 " I won't hear a word in his defence," growled the Squire. 
 
 When the jury met for the last time. Lease was ill. A day or 
 two before that, some one had brought Lease word that Roberts, 
 who had been lingering all that time in the infirmary at Worcester, 
 was going at last. Upon which Lease started to see him. It was
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. 95 
 
 not the day for visitors at the infirmary, but he gained admittance. 
 Roberts was lying in the accident ward, with his head low and a 
 blue look in his face ; and the first thing Lease did, when he began 
 to speak, was to burst out crying. The man's strength had gone 
 down to nothing and his spirit was broken. Roberts made out that 
 he was speaking of his distress at having been the cause of the 
 calamity, and asking to be forgiven. 
 
 " Mate," said Roberts, putting out his hand that Lease might 
 take it, " I've never had an ill thought to ye. Mishaps come to all 
 of us that have to do with rail-travelling ; us drivers get more nor 
 you pointsmen. It might have happened to me to be the cause, 
 just as well as to you. Don't think no more of it." 
 
 " Say you forgive me," urged Lease, " or I shall not know how to 
 bear it." 
 
 " I forgive thee with my whole heart and soul. I've had a spell 
 of it here, Lease, waiting for death, knowing it must come to me, 
 and I've got to look for it kindly. I don't think I'd go back to 
 the world now if I could. I'm going to a better. It seems just 
 peace, and nothing less. Shake hands, mate." 
 
 They shook hands. 
 
 " I wish ye'd Hft my head a bit," Roberts said, after a while. 
 " The nurse she come and took away my pillow, thinking I might 
 die easier, I suppose : I've seen her do it to others. Maybe I was 
 a'most gone, and the sight of you woke me up again like." 
 
 Lease sat down on the bed and put the man's head upon his 
 breast in the position that seemed most easy to him ; and Roberts 
 died there. 
 
 It was one of the worst days we had that winter. Lease had a 
 night's walk home of many miles, the sleet and wind beating upon 
 him all the way. He was not well clad either, for his best things 
 had been pawned. 
 
 So that when the inquest assembled two days afterwards, Lease 
 did not appear at it. He was in bed with inflammation of the 
 chest, and Mr. Cole told the coroner that it would be dangerous 
 to take him out of it. Some of them called it bronchitis ; but the 
 Squire never went in for new names, and never would. 
 
 " I tell you what it is, gentlemen," broke in Mr. Cole, when they 
 were quarrelling as to whether there should be another adjournment 
 or not, " you'll put off and put off, until Lease slips through your 
 fingers." 
 
 " Oh, will he, though ! " blustered old Massock. " He had better 
 try at it ! We'd soon fetch him back again." 
 
 " You'd be clever to do it," said the doctor. 
 
 Any way, whether it was this or not, they thought better of the 
 adjournment, and gave their verdict. ■* ^lanslaughter against
 
 96 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Henry Lease." And the coroner made out his warrant of com- 
 mittal to Worcester county prison: where Lease would he until the 
 March assizes. 
 
 " I am not sure but it ought to have been returned Wilful 
 Murder," remarked the Squire, as he and the doctor turned out of 
 the Bull, and picked their way over the slush towards Crabb Lane. 
 
 " It might make no difference, one way or the other," answered 
 Mr. Cole. 
 
 "Make no difference! What d'ye mean? Murder and man- 
 slaughter are two separate crimes. Cole, and must be punished 
 accordingly. You see, Johnny, what your friend Lease has come 
 to!" 
 
 "What I meant, Squire, was this : that I don't much think Lease 
 will live to be tried at all." 
 
 " Not hve ! " 
 
 " I fancy not. Unless I am much mistaken, his life will have 
 been claimed by its Giver long before March." 
 
 The Squire stopped and looked at Cole. "What's the matter 
 with him? This inflammation — that you went and testified to?" 
 
 " That will be the cause of death, as returned to the registrar." 
 
 " Why, you speak just as if the man were dying now, Cole ! " 
 
 " And I think he is. Lease has been very low for a long time," 
 added Mr. Cole ; " half clad, and not a quarter fed. But it is not 
 that. Squire : heart and spirit are alike broken : and when this cold 
 caught him, he had no stamina to withstand it ; and so it has 
 seized upon a vital part." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me to my face that he will die of it?" 
 cried the Squire, holding on by the middle button of old Cole's 
 great-:oat. " Nonsense, man ! you must cure him. We — we did 
 not want him to die, you know." 
 
 " His life or his death, as it may be, are in the hands of One 
 higher than I, Squire." 
 
 " I think I'll go in and see him," said the Squire, meekly. 
 
 Lease was lying on a bed close to the floor when we got to the 
 top of the creaky stairs, which had threatened to come down with 
 the Squire's weight and awkwardness. He had dozed off, and little 
 Polly, sitting on the boards, had her head upon his arm. Her 
 starting up awoke Lease. I was not in the habit of seeing dying 
 people ; but the thought struck me that Lease must be dying. His 
 pale weary face wore the same hue that Jake's had worn when he 
 v/as dying : if you have not forgotten him. 
 
 " God bless me ! " exclaimed the Squire. 
 
 Lease looked up with his sad eyes. He supposed they had come 
 to tell him officially about the verdict — which had already reached 
 him unofficially.
 
 LEASE, THE POINTSMAN. gy 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen, I know it," he said, trying to get up out of 
 respect, and falling back. " Manslaughter. I'd have been present 
 if I could. Mr. Cole knows I wasn't able. I think God is taking 
 me instead." 
 
 " But this won't do, you know. Lease," said the Squire. " We 
 don't want you to die." 
 
 " Well, sir, I'm afraid I am not good for much now. And there'd 
 be the imprisonment, and then the sentence, so that I could not 
 work for my wife and children for some long years. When people 
 come to know how I repented of that night's mistake, and that I 
 have died of it, why, they'll perhaps befriend them and forgive me. 
 I think God has forgiven me : He is very merciful." 
 
 " I'll send you in some port wine and jelly and beef-tea — and 
 some blankets, Lease," cried the Squire quickly, as if he felt flurried. 
 " And, Lease, poor fellow, I am sorry for having been so angry with 
 you." 
 
 " Thank you for all favours, sir, past and present. But for the 
 help from your house my little ones would have starved. God bless 
 you all, and forgive mel Master Johnny, God h\ess _yot/." 
 
 " You'll rally yet, Lease ; take heart," said the Squire. 
 
 " No, sir, I don't think so. The great dark load seems to have 
 been lifted off me, and light to be breaking. Don't sob, Polly! 
 Perhaps father will be able to see you from up there as well as if 
 he stayed here." 
 
 The first thing the Squire did when we got out, was to attack Mr. 
 Cole, telling him he ought not to have let Lease die. As he was 
 in a way about it, Cole excused it, quietly saying it was no fault 
 of his. 
 
 " I should like to know what it is that has killed him, then ?" 
 
 " Grief," said Mr. Cole. " The man has died of what we call a 
 broken heart. Hearts don't actually sever, you know. Squire, like 
 a china basin, and there's always some ostensible malady that 
 serves as a reason to talk about. In this case it will be bronchitis. 
 Which, in point of fact, is the final end, because Lease could not 
 rally against it. He told me yesterday that his heart had ached so 
 keenly since November, it seemed to have dried up within him." 
 
 " We are all a pack of hard-hearted sinners," groaned the Squire, 
 in his repentance. "Johnny, why could you not have found them 
 out sooner ? Where was the use of your doing it at the eleventh 
 hour, sir, I'd like to know ? " 
 
 Harry Lease died that night. And Crabb Lane, in a fit of re- 
 pentance as sudden as the Squire's, took the cost of the funeral off 
 the parish (giving some abuse in exchange) and went in a body to 
 the £[rave. I and Tod followed. 
 
 &' 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I.
 
 VII. 
 AUNT DEAN. 
 
 TiMBERDALE was a small place on the other side of Crabb Ravine. 
 Its Rector was the Reverend Jacob Lewis. Timberdale called him 
 Parson Lewis when not on ceremony. He had married a widow, 
 Mrs. lanerton; she had a good deal of money and two boys, and 
 the pansh thought the new lady might be above them. But she 
 proved kind and good ; and her boys did not ride roughshod over 
 the land or break down the farmers' fences. She died in three or 
 four years, after a long illness. 
 
 Timberdale talked about her will, deeming it a foolish one. She 
 left all she possessed to the Rector, " in affectionate confidence," as 
 the will worded it, "knowing he would do what was right and just 
 by her sons." As Parson Lewis was an upright man with a con- 
 science of his own, it was supposed he would do so ; but Timberdale 
 considered that for the boys' sake she should have made it sure 
 herself. It was eight-hundred a year, good measure. 
 
 Parson Lewis had a sister, Mrs. Dean, a widow also, who lived 
 near Liverpool. She was not left well-off at all; could but just 
 make a living of it. She used to come on long visits to the Par- 
 sonage, which saved her cupboard at home ; but it was said that 
 Mrs. Lewis did not like her, thinking her deceitful, and they did 
 not get on very well together. Parson Lewis, the meekest man 
 in the world and the most easily led, admitted to his wife that 
 Rebecca had always been a litttle given to scheming, but he thought 
 her true at heart. 
 
 When poor Mrs. Lewis was out of the way for good in Timber- 
 dale churchyard. Aunt Dean had the field to herself, and came 
 and stayed as long as she pleased, with her child, Alice. She was 
 a little woman with a mild face and fair skin, and had a sort of 
 purring manner with her. Scarcely speaking above her breath, and 
 saying " dear " and " love " at every sentence, and caressing people 
 to their faces, the rule was to fall in love with her at once. The 
 boys, Herbert and Jack, had taken to her without question from 
 the first, and called her " Aunt." 'T"l;\ough she was of course no 
 relation whatever to them.
 
 AUNT DEAN. 99 
 
 ■ Both the boys made much of Ahce — a bright-eyed, pretty httlc 
 girl with brown curls and timid, winsome ways. Herbert, who 
 was very studious himself, helped her with her lessons : Jack, who 
 was nearer her age, but a few months older, took her out on expe- 
 ditions, haymaking and blackberrying and the like, and would 
 bring her home with her frock torn and her knees damaged. He 
 told her that brave little girls never cried with him ; and the child 
 would ignore the smart of the grazed knees and show herself as 
 brave as a martyr. Jack was so brave and fearless himself and 
 made so little of hurts, that she felt a sort of shame at giving way 
 to her natural timidity when with him. What Alice liked best 
 was to sit indoors by Herbert's side while he was at his lessons, 
 and read story books and fairy tales. Jack was the opposite of all 
 that, and a regular renegade in all kinds of study. He would have 
 liked to pitch the books into the fire, and did not even care for 
 fairy tales. They came often enough to Crabb Cot when we were 
 there, and to our neighbours the Coneys, with whom the Parsonage 
 Avas intimate. I was only a little fellow at the time, years younger 
 than they were, but I remember I liked Jack better than Herbert. 
 As Tod did also for the matter of that. Herbert was too clever 
 for us, and he was to be a parson besides. He chose the calling 
 himself. More than once he was caught muffled in the parson's 
 white surplice, preaching to Jack and Alice a sermon of his own 
 composition. 
 
 Aunt Dean had her plans and her plots. One great plot was 
 always at work. She made it into a dream, and peeped into it 
 night and day, as if it were a kaleidoscope of rich and many colours. 
 Herbert Tanerton was to marry her daughter and succeed to his 
 mother's property as eldest son : Jack must go adrift, and earn his 
 own living. She considered it was already three parts as good as 
 accomplished. To see Herbert and Alice poring over books 
 together side by side and to know that they had the same tastes, 
 was welcome to her as the sight of gold. As to Jack, with his roving 
 propensities, his climbing and his daring, she thought it little 
 matter if he came down a tree head-foremost some day, or pitched 
 head over heels into the depths of Crabb Ravine, and so threw his 
 life away. Not that she really wished any cruel fate for the boy; 
 but she did not care for him ; and he might be terribly in the way, 
 when her foolish brother, the parson, came to apportion the money. 
 And he 7uas foolish in some things ; soft, in fact : she often 
 said so. 
 
 One summer day, when the fruit was ripe and the sun shining, 
 Mr. Lewis had gone into his study to write his next Sunday's 
 sermon. He did not get on very quickly, for Aunt Dean was in 
 there also, and it disturbed him a little. She was of restless habits,
 
 loo JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 everlastingly dusting books, and putting things in their places with- 
 out rhyme or reason. 
 
 " Do you wish to keep out all three of these inkstands, Jacob ? 
 It is not necessary, I should think. Shall I put one up ? " 
 
 The parson took his eyes off his sermon to answer. " I don't 
 see that they do any harm there, Rebecca. The children use two 
 sometimes. Do as you like, however." 
 
 Mrs. Dean put one of the inkstands into the book-case, and then 
 looked round the room to see what else she could do. A letter 
 caught her eye. 
 
 " Jacob, I do believe you have never answered the note old 
 Mullet brought this morning ! There it is on the mantelpiece." 
 
 The parson sighed. To be interrupted in this way he took quite 
 as a matter of course, but it teased him a little. 
 
 " I must see the churchwardens, Rebecca, before answering it. 
 I want to know, you see, what would be approved of by the 
 parish." 
 
 " Just like you, Jacob," she caressingly said. " The parish must 
 approve of what you approve." 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said hastily ; '' but I like to live at peace with 
 every one." 
 
 He dipped his pen into the ink, and wrote a line of his sermon. 
 The open window looked on to the kitchen-garden. Herbert Taner- 
 ton had his back against the walnut-tree, doing nothing. Alice 
 sat near on a stool, her head buried in a book that by its canvas 
 cover Mrs. Dean knew to be " Robinson Crusoe." Just then Jack 
 came out of the raspberry bushes with a handful of fruit, which he 
 held out to Alice. " Robinson Crusoe " fell to the ground. 
 
 " Oh, Jack, how good they are ! " said Alice. And the words 
 came distinctly to Aunt Dean's ears in the still day. 
 
 " They are as good again when you pick them off the trees for 
 yourself," cried Jack. " Come along and get some, Alice." 
 
 With the taste of the raspberries in her mouth, the temptation 
 was not to be resisted ; and she ran after Jack. Aunt Dean put 
 her head out at the window. 
 
 " Alice, my love, I cannot have you go amongst those raspberry 
 bushes ; you would stain and tear your frock." 
 
 " I'll take care of her frock, aunt," Jack called back. 
 
 " My darling Jack, it cannot be. That is her new muslin frock, 
 and she must not go where she might injure it." 
 
 So Alice sat down again to " Robinson Crusoe," and Jack went 
 his way amongst the raspberry bushes, or whither he would. 
 
 "Jacob, have you begun to think of what John is to be?" 
 resumed Aunt Dean, as she shut down the window. 
 
 The parson pushed his sermon from him in a sort of patient
 
 AUNT DEAN. loi 
 
 hopelessness, and turned round on his chair. " To be ? — In what 
 way, Rebecca ? " 
 
 " By profession," she answered. '• I fancy it is time it was 
 thought of." 
 
 "Do you? I'm sure I don't know. The other day when some- 
 thing was being mentioned about it, Jack said he did not care 
 what he was to be, provided he had no books to trouble him." 
 
 " I only hope you will not have trouble with him, Jacob, dear," 
 observed Mrs. Dean, in ominous tones, that plainly intimated she 
 thought the parson would. 
 
 " He has a good heart, though he is not so studious as his 
 brother. Why have you shut the window, Rebecca? It is very 
 warm." 
 
 Mrs. Dean did not say why. Perhaps she wished to guard 
 against the conversation being heard. When any question not 
 quite convenient to answer was put to her, she had a way of 
 passing it over in silence ; and the parson was too yielding or too 
 inert to ask again. 
 
 " 0/ course, Brother Jacob, you will make Herbert the heir." 
 
 The parson looked surprised. " Why should you suppose that, 
 Rebecca ? I think the two boys ought to share and share alike." 
 
 " My dear Jacob, how can you think so ? Your dead wife left 
 you in charge, remember." 
 
 " That's what I do remember, Rebecca. She never gave me the 
 slightest hint that she should wish any difference to be made : she 
 was as fond of one boy as of the other." 
 
 " Jacob, you must do your duty by the boys," returned Mrs. 
 Dean, with affectionate solemnity. " Herbert must be his mother's 
 heir ; it is right and proper it should be so : Jack must be trained 
 to earn his own livelihood. Jack — dear fellow ! — is, I fear, of a 
 roving, random disposition : were you to leave any portion of the 
 money to him, he would squander it in a year." 
 
 " Dear me, I hope not ! But as to leaving all to his brother — 
 or even a larger portion than to Jack — I don't know that it would 
 be right. A heavy responsibility lies on me in this charge, don't 
 you see, Rebecca ? " 
 
 " No doubt it does. It is full eight-hundred a year. And you 
 must be putting something by, Jacob." 
 
 " Not much. I draw the money yearh-, but expenses seem to 
 swallow it up. What with the ponies kept for the boys, and the 
 cost of the masters from Worcester, and a hundred a year out of 
 it that my wife desired the poor old nurse should have till she died, 
 there's not a great deal left. My living is a poor one, you know, 
 and I like to help the poor freely. When the boys go to the 
 university it will be all wanted."
 
 102 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Help the poor freely ! — just like him ! thought Aunt Dean. 
 
 " It would be waste of time and money to send Jack to college. 
 You should try and get him some appointment abroad, Jacob. In 
 India, say." 
 
 The clergyman opened his eyes at this, and said he should not 
 like to see Jack go out of his own country. Jack's mother had not 
 had any opinion of foreign places. Jack himself interrupted the 
 conversation. He came flying up the path, put down a cabbage 
 leaf full of raspberries on the window-sill, and flung open the window 
 with his stained fingers. 
 
 "Aunt Dean, I've picked these for you," he said, introducing the 
 leaf, his handsome face and good-natured eyes bright and sparkling. 
 " They've never been so good as they are this year. Father, just 
 taste them." 
 
 Aunt Dean smiled sweetly, and called him her darling, and Mr. 
 Lewis tasted the raspberries. 
 
 "We were just talking of you. Jack," cried the unsophisticated 
 man — and Mrs. Dean slightly knitted her brows. " Your aunt says 
 it is time you began to think of some profession." 
 
 " What, yet awhile ? " returned Jack. 
 
 " That you may be suitably educated for it, my boy." 
 
 " I should like to be something that won't want education," 
 cried Jack, leaning his arms on the window-sill, and jumping 
 up and down. " I think I'd rather be a farmer than anything, 
 father." 
 
 The parson drew a long face. This had never entered into his 
 calculations. 
 
 " I fear that would not do. Jack. I should like you to choose 
 something higher than that ; some profession by which you may 
 rise in the world. Herbert will go into the Church : what should 
 you say to the Bar ? " 
 
 Jack's jumping ceased all at once. " What, be a barrister, father? 
 Like those be-wigged fellows that come on circuit twice a year 
 to Worcester ? " 
 
 " Like that. Jack." 
 
 " But they have to study all their lives for it, father ; and read 
 up millions of books before they can pass ! I couldn't do it ; I 
 couldn't indeed." 
 
 " What do you think of being a first-class lawyer, then ? I might 
 place you with some good firm, such as " 
 
 " Don't, there's a dear father ! " interrupted Jack, all the sunshine 
 leaving his face. " I'm afraid if I were at a desk I should kick it 
 over without knowing it : I must be running out and about. — Are 
 they all gone, Aunt Dean ? Give me the leaf, and I'll pick you some 
 more."
 
 AUNT DEAN. 103 
 
 The years went on. Jack was fifteen : Herbert eighteen and at 
 Oxford : the advanced scholar had gone to college early. Aunt 
 Dean spent quite half her time at Timberdale, from Easter till 
 autumn, and the parson never rose up against it. She let her house 
 during her absence : it was situated on the banks of the river a little 
 way from Liverpool, near the place they call New Brighton now. 
 It might have been called New Brighton then for all I know. One 
 family always took the house for the summer months, glad to get 
 out of hot Liverpool. 
 
 As to Jack, nothing had been decided in regard to his future, 
 for opinions about it differed. A little Latin and a httle history 
 and a great deal of geography (for he liked that) had been drilled 
 into him : and there his education ended. But he was the best 
 climber and walker and leaper, and withal the best-hearted young 
 fellow that Timberdale could boast : and he knew about land 
 thoroughly, and possessed a great stock of general and useful and 
 practical information. Many a day when some of the poorer 
 farmers were in a desperate hurry to get in their hay or carry 
 their wheat on account of threatening weather, had Jack Tanerton 
 turned out to help, and toiled as hard and as long as any of the 
 labourers. He was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, rich and poor. 
 
 Mrs. Dean had worked on always to accomplish her ends. 
 Slowly and imperceptibly, but surely; Herbert must be the heir; 
 John must shift for himself. The parson had had this dinned into 
 him so often now, in her apparently frank and reasoning way, that 
 he began to lend an ear to it. What with his strict sense of 
 justice, and his habit of yielding to his sister's views, he felt for 
 the most part in a kind of dilemma. But Mrs. Dean had come 
 over this time determined to get something settled, one way or the 
 other. 
 
 She arrived before Easter this year. The interminable Jack 
 (as she often called him in her heart) was at home ; Herbert 
 was not. Jack and Alice did not seem to miss him, but went 
 out on their rambles together as they did when children. The 
 morning before Herbert was expected, a letter came from him to 
 his stepfather, saying he had been invited by a fellow-student 
 to spend the Easter holidays at his home near London and had 
 accepted it. 
 
 Mr. Lewis took it as a matter of course in his easy way ; but it 
 disagreed with Aunt Dean. She said all manner of things to the 
 parson, and incited him to write for Herbert to return at once. 
 Herbert's answer to this was a courteous intimation that he could 
 not alter his plans ; and he hoped his father, on consideration, 
 would fail to see any good reason why he should do so. Herbert 
 Tanerton had a will of his own.
 
 104 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "■ Neither do I see any reason, good or bad, why he should not 
 pay the visit, Rebecca," confessed the Rector. " I'm afraid it was 
 foohsh of me to object at all. Perhaps I have not the right to deny 
 him, either, if I wished it. He is getting on for nineteen, and I am 
 not his own father." 
 
 So Aunt Dean had to make the best and the worst of it ; but she 
 felt as cross as two sticks. 
 
 • One day when the parson was abroad on parish matters, and 
 the Rectory empty, she went out for a stroll, and reached the 
 high steep bank where the primroses and violets grew. Looking 
 over, she saw Jack and Alice seated below ; Jack's arm round her 
 waist. 
 
 " You are to be my wife, you know, Alice, when we are grown up. 
 Mind that." 
 
 There was no answer, but Aunt Dean certainly thought she heard 
 the sound of a kiss. Peeping over again, she saw Jack taking 
 another. 
 
 " And if you don't object to my being a farmer, Alice, I should like 
 it best of all. We'll keep two jolly ponies and ride about together. 
 Won't it be good ? " 
 
 " I don't object to farming, Jack. Anything you like. A successful 
 farmer's home is a very pleasant one." 
 
 Aunt Dean drew away with noiseless steps. She was too calm 
 and callous a woman to turn white ; but she did turn angry, and 
 registered a vow in her heart. That presuming, upstart Jack ! 
 They were only two little fools, it's true ; no better than children ; 
 but the nonsense must be stopped in time. 
 
 Herbert went back to Oxford without coming home. Alice, to 
 her own infinite astonishment, was despatched to school until mid- 
 summer. The parson and his sister and Jack w^ere left alone ; and 
 Aunt Dean, with her soft smooth manner and her false expressions 
 of endearment, ruled all things; her brother's better nature amidst 
 the rest. 
 
 Jack was asked what he would be. A farmer, he answered. But 
 Aunt Dean had somehow caught up the most bitter notions possible 
 against farming in general; and Mr. Lewis, not much liking the 
 thing himself, and yielding to the undercurrent ever gently flowing, 
 told Jack he must fix on something else. ■ 
 
 " There's nothing I shall do so well at as farming, father," remon- 
 strated Jack. " You can put me for three or four years to some 
 good agriculturist, and I'll be bound at the end of the time I should 
 be fit to manage the largest and best farm in the country. Why, I 
 am a better farmer now than some of them are." 
 
 "Jack, my boy, you must not be self-willed. I cannot let you be 
 y. farmer."
 
 AUNT DEAN. 105 
 
 " Then send me to sea, father, and make a sailor of me," returned 
 Jack, with undisturbed good humour. 
 
 But this startled the parson. He liked Jack, and he had a horror 
 of the sea. " Not that. Jack, my boy. Anything but that." 
 
 " I'm not sure but I should like the sea better than farming," 
 went on Jack, the idea full in his head. "Aunt Dean lent me 
 * Peter Simple ' one day. I know I should make a first-rate sailor." 
 
 "Jack, don't talk so. Your poor mother would not have liked it, 
 and I don't like it ; and I shall never let you go." 
 
 " Some fellows run away to sea," said Jack, laughing. 
 
 The parson felt as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown 
 down his back. Did Jack mean that as a threat ? 
 
 " John," said he, in as solemn a way as he had ever spoken, 
 " disobedience to parents sometimes brings a curse with it. You 
 must promise me that you will never go to sea." 
 
 " ril not promise that, off-hand," said Jack. " But I will promise 
 never to go without your consent. Think it well over, father ; there's 
 no hurry." 
 
 It was on the tip of Mr. Lewis's tongue to withdraw his objection 
 to the farming scheme then and there : in comparison with the 
 other it looked quite fair and bright. But he thought he might 
 compromise his judgment to yield thus instantly : and, as easy Jack 
 said, there was no hurry. 
 
 So Jack went rushing out of doors again to the uttermost bounds 
 of the parish, and the parson was left to Aunt Dean, When he told 
 her he meant to let Jack be a farmer, she laughed till the tears 
 came into her eyes, and begged him to leave matters to her. She 
 knew how to manage boys, without appearing directly to cross 
 them : there was this kind of trouble with most boys, she had 
 observed, before they settled satisfactorily in life, but it all came 
 right in the end. 
 
 So the parson said no more about farming : but Jack talked a 
 great deal about the sea. Mr. Lewis went over in his gig to Wor- 
 cester, and bought a book he had heard of, " Two Years before the 
 Mast." He wrote Jack's name in it and gave it him, hoping its 
 contents might serve to sicken him of the sea. 
 
 The next morning the book was missing. Jack looked high and 
 low for it, but it was gone. He had left it on the sitting-room 
 table when he went up to bed, and it mysteriously disappeared 
 during the night. The servants had not seen it, and declared it 
 was not on the table in the morning. 
 
 " It could not — I suppose — have been the cat," observed Aunt 
 Dean, in a doubtful manner, her eyes full of wonder as to where 
 the book could have got to. " I have heard of cats doing strange 
 things,"
 
 io6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " I don't think the cat would make away with a book of that 
 s'lze, Rebecca," said the parson. And if he had not been the least 
 suspicious parson in all the Worcester Diocese, he might have 
 asked his sister whether she had been the cat, and secured the 
 book lest it should dissipate Jack's fancy for the sea. 
 
 The next thing she did was to carry Jack off to Liverpool. The 
 parson objected at first ; Liverpool was a seaport town, and might 
 put Jack more in mind of the sea than ever. Aunt Dean replied 
 that she meant him to see the worst sides of sea life, the dirty 
 boats in the Mersey, the wretchedness of the crews, and the real 
 discomfort and misery of a sailor's existence. That would cure 
 him, she said : what he had in his head now was the romance 
 picked up from books. The parson thought there was reason in 
 this, and yielded. He was dreadfully anxious about Jack. 
 
 She went straight to her house near New Brighton, Jack with 
 her, and a substantial sum in her pocket from the Rector to pay for 
 Jack's keep. The old servant, Peggy, who took care of it, was 
 thunderstruck to see her mistress come in. It was not yet occupied 
 by the Liverpool people, and Mrs. Dean sent them word they 
 could not have it this year : at least not for the present. While 
 she put matters straight, she supplied Jack with all Captain 
 Marryat's novels to read. The house looked on the river, and 
 Jack would watch the fine vessels starting on their long voyages, 
 their white sails trim and fair in the sunshine, or hear the joyous 
 shouts from the sailors of a homeward-bound ship as Liverpool hove 
 in view ; and he grew to think there was no sight so pleasant to the 
 eye as these wonderful ships ; no fate so desirable as to sail in them. 
 
 But Aunt Dean had changed her tactics. Instead of sending 
 Jack on to the dirtiest and worst managed boats in the docks, 
 where the living was hard and the sailors were discontented, she 
 allowed him to roam at will on the finest ships, and make acquaint- 
 ance with their enthusiastic young officers, especially with those 
 who were going to sea for the first time with just such notions as 
 Jack's. Before Midsummer came. Jack Tanerton had grown to 
 think that he could never be happy on land. 
 
 There was a new ship just launched, the Rose of Delhi j a 
 magnificent vessel. Jack took rare interest in her. He was for 
 ever on board ; was for ever saying to her owners — friends of Aunt 
 Dean's, to whom she had introduced him — how much he should 
 like to sail in her. The owners thought it would be an advan- 
 tageous thing to get so active, open, and ready a lad into their 
 service, although he was somewhat old for entering, and they 
 offered to article him for lour years, as " midshipman " on the 
 Rose of Delhi. Jack went home with his tale, his eyes glowing; 
 and Aunt Dean neither checked him nor helped him.
 
 AUNT DEAN. 107 
 
 Not then. Later, when the ship was all but ready to sail, she 
 told Jack she washed her hands of it, and recommended him to 
 write and ask his stepfather whether he might sail in her, or 
 not. 
 
 Now Jack was no letter writer; neither, truth to tell, was the 
 parson. He had not once written home ; but had contented himself 
 with sending affectionate messages in Aunt Dean's letters. Con- 
 sequently, Mr. Lewis only knew what Aunt Dean had chosen to 
 tell him, and had no idea that Jack was getting the real sea fever 
 upon him. But at her suggestion Jack sat down now and wrote a 
 long letter. 
 
 Its purport was this. That he was longing and hoping to go to 
 sea; was sure he should never like anything else in the world so 
 well; that the Tv^j^? of Delhi, Captain Druce, was the most mag- 
 nificent ship ever launched ; that the owners bore the best character 
 in Liverpool for liberality, and Captain Druce for kindness to his 
 middies ; and that he hoped, oh he hoped, his father would let him 
 go; but that if he still refused, he Qack) would do his best to be 
 content to stay on shore, for he did not forget his promise of never 
 sailing without his consent. 
 
 " Would you like to see the letter, Aunt Dean, before I close it?" 
 he asked. 
 
 Aunt Dean, who had been sitting by, took the letter, and pri- 
 vately thought it was as good a letter and as much to the purpose 
 as the best scribe in the land could have written. She disliked it, 
 for all that. 
 
 " Jack, dear, I think you had better put a postscript," she said. 
 " Your father detests writing, as you know. Tell him that if he 
 consents he need not write any answer : you will know what it 
 means — that you may go — and it will save him trouble." 
 
 " But, Aunt Dean, I should like him to wish me good-bye and 
 God speed." 
 
 " He will be sure to do the one in his heart and the other in his 
 prayers, my boy. Write your postscript." 
 
 Jack did as he was bid : he was as docile as his stepfather. 
 Exactly as Mrs. Dean suggested, wrote he : and he added that if 
 no answer arrived within two posts, he should take it for granted 
 that he was to go, and should see about his outfit. There was no 
 time to lose, for the ship would sail in three or four days. 
 
 " I will post it for you, Jack," she said, when it was ready. " I 
 am going out." 
 
 "Thank you, Aunt Dean, but I can post it myself. I'd rather: 
 and then I shall know it's off. Oh, shan't I be on thorns till the 
 time for an answer comes and goes !" 
 
 He snatched his cap and vaulted off with the letter before he
 
 io8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 could be stopped. Aunt Dean had a curious look on her face, and 
 sat biting her lips. She had not intended the letter to go. 
 
 The first post that could possibly bring an answer brought one. 
 Jack was not at home. Aunt Dean had sent him out on an early 
 commission, watched for the postman, and hastened to the door 
 herself to receive what he might bring. He brought two letters— 
 as it chanced. One from the Rector of Timberdale; one from 
 Alice Dean. Mrs. Dean locked up the one in her private drawer 
 upstairs : the other she left on the breakfast-table. 
 
 '•Peggy says the postman has been here, aunt!" cried the boy. 
 all excitement, as he ran in. 
 
 "Yes, dear. He brought a letter from Alice." 
 i "And nothing from Timberdale?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know that you could quite expect it by this post, 
 Jack. Your father might like to take a little time for considera- 
 tion. You may read Alice's letter, my boy : she comes home this 
 day week for the summer holidays." 
 
 "Not till this day week!" cried Jack, frightfully disappointed. 
 " Why, I shall have sailed then, if I go. Aunt Dean ! I shall not 
 see her." 
 
 " Well, dear, you will see her when you come home again." 
 
 Aunt Dean had no more commissions for Jack after that, and 
 each time the postman was expected, he placed himself outside the 
 door to wait for him. The man brought no other letter. The 
 reasonable time for an answer went by, and none came. 
 
 "Aunt Dean, I suppose I may get my outfit now," said Jack, 
 only half satisfied. " But I wish I had told him to write in any 
 case : just a line." 
 
 "According to what you said, you know, Jack, silence must be 
 taken for consent." 
 
 " Yes, I know. I'd rather have had a word, though, and made 
 certain. I wish there was time for me just to run over to Timber- 
 dale and see him ! " 
 
 " But there's not. Jack, more's the pity : you would lose the ship. 
 Get a piece of paper and make out a list of the articles the second 
 mate told you you would want." 
 
 The Rose of Delhi sailed out of port for Calcutta, and John 
 Tancrton with her, having signed articles to serve in her for four 
 years. The night before his departure he wrote a short letter of 
 farewell to his stepfather, thanking him for his tacit consent, and 
 promising to do his best to get on, concluding it with love to him- 
 self and to Herbert, and to the Rectory servants. Which letter 
 somehow got put into Aunt Dean's kitchen fire, and never reached 
 Timberdale. 
 
 Avmt Dean watched the Rose of Delhi sail by ; Jack, in his bran-
 
 AUNT DEAN. 109 
 
 new uniform, waving his last farewell to her with his gold-banded 
 cap. The sigh of relief she heaved when the fine vessel was out of 
 sight seemed to do her good. Then she bolted herself into her 
 chamber, and opened Mr. Lewis's letter, which had lain untouched 
 till then. As she expected, it contained a positive interdiction, 
 written half sternly, half lovingly, for John to sail in the Rose of 
 Delhi, or to think more of the sea. Moreover, it commanded him 
 to come home at once, and it contained a promise that he should be 
 placed to learn the farming without delay. Aunt Dean tripped down 
 to Peggy's fire and burnt that too. 
 
 There was a dreadful fuss when Jack's departure became known 
 at Timberdale. It fell upon the parson like a thunderbolt. He 
 came striding through the ravine to Crabb Cot, and actually burst 
 out crying while teUing the news to the Squire. He feared he had 
 failed somehow in bringing John up, he said, or he never would have 
 repaid him with this base disobedience and ingratitude. For, you 
 see, the poor man thought Jack had received his letter, and gone 
 off in defiance of it. The Squire agreed with him that Jack deserved 
 the cat-o'-nine tails, as did all other boys who traitorously decamped 
 to sea. 
 
 Before the hay was all in. Aunt Dean was back at Timberdale, 
 briuCTinsT Alice with her and the bills for the outfit. She let the 
 parson think what he would about Jack, ignoring all knowledge of 
 the letter, and affecting to believe that Jack could not have had it. 
 Ijut the parson argued that Jack must have had it, and did have 
 it, or it would have come back to him. The only one to say a good 
 word for Jack was Alice. She persisted in an opinion that Jack 
 could not be either disobedient or ungrateful, and that there must 
 have been some strange mistake somewhere. 
 
 Aunt Dean's work was not all done. She took the poor parson 
 under her wing, and proved to him that he had no resource now 
 but to disinherit Jack, and made Herbert the heir. To leave money 
 to Jack would be wanton waste, she urged, for he would be sure to 
 squander it : better bequeath all to Herbert, who would of course 
 look after his brother in later life, and help him if he needed help. 
 So Mr. Hill, one of the Worcester sohcitors,was sent for to Timber- 
 dale to receive instructions for making the parson's will in Herbert's 
 favour, and to cut Jack off with a shilling. 
 
 That night, after Mr. Hill had gone back again, was one of the 
 worst the parson had ever spent. He was a just man and a kind 
 one, and he felt racked with fear lest he had taken too severe a 
 measure, and one that his late wife, the true owner of the money 
 and John's mother, w^ould never have sanctioned. His bed was 
 fevered, his pillow a torment ; up he got, and walked the room in 
 his night-shirt.
 
 no JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " My Lord and God knoweth that I would do what is right," he 
 groaned. " I am sorely troubled. Youth is vain and desperately 
 thoughtless ; perhaps the boy, in his love of adventure, never looked 
 at the step in the light of ingratitude. I cannot cut him quite off; 
 I should never again find peace of mind if I did it. He shall have 
 a little ; and perhaps if he grows into a steady fellow and comes 
 back what he ought to be, I may alter the will later and leave them 
 equal inheritors." 
 
 The next day the parson wrote privately to Mr. Hill, saying he 
 had reconsidered his determination and would let Jack inherit to 
 the extent of a hundred and fifty pounds a year. 
 
 Herbert came home for the long vacation ; and he and Alice were 
 together as they had been before that upstart Jack stepped in. 
 They often came to the Squire's and oftener to the Coneys'. Grace 
 Coney, a niece of old Coney, had come to live at the farm ; she was 
 a nice girl, and she and Alice liked each other. You might see 
 them with Herbert strolling about the fields any hour in the day. 
 At home Alice and Herbert seemed never to care to separate. Mrs. 
 Dean watched them quietly, and thought how beautifully her plans 
 had worked. 
 
 Aunt Dean did not go home till October. After she left, the 
 parson had a stroke of paralysis. Charles Ashton, then just ordained 
 to priest's orders, took the duty. Mrs. Dean came back again for 
 Christmas. As if she would let Alice stay away from the Parsonage 
 when Herbert was at home ! 
 
 The Rose of Delhi did not come back for nearly two years. She 
 was what is called a free ship, and took charters for any place she 
 could make money by. One day Alice Dean was leaning out of 
 the windows of her mother's house, gazing wistfully on the sparkling 
 sea, when a grand and stately vessel came sailing homewards, and 
 some brown-faced young fellow on the quarter deck set on to swing 
 his cap violently by way of hailing her. She looked to the flag 
 which happened to be flying, and read the name there, " The Rose 
 of Del In.'''' It must be Jack who was saluting. Alice burst into 
 tears of emotion. 
 
 He came up from the docks the same day. A great, brown, 
 handsome fellow with the old single-hearted, open manners. And 
 he clasped Alice in his arms and kissed her ever so many times 
 before she could get free. Being a grown-up young lady now, she 
 did not approve of unceremonious kissing, and told Jack so. Aunt 
 Dean was not present, or she might have told him so more to the 
 purpose. 
 
 , Jack had given satisfaction, and was getting on. He told Ahce 
 privately that he did not like the sea so much as he anticipated, 
 and could not believe how any other fellow did like it ; but as he
 
 AUNT DEAN. in 
 
 had chosen it as his calling, he meant to stand by it. He went to 
 Timberdale, in spite of Aunt Dean's advice and efforts to keep him 
 away. Herbert was absent, she said ; the Rector ill and childish. 
 Jack found it all too true. Mr. Lewis's mind had failed and his 
 health was breaking. He knew Jack and was very affectionate 
 with him, but seemed not to remember anything of the past. So 
 never a word did Jack hear of his own disobedience, or of any 
 missing letters. 
 
 One person alone questioned him; and that was Alice. It was 
 after he got back from Timberdale. She asked him to tell her the 
 history of his sailing in the Rose of Delhi, and he gave it in detail, 
 without reserve. When he spoke of the postscript that Aunt Dean 
 had bade him add to his letter, arranging that silence should be 
 taken for consent, and that as no answer had come, he of course 
 had so taken it, the girl turned sick and faint. She saw the treachery 
 that had been at work and where it had lain ; but for her mother's 
 sake she hushed it up and let the matter pass. Alice had not lived 
 with her mother so many years without detecting her propensity for 
 deceit. 
 
 Some years passed by. Jack got on well. He served as third 
 mate on the Rose of Delhi long before he could pass, by law, for 
 second. He was made second mate as soon as he had passed for 
 it. The Rose of Delhi came in and went out, and Jack stayed 
 by her, and passed for first mate in course of time. He was not 
 sent back in any of his examinations, as most young sailors are, 
 and the board once went the length of complimenting him on his 
 answers. The fact was. Jack held to his Avord of doing his best; 
 he got into no mischief and was the smartest sailor afloat. He was 
 in consequence a favourite with the owners, and Captain Druce 
 took pains with him and brought him on in seamanship and navi- 
 gation, and showed him how to take observations, and all the rest 
 of it. There's no end of difference in merchant-captains in this 
 respect : some teach their junior officers nothing. Jack finally 
 passed triumphantly for master, and hoped his time would come 
 to receive a command. Meanwhile he went out again as first mate 
 on the Rose of Delhi. 
 
 One spring morning there came news to Mrs. Dean from Timber- 
 dale. The Rector had had another stroke and was thought to be 
 near his end. She started off at once, with Alice. Charles Ashton 
 had had a living given to him ; and Herbert Tanerton was now his 
 stepfather's curate. Herbert had passed as shiningly in mods and 
 divinity and all the rest of it as Jack had passed before the Marine 
 Board. He was a steady, thoughtful, serious young man, did his 
 duty well in the parish, and preached better sermons than ever the 
 Rector had. ISIrs. Dean, who looked upon him as Alice's husband
 
 112 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 as surely as though they were married, was as proud of his success 
 as though it had been her own. 
 
 The Rector was very ill and unable to leave his bed. His in- 
 tellect was quite gone now. Mrs. Dean sat with him most of the 
 day, leaving Alice to be taken care of by Herbert. They went 
 about together just as always, and were on the best of confidential 
 terms ; and came over to the Coneys', and to us when we were at 
 Crabb Cot. 
 
 " Herbert," said Mrs. Dean one evening when she had all her 
 soft, sugary manner upon her and was making the young parson 
 believe she had no one's interest at heart in the world but his : 
 " my darling boy, is it not almost time you began to think of 
 marriage ? None know the happiness and comfort brought by a 
 good wife, dear, until they experience it." 
 
 Herbert looked taken aback. He turned as red as a school-girl, 
 and glanced half-a-moment at Alice, like a detected thief. 
 
 " 1 must wait until I have a living to think of that, Aunt Dean." 
 
 " Is it necessary, Herbert ? I should have thought you might 
 bring a wife home to the Rectory here." 
 
 Herbert turned the subject with a jesting word or two, and got 
 out of his redness. Aunt Dean was eminently satisfied ; his con- 
 fusion and his hasty glance at Alice had told tales; and she knew 
 it was only a question of time. 
 
 The Rector died. When the grass was long and the May-flowers 
 were in bloom and the cuckoo was singing in the trees, he passed 
 peacefully to his Rest. Just before death he recovered speech and 
 consciousness; but the chief thing he said was that he left his love 
 to Jack. 
 
 After the funeral the will was opened. It had not been touched 
 since that long past year when Jack had gone away to sea. Out of 
 the eight-hundred a year descended from their mother. Jack had a 
 hundred and fifty ; Herbert the rest. Aunt Dean made a hideous 
 frown for once in her life ; a hundred and fifty pounds a year for 
 Jack, was only, as she looked upon it, so much robbery on Herbert 
 and Alice. Out of the little money saved by the Rector, five hundred 
 pounds were left to his sister, Rebecca Dean; the rest was to be 
 divided equally between Herbert and Jack; and his furniture and 
 effects went to Herbert. On the whole. Aunt Dean was tolerably 
 satisfied. 
 
 She was a woman who liked strictly to keep up appearances, 
 and she made a move to leave the young parson at the end of a 
 week or two's time, and go back to Liverpool. Herbert did not 
 detain her. His own course was uncertain until a fresh Rector 
 should be appointed. The living was in the gift of a neighbouring 
 baronet, and it was fancied by some that he might give it to Her-
 
 AUNT DEAN. 113 
 
 bert. One thing did surprise Mrs. Dean ; angered her too : that 
 Herbert had not made his ofter to AHce before their departure. 
 Now that he had his own fortune at command, there was no 
 necessity to wait for a Hving. 
 
 News greeted them on their arrival. The Rose of Delhi was 
 on her way home once more, with John Tanerton in command. 
 Captain Druce had been left behind at Calcutta, dangerously ill. 
 Alice's colour came and went. She looked out for the homeward- 
 bound vessels passing upwards, and felt quite sick with anxiety lest 
 Jack should fail in any way, and never bring home the ship at all. 
 
 " The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton." Alice Dean cast her 
 eyes on the shipping news in the morning paper, and read the an- 
 nouncement amidst the arrivals. Just for an instant her sight left 
 her. 
 
 " Mamma," she presently said, quietly passing over the news- 
 paper, " the Rose of Delhi is in." 
 
 " The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton," read Mrs. Dean. " The 
 idea of their sticking in Jack's name as captain ! He will have to 
 go down again as soon as Captain Druce returns. A fine captain 
 I dare say he has made ! " 
 
 "At least he has brought the ship home safely and quickly," 
 Alice ventured to sav. "It must have passed after dark last night." 
 
 "Why after dark?" 
 
 Alice did not reply — -Because I was watching till daylight faded 
 — which would have been the truth. " Had it passed before, some 
 of us might have seen it, mamma." 
 
 The day was waning before Jack came up. Captain Tanerton. 
 Jack was never to go back again to his chief-mateship, as Aunt 
 Dean had surmised, for the owners had given him permanent com- 
 mand of the Rose of Delhi. The last mail had brought news from 
 Captain Druce that he should never be well enough for the com- 
 mand again, and the owners were only too glad to give it to the 
 younger and more active man. Officers and crew alike reported 
 that never a better master sailed than Jack had proved himself on 
 this homeward voyage. 
 
 " Don't you think I have been very lucky on the whole. Aunt 
 Dean? Fancy a young fellow like me getting such a beautiful ship 
 as that ! " 
 
 " Oh, very lucky," returned Aunt Dean. 
 
 Jack looked like a captain too. He was broad and manly, with 
 an intelhgent, honest, handsome face, and the quick keen eye of a 
 sailor. Jack was particular in his attire too ; and some sailors are 
 not so : he dressed as a gentleman when on shore. 
 
 " Only a hundred and fifty left to me ! " cried Jack, when he was 
 told the news. " Well, perhaps Herbert may require more than I, 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 8
 
 114 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 poor fellow," he added in his good nature ; " he may not get a good 
 living, and then he'll be glad of it. I shall be sure to do well now 
 I've got the ship." 
 
 " You'll be at sea always, Jack, and will have no use for money," 
 said Mrs. Dean. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know about having no use for it. Aunt. Anyway, 
 my father thought it right to leave it so, and I am content. I wish 
 I could have said farewell to him before he died ! " 
 
 A few more days, and Aunt Dean was thrown on her beam-ends 
 at a worse angle than ever the Rose of Delhi hoped to be. Jack 
 and Alice discussed matters between themselves, and the result was 
 disclosed to her. They were going to be married. 
 
 It was Alice who told her. Jack had just left, and she and her 
 mother were sitting together in the summer twilight. At first Mrs. 
 Dean thought Ahce was joking: she was like a mad woman 
 when she found it true. Her great dream had never foreshadowed 
 this. 
 
 " How dare you attempt to think of so monstrous a thing, you 
 wicked girl ? Marry your own brother-in-law ! — it would be no 
 better. It is Herbert that is to be your husband." 
 
 Alice shook her head with a smile. " Herbert would not have 
 me, mamma; nor would I have him. Herbert will marry Grace 
 Coney." 
 
 "Who?" cried Mrs. Dean. 
 
 " Grace Coney. They have been in love with each other ever 
 so many years. I have known it all along. He will marry her as 
 soon as his future is settled. I had promised to be one of the 
 bridesmaids, but I suppose I shall not have the chance now." 
 
 " Grace Coney — that beggarly girl ! " shrieked Mrs. Dean. " But 
 for her uncle's giving her shelter she must have turned out in the 
 world when her father died and earned her living how she could. 
 She is not a lady. She is not Herbert's equal." 
 
 " Oh yes, she is, mamma. She is a very nice girl and will make 
 him a perfect wife. Herbert would not exchange her for the richest 
 lady in the land." 
 
 " If Herbert chooses to make a spectacle of himself, you never 
 shall! "cried poor Mrs. Dean, all her golden visions fast melting 
 into air. " I would see that wicked Jack Tanerton at the bottom 
 of the sea first." 
 
 " Mother, dear, listen to me. Jack and I have cared for each 
 other for years and years, and we should neither of us marry any 
 one else. There is nothing to wait for; Jack is as well off as he 
 will be for years to come : and — and we have settled it so, and I 
 hope you will not oppose it." 
 
 It was a cruel moment for Aunt Dean, Her love for other people
 
 AUNT DEAN, 115 
 
 had been all pretence, but she did love her daughter. Besides that, 
 she was ambitious for her. I 
 
 " I can never let you marry a sailor, Alice. Anything but that." ■ 
 " It was you who made Jack a sailor, mother, and there's no help 
 for it," said Alice, in low tones, " I would rather he had been any- 
 thing else in the world. I should have liked him to have had land 
 and farmed it. We should have done well. Jack had his four 
 hundred a year clear, you know. At least, he ought to have had 
 it. Oh, mother, don't you see that while you have been plotting 
 against Jack you have plotted against me ? " 
 
 Aunt Dean felt sick with memories that were crowding upon her. 
 The mistake she had made was a frightful one. 
 
 " You cannot join your fate to Jack's, Alice," she repeated, 
 wringing her hands. "A sailor's wife is too liable to be made a 
 widow." 
 
 " I know it, mother. I shall share his danger, for I am going 
 out in the Rose of Delhi. The owners have consented, and Jack 
 is fitting up a lovely little cabin for me that is to be my own 
 saloon." 
 
 " My daughter sail over the seas in a merchant ship ! " gasped 
 Aunt Dean. " Never ! " 
 
 " I should be no true wife if I could let my husband sail with- 
 out me. Mother, it is you alone who have carved out our destiny. 
 Better have left it to God." 
 
 In a startled way, her heart full of remorse, she was beginning to 
 see it ; and she sat down, half fainting, on a chair. 
 " It is a miserable prospect, Alice." 
 
 " Mother, we shall get on. There's the hundred and fifty a year 
 certain, you know. That we shall put by ; and, as long as I sail 
 with him, a good deal more besides. Jack's pay is settled at 
 twenty pounds a month, and he will make more by commission : 
 perhaps as much again. Have no fear for us on that score. Jack 
 has been unjustly deprived of his birthright ; and I think sometimes 
 that perhaps as a recompense Heaven will prosper him." 
 " But the danger, Alice ! The danger of a sea-life ! " 
 " Do you know what Jack says about the danger, mother ? He 
 says God is over us on the sea as well as on land and will take care 
 of those who put their trust in Him. In the wildest, storm I will 
 try to let that great truth help me to feel peace." 
 
 Alas for Aunt Dean ! Arguments slipped away from her hands 
 just as her plans had slipped from them. In her bitter repentance, 
 she lay on the floor of her room that night and asked God to have 
 pity upon her, for her trouble seemed greater than she could bear. 
 
 The morning's post brought news from Herbert. He was made 
 Rector of Timberdale. Aunt Dean wrote back, telling him what
 
 ii6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 had taken place, and asking, nay, almost commanding, that he 
 should restore an equal share of the property to Jack. Herbert 
 replied that he should abide by his stepfather's will. The living of 
 Timberdale was not a rich one, and he wished Grace, his future 
 wife, to be comfortable. " Herbert was always intensely selfish," 
 groaned Aunt Dean. Look on which side she would, there was no 
 comfort. 
 
 The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton, sailed out of port again, 
 carrying also with her Mrs. Tanerton, the captain's wife. And 
 Aunt Dean was left to bemoan her fate, and wish she had never 
 tried to shape out other people's destinies. Better, as Alice said, 
 that she had left that to God.
 
 VIII. 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 
 
 We had to make a rush for it. And making a rush did not suit 
 the Squire, any more than it does other people who have come to 
 an age when the body's heavy and the breath nowhere. He reached 
 the train, pushed head-foremost into a carriage, and then remem- 
 bered the tickets. " Bless my heart ? " he exclaimed, as he jumped 
 out again, and nearly upset a lady who had a little dog in her arms, 
 and a mass of fashionable hair on her head, that the Squire, in his 
 hurry, mistook for tow. 
 
 " Plenty of time, sir," said a guard who was passing. " Three 
 minutes to spare." 
 
 Instead of saying he was obliged to the man for his civility, or 
 relieved to find the tickets might still be had, the Squire snatched 
 out his old watch, and began abusing the railway clocks for being 
 slow. Had Tod been there he would have told him to his face that 
 the watch was fast, braving all retort, for the Squire believed in his 
 watch as he did in himself, and would rather have been told that 
 he could go wrong than that the watch could. But there was only 
 me : and I wouldn't have said it for anything. 
 
 " Keep two back-seats there, Johnny," said the Squire. 
 
 I put my coat on the corner furthest from the door, and the rug 
 on the one next to it, and followed him into the station. When the 
 Squire was late in starting, he was apt to get into the greatest flurry 
 conceivable ; and the first thing I saw was himself blocking up the 
 ticket-place, and undoing his pocket-book with nervous fingers. 
 He had some loose gold about him, silver too, but the pocket-book 
 came to his hand first, so he pulled it out. These flurried moments 
 of the Squire's amused Tod beyond everything ; he was so cool 
 himself. 
 
 " Can you change this ? " said the Squire, drawing out one from 
 a roll of five-pound notes. 
 
 " No, I can't," was the answer, in the surly tones put on by ticket- 
 clerks. 
 
 How the Squire crumpled up the note again, and searched in his 
 breeches pocket for gold, and came away with the two t'ckets and
 
 ii8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 the change, I'm sure he never knew. A crowd had gathered round, 
 wanting to take their tickets in turn, and knowing that he was 
 keeping them flurried him all the more. He stood at the back a 
 moment, put the roll of notes into his case, fastened it and returned 
 it to the breast of his over-coat, sent the change down into another 
 pocket without counting it, and went out with the tickets in hand. 
 Not to the carriage ; but to stare at the big clock in front. 
 
 " Don't you see, Johnny ? exactly four minutes and a half differ- 
 ence," he cried, holding out his watch to me. "It is a strange 
 thing they can't keep these railway clocks in order." 
 
 " My watch keeps good time, sir, and mine is with the railway. 
 I think it is right." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Johnny. How dare you ! Right ? You 
 send your watch to be regulated the first opportunity, sir ; don't 
 yoic get into the habit of being too late or too early." 
 
 When we finally went to the carriage there were some people in 
 it, but our seats were left for us. Squire Todhetley sat down by 
 the further door, and settled himself and his coats and his things 
 comfortably, which he had been too flurried to do before. Cool as 
 a cucumber was he, now the bustle was over ; cool as Tod could 
 have been. At the other door, with his face to the engine, sat a 
 dark, gentleman-like man of forty, who had made room for us to 
 pass as we got in. He had a large signet-ring on one hand, and a 
 lavender glove on the other. The other three seats opposite to us 
 were vacant. Next to me sat a little man with a fresh colour and 
 gold spectacles, who was already reading ; and beyond him, in the 
 corner, face to face with the dark man, was a lunatic. That's to 
 mention him politely. Of all the restless, fidgety, worrying, hot- 
 tempered passengers that ever put themselves into a carriage to 
 travel with people in their senses, he was the worst. In fifteen 
 moments he had made as many darts ; now after his hat-box and 
 things above his head ; now calling the guard and the porters to 
 ask senseless questions about his luggage; now treading on our 
 toes, and trying the corner seat opposite the Squire, and then dart- 
 ing back to his own. He wore a wig of a decided green tinge, the 
 effect of keeping, perhaps, and his skin was dry and shrivelled as 
 an Egyptian mummy's. 
 
 A servant, in undress livery, came to the door, and touched his 
 hat, which had a cockade on it, as he spoke to the dark man. 
 " Your ticket, my lord." 
 
 Lords are not travelled with every day, and some of us looked up. 
 The gentleman took the ticket from the man's hand and slipped it 
 into his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 " You can get me a newspaper, Wilkins. The Times, if it is to 
 
 be had."
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 119 
 
 " Yes, my lord." 
 
 " Yes, there's room here, ma'am," interrupted the guard, sending 
 the door back for a lady who stood at it. " Make haste, please." 
 
 The lady who stepped in was the same the Squire had bolted 
 against. She sat down in the seat opposite me, and looked at 
 every one of us by turns. There was a sort of violet bloom on her 
 face and some soft white powder, seen plain enough through her 
 veil. She took the longest gaze at the dark gentleman, bending a 
 little forward to do it ; for, as he was in a line with her, and also 
 had his head turned from her, her curiosity could only catch a view 
 of his side-face. Mrs. Todhetley might have said she had not put 
 on her company manners. In the midst of this, the man-servant 
 came back again. 
 
 " The Times is not here yet, my lord. They are expecting the 
 papers in by the next down-train." 
 
 " Never mind, then. You can get me one at the next station, 
 Wilkins." 
 
 " Very well, my lord." 
 
 Wilkins must certainly have had to scramble for his carriage, for 
 we started before he had well left the door. It was not an express- 
 train, and we should have to stop at several stations. Where the 
 Squire and I had been staying docs not matter ; it has nothing to 
 do with what I have to tell. It was a long way from our own home, 
 and that's saying enough. 
 
 " Would you mind changing seats with me, sir ? " 
 I looked up, to find the lady's face close to mine ; she had spoken 
 in a half-whisper. The Squire, who carried his old-fashioned notions 
 of politeness with him when he went travelling, at once got up to 
 offer her the corner. But she declined it, saying she was subject to 
 face-ache, and did not care to be next the window. So she took 
 my seat, and I sat down on the one opposite Mr. Todhetley. 
 
 " Which of the peers is that ? " I heard her ask him in a loud 
 whisper, as the lord put his head out at his window. 
 
 " Don't know at all, ma'am," said the Squire. " Don't know 
 many of the peers myself, except those of my own county: Lyttle- 
 
 ton, and Beauchamp, and " 
 
 Of all snarling barks, the worst was given that moment in the 
 Squire's face, suddenly ending the list. The little dog, an ugly, 
 hairy, vile-tempered Scotch terrier, had been kept concealed under 
 the lady's jacket, and now struggled itself free. The Squire's look 
 of consternation was good ! He had not known any animal was 
 there. 
 
 " Be quiet. Wasp. How dare you bark at the gentleman ? He 
 
 will not bite, sir : he " 
 
 " Who has a dog in the carriage ? " shrieked the lunatic, starting
 
 120 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 up in a passion. " Dogs don't travel with passengers. Here ! 
 Guard! Guard!" 
 
 To call out for the guard when a train is going at full speed is 
 generally useless. The lunatic had to sit down again ; and the 
 lady defied him, so to say, coolly avowing that she had hidden the 
 dog from the guard on purpose, staring him in the face while she 
 said it. 
 
 After this there was a lull, and we went speeding along, the lady 
 talking now and again to the Squire. She seemed to want to grow 
 confidential with him ; but the Squire did not seem to care for it, 
 though he was quite civil. She held the dog huddled up in her lap, 
 so that nothing but his head peeped out. 
 
 " Halloa! How dare they be so neghgent? There's no lamp in 
 this carriage." 
 
 It was the lunatic again, and we all looked at the lamp. It had 
 no light in it ; but that it had when we first reached the carriage 
 was certain ; for, as the Squire went stumbling in, his head nearly 
 touched the lamp, and I had noticed the flame. It seems the 
 Squire had also. 
 
 " They must have put it out while we were getting our tickets," 
 he said. 
 
 " I'll know the reason why when we stop," cried the lunatic, 
 fiercely. " After passing the next station, we dash into the long 
 tunnel. The idea of going through it in pitch darkness ! It would 
 not be safe." 
 
 " Especially with a dog in the carriage," spoke the lord, in a 
 chaffing kind of tone, but with a good-natured smile. " We will 
 have the lamp lighted, however." 
 
 As if to reward him for interfering, the dog barked up loudly, and 
 tried to make a spring at him ; upon which the lady smothered the 
 animal up, head and all. 
 
 Another minute or two, and the train began to slacken speed. 
 It was only an insignificant station, one not likely to be halted at 
 for above a minute. The lunatic twisted his body out of the 
 window, and shouted for the guard long before we were at a 
 standstill. 
 
 "Allow me to manage this," said the lord, quietly putting him 
 down. " They know me on the line. Wilkins ! " 
 
 The man came rushing up at the call. He must have been out 
 already, though we were not quite at a standstill yet. 
 
 " Is it for the Times, my lord? I am going for it." 
 
 " Never mind the Times. This lamp is not lighted, Wilkins. 
 See the guard, and gel it done. At once." 
 
 " And ask him what the mischief he means by his carelessness," 
 roared out the lunatic after Wilkins, who went flying off. " Send-
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 121 
 
 ing us on our road without a light! — and that dangerous tunnel 
 close at hand." 
 
 The authority laid upon the words " Get it done," seemed an 
 earnest that the speaker was accustomed to be obeyed, and would 
 be this time. For once the lunatic sat quiet, watching the lamp, 
 and for the light that was to be dropped into it from the top ; and 
 so did 1, and so did the lady. We were all deceived, however, and 
 the train went puffing on. The lunatic shrieked, the lord put his 
 bead out of the carriage and shouted for Wilkins. 
 
 No good. Shouting after a train is off never is much good. The 
 lord sat down on his seat again, an angry frown crossing his face, 
 and the lunatic got up and danced with rage. 
 
 " I do not know where the blame lies," observed the lord. " Not 
 with my servant, I think : he is attentive, and has been with me 
 some years." 
 
 " I'll know where it lies," retorted the lunatic. " I am a director 
 on the line, though I don't often travel on it. This is manage- 
 ment, this is ! A few minutes more and we shall be in the dark 
 tunnel." 
 
 " Of course it would have been satisfactory to have a light ; but 
 it is not of so much consequence," said the nobleman, wishing to 
 soothe him. " There's no danger in the dark." 
 
 " No danger ! No danger, sir ! I think there is danger. Who's 
 to know that dog won't spring out and bite us ? Who's to know 
 there won't be an accident in the tunnel ? A light is a protection 
 against having our pockets picked, if it's a protection against 
 nothing else." 
 
 " I fancy our pockets are pretty safe to-day," said the lord, 
 glancing round at us with a good-natured smile ; as much as to 
 say that none of us looked like thieves. '• And I certainly trust we 
 shall get through the tunnel safely." 
 
 "And I'll take care the dog does not bite you in the dark," spoke 
 up the lady, pushing her head forward to give the lunatic a nod or 
 two that you'd hardly have matched for defying impudence. 
 " You'll be good, won't you. Wasp ? But I should like the lamp 
 lighted myself. You will perhaps be so kind, my lord, as to see 
 that there's no mistake made about it at the next station!" 
 
 He slightly raised his hat to her and bowed in answer, but did 
 not speak. The lunatic buttoned up his coat with fingers that were 
 either nervous or angry, and then disturbed the little gentleman 
 next him, who had read his big book throughout the whole com- 
 motion without once lifting his eyes, by hunting everywhere for his 
 pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " Here's the tunnel!" he cried out resentfully, as we dashed with 
 a shriek into pitch darkness.
 
 122 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 It was all very well for her to say she would take care of the dog, 
 but the first thing the young beast did was to make a spring at me 
 and then at the Squire, barking and yelping frightfully. The 
 Squire pushed it away in a commotion. Though well accustomed 
 to dogs he always fought shy of strange ones. The lady chattered 
 and laughed, and did not seem to try to get hold of him, but we 
 couldn't see, you know ; the Squire hissed at him, the dog snarled 
 and growled ; altogether there was noise enough to deafen anything 
 but a tunnel. 
 
 " Pitch him out at the window," cried the lunatic. 
 ' " Pitch yourself out," answered the lady. And whether she 
 propelled the dog, or whether he went of his own accord, the beast 
 sprang to the other end of the carriage, and was seized upon by the 
 nobleman. 
 
 " I think, madam, you had better put him under your mantle and 
 keep him there," said he, bringing the dog back to her and speaking 
 quite civilly, but in the same tone of authority he had used to his 
 servant about the lamp. " I have not the slightest objection to dogs 
 myself, but many people have, and it is not altogether pleasant to 
 have them loose in a railway carriage. I beg your pardon ; I 
 cannot see ; is this your hand ? " 
 
 It was her hand, I suppose, for the dog was left with her, and he 
 went back to his seat again. When we emerged out of the tunnel 
 into daylight, the lunatic's face was blue. 
 
 " Ma'am, if that miserable brute had laid hold of me by so much 
 as the corner of my great-coat tail, I'd have had the law of you. 
 It is perfectly monstrous that any one, putting themselves into a 
 first-class carriage, should attempt to outrage railway laws, and 
 upset the comfort of travellers with impunity. I shall complain to 
 the guard." 
 
 " He does not bite, sir ; he never bites," she answered softly, as 
 if sorry for the escapade, and wishing to conciliate him. " The 
 poor little bijou is frightened at darkness, and leaped from my arms 
 unawares. There ! I'll promise that you shall neither see nor hear 
 him again." 
 
 She had tucked the dog so completely out of sight, that no one 
 could have suspected one was there, just as it had been on first 
 entering. The train was drawn up to the next station ; when it 
 stopped, the servant came and opened the carriage-door for his 
 master to get out. 
 
 " Did you understand me, Wilkins, when I told you to get this 
 lamp lighted?" 
 
 " My lord, I'm very sorry ; I understood your lordship perfectly, 
 but I couldn't see the guard," answered Wilkins. " I caught sight 
 of him running up to his van-door at the last moment, but the train
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 123 
 
 began to move off, and I had to jump in myself, or else be left 
 behind." 
 
 The guard passed as he was explaining this, and the nobleman 
 drew his attention to the lamp, curtly ordering him to "light it 
 instantly." Lifting his hat to us by way of farewell, he disappeared ; 
 and the lunatic began upon the guard as if he were commencing a 
 lecture to a deaf audience. The guard seemed not to hear it, so 
 lost was he in astonishment at there being no light. 
 
 " Why, what can have douted it?" he cried aloud, staring up at 
 the lamp. And the Squire smiled at the familiar word, so common 
 in our ears at home, and had a great mind to ask the guard where 
 he came from. 
 
 " I lighted all these here lamps myself afore we started, and I 
 see 'em all burning," said he. There was no mistaking the home 
 accent now, and the Squire looked down the carriage with a beam- 
 ing face. 
 
 " You are from Worcestershire, my man." 
 
 " From Worcester itself, sir. Leastways from St. John's, which 
 is the same thing." 
 
 "Whether you are from Worcester, or whether you are from 
 Jericho, I'll let you know that you can't put empty lamps into first- 
 class carriages on this line without being made to answer for it ! " 
 roared the lunatic. " What's your name ! I am a director." 
 
 " My name is Thomas Brooks, sir," rephed the man, respectfully 
 touching his cap. " But I declare to you, sir, that I've told the 
 truth in saying the lamps were all right when we started : how this 
 one can have got douted, I can't think. There's not a guard on the 
 line, sir, more particular in seeing to the lamps than I am." 
 
 " Well, light it now ; don't waste time excusing yourself," growled 
 the lunatic. But he said nothing about the dog ; which was sur- 
 prising. 
 
 In a twinkling the lamp was lighted, and we were off again. 
 The lady and her dog were quiet now : he was out of sight : she 
 leaned back to go to sleep. The Squire lodged his head against 
 the curtain, and shut his eyes to do the same ; the little man, as 
 before, never looked off his book ; and the lunatic frantically shifted 
 himself every two minutes between his own seat and that of the 
 opposite corner. There were no more tunnels, and we went smoothly 
 on to the next station. Five minutes allowed there. 
 
 The httle man, putting his book in his pocket, took down a black 
 leather bag from above his head, and got out ; the lady, her dog 
 hidden still, prepared to follow him, wishing the Squire and me, 
 and even the lunatic, with a forgiving smile, a polite good morning. 
 I had moved to that end, and was watching the lady's wonderful 
 back hair as she stepped out, when all in a moment the Squire
 
 124 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 sprang up with a shout, and jumping out nearly upon her, called 
 out that he had been robbed. She dropped the dog, and I thought 
 he must have caught the lunatic's disorder and become frantic. 
 
 It is of no use attempting to describe exactly what followed. 
 The lady, snatching up her dog, shrieked out that perhaps she had 
 been robbed too ; she laid hold of the Squire's arm, and went with 
 him into the station-master's room. And there we were : us three, 
 and the guard, and the station-master, and the lunatic, who had 
 come pouncing out too at the Squire's cry. The man in spectacles 
 had disappeared for good. 
 
 The Squire's pocket-book was gone. He gave his name and 
 address at once to the station-master : and the guard's face lighted 
 with intelligence when he heard it, for he knew Squire Todhetley 
 by reputation. The pocket-book had been safe just before we en- 
 tered the tunnel; the Squire was certain of that, having felt it. 
 He had sat in the carriage with his coat unbuttoned, rather thrown 
 back; and nothing could have been easier than for a clever thief 
 to draw it out, under cover of the darkness. 
 
 " I had fifty pounds in it," he said ; " fifty pounds in five-pound 
 notes. And some memoranda besides." 
 
 " Fifty pounds ! " cried the lady, quickly. "And you could travel 
 with all that about you, and not button up your coat ! You ought 
 to be rich ! " 
 
 " Have you been in the habit of meeting thieves, madam, when 
 travelling ? " suddenly demanded the lunatic, turning upon her 
 without warning, his coat whirling about on all sides with the 
 rapidity of his movements. 
 
 " No, sir, I have not," she answered, in indignant tones. " Have 
 you ? " 
 
 " I have not, madam. But, then, you perceive I sec no risk in 
 travelling with a coat unbuttoned, although it may have bank-notes 
 in the pockets." 
 
 She made no reply : was too much occupied in turning out her 
 own pockets and purse, to ascertain that they had not been rifled. 
 Re-assured on the point, she sat down on a low box against the 
 wall, nursing her dog ; which had begun its snarling again. 
 
 " It must have been taken from me in the dark as we went 
 through the tunnel," affirmed the Squire to the room in general 
 and perhaps the station-master in particular. " I am a magistrate, 
 and have some experience in these things. I sat completely off 
 my guard, a prey for anybody, my hands stretched out before me, 
 grappling with that dog, that seemed — why, goodness me ! yes he 
 did, now that I think of it — that seemed to be held about fifteen 
 inches off my nose on purpose to attack me. That's when the thing 
 must have been done. But now— which of them could it have been ? "
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 125 
 
 He meant which of the passengers. As he looked hard at us in 
 rotation, especially at the guard and station-master, who had not 
 been in the carriage, the lady gave a shriek, and threw the dog 
 into the middle of the room. 
 
 " I see it all," she said, faintly. " He has a habit of snatching at 
 things with his mouth. He must have snatched the case out of 
 your pocket, sir, and dropped it from the window. You will find 
 it in the tunnel." 
 
 '• Who has ? " asked the lunatic, while the Squire stared in 
 wonder. 
 
 " My poor little Wasp. Ah, villain I beast ! it is he that has done 
 all this mischief." 
 
 " He might have taken the pocket-book," I said, thinking it 
 time to speak, " but he could not have dropped it out, for I put the 
 window up as we went into the tunnel." 
 
 It seemed a nonplus for her, and her face fell again. "There 
 was the other window," she said in a minute. " He might have 
 dropped it there. I heard his bark quite close to it." 
 
 "/ pulled up that window, madam," said the lunatic. "If the 
 dog did take it out of the pocket it may be in the carriage now." 
 
 The guard rushed out to search it ; the Squire followed, but the 
 station-master remained where he was, and closed the door after 
 them. A thought came over me that he was stopping to keep the 
 two passengers in view. 
 
 No; the pocket-book could not be found in the carriage. As 
 they came back, the Squire was asking the guard if he knew who 
 the nobleman was who had got out at the last station with his ser- 
 vant. But the guard did not know. 
 
 " He said they knew him on the line." 
 
 " Very likely, sir. I have not been on this line above a month 
 or two." 
 
 "Well, this is an unpleasant affair," said the lunatic im- 
 patiently; "and the question is — What's to be done? It appears 
 pretty evident that your pocket-book was taken in the cairiage, sir. 
 Of the four passengers, I suppose the one who left us at the last 
 station must be held exempt from suspicion, being a nobleman. 
 Another got out here, and has disappeared ; the other two are 
 present. I propose that we should both be searched." 
 
 " I'm sure I am quite willing," said the lady, and she got up at 
 once. 
 
 I think the Squire was about to disclaim any wish so to act; 
 but the lunatic was resolute, and the station-master agreed with 
 him. There was no time to be lost, for the train was ready to start 
 again, her time being up, and the lunatic was turned out. The 
 lady went into another room with two women, called by the
 
 126 " JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 station-master, and she was turned out. Neither of them had the 
 pocket-book. 
 
 " Here's my card, sir," said the lunatic, handing one to Mr. Tod- 
 hetley. "You know my name, I dare say. If I can be of any 
 future assistance to you in this matter, you may command me." 
 
 " Bless my heart ! " cried the Squire, as he read the name on the 
 card. " How could you allow yourself to be searched, sir.'"' 
 
 " Because, in such a case as this, I think it only right and fair 
 that every one who has the misfortune to be mixed up in it should 
 be searched," replied the lunatic, as they went out together. "It 
 is a satisfaction to both parties. Unless you offered to search me, 
 you could not have offered to search that woman ; and I suspected 
 her." 
 
 " Suspected her! " cried the Squire, opening his eyes. 
 
 " If I didn't suspect, I doubted. Why on earth did she cause 
 her dog to make all that row the moment we got into the tunnel ? 
 It must have been done then. I should not be startled out of my 
 senses if I heard that that silent man by my side and hers was in 
 league with her." 
 
 The Squire stood in a kind of amazement, trying to recall what 
 he could of the little man in spectacles, and see if things would fit 
 into one another. 
 
 " Don't you like her look ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " No, I doji't^'' said the lunatic, turning himself about. " I have 
 a prejudice against painted women : they put me in mind of Jezebel. 
 Look at her hair. It's awful." 
 
 He went out in a whirlwind, and took his seat in the carriage, not 
 a moment before it puffed off. 
 
 " Is he a lunatic ? " I whispered to the Squire. 
 
 " He a lunatic ! " he roared. " You must be a lunatic for asking 
 it, Johnny. Why, that's— that's " 
 
 Instead of saying any more, he showed me the card, and the 
 name nearly took my breath away. He is a well-known London 
 man, of science, talent, and position, and of world-wide fame. 
 
 " Well, I thought him nothing better than an escaped maniac." 
 
 "Z)/c/you?" said the Squire. "Perhaps he returned the com- 
 pliment on you, sir. But now — Johnny, who has got my pocket- 
 book ? " 
 
 As if it was any use asking me ? As we turned back to the 
 station-master's room, the lady came into it, evidently resenting 
 the search, although she had seemed to acquiesce in it so 
 readily. 
 
 "They were rude, those women. It is the first time I ever had 
 the misfortune to travel with men who carry pocket-books to lose 
 them, and I hope it will be the last," she pursued, in scornful
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 127 
 
 passion, meant for the Squire. " One generally meets with gentle- 
 men in a first-class carriage." 
 
 The emphasis came out with a shriek, and it told on him. Now 
 that she was proved innocent, he was as vexed as she for having 
 listened to the advice of the scientific man — but I can't help calling 
 him a lunatic still. The Squire's apologies might have disarmed a 
 cross-grained hyena ; and she came round with a smile. 
 
 " If any one has got the pocket-book," she said, as she stroked 
 her dog's ears, " it must be that silent man with the gold spectacles. 
 There was no one else, sir, who could have reached you without 
 getting up to do it. And I declare on my honour, that when that 
 commotion first arose through my poor little dog, I felt for a 
 moment something like a man's arm stretched across me. It 
 could only have been his. I hope you have the numbers of the 
 notes." 
 
 " But I have not," said the Squire. 
 
 The room was being invaded by this time. Two stray passen- 
 gers, a friend of the station-master's, and the porter who took the 
 tickets, had crept in. All thought the lady's opinion must be 
 correct, and said the spectacled man had got clear off with the 
 pocket-book. There was no one else to pitch upon. A nobleman 
 travelling with his servant would not be likely to commit a robbery ; 
 the lunatic was really the man his card represented him to be, for 
 the station-master's friend had seen and recognized him ; and the 
 lady was proved innocent by search. Wasn't the Squire in a 
 passion ! 
 
 " That close reading of his was all a blind," he said, in sudden 
 conviction. "He kept his face down that we should not know him 
 in future. He never looked at one of us ! he never said a word ! I 
 shall go and find him." 
 
 Away went the Squire, as fast as he could hurry, but came back 
 in a moment to know which was the way out, and where it led to. 
 There was quite a small crowd of us by this time. Some fields lay 
 beyond the station at the back ; and a boy affirmed that he had seen 
 a little gentleman in spectacles, with a black bag in his hand, making 
 over the first stile. 
 
 " Now look here, boy," said the Squire. " If you catch that same 
 man, I'll give you five shillings." 
 
 Tod could not have flown faster than the boy did. He took the 
 stile at a leap ; and the Squire tumbled over it after him. Some boys 
 and men joined in the chase ; and a cow, grazing in the field, trotted 
 after us and brought up the rear. 
 
 Such a shout from the boy. It came from behind the opposite 
 hedge of the long field. I was oyer the gate first ; the Squire came 
 next.
 
 128 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 On the hedge of the dry ditch sat the passenger, his legs dangling, 
 his neck imprisoned in the boy's arms. I knew him at once. His 
 hat and gold spectacles had fallen off in the scuffle ; the black bag 
 was wide open, and had a tall bunch of something green sticking up 
 from it ; some tools lay on the ground. 
 
 " Oh, you wicked hypocrite ! " spluttered the Squire, not in the 
 least knowing what he said in his passion. " Are you not ashamed 
 to have played upon me such a vile trick .'' How dare you go about 
 to commit robberies ! " 
 
 " I have not robbed you, at any 'rate," said the man, his voice 
 trembling a little and his face pale, while the boy loosed the neck 
 but pinioned one of the arms. 
 
 " Not robbed me ! " cried the Squire. " Good Heavens ! Who do 
 you suppose you have robbed, if not me? Here, Johnny, lad, you 
 are a witness. He says he has not robbed me." 
 
 " I did not know it was yours," said the man meekly. " Loose 
 me, boy ; I'll not attempt to run away." 
 
 "Halloa! here! what's to do?" roared a big fellow, swinging 
 himself over the gate. " Any tramp been trespassing? — anybody 
 wanting to be took up ? I'm the parish constable." 
 
 If he had said he was the parish engine, ready to let loose buckets 
 of water on the offender, he could not have been more welcome. 
 The Squire's face was rosy with satisfaction. 
 
 " Have you your handcuffs with you, my man ? " 
 "I've not got them, sir; but I fancy I'm big enough and 
 strong enough to take ///;;/ without 'em. Something to spare, 
 too." 
 
 " There's nothing like handcuffs for safety," said the Squire, 
 rather damped, for he believed in them as one of the country's 
 institutions. " Oh, you villain ! Perhaps you can tie him with 
 cords ? " 
 
 The thief floundered out of the ditch and stood upon his feet. 
 He did not look an ungentlemanly thief, now you came to see 
 and hear him ; and his face, though scared, might have been 
 thought an honest one. He picked up his hat and glasses, 
 and held them in his hand while he spoke, in tones of earnest 
 remonstrance. 
 
 " Surely, sir, you would not have me taken up for this slight 
 offence! I did not know I was doing wrong, and I doubt if the 
 law would condemn me ; I thought it was public property ! " 
 
 " Public property ! " cried the Squire, turning red at the 
 words. " Of all the impudent brazen-faced rascals that are cheat- 
 ing the gallows, you must be the worst. My bank-notes public 
 property ! " 
 
 " Your what, sir ? "
 
 Be:^^- ■^-^'^*--^ 
 
 AIDING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 129 
 
 " My bank-notes, you villain. How dare you repeat your inso- 
 lent questions ? " 
 
 " But I don't know anything about your bank-notes, sir," said the 
 man meekly. " I do not know what you mean." 
 
 They stood facing each other, a sight for a picture; the Squire 
 with his hands under his coat, dancing a little in rage, his face 
 crimson ; the other quite still, holding his hat and gold spectacles, 
 and looking at him in wonder. 
 
 " You don't know what I mean ! When you confessed with your 
 last breath that you had robbed me of my pocket-book ! " 
 
 " I confessed — I have not sought to conceal — that I have robbed 
 the ground of this rare fern," said the man, handling carefully the 
 green stuff in the black bag. " I have not robbed you or any one 
 of anything else." 
 
 The tone, simple, quiet, self-contained, threw the Squire in amaze- 
 ment. He stood staring. 
 
 " Are you a fool ? " he asked. '• What do you suppose I have to 
 do with your rubbishing ferns ? " 
 
 " Nay, I supposed you owned them ; that is, owned the land. 
 You led me to believe so, in saying 1 had robbed you." 
 
 " What I've lost is a pocket-book, with ten five-pound bank-notes 
 in it ; I lost it in the train ; it must have been taken as we came 
 through the tunnel ; and you sat next but one to me," reiterated 
 the Squire. 
 
 The man put on his hat and glasses. " I am a geologist and 
 botanist, sir. I came here after this plant to-day — having seen it 
 yesterday, but then I had not my tools with me. I don't know 
 anything about the pocket-book and bank-notes." 
 
 So that was another mistake, for the botanist turned out of his 
 pockets a heap of letters directed to him, and a big book he had 
 been reading in the train, a treatise on botany, to prove who he 
 was. And, as if to leave no loophole for doubt, one stepped up who 
 knew him, and assured the Squire there was not a more learned 
 man in his line, no, nor one more respected, in the three kingdoms. 
 The Squire shook him by the hand in apologizing, and told him we 
 had some valuable ferns near Dyke Manor, if he would come and 
 see them. 
 
 Like Patience on a monument, when we got back, sat the lady, 
 waiting to see the prisoner brought in. Her face would have 
 made a picture too, when she heard the upshot, and saw the hot 
 Squire and the gold spectacles walking side by side in friendly 
 talk. 
 
 " I think still he must have got it," she said, sharply. 
 
 " No, madam, answered the Squire. " Whoever may ha\"e taken 
 it, it was not he." 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. y
 
 I30 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Then there's only one man, and that is he whom you have let go 
 on in the train," she returned decisively. " I thought his fidgety 
 movements were not put on for nothing. He had secured the 
 pocket-book somewhere, and then made a show of offering to be 
 searched. Ah, ha ! " 
 
 And the Squire veered round again at this suggestion, and began 
 to suspect he had been doubly cheated. First, out of his money, 
 next out of his suspicions. One only thing in the whole bother 
 seemed clear ; and that was, that the notes and case had gone for 
 good. As, in point of fact, they had. 
 
 We were on the chain-pier at Brighton, Tod and L It was about 
 eight or nine months after. I had put my aims on the rails at the 
 end, looking at a pleasure-party sailing by. Tod, next to me, was 
 bewaihng his ill-fortune in not possessing a yacht and opportunities 
 of cruising in it. 
 
 " 1 tell you No. I don't want to be made sea-sick." 
 
 The words came from some one behind us. It seemed almost as 
 though they were spoken in reference to Tod's wish for a yacht. 
 But it was not that that made me turn round sharply ; it was the 
 sound of the voice, for 1 thought I recognized it. 
 
 Yes : there she was. The lady who had been with us in the 
 carriage that day. The dog was not with her now, but her hair 
 was more amazing than ever. She did not see me. As T turned, 
 she turned, and began to walk slowly back, arm-in-arm with a 
 gentleman. And to see him — that is, to see them together — made 
 me open my eyes. For it was the lord who had travelled with us. 
 
 " Look, Tod ! " I said, and told him in a word who they were. 
 
 " What the deuce do they know of each other ? " cried Tod with 
 a frown, for he felt angry every time the thing was referred to. 
 Not for the loss of the money, but for what he called the stupidity 
 of us all; saying always had he been there, he should have detected 
 the thief at once. 
 
 I sauntered after them : why I wanted to learn which of the 
 lords he was, I can't tell, for lords are numerous enough, but I 
 had had a curiosity upon the point ever since. They encountered 
 some people and were standing to speak to them ; three ladies, 
 and a fellow in a black glazed hat with a piece of green ribbon 
 round it. 
 
 " I was trying to induce my wife to take a sail," the lord was 
 saying, " but she won't. She is not a very good sailor, unless the 
 sea has its best behaviour on." 
 
 " Will you go to-morrow, Mrs. Mowbray ? " asked the man in the 
 glazed hat, who spoke and looked like a gentleman. " I will
 
 GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL. 131 
 
 promise you perfect calmness. I am weather-wise, and can assure 
 you this httle wind will have gone down before night, leaving us 
 without a breath of air." 
 
 " I will go : on condition that your assurance proves correct." 
 
 '■ All right. You of course will come, Mowbray .'' " 
 
 The lord nodded. " Very happy." 
 
 " When do you leave Brighton, Mr. Mowbray ? " asked one of the 
 ladies. 
 
 " I don't know exactly. Not for some days." 
 
 "A muff as usual, Johnny," whispered Tod. "That man is no 
 lord ; he is a Mr. Mowbray." 
 
 " But, Tod, he zs the lord. It is the one who travelled with us ; 
 there's no mistake about that. Lords can't put off their titles as 
 parsons can : do you suppose his servant would have called him 
 ' my lord,' if he had not been one ? " 
 
 " At least there is no mistake that these people are calling him 
 Mr. Mowbray now." 
 
 That was true. It was equally true that they were calling her 
 Mrs. Mowbray. My ears had been as quick as Tod's, and I don't 
 deny I was puzzled. They turned to come up the pier again with 
 the people, and the lady saw me standing there with Tod. Saw me 
 looking at her, too, and I think she did not relish it, for she took a 
 step backward as one startled, and then stared me full in the face, 
 as if asking who I might be. I lifted my hat. 
 
 There was no response. In another moment she and her husband 
 were walking quickly down the pier together, and the other party 
 went on to the end quietly. A man in a tweed suit and brown hat 
 drawn low over his eyes, was standing with his arms folded, looking 
 after the two with a queer smile upon his face. Tod marked it and 
 spoke. 
 
 " Do you happen to know that gentleman ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," was the answer. 
 
 " Is he a peer?" 
 
 " On occasion." 
 
 " On occasion ! " repeated Tod. " I have a reason for asking,'" he 
 added ; " do not think me impertinent." 
 
 " Been swindled out of anything ? " asked the man, coolly. 
 
 "My father was, some months ago. He lost a pocket-book with 
 fifty pounds in it in a railway carriage. Those people were both in 
 it, but not then acquainted with each other." 
 
 " Oh, weren't they ! " said the man. 
 
 " No, they were not," I put in, " for I was there. He was a lord 
 then." 
 
 " Ah," said the man, '' and had a servant in livery no doubt, 
 who came up my-lording him unnecessarily every other minute.
 
 133 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 He is a member of the swell-mob ; one of the cleverest of the 
 gentleman fraternity, and the one who acts as servant is another of 
 them." 
 
 " And the lady ? " I asked. 
 
 " She is a third. They have been working in concert for two or 
 three years now ; and will give us trouble yet before their career is 
 stopped. But for being singularly clever, we should have had them 
 long ago. And so they did not know each other in the train ! I 
 dare say not ! " 
 
 The man spoke with quiet authority. He was a detective come 
 down from London to Brighton that morning ; whether for a private 
 trip, or on business, he did not say. I related to him what had 
 passed in the train. 
 
 "Ay," said he, after listening. "They contrived to put the lamp 
 out before starting. The lady took the pocket-book during the 
 commotion she caused the dog to make, and the lord received it 
 from her hand when he gave her back the dog. Cleverly done I 
 He had it about him, young sir, when he got out at the next 
 station. SJie waited to be searched, and to throw the scent off. 
 Very ingenious . but they'll be a litttle too much so some fine day." 
 
 " Can't you take them up ? " demanded Tod. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I will accuse them of it," he haughtily said. " If I meet them 
 again on this pier " 
 
 " Which you won't do to-day," interrupted the man. 
 
 " I heard them say they were not going for some days." 
 
 "Ah, but they have seen you now. And I think — I'm not quite 
 sure — that he saw me. They'll be off by the next train." 
 
 "Who are titey?" asked Tod, pointing to the end of the pier. 
 
 " Unsuspecting people whose acquaintance they have casually 
 made here. Yes, an hour or two will see Brighton quit of the 
 pair." 
 
 And it was so. A train was starting within an hour, and Tod 
 and I galloped to the station. There they were : in a first-class 
 carriage : not apparently knowing each other, I verily believe, 
 for he sat at one door and she at the other, passengers dividing 
 them. 
 
 " Lambs between two wolves," remarked Tod. " I have a great 
 mind to warn the people of the sort of company they are in. Would 
 it be actionable, Johnny ? " 
 
 The train moved off as he was speaking. And may I never write 
 another word, if I did not catch sight of the man-servant and his 
 cockade in the next carriage behind them I
 
 \ 
 
 IX. 
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 
 
 I DID not relate this story by my own wish. To my mind there's 
 nothing very much in it to relate. At the time it was written the 
 newspapers were squabbling about farmers' boys and field labour 
 and political economy. "And," said a gentleman to me, "as 
 you were at the top and tail of the thing when it happened, and 
 are well up in the subject generally, Johnny Ludlow, you may as 
 well make a paper of it." That was no other than the surgeon. 
 Duffham. 
 
 About two miles from Dyke Manor across the fields, but in the 
 opposite direction to that of the Court where the Sterlings lived, 
 i;im Farm was situated. Mr. Jacobson hved in it, as his father 
 had lived before him. The property was not their own; they 
 rented it : it was fine land, and Jacobson had the reputation of 
 being the best farmer for miles round. Being a wealthy man, he 
 had no need to spare money on house or land, and did not spare 
 It. He and the Squire were about the same age, and had been 
 cronies all their lives. 
 
 Not to go into extraneous matter, I may as well say at once that 
 one of the labourers on Jacobson's farm was a man named John 
 iSIitchel. He lived in a cottage not far from us — a poor place 
 consisting of two rooms and a wash-house ; they call it back'us 
 there — and had to walk nearly two miles to his work of a morning. 
 Mitchel was a steady man of thirty-five, with a round head and 
 not any great amount of brains inside it. Not but what he had as 
 much brains as many labourers have, and quite enough for the 
 sort of work his life was passed in. There were six children ; the 
 eldest, Dick, ten years old; and most of them had straw-coloured 
 hair, the pattern of their father's. 
 
 Just before the turn of harvest one hot summer, John Mitchel 
 presented himself at Mr. Jacobson's house in a clean smock frock, 
 and asked a favour. It was, that his boy, Dick, should be taken 
 on as ploughboy. Old Jacobson objected, saying the boy was too 
 young and little. Little he might be, Mitchel answered, but not
 
 134 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 too young — warn't he ten ? The lad had been about the farm for 
 some time as scarecrow : that is, employed to keep the birds away : 
 and had a shilling a week for it. Old Jacobson stood to what he 
 said, however, and little Dick did not get his promotion. 
 
 But old Jacobson got no peace. Every opportunity Mitchel could 
 get, or dare to use, he began again, praying that Dick might be 
 tried. The boy was " cute," he said ; strong enough also, though 
 little; and if the master liked to pay him only fourpence a day, 
 they'd be grateful for it ; 'twould be a help, and was wanted badly. 
 All of no use : old Jacobson still said No. 
 
 One afternoon during this time, we started to goto the Jacobsons' 
 after a one-o'clock dinner, — I and Mrs. Todhetley. She was fond 
 of going over to an early tea there, but not by herself, for part of 
 the way across the fields was lonely. Considering that she had 
 been used to the country, she was a regular coward as to lonely 
 walks, expecting to see tramps or robbers at every corner. In pass- 
 ing the row of cottages in Duck Lane, for we took that road, we 
 saw Hannah Mitchel leaning over the footboard of her door to look 
 after her children, who were playing near the pond in the sunshine 
 with a lot more ; quite a heap of the little reptiles, all badly clad 
 and as dirty as pigs. Other labourers' dwellings stood within hail, 
 and the children seemed to spring up in the place thicker than 
 wheat ; Mrs. Mitchel's was quite a small family, reckoning by com- 
 parison, but how the six were clothed and fed was a mystery, out of 
 Mitchel's wages of ten shillings a week. It was thought good pay. 
 Old Jacobson was liberal, as farmers go. He paid the best wages ; 
 gave all his labourers a stunning big portion of home-fed pork at 
 Christmas, with fuel to cook it : and his wife was good to the women 
 when they fell sick. 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley stopped to speak. '•' Is it you, Hannah Mitchel? 
 Are you pretty well .'' " 
 
 Hannah Mitchel stood upright and dropped a curtsey. She had 
 a bundle in her arms, which proved to be the baby, then not much 
 above a fortnight old. 
 
 " Dear me ! it's very early for it to be about," said Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley, touching its little red cheeks. " And for you too." 
 
 " It is, ma'am ; but what's to be done?" was the answer. "When 
 there's only one pair of hands for everything, one can't afford to lie 
 by long." 
 
 " You seem but poorly," said Mrs. Todhetley, looking at her. 
 She was a thin, dark-haired woman, with a sensible face. Before 
 she married Mitchel, she had lived as under-nurse in a gentleman's 
 family, where she picked up some idea of good manners. 
 
 " I be feeling a bit stronger, thank you," said the woman. 
 " Strength don't come back to one in a day, ma'am."
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 135 
 
 The Mitchel children were sidHng up, attracted by the sight of the 
 lady. Four young grubs in tattered garments. 
 
 " I can't keep 'em decent," said the mother, with a sigh of 
 apology. " I've not got no soap nor no clothes to do it with. They 
 come on so fast, and make such a many, one after another, that it's 
 getting a hard pull to live anyhow." 
 
 Looking at the children ; remembering that, with the father and 
 mother, there were eight mouths to feed, and that the man's 
 wages were the ten shilhngs a week all the year round (but there 
 were seasons when he did over-work and earned more), Mrs. 
 Todhetley might well give her assenting answer with an emphatic 
 nod. 
 
 " We was hoping to get on a bit better, resumed the wife; " but 
 Mitchel he says the master don't seem to like to listen. A'most a 
 three weeks it be now since Mitchel first asked it him." 
 
 "In what way better ? " 
 
 " By putting little Dick to the plough, ma'am. He gets a shilling 
 a week now, he'd got two then, perhaps three, and 'twould be such 
 a help to us. Some o' the farmers gives fourpence halfpenny a day 
 to a ploughboy, some as much as sixpence. The master he bain't 
 one of the near ones ; but Dick be little of his age, he don't grow 
 fast, and Mitchel telled the master he'd take fourpence a day and 
 be thankful for't." 
 
 Thoughts were crowding into Mrs. Todhetley's mind — as she 
 mentioned afterwards. A child of ten ought to be learning and 
 playing ; not working from twelve to fourteen hours a day. 
 
 " It would be a hard life for him." 
 
 '■ True, ma'am, at first ; but he'd get used to it. I could have 
 wished the summer was coming on instead o the winter — 'twould 
 be easier for him to begin upon. Winter mornings be so dark and 
 cold." 
 
 " Why not let him wait until the next winter's over ?" 
 
 The very suggestion brought tears into Hannah Mitchel's eyes. 
 " You'd never say it, ma'am, if you knew how bad his wages is 
 wanted and the help they'd be. The older children grows, the more 
 they wants to eat ; and we've got six of 'em now. What would you, 
 ma'am ? — they don't bring food into the world with 'em ; they must 
 help to earn it for themselves as quick as anybody can be got to 
 hire 'em. Sometimes I wonder why God should send such large 
 families to us poor people." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley was turning to go on her way, whjen the woman 
 in a timid voice said ; " Might she make bold to ask, if she or Squire 
 Todhetley would say a good word to Mr. Jacobson about the boy : 
 that it would be just a merciful kindness." 
 
 " We should not like to interfere," replied Mrs. Todhetley. " In
 
 136 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 any case I could not do it with a good heart : I think it would be so 
 hard upon the poor little boy." 
 
 " Starving's harder, ma'am." 
 
 The tears came running down her cheeks with the answer ; and 
 they won over Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 Crossing the high, crooked, awkward stile — over which, in coming 
 the other way, if people were not careful they generally pitched 
 head first uito Duck Lane — we found ourselves in what was called 
 the square paddock, a huge piece of land, ploughed last year. 
 The wheat had been carried from it only this afternoon, and the 
 gleaners in their cotton bonnets were coming in. On, from thence, 
 across other fields and stiles ; we went a little out of our way to 
 call at Glebe Cottage — a small white house that lay back amidst 
 the fields — and inquire after old Mrs. Parry, who had just had a 
 stroke. 
 
 Who should be at Elm Farm, when we got in, but the surgeon, 
 Duffham : come on there from paymg his daily visit to Mrs. Parr)'. 
 He and old Jacobson were in the green-house, looking at the grapes : 
 a famous crop they had that year ; not ripe yet. Mrs. Jacobson sat 
 at the open wmdow of the long parlour, making a new jelly-bag. 
 She was a pleasant-faced old lady, with small flat silver curls and 
 a net cap. 
 
 Of course they got talkmg about little Dick Mitchel. Duffham 
 knew the boy ; seeing that when a doctor was wanted at the Mitchels', 
 It was he who attended. Mrs. Todhetley told exactly what had 
 passed : and old Jacobson — a tall, portly man, with a healthy colour 
 — grew nearly purple in the face, disputing. 
 
 Dick Mitchel would be of as good as no use for the team, he said, 
 and the carters put shamefully upon those young ones. In another 
 year the boy would be stronger and bigger. Perhaps he would take 
 him then. 
 
 " For my part, I cannot think how the mothers can Hke their poor 
 boys to go out so young," cried the old lady, looking up from her 
 flannel bag. " A ploughboy's life is very hard in winter." 
 
 " Hannah Mitchel says it has to be one of two things — early 
 work or starving," said Mrs. Todhetley. '• And that's pretty true." 
 
 " Labourers' boys are born to it, ma'am, and so it comes easy to 
 'em : as skinning does to eels," cried Duffham quaintly. 
 
 " Poor things, yes. But it is very hard upon the children. The 
 worst is, all the labourers seem to have no end of them. Hannah 
 Mitchel has just said she sometimes wonders why God should send 
 so many to poor people." 
 
 This was an unfortunate remark. To hear the two gentlemen 
 laugh, you'd have thought they were at a Christmas pantomime. 
 Old Jacobson brought himself up in a kind of passion.
 
 DICK MITCHEL J37 
 
 What business, in the name of all that was imprudent, had these 
 poor people to have their troops of children, he asked. They knew 
 quite well they could not feed them ; that the young ones would be 
 three-parts starved in their earlier years, and in their later ones 
 come to the parish and be a burden on the community. Look at this 
 same man, IMitchel. His grandfather, a poor miserable labourer, had 
 a troop of children; Mitchel's father had a troop, twelve; he, 
 Mitchel, had six, and seemed to be going on fair for six more. 
 There was no reason in it. Why couldn't they be content with a 
 moderate number, three or four, that might have a chance of 
 finding room in the world 1 It was not much less than a crime for 
 thes;; men, next door to paupers themselves, to launch their tens 
 and their dozens of boys and girls into life, and then turn round 
 and say, Why does God send them ? Nice kind of logic, that 
 was ! 
 
 And so he kept on, for a good half-hour, Duffham helping him. 
 He brought up the French peasantry : saying our folks ought to 
 take a lesson from them. You don't see whole flocks of children 
 over there, cried Duffham. One, or two, or at most three, would be 
 found to comprise the number of a family. And why 1 Because the 
 French were a prudent race. They knew there was no provision for 
 superfluous children ; no house-room at home, or food, or clothing ; 
 and no parish pay to fall back upon : they knew that however many 
 children they had they must provide for them : they didn't set up, 
 of themselves, a regiment of little famishing mouths, and then 
 charge it on Heaven ; they were not so reckless and wicked. Yes, 
 he must repeat it, wicked; and the two ladies listening would 
 endorse the word if they knew half the deprivation and the suffer- 
 ings these poor small mortals were born to ; he saw enough of it, 
 having to be often amongst them. 
 
 " Why don't you tell the parents this, doctor ? " 
 
 Tell them ! returned Duffham. He had told them ; told them till 
 his tongue was tired of talking. 
 
 Any way, the little things were grievously to be pitied, was what 
 the two ladies answered. 
 
 " I have often wished it was not a sin to drown the superfluous 
 little mites as we do kittens," wound up Duff. 
 
 One of the ladies dropped the jelly-bag, the other shrieked out. 
 Oh! 
 
 " For their sakes," he added. " It's true, upon my word of 
 honour. Of all wrongs the world sees, never was there a worse 
 wrong than the one inflicted on these inoffensive children by the 
 parents, in bringing them into it. God help the little wretches ! 
 man can't do much." 
 
 And so they talked on. The upshot was, that old Jacobson
 
 138 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 stood to his word, and declined to make Dick Mitchel a ploughboy 
 yet awhile. 
 
 We had tea at four o'clock — at which fashionable people may 
 laugh ; considering that it was real tea, not the sham one lately come 
 into custom. Mrs. Todhetley wanted to get home by daylight, and 
 the summer evenings were shortening. Never was brown bread- 
 and-butter so sweet as the Jacobsons' : we used to say it every time 
 we went ; and the home-baked rusks were better than Shrewsbury 
 cake. They made Mrs. Todhetley put two or three in her bag for 
 Hugh and Lena. 
 
 Old Duff went with us across the first field, turning off there to 
 take the short-cut to his home. It was a warm, still, lovely evening, 
 the moon rising. The gleaners were busy in the square paddock : 
 Mrs. Todhetley spoke to some as we passed. At the other end, near 
 the crooked stile, two urchins stood fighting, the bigger one trying 
 to take a small armful of wheat from the other. I went to the 
 rescue, and the marauder made off as fast as his small bare feet 
 would carry him. 
 
 " He haven't gleaned, hisself, and wants to take mine," said the 
 little one, casting up his big grey eyes to us appealingly through the 
 tears. He was a delicate-looking pale-faced boy of nine, or so, with 
 light hair. 
 
 " Very naughty of him," said Mrs. Todhetley. " What's your 
 name ? " 
 
 " It's Dick, lady." 
 
 "Dick— what.?" 
 
 " Dick Mitchel." 
 
 "Dear me — I thought I had seen the face before," said Mrs. 
 Todhetley to me. " But there are so many boys about here, 
 Johnny; and they all look pretty much alike. How old are you, 
 Dick.?" 
 
 " I'm over ten," answered Dick, with an emphasis on the over. 
 Children catch up ideas, and no doubt he was as eager as the parents 
 could be to impress on the world his fitness to be a ploughboy. 
 
 " How is it that you have been gleaning, Dick? " 
 
 " Mother couldn't, 'cause o' the babby. They give me leave to 
 come on since four o'clock : and I've got all this." 
 
 Dick looked at the stile and then at his bundle of wheat, so I took 
 it while he got over. As we went on down the lane, Mrs. Todhetley 
 inquired whether he wanted to be a ploughboy. Oh yes ! he 
 answered, his face lighting up, as if the situation offered some 
 glorious prospect. It 'ud be two shilling a week ; happen more ; 
 and mother said as he and Totty and Sam and the t'others 'ud get 
 treacle to their bread on Sundays then. Apparently Mrs. Mitchel 
 knew how to diplomatize.
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 139 
 
 " I'll give him one of the rusks, I think, Johnny," whispered Mrs. 
 Todhetley. 
 
 But while she was taking it from the bag, he ran in with his 
 wheat. She called to him to come back, and gave him one. His 
 mother had taken the wheat from him, and looked out at the door 
 with it in her hands. Seeing her, Mrs. Todhetley went up, and 
 said Mr. Jacobson would not at present do anything. The next 
 minute Mitchel appeared pulling at his straw hair. 
 
 " It is hard lines," he said, humbly, " when the lad's of a' age to 
 be earning, and the master can't be got to take him on. And me 
 to ha' worked on the same farm, man and boy ; and father afore 
 me." 
 
 '• I\Ir. Jacobson thinks the boy would not be strong enough for 
 the work." 
 
 " Not strong enough, and him rising eleven ! " exclaimed Mitchel, 
 as if the words were some dreadful aspersion on Dick. " How can 
 he be strong if he gets no work to make him strong, ma'am ? 
 Strength comes with the working — and nobody don't oughtn't to 
 know that better nor the master. Anyhow, if he donH take him, 
 it'll be cruel hard lines for us." 
 
 Dick was outside, dividing the rusk with a small girl and boy, 
 all three seated in the lane, and looking as happy over the rusk as 
 if they had been children in a fairy tale. " It's Totty," said he, 
 pausing in the work of division to speak, " and that 'un's Sam." 
 Mrs. Todhetley could not resist the temptation of finding two more 
 rusks, which made one apiece. 
 
 " He is a good-natured little fellow, Johnny," she remarked, as 
 we went along. " Intelligent, too : in that he takes after his 
 mother." 
 
 " Would it be wrong to let him go on the farm as ploughboy .^ " 
 
 "Johnny, I don't know. I'd rather not give an opinion," she 
 added, looking right before her into the moon, as if seeking for one 
 there. " Of course he is not old enough or big enough, practically 
 speaking; but on the other hand, where there are so many mouths 
 to feed, it seems hard not to let him earn money if he can earn it. 
 The root of the evil lies in there being so many mouths — as was 
 said at Mr. Jacobson's this afternoon." 
 
 It was winter before I heard anything more of the matter. Tod 
 and I got home for Christmas. One day in January, when the 
 skies were lowering, and the air was cold and raw, but not frosty, 
 I was crossing a field on old Jacobson's land then being ploughed. 
 The three brown horses at the work were as fine as vou'd wish 
 to see.
 
 140 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " You'll catch it smart on that there skull o' yourn, if ye doan't 
 keep their yeads straight, ye young divil." 
 
 The salutation was from the man at the tail of the plough to 
 the boy at the head of the first horse. Looking round, I saw little 
 Mitchel. The horses stopped, and I went up to him. Hall, the 
 ploughman, took the opportunity to beat his arms. I dare say they 
 were cold enough. 
 
 " So your ambition is attained, is it, Dick ? Are you satisfied ? " 
 
 Dick seemed not to understand. He was taller, but the face 
 looked pinched, and there was never a smile on it. 
 
 " Do you like being a ploughboy ? " 
 
 " It's hard and cold. H,ard always ; frightful cold of a morning." 
 
 " How's Totty?" 
 
 The face lighted up just a little. Totty weren't any better, but 
 she didn't die; Jimmy did. Which was Jimmy? — Oh, Jimmy was 
 after Nanny, next to the babby. 
 
 " What did Jimmy die of? " 
 
 Whooping cough. They'd all been bad but him— Dick. Mother 
 said he'd had it when he was no older nor the babby. 
 
 Whether the whooping-cough had caused an undue absorption of 
 Mitchel's means, certain it was, Dick looked famished. His cheeks 
 were thin, his hands blue. 
 
 " Have you been ill, Dick ? " 
 
 No, he had not been ill. 'Twas Jimmy and the t'others. 
 
 " He's the incapablest little villain I ever had put me to do with," 
 struck in the ploughman. " More lazy nor a fattened pig." 
 
 " Are you lazy, Dick ? " 
 
 I think an eager disclaimer was coming out, but the boy 
 remembered in time who was present — his master, the ploughman. 
 
 " Not lazy wilful," he said, bursting into tears. " I does my best : 
 mother tells me to." 
 
 "Take that, you young sniveller," said Hall, dealing him a good 
 sound slap on the left cheek. " And now go on : ye know ye've got 
 this lot to go through to-day." 
 
 He took hold of the plough, and Dick stretched up his poor 
 trembling hands to the first horse to guide him. I am sure the 
 boy was trying to do his best ; but he looked weak and famished 
 and ill. 
 
 "Why did you strike him, Hall? He did nothing to deserve 
 it." 
 
 " He don't deserve nothing else," was Hall's answer. " Let him 
 alone, and the furrows 'ud be as crooked as a dog's leg. You dun' 
 know 'vvhat these young 'uns be for work, sir. — Keep 'em in the line, 
 you fool ! " 
 
 Looking back as I went down the field, I watched the plough
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 141 
 
 going slowly up it, Dick seeming to have his hands full with the 
 well-fed horses. 
 
 " Yes, I heard the lad was taken on, Johnny," Mrs. Todhetlcy 
 said when I told her that evening. " Mitchel prevailed with his 
 master at last. Mr. Jacobson is good-hearted, and knew the 
 Mitchels were in sore need of the extra money the boy would 
 earn. Sickness makes a difference to the poor as well as to the 
 rich." 
 
 I saw Dick Mitchel three or four times during that January, 
 The Jacobsons had two nephews staying with them from Oxford- 
 shire, and it caused us to go over often. The boy seemed a weak 
 little mite for the place ; but of course, having undertaken the work, 
 he had to do it. He was no worse off than others. To be at the 
 farni before six o'clock, he had to leave home at half- past live, taking 
 his breakfast with him, which was chiefly dry bread. As to the boy's 
 work, it varied^as those acquainted with the executive of a busy 
 farm can tell you. Besides the ploughing, he had to pump, and 
 carry water and straw, and help with the horses, and go errands to 
 the blacksmith's and elsewhere, and so on. Carters and ploughmen 
 do not spare their bo)'s ; and on a large farm like this they are the 
 immediate rulers, not the master himself. Had Dick been under 
 Mr. Jacobson's personal eye, perhaps it might have been lightened 
 a little, for he was a humane man. There were three things that 
 made it seem particularly hard for Dick Mitchel, and those three 
 Avere under no one's control ; his natural weakliness, his living so 
 far from the farm, and its being winter weather. In summer the 
 work is nothing like as hard for the boys ; and it was a great pity 
 that Dick had not first entered on his duties in that season to get 
 inured to them before the winter. Mr. Jacobson gave him the best 
 wages — three shillings a week. Looking at the addition it must 
 have seemed to Mitchel's ten, it was httle wonder he had not ceased 
 to petition old Jacobson. 
 
 The Jacobsons were kind to the boy — as I can affirm. One 
 cold day when 1 was over there with the nephews, shooting birds, 
 we went into the best kitchen at twelve o'clock for some pea-soup. 
 They were going to carry the basins into the parlour, but we said 
 we'd rather eat it there by the big blazing fire. Mrs.* Jacobson 
 came in. I can see her now, with a soft white woollen kerchief 
 thrown over her shoulders to keep out the cold, and her net cap 
 above her silver curls. We were getting our second basinfuls. 
 
 " Do have some, aunt," said Fred. " It's the best you ever 
 tasted." 
 
 '• No, thank you, Fred. I don't care to spoil my dinner." 
 
 "It won't spoil ours." 
 
 She laughed a little, and stood looking from the window into
 
 142 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 the fold-yard, saying presently that she feared the frost was going 
 to set in now in earnest, which would not be pleasant for their 
 journey.— For this was the last day of the nephews' stay, and she 
 was going home with them for a week. There had been no very 
 severe cold all the winter; which was a shame because of the 
 skating ; if the ponds had a thin coating of ice on them one day, it 
 would all melt the next. 
 
 " Bless me ! there's that poor child sitting out in the cold ! What 
 is he eating ? — his dinner ? " 
 
 Her words made us look from the window. Dick Mitchel had 
 put himself down by the distant pig-sty, and seemed to be eating 
 something that he held in his hands. He was very white— as might 
 be seen even from where we stood. 
 
 " Mary," said she to one of the servants, " go and call that boy 
 
 in." 
 
 Little Mitchel came in; pinched and blue. His clothes were 
 thin, not half warm enough for the weather ; an old red woollen 
 comforter was twisted round his neck. He took off his battered 
 drab hat, and put his bread into it. 
 
 " Is that your dinner?" asked Mrs. Jacobson. 
 
 " Yes 'm," said Dick, pulling the forelock of his light hair. 
 
 " But why did you not go home to-day ? " 
 
 " Mother said there was nothing but bread for dinner to-day, and 
 she give it me to bring away with my breakfast." 
 
 " Well, why did you sit out in the cold ? You might have gone 
 indoors somewhere to eat it." 
 
 " I were tired, 'm," was all Dick answered. 
 
 To look at him, one would say the " tired " state was chronic. 
 He was shivering slightly with the cold ; his teeth chattered. Mrs. 
 Jacobson took his hand, and put him to sit on a low wooden stool 
 close to the fire, and gave him a basin of pea-soup. 
 
 " Let him have more if he can eat it," she said to Mary when she 
 went away. So the boy for once was well warmed and fed. 
 
 Now, it may be thought that Mrs. Jacobson, being a kind old 
 lady, might have told him to come in for some soup every cold day. 
 And perhaps her will was good to do it. But it would never have 
 answered. There were boys on the farm besides Dick, and no 
 favour could be shown to one more than to another. No, nor to 
 the boys more than to the men. Nor to the men on this farm more 
 than to the men on that. Old Jacobson would have had his brother 
 farmers pulling his ears. Those of you who are acquainted with 
 the subject will know all this. 
 
 And there's another thing I had better say. In telling of Dick 
 Mitchel, it will naturally sound like an exceptional or isolated case, 
 because those who read have their attention directed to this one
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 143 
 
 and not to others. But, in actual fact, Dick's was only one of a 
 great many; the Jacobsons had employed ploughboys and other 
 boys always; lots of them; some strong and some weak, just as the 
 boys might happen to be. For a young boy to be out with the 
 plough in the cold winter weather, seems nothing to a farmer and a 
 farmer's men ; it lies in the common course of events. He has to 
 get through as he best can; he must work to eat; and as a com- 
 pensating balance there comes the warmth and the easy work of 
 summer. Dick Mitchel was only one of the race ; the carter and 
 ploughman, his masters, had begun life exactly as he had, had gone 
 through the same ordeal, the hardships of a long winter's day and 
 the frost and snow. Dick ISIitchel was as capable of his duties as 
 many another had been. Dick's father had been little and weakly 
 in his boyhood, but he got over that and grew as strong as the rest 
 of them. Dick might have got over it, too, but for some extra- 
 ordinary weather that set in. 
 
 jMrs. Jacobson had been in Oxfordshire a week when old Jacob- 
 son started to fetch her home, intending to stay there two or three 
 days. The weather since she left had been going on in the same 
 stupid way ; a thin coating of snow to be seen one day, the green 
 of the fields the next. But on the morning after old Jacobson 
 started, the frost set in with a vengeance, and we got our skates out. 
 Another day came in, and the Squire declared he had never felt 
 anything to equal the cold. We had not had it as sharp for years : 
 and then, you see, he was too fat to skate. The best skating was 
 on a pond on old Jacobson's land, which they called the lake from 
 its size. 
 
 It was on this second day that I came across Dick Mitchel. 
 Hastening home from the lake after dark — for we had skated till 
 we couldn't see and then kept on by moonlight — the skates in my 
 hand and all aglow with heat, who should be sitting by the bank 
 on this side the crooked stile instead of getting over it, but little 
 Mitchel. But for the moon shining right on his face, I might have 
 passed without seeing him. 
 
 " You are taking it airily, young Dick. Got the gout ? " 
 
 Dick just lifted his head and stared a little; but didn't speak. 
 
 " Come ! Why don't you go home ? " 
 
 " I'm tired," murmured Dick. " I'm cold." 
 
 " Get up. I'll help you over the stile." 
 
 He did as he was bid at once. We had got well on down the 
 lane, and I had my hand on his shoulder to steady him, for his legs 
 seemed to slip about like Punch's in the show, when he turned 
 suddenly back again. 
 
 " The harness." 
 
 " The what ; '• I said.
 
 144 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Something seemed the matter with the boy : it was just as if he 
 had partly lost the power of speech, or had been struck stupid. I 
 made out at last that he had left some harness on the ground, which 
 he was ordered to take to the blacksmith's. 
 
 " I'll get over for it, Dick. You stop where you are." 
 
 It was lying where he had been sitting; a short strap with a 
 broken buckle. Dick took it and we went on again. 
 
 " Were you asleep, just now, Dick ? " 
 
 " No, sir. It were the moon." 
 
 " What was the moon ? " 
 
 " I were looking into it. Mother says God's all above there : I 
 thought happen I might see Him." 
 
 A long explanation for Dick to-night. The recovery of the strap 
 seemed to have brightened up his intellect. 
 
 " You'll never see Him in this world, Dick. He sees you 
 always." 
 
 "And that's what mother says. He sees I can't do more nor my 
 arms'U let me. I'd not like Him to think I can." 
 
 "All right, Dick. You only do your best always ; He won't fail 
 to see it." 
 
 I had hardly said the last words when down went Dick without 
 warning, face foremost. Picking him up, I took a look into his 
 eyes by the moonlight. 
 
 " What did you do that for, Dick ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Is it your legs ?" 
 
 " Yes, it's my legs. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it when 
 I fell under the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I 
 did." 
 
 After that I did not loose him ; or I'm sure he would have gone 
 down again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for passing it. 
 
 " Don't you know your own door, Dick Mitchel ? " 
 
 " It's the strap," he said. " I ha' got to take it to Cawson's." 
 
 "Oh, I'll step round with that. Let's see what there is to 
 do." 
 
 He seemed unwilling, saying he must take it back to Hall in the 
 morning. Very well, I said, so he could. We went in at his door ; 
 and at first I thought I must have got into a black fog. The room 
 was a narrow, poking place ; but I couldn't see across it. Two 
 children were coughing, one choking, one crying. Mrs. Mitchel's 
 face, ornamented with blacks, gradually loomed out to view through 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 " It be the chimbley, sir. I hope you'll please to excuse it. It 
 don't smoke as bad as this except when the weather's cold beyond 
 common."
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 145 
 
 " It's to be hoped it doesn't. I should call it rather miserable if 
 it did." 
 
 '• Yes, sir. Mitchel, he says he thinks the chimbley must have 
 frozed." 
 
 "Look here, Mrs. Mitchel, I've brought Dick home: I found 
 him sitting in the cold on the other side of the stile, and my belief 
 is, he thought he could not get over it. He is about as weak as a 
 young rat." 
 
 " It's the frost, sir," she said. " The boys all feel it that has to 
 be out and about. It'll soon be gone, Dick. This here biting cold 
 don't never last long." 
 
 Dick was standing against her, bending his face on her old stuff 
 gown. She put her arm about him kindly. 
 
 " No, it can't last long, Mrs. Mitchel. Could he not be kept in- 
 doors until it gives a bit — let him have a holiday 1 No ? Wouldn't 
 it do?" 
 
 .She opened her eyes wide at this. Such a thing as keeping 
 a ploughboy at home for a holiday, had never entered her 
 imagination. 
 
 " Why, Master Ludlow, sir, he'd lose his place!" 
 
 '• But, suppose he were ill, and had to stay at home ? " 
 
 '• Then the Lord help us, if it came to that ! Please, sir, his wages 
 might be stopped. I've heard of a master paying in illness, though 
 it's not many of 'em as would, but I've never knowed 'em pay for 
 holidays. The biting cold will go soon, Dick," she added, looking 
 at liim ; " don't be downhearted." 
 
 " I should give him a cup of hot tea, Mrs. Mitchel, and let him 
 go to bed. Good night ; I'm off." 
 
 I should have liked to say beer instead of tea ; it would have put 
 a bit of strength into the boy ; but I might just as well have suggested 
 wine, for all they had of either. Leaving the strap at the blacksmith's 
 — it was but a minute or two out of my road — I told him to send it 
 up to Mitchel's as soon as it was done. 
 
 '■' I dare say ! " was what I got in answer, 
 
 " Look here, Cawson : the lad's ill, and his father was not in the 
 way. If you don't choose to let your boy run up with that, or take 
 it yourself, you shall never have another job of work from the Squire 
 if I can prevent it." 
 
 " I'll send it, sir," said Cawson, coming to his senses. Not that 
 he had much from us: we chiefly patronized Dovey, down in 
 Piefinch Cut. 
 
 Now, all this happened : as Duffham and others could testify if 
 necessary; it is not put in to make up a story. But 1 never thought 
 worse of Dick than that he was done over for the moment with the 
 cold. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 10
 
 146 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Of all days in remembrance, the next was the worst. The cold 
 was more intense — though that had seemed impossible ; and a fierce 
 wind was blowing that cut you in two. It kept us from skating — 
 and that's saying a good deal. We got half-way to the lake, and 
 couldn't stand it, so turned home again. Jacobson's team was out, 
 braving the weather : we saw it at a distance. 
 
 " What a fool that waggoner must be to bring out the team to- 
 day ! " cried Tod. " He can't do any good on this hard ground. 
 He must be doing it for bravado. It is a sign his master's not at 
 home." 
 
 In the afternoon, when a good hot meal had put warmth into us. 
 we thought we'd be off again ; and this time gained the pond. The 
 wind was like a knife ; I never skated in anything like it before ; but 
 we kept on till dusk. 
 
 Going homewards, in passing Glebe Cottage, which lay away 
 on the left, we caught sight of three or four people standing 
 before it. 
 
 " What's to do there ? " asked Tod of a man, expecting to hear 
 that old Mrs. Parry had had a second stroke. 
 
 " Sum'at's wrong wi' Jacobson's ploughboy," was the answer. 
 " He has just been took in there." 
 
 " Jacobson's ploughboy ! Why, Tod, that must be Dick IMitchel." 
 
 "And what if it is!", returned Tod, starting off again. "The 
 youngster's half frozen, I dare say. Let us get home. Johnny. 
 What are you stopping for ? " 
 
 By saying " half frozen " he meant nothing. Not a thought of 
 real ill was in his mind. I went across to the house ; and met 
 Hall the ploughman coming out of it. 
 
 "Is Dick Mitchelill, Hall?" 
 
 " He ought to be, sir ; if he bain't shamming," returned Hall, 
 crustily. " He have fell down five times since noon, and the last 
 time wouldn't get up upon his feet again nohow. Being close 
 a-nigh the old lady's I carried of him in." 
 
 Hall went back to the house with me. I don't think he much 
 liked the boy's looks. Dick had been put to lie on the warm brick 
 floor before the kitchen fire, a blanket on his legs, and his head on 
 a cushion. Mrs. Parry was ill in bed upstairs. The servant looked 
 a stupid young country girl, seemingly born without wits. 
 
 " Have you given him anything?" I asked her. 
 
 " Please, sir, I've put the kettle on to bile." 
 
 " Is there any brandy in the house?" 
 
 '■'■Brandy!'''' the girl exclaimed with wonder. No. Her missis 
 never took anything stronger nor tea and water gruel. 
 
 " Hall," I said, looking at the man, " some one niust go for Mr. 
 Duffliam. And Dick's mother might as well be told "
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 147 
 
 Bill Leet, a strapping young fellow standing by, made off at this, 
 saying he'd bring them both. Hall went away to his team, and I 
 stooped over the boy. 
 " What is the matter, Dick ? Tell me how you feel. " 
 Except that Dick smiled a little, he made no answer. His eyes, 
 gazing up into mine, looked dim. The girl had taken away the 
 candle, but the fire was bright. As I took one of his hands to rub 
 it, his fingers clasped themselves round mine. Then he began to 
 say something, with a pause between each word. I had to bend 
 close to catch it. 
 
 " He — brought — that — there — strap."' 
 "All right, Dick."' 
 " Thank — ee — sir." 
 "Are you in any pain, Dick?" 
 " No." 
 "Or cold?" 
 " No." 
 
 The girl came back with a candle and some hot milk in a tea- 
 cup. I put a teaspoonful into Dick's mouth. But he could not 
 swallow it. Who should come rushing in then but old Jones the 
 constable, wanting to know what was up. 
 
 "Well I never!— why, that's Mitchel's Dick!" cried Jones, peer- 
 ing down in the candle-light. " What's took him?'^ 
 
 "Jones, if you and the girl will rub his hands, I'll go and get 
 some brandy. We can't let him lie like this and give him 
 nothing." 
 
 Old Jones, liking the word brandy on his own score, knelt down 
 on his fat gouty legs with a groan, and laid hold of one of the 
 hands, the girl taking the other. I went leaping off to Elm Farm. 
 And went for nothing. Mr. and IMrs. Jacobson being out, the 
 cellar was locked up, and no brandy could be got at. The cook 
 gave me a bottle of gooseberry wine ; which she said might do as 
 well if hotted up. 
 
 Duffham was stooping over the boy when I got back, his face 
 long, and his cane lying on the ironing-board. Bill Leet had met 
 him half-way, so no time was lost. He was putting something into 
 Dick's lips with a teaspoon — perhaps brandy. But it ran the 
 wrong way; out instead of in. Dick never stirred, and his eyes 
 were shut. The doctor got up. 
 " Too late, Johnny," he whispered. 
 The words startled me. "Mr. Duffham! No?" 
 He looked into my eyes, and nodded Yes. " The exposure 
 to-day has been too much for him. He is going fast." 
 
 And just at that moment Hannah Mitchel came in. I have 
 often thought that the extreme poor, whose lives are but one vast
 
 I4S JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 hardship from the cradle to the grave, who have to struggle always, 
 do not feel strong emotion. At any rate, they don't show much. 
 Hannah Mitchel knelt down, and looked quietly at the white, 
 shrunken face. 
 
 " Dicky," she said, putting his hair gently back from his brow ; 
 which now had a damp moisture on it. " What's amiss, Dicky .'' " 
 
 He opened his eyes at the voice and feebly lifted one hand 
 towards her. Mrs. Mitchel glanced round at the doctor's face ; 
 and I think she read the truth there. She gathered his poor head 
 into her arms, and let it rest on her bosom. Her old black shawl 
 was on, her bonnet fell backwards and hung from her neck by the 
 strings. 
 
 "Oh, Dicky! Dicky!" 
 
 He lay still, looking at her. She gave one sob and choked the 
 rest down. 
 
 " Be he dying, sir ? — ain't there no hope ? " she cried to Mr. 
 Duffham, who was standing in the blaze of the fire. And the 
 doctor just moved his head for answer. 
 
 There was a still hush in the kitchen. Her tears began to fall 
 down her cheeks slowly and softly. 
 
 " Dicky, wouldn't you like to say ' Our Father ' } " 
 
 " I — 've — said — it, — mother." 
 
 " You've always been a good boy, Dicky." 
 
 Old Jones blew his nose ; the stupid girl burst into a sob. I\Ir. 
 Duffham told them to hush. 
 
 Dick's eyes were slowly closing. The breath was very faint now, 
 and came at long intervals. Presently Mr. Duffham took him 
 from his mother, and laid him down flat, without the cushion. 
 
 Well, he died. Poor little Dick Mitchel died. And I think, 
 taking the wind and the work into consideration, that he was 
 better off. 
 
 Mr. Jacobson got back the next day. He sharply taxed the 
 ploughman with the death, saying he ought to have seen the state 
 the boy was in on that last bitter day, and have sent him home. 
 But Hall declared he never thought anything ailed the boy, except 
 that the cold was cutting him more than ordinary, just as it was 
 cutting everybody else. 
 
 The county coroner came over to hold the inquest. The jury, 
 after hearing what Mr. Duffham had to say, brought it in that 
 Richard Mitchel died from exposure to the cold during the recent 
 remarkable severity of the weather, not having sufficient stamina 
 to resist it. Some of the local newspapers took it up, being in 
 want of matter that dreary season. They attacked the farmers ; 
 asking the public whether labourers' children were to be held as 
 of no more value than this, in a free and generous country like
 
 DICK MITCHEL. 149 
 
 England, and why they were made to work so young by such hard 
 and wicked task-masters as the master of Ehn Farm. That put 
 the master of Elm Farm on his mettle. He retorted by a letter of 
 sharp good sense ; finishing it with a demand to know whether the 
 farmers were expected to club together to provide meat and 
 puddings gratis for the flocks of children that labourers chose to 
 gather about them. The Squire read it aloud to every one, as the 
 soundest letter he'd ever seen written. 
 
 " I am afraid their view is the right one — that the children are 
 too thick on the ground, poor things," sighed Mrs. Todhetley. 
 "Any way, Johnny, it is very hard on the young ones to have to 
 work as poor little Dick did : late and early, wet or dry : and I am 
 glad for his sake that God has taken him."
 
 X. 
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 This is another tale of our school life. It is not much in itself, you 
 may say, but it was to lead to lasting events. Curious enough, it is, 
 to sit down and trace out the beginning of things : when we can 
 trace it ; but it is often too remote for us. 
 
 Mrs. Frost died, and the summer holidays were prolonged in 
 consequence. September was not far off when we met again, and 
 gigs and carriages went bowling up with us and our boxes. 
 
 Sanker was in the large class-room when we got in. He looked 
 up for a minute, and turned his head away. Tod and I went up 
 to him. He did shake hands, and it was as much as you could 
 say. I don't think he was the sort of fellow to bear malice ; but it 
 took time to bring him round if once offended. 
 
 Sanker had gone home with us to Dyke Manor when the holidays 
 began. He belonged to a family in Wales (very poor they were 
 now), and was a distant cousin of Mrs. Todhetley's. Before he had 
 been with us long, a matter occurred that put him out, and he 
 betook himself away from the Manor there and then. But I do 
 not intend to go into that history now. 
 
 Things had been queer at school towards the close of the past 
 term. Petty pilferings took place : articles and money alike dis- 
 appeared. A thief was amongst us, and no mistake : but we did 
 not know where to look for him. It was to be hoped that the same 
 thing would not occur again. 
 
 " My father and Mrs. Todhetley are in the drawing-room," said 
 Tod. " They are asking to see you." 
 
 Sanker hesitated ; but he went at last. The interview softened 
 things a little, for he was civil to us when he came back again. 
 
 " What's that about the plants ? " he asked me. 
 
 I told him what. They had been destroyed in some unaccount- 
 able manner. " Whether it was done intentionally, or whether 
 moving them into the hall and back again did it, is not positively 
 decided ; I don't suppose it ever will be. You ought to have come 
 over to that ball;- Sanker, after all of us writing to press it."
 
 A HUNT BY MOOxNLIGHT. 151 
 
 " Well," he said, coldly. '' I don't care for balls. Monk was 
 suspected, was he not ? " 
 
 " Yes. Some of us suspect him still. He was savage at being 
 
 accused of • But never mind that " — and I pulled myself up in 
 
 sudden recollection. " Monk has left, and we have engaged another 
 gardener. Jenkins is not good for much." 
 
 " Hallo ! What has he come back ? " 
 ' Ned Sanker was looking towards the door as he spoke. Two of 
 them were coming in, who must have arrived at the same time — 
 Vale and Lacketer. They were new ones, so to say, both having 
 entered only last Easter. Vale was a tall, quiet fellow, with a 
 fair, good-looking face and mild blue eyes ; his friends lived at 
 Vale Farm, about two miles off. Lacketer had sleek black hair, 
 and a sharp nose ; he had only an aunt, and was from Oxfordshire. 
 I didn't hke him. He had a way of cringing to those of us who 
 were born to position in the world ; but any poor friendless chap, 
 who had nothing but himself and his work to get on by, he put 
 upon shamefully. As for him, we couldn't find out that he'd ever 
 had any relations at all, except the aunt. 
 
 I looked at Sanker, to see which he alluded to ; his eyes were 
 fixed on Vale with a stare. Vale had not been going to leave, 
 that the school knew of. 
 
 "Why are you surprised that he has come back, Sanker?" 
 
 " Because I — didn't suppose he tvoiild,^'' said Sanker, with a 
 pause where I have put it, and an uncommonly strong emphasis on 
 the " would." 
 
 It was just as though he had known something about Vale. 
 Flashing across my memory came the mysterious avowal Sanker 
 had made at our house about the discovery of the thief at school ; 
 and I now connected the one with the other. They call me a muff, 
 I know, but I cannot help my thoughts. 
 
 " Sanker ! was he the thief? " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Ludlow," returned Sanker, in a fright. " I 
 told you I'd give him a chance again, didn't I ? But I never thought 
 he would come back to take it." 
 
 " I would have believed it of any fellow rather than of Vale." 
 
 Sanker turned his face sharp, and looked at me. " Oh, would 
 you ? " said he, after a pause. " Well, then, you'd better believe it oi 
 any other. Mind you do. It will be safer, Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 He walked away into a group of them, as if afraid of my saying 
 more. I turned out at the door leading to the playground, and 
 came upon Tod in the porch. 
 
 " What was that you and Sanker were saying about \'^ale, 
 Johnny?" 
 
 I was aware that I ought not to tell him ; I knew I ought not :
 
 152 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 but I did. Tod read me always as one reads a book, and I had 
 never attempted to keep from him any earthly thing. 
 
 " Sanker says it was Vale. About the things lost last half. He 
 told me, you know, that he had discovered who it was that took 
 them." 
 
 " What, he the thief ! Vale ? " 
 
 " Hush, Tod. Give him another chance, as Sanker says." 
 Tod rushed out of the porch with a bound. He had heard a 
 movement on the other side the trellis-work, but was only in time 
 to catch a glimpse of a tassel disappearing round the corner. 
 
 We went in for noise at Worcester House just as much as they 
 do at other schools ; but not this afternoon. Mrs. Frost had been 
 a favourite, and Sanker told us about her funeral. Things seemed 
 to wear a mournful look. The servants were in black, the Doctor 
 was in jet black, even to his gaiters. He wore the old style of dress 
 always, knee breeches and buckles : but I have mentioned this 
 before. We used to call him old Frost ; this afternoon we said 
 " the Doctor." 
 
 " You can't think what it was like while the house was shut up," 
 said Sanker. " Coal-pits are jolly to it. I never saw the Doctor 
 until the funeral. Being the only fellow at school, was, I suppose, 
 the reason they asked me to go to it. He cried_ever so much over 
 the grave." 
 
 " Fancy old Frost crying ! " interrupted Lacketcr. 
 " I cried too," avowed Sanker, in a short sharp tone, as if dis- 
 approving of the remark ; and it silenced Lacketer. " She had 
 been ailing a long time, as we all knew, but she only grew ver\- ill 
 at the last, she told me." 
 i " When did you see her ? " 
 
 " Two days before she died. Hall came to me, saying I was to 
 go up. It was on Wednesday at sunset. The hot red sun was 
 shining right into the room, and she sat back from it on the sofa 
 in a white gown. It was very hot these holidays, and she felt at 
 times fit to die of it : she never bore heat well." 
 
 To hear Sanker tell this was nearly as good as a play. A solemn 
 play I mean. None of us made the least noise as we stood round 
 him : it seemed as if we could see Mrs. Frost's room, and her nice 
 placid face, drawn back from the rays of the red hot sun. 
 
 " She told me to reach a little Bible that was on the drawers, 
 and sit close to her and read a chapter," continued Sanker. "It 
 was the seventh of St. John's Revelation ; where that verse is, that 
 says there shall be no more hunger and thirst ; neither shall the 
 sun light on them nor any heat. She held my hand while I read 
 it. I had complained of the light for her, saying what a pity it 
 was the room had no shuttgrs. ' You see,' she said, when the
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. 153 
 
 chapter was read, ' how soon all discomforts here will pass away. 
 Give my dear love to the boys when they come back,' she went 
 on. ' Tell them I should like to have seen them all and said 
 good-bye. Not good-bye for ever ; be sure tell them that, Sankcr : 
 I leave them all a charge to come to me there in God's good time. 
 Not one of them must fail.' And now I've told you, and it's off my 
 mind," concluded Sanker, in a different voice. 
 
 '• Did you see her again ? " 
 
 " When she was in her coffin. She gave me the Bible." 
 
 Sanker took it out of his pocket. His name was written in it, 
 '• Edward Brooke Sanker, with Mary Frost's love." She had made 
 him promise to read in it daily, if he began only with one verse. 
 He did not tell us that then. 
 
 ^^'hile we were looking at the writing, Bill Whitney came in. 
 Some of them thought he had left at Midsummer. Lacketer shook 
 hands ; he made much of Whitney, after the fashion of his mind 
 and manners. Old W^hitney was a baronet, and Bill would be Sir 
 William sometime : for his elder brother, John, whom we had so 
 much liked, was dead. Bill was good-natured, and divided hampers 
 from home liberally. 
 
 "/ don't know why I am back again," he said, in answer to 
 questions; "you must ask Sir John. I shall be the better for 
 another year or two of it, he says. Who likes grapes ? " 
 
 He was beginning to undo a basket he had brought with him : 
 it was filled with grapes, peaches, plums, and nectarines. Those of 
 us who had plenty of fruit at home did not care to take much ; but 
 the others went in for it eagerly. 
 
 '• Our peaches are finer than these, Whitney," cried Vale. 
 
 Lacketer gave Vale a push. " You big lout, mind your manners ! " 
 cried he. " Don't eat the peaches if you don't like 'em." 
 
 " So they were," said Vale, w^ho never answered offensively. 
 
 "There ! that's enough insolence from_;w^." 
 
 Old Vale was Sir John Whitney's tenant. Of course, according 
 to Lacketer's creed, Vale deserved putting down for only speaking 
 to Whitney. 
 
 " He is right," said Whitney, who thought no more of being his 
 father's son than he would of being a shopkeeper's. " Mr. Vale's 
 peaches this year were the finest in the county. He sent my mother 
 some, and she said they ought to have gone up to a London fruit-show." 
 
 " I never saw such peaches as Mr. Vale's," put in Sanker, talking 
 at Lacketer, and not kindly. " And the flavour was as good as the 
 look. Mrs. Frost enjoyed those peaches to the last : it was almost 
 the only thing she took." 
 
 Vale's face shone. " We shall always be glad at home that they 
 were so good this year, for her sake,"
 
 154 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Altogether, Lacketer was shut up. He stood over Whitney, 
 who was undoing a small desk he had brought. Amidst the things, 
 that lay on the ledge inside, was a thin, yellow, old-fashioned- 
 looking coin. 
 
 " It's a guinea," said Bill Whitney. " I mean to have a hole 
 bored in it and wear it to my watch-chain." 
 
 " I'd lock it up safely until then, Whitney," burst forth Snepp, 
 who came from Alcester. " Or it may go after the things that were 
 lost last half-year." 
 
 Turning to glance at Sanker, I found he had left the room. 
 Whitney was balancing the guinea on his finger. 
 
 " Fore-warned, fore-armed, Snepp," he said. " Who the thief 
 was, I can't think ; but I advise him not to begin his game again." 
 
 " Talking of warning, I should like to give one on my own score," 
 said Tod. " By-gones may be by-gones ; I don't wish to recur to 
 them ; but if I lose anything this half and can find the thief, I'll put 
 him into the river." 
 
 " What, to drown him ? " 
 
 " To duck him. I'll do it as sure as my name's Todhetley. 
 
 Vale dropped his handkerchief and stooped to pick it up again. 
 It might have been an accident ; and the redness of his face might 
 have come of stooping ; but I saw Tod did not think so. Ducking 
 is the favourite punishment in Worcestershire for a public offender, 
 as all the county knows. When a man misbehaves himself on the 
 race-course at Worcester, they duck him in the Severn underneath. 
 
 " The guinea would not be of much use to any one," said 
 Lacketer. " You couldn't pass it." 
 
 " Oh, couldn't you, though ! " answered Whitney. " You'd better 
 try. It's worth twenty-one shillings, and they might give a shilling 
 or two in for the antiquity of the coin." 
 
 " Gentlemen." 
 
 We turned to see the Doctor, standing there in his deep mourning, 
 with his subdued red face. He came in to introduce a new master. 
 
 The time went on. We missed Mrs. Frost ; and Hall, the crabbed 
 woman with the cross face, made a mean substitute. She had it 
 all her own way now. The puddings had less jam in them, and the 
 pies hardly any fruit. Little Landon fell ill; and one day, after 
 hours, when some of us went up to see him, we found him crying 
 for Mrs. Frost. He was only seven; the youngest in the school, 
 and made a sort of plaything of; an orphan with no friends to see 
 to him much. Illness had been Mrs. Frost's great point. Any of 
 us who were laid by she'd sit with half the day, reading nice stories, 
 and talking to us of good things, just as our mothers might do. I
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. 155 
 
 know mine would if she had Hved. However, we managed to get 
 along in spite of Hall, hoping the Doctor would find her out and 
 discharge her. 
 
 Matters went on quietly for some weeks. No one lost anything : 
 and we had almost forgotten there had been a doubt that we might 
 lose something, when it occurred. The loss was Tod's — rather 
 curious, at first sight, that it should be, after his threat of what he 
 would do. And Tod, as they all knew, was not one to break his 
 word. It was only half-a-crown ; but there could be no certainty 
 that sovereigns would not go next. Not to speak of the disagreeable 
 sense of feeling the thief was amongst us still, and taking to his 
 tricks again. 
 
 Tod was writing to Evesham for some articles he wanted. Bill 
 Whitney, knowing this, got him to add an order for some stationery 
 for himself: which came back in the parcel. The account, nine- 
 and-tenpence, was made out to Tod ("Joseph Todhetley, Esquire ! "), 
 half-a-crown of it being Whitney's portion. Bill handed him the 
 half-crown at once ; and Tod, who was busy with his own things 
 and had his hands full, asked him to put it on the mantelpiece. 
 
 The tea-bell rang, and they went away and forgot it. Only they 
 two had been in the room. But others might have gone in after- 
 wards. We were getting up from tea when Tod called to me to go 
 and fetch him the half-crown." 
 
 " It is on the mantelpiece, Johnny." 
 
 I went through the passages and turned into the box-room; a 
 place where knots of us gathered sometimes. But the mantelpiece 
 had no half-crown on it, and I carried the news back to Tod. 
 
 " Did you take it up again. Bill ? " he asked of Whitney. 
 
 " I didn't touch it after I put it down," said Whitney. " It was 
 there when the tea-bell rang." 
 
 They said I had overlooked it, and both went to the box-room. 
 I followed slowly; thinking they should search for themselves. 
 Which they did ; and were standing with blank faces when I got in. 
 
 "It has gone after my guinea," Whitney was saying. 
 
 " What guinea ? " 
 
 " My guinea. The one you saw. That disappeared a week 
 ago." 
 
 Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything ; but Tod 
 — and I, too — wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked 
 him why he had not spoken. 
 
 " Because Lacketer — who was with me when I discovered the 
 loss — asked me to be silent for a short time," said Whitney. " He 
 has a suspicion ; and is looking out for himself." 
 
 " Lacketer has ? " 
 
 " He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his
 
 156 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 finger any minute on the fellow ; but it would not do to accuse him 
 without proof; and he is waiting for it." 
 
 Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale. 
 
 " Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself," continued Whitney. 
 " A shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and 
 said now he'd watch in earnest." 
 
 " Who is it he suspects ? " asked Tod. 
 
 " He won't tell me ; says it would not be fair." 
 
 "Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer 
 choose to be silent over your losses," said Tod, decisively. "And 
 I'll be as good as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can 
 track him." 
 
 He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October 
 evening, the daylight nearly gone, and the hunter's moon rising in 
 the sky. Tod told about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their 
 noise to listen to him. He talked himself into a passion, and said 
 some stinging things. " He suspected who it was, and he heard 
 that Lacketer suspected, and he fancied that another or two sus- 
 pected, and one knew; and he thought, now that affairs had come 
 to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute out of hand, was safe, 
 it might be better for them all to declare their suspicions, and hunt 
 the animal as they'd hunt a hare." 
 
 There was a pause when Tod finished. He was about the biggest 
 and strongest in the school ; his voice was one of power, his manner 
 ready and decisive ; so that it was just as though a master spoke. 
 Lacketer came out from amongst them, looking white. I could see 
 that in the twilight. 
 
 "Who says I suspect.^ Speak for yourself, Todhetley. Don't 
 bring up my name." 
 
 " Do you scent the fox, or don't you ? " roared Tod back again, 
 not at all in a humour to be crossed. " If you do, you must speak, 
 and not shirk it. Is the whole school to lie under doubt because 
 of one black sheep ? " 
 
 Tod's concluding words were drowned in noise ; applause for him, 
 murmurs for Lacketer. I looked round for Vale, and saw him 
 behind the rest, as if preparing to make a run for it. That said 
 nothing: he was one of those quiet-natured fellows who liked to 
 keep aloof from rows. When I looked back again, Sanker was 
 standing a little forward, not far from Lacketer. 
 
 " As good speak as not, Lacketer," put in Whitney. " I don't 
 mind telling now that that guinea of mine has been taken ; and you 
 know you lost a shilling yourself. You say you could put your 
 finger on the fellow." 
 
 "Speak!" "Speak!" "Speak!" came the shouts from all 
 quarters. And Lackpter turned whiter,
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. 157 
 
 " There's no proof," he said. " I might have been mistaken in 
 U'hat I fancied. I wonH speak." 
 
 "Then I shall say you are an accomplice," roared Tod, in his 
 passion. " I intend to hunt the fellow to earth to-night, and I'll do it." 
 
 " I don't suspect any one in particular," said Lacketer, looking as 
 if he were run to earth himself. " There." 
 
 Great commotion. Lacketer was hustled, but got away and dis- 
 appeared. Sanker went after him. Tod had been turning on 
 Sanker, saying why didn't he speak. 
 
 " Half-a-crown is half-a-crown, and I mean to get mine back 
 again," avowed Tod. " If some of you are rich enough to lose your 
 half-crowns, I'm not. But it isn't that. Sovereigns may go next. 
 It isn't that. It is the knowing that we have a light-fingered, dis- 
 reputable, sneaking rat amongst us, whose proper place would be 
 a reformatory, not a school for honest men's sons." 
 
 "Name!" "Proofs!" "Proofs!" "Name!" It was as if a 
 torrent had been let loose. In the midst of the lull that ensued a 
 voice was heard, and a name. 
 
 " Vale. Harry Vale." 
 
 Harding was the one to say it: a clever, first-class boy. You 
 niight have heard a pin drop in the surprise : and Harding went on 
 after a minute. 
 
 " I beg to state that I do not accuse Vale myself. I know 
 nothing whatever about the case. But I have reason to think 
 X^'ale's name is the one that has been [mentioned in connection with 
 the losses last half." 
 
 " I know it is," cried Tod, who had only wanted the lead, not 
 choosing to take it himself. " Now then, Vale, make your defence 
 if you can." 
 
 I dare say you recollect how hotly you used to take up a cause 
 when you were at school yourselves, not waiting to know whether 
 it might be right or wrong. Mrs. Frost said to us on one of these 
 occasions she wondered whether we should ever be as eager to take 
 up heaven. They pounced upon Vale with an awful row. He stood 
 with his arm round one of the trees behind, looking scared to death. 
 I glanced back for Sanker, expecting his confirming testimony, but 
 could not see him, and at that moment Lacketer appeared again, 
 peeping round the trees. Whitney called to him. 
 
 " Here, Lacketer. Was it Vale you suspected t " 
 
 " As much as I did anybody else," doggedly answered Lacketer. 
 It was taken as an affirmative. The boys believed the thief was 
 found, and were mad against him. Vale spoke something, shaking 
 and trembling like the leaves in the wind, but his words were 
 drowned. He was not brave, and they looked ready to tear him to 
 pieces.
 
 158 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "My half-crown, Vale," roared Tod. "Did you take it just 
 now ? " 
 
 Vale made no answer; I thought he could not. His face fright- 
 ened me; the lips were blue and drawn, his teeth chattered. 
 
 " Search his pockets." 
 
 It was a simultaneous thought, for a dozen said it. Vale was 
 turned out, and half-a-crown found upon him ; no other money. 
 The boys yelled and groaned. Tod, with his great strength, pushed 
 them aside, as the coin was flung to him. 
 
 "Shall I resume possession of this half-crown?" he asked of \'ale, 
 holding it before him in defiant mockery. 
 
 "If you like. I " 
 
 Vale broke down with a gasp and a sob. His piteous aspect 
 might have moved even Tod. 
 
 " Look here," said he, " I don't care in general to punish a 
 coward ; I regard him as an abject animal beneath me : but I 
 cannot go from my word. Ducking is too good for you. Vale, but 
 you shall have it. Be off to that tree yonder ; we'll give you so 
 much grace. Let him start fair, boys, and then hound him on. It 
 will be a fine chase." 
 
 Vale, seeming to be too confused and terror-stricken to do any- 
 thing but obey, went to the tree, and then darted away in the direc- 
 tion of the river. It takes time to read all this ; but scarcely a 
 minute appeared to have passed since Tod first came out with 
 Whitney, and spoke of the half-crown. Giving Vale the fair start, 
 the boys sprang after him, like a pack of hounds in full cry. Tod, 
 the swiftest runner in the school, was following, when he found 
 himself seized by Sanker. I had stayed behind. 
 
 " Have you been accusing Vale ? Are you going to duck 
 him ? '' 
 
 " Well ? " cried Tod, angry at being stopped. 
 
 " It was not Vale who took the things. Vale ! He is as innocent 
 as you are. You'll kill him, Todhetley ; he cannot bear terror." 
 
 " Who says he is innocent ? " 
 
 " I do. I say it on my honour. It was another fellow, whose 
 name I've been suppressing. This \s your work, Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 I felt a sudden rush of repentance. A conviction that Sanker 
 spoke nothing but the truth. 
 
 " You said it was Vale, Sanker." 
 
 " I never did. You said it. I told you you'd better believe it was 
 any other rather than Vale. And I meant it." 
 
 But that Sanker was not a fellow to tell a lie, I should have 
 thought he told one then. The impression, resting on my memory, 
 was that he acknowledged to its being Vale, if he had not exactly 
 stated it.
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT 159 
 
 " You know you told me to be quiet, Banker : you said, give him 
 a chance." 
 
 " But I thought you were speaking of another then, not Vale. 
 T swear it was not Vale. He is as honest as the day." 
 
 Tod, looking ready to strike me, waiting for no more explanation, 
 was already off, shouting to the crew to turn, far more anxious now 
 to save Vale than he had been to duck him. 
 
 How he managed to arrest them, I never knew. He did do it. 
 But for being the fleetest runner and strongest fellow, he could 
 never have overtaken, passed, and flung himself back upon them, 
 with his arms stretched out, words of explanation on his lips. 
 
 The river was more than a mile away, taking the straight course 
 over the fields, as a bird flies, and leaping fences and ditches. Vale 
 went panting on, for it. It was as if his senses were scared out of 
 him. Tod flew after him, the rest following on more gently. The 
 school-bell boomed out to call us in for evening study, but none 
 heeded it. 
 
 " Stop, Vale ! Stop ! " shouted Tod. " It has been a mistake. 
 Come back and hear about it. It was not you; it was another 
 fellow. Come back, Harry ; come back ! " 
 
 The more Tod shouted, the faster Vale went on. You should 
 have seen the chase in the moonlight. It put us in mind of the 
 fairy tales of Germany, where the phantom huntsman and his pack 
 are seen coursing at midnight. Vale made for a part where the banks 
 of the river are overshadowed by trees. Tod was only about thirty 
 yards behind when he gained it \ he saw him leap in, and heard the 
 plunge. 
 
 But when he got close, there was no sign of Vale in the water. 
 Had he suddenly sunk? Tod's heart stood still with fear. The 
 boys were coming up by ones and twos, and a great silence ensued. 
 Tod stript ready to plunge in when Vale should rise. 
 
 " Here's his cap," whispered one, picking it up from the bank. 
 "He was a good swimmer ; he must have been seized with 
 cramp." 
 
 " Look here ; they say there are holes in the river, just above this 
 bend. What if he has sunk into one ? " 
 
 " Hold your row, all of you," cried Tod, in a hoarse whisper that 
 betrayed his fear. " Who's to listen with that noise ? " 
 
 He was listening for a sound, watching for the faintest ripple, 
 that might give indication of Vale's rising. But none came. 
 Tod stood there in his shirt till he shivered with cold. And the 
 church clock struck seven, and then eight, and it was of no use 
 waiting. 
 
 It was a horrible feeling. Somehow we seemed, I and Tod, to 
 be responsible for Vale's death. I for having mistaken Sanker;
 
 i6o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Tod for entering upon the threatened ducking, and hounding the 
 boys on. 
 
 The worst was to come : going back to Dr. Frost and the masters 
 with the tale; breaking it to Mr. and Mrs. Vale at Vale Farm. 
 While Tod was dressing himself, the rest went on slowly, no one 
 staying by him but me and Sanker. 
 
 " It's your doing more than mine," Tod said, turning to Sanker 
 in his awful distress. " If you knew who the thief was last half, 
 you should have disclosed it; not have given him the oppor- 
 tunity to resume his game. Had you done so this could not have 
 happened." 
 
 " I promised him then I should proclaim him if he did resume 
 it ; I have told him to-night I shall do it," quietly answered Sanker. 
 "It was Lacketer." 
 
 " Lacketer ! " 
 
 " Lacketer. And since my eyes were opened, it has seemed to 
 me that all yours must have been closed, not to find him out. His 
 manner was enough to betray him : only, I suppose — you wanted 
 the clue." 
 
 " But, Sanker, why did you let me think it was Vale 'i " I asked. 
 
 " You made the first mistake ; I let you he under it for Lacketer's 
 sake ; to give him the chance," said Sanker. " Who was to foresee 
 you would go and tell ? " 
 
 It had never passed my lips, save those few words at the time 
 when Tod questioned me. Harding was the one outside the porch 
 who had overheard it ; but he had kept it to himself until now, when 
 he thought the time had come for speaking. 
 
 What was to be done? — what was to be done.'* It seemed as if 
 a great darkness had suddenly fallen upon us, and could never again 
 be lifted. We had death upon our hands. 
 
 " There's just a chance," said Tod, dragging his legs along Hke 
 so much lead, and beginning with a sort of groan. " Vale may 
 have made for the land again as soon as he got in, and come out 
 lower down. In that case he would run home probably." 
 
 Just a chance, as Tod said. But in the depth of despair chances 
 are caught at. If we cut across to the left. Vale Farm was not more 
 than a mile oft": and we turned to it. Absenting ourselves from 
 school seemed as nothing. Tod went on with a bound now there 
 was an object, a ray of hope ; I and Sanker after him. 
 
 " I can't go in," said Tod, when we came in front of the farm, a 
 long, low house, with lights gleaming in some of the windows. " It's 
 
 not cowardice; at least, I don't think it is. It's Never mind ; 
 
 I'll wait for you here." 
 
 " I say," said Sanker to me, " what excuse are we to make for 
 going in at this time ? We can't tell the truth."
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. i6l 
 
 / could not. Harry Vale stood alone; he had neither brother 
 nor sister. I could not go in and tell his mother that he was dead. 
 She was sitting in one of the front parlours, sewing by the lamp. 
 We saw her through the window as we stole up to look in. But 
 there was no time for plotting. Footsteps approached, and we only 
 got back on the path when Mr. Vale came up. He was a tall, fine 
 man, with a fair face and blue eyes like his son's. What we said 
 I hardly knew ; something about being close by, and thought we'd 
 call on our way home. Sanker had been there several times in the 
 holidays. 
 
 Mr. Vale took us in with a beaming face to his wife. They were 
 the kindest-hearted people, liberal and hospitable, as most well-to-do 
 farmers are. Mrs. Vale, rolling up her work, said we must take 
 something to help us on our way home, and rang the bell. We 
 never said we could not stop ; we never said Tod was waiting out- 
 side. But there were no signs that Vale had gone home half-drowned. 
 Two maids put the supper on the table, and Mrs. Vale helped 
 them ; for Sanker had summoned courage to say it was late for 
 us to stop. About a dozen things. Cold ducks, and ham, coUared- 
 head, a big dish of custard, and fruit and cake. I couldn't have 
 swallowed a morsel ; the lump rising in my throat would have 
 hindered it. I don't think Sanker could, for he said resolutely we 
 must not sit down because of Dr. Frost. 
 " How is Harry ? " asked Mrs. Vale. 
 
 "Oh, he is — ver>' well," said Sanker, after waiting to see if I'd 
 answer. " Have you seen him lately ? " 
 
 " Not since last Sunday week, when he and young Snepp spent 
 the day here. He was looking well, and seemed in spirits. It was 
 rather a hazard, sending him to school at all ; Mr. Vale wanted 
 to have him taught at home, as he has been until this year. But 
 I think it is turning out for the best." 
 
 " He gets frightened, does he not ?" said Sanker, who knew what 
 she meant. 
 
 " He did," replied Mrs. Vale ; " but he is growing out of it. Never 
 was a braver little child born than he ; but when he was four years 
 old, he strolled away from his nurse into a field where a bull was 
 grazing, a savage animal. What exactly happened, we never knew; 
 that Harry was chased across the field by it was certain, and then 
 tossed. The chief injury was to the nerves, strange though that 
 may seem in so young a child. For a long time afterwards, the 
 least alarm would put him into a state of terrible fear, almost a fit. 
 But he is getting over it now." 
 
 She told this for my benefit ; just as if she had divined the night's 
 work ; Sanker knew it before. I felt sick with remorse as I listened 
 — and Tod had called him a coward ! Let us get away. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. Ai
 
 i62 • JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " I wish you could stay, my lads," cried Mr. Vale; "it vexes me 
 to turn you out supperless. What's this, Charlotte ? Ah yes, to be 
 sure ! I wish you could put up the whole table for them." 
 
 For Mrs. Vale had been putting up some tartlets, and gave us 
 each a packet of them. " Eat them as you go along," she said. 
 "And give my love to Harry." 
 
 "And tell him that he must bring you both on Sunday, to spend 
 the day," added Mr. Vale. " Perhaps young Mr. Todhetley will 
 come also. You might have breakfast, and go with us to church. 
 rU write to Dr. Frost." 
 
 Outside at last ; I and my shame. These good, simple-hearted 
 people — oh, had we indeed, between us, made them childless ? 
 " Young Mr. Todhetley," waiting amid the stubble in the outer 
 field, came springing up to the fence, his face white in the light of 
 the hunter's moon. 
 
 " What a long while you have been ! Well ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Sanker, briefly. " No news ! I don't think we've 
 been much above five minutes." 
 
 What a walk home it was ! Mr. Blair, the out-of-school master, 
 came down upon us with his thunder, but Tod seemed never 
 to hear him. The boys, hushed and quiet as nature is before an 
 impending storm, had not dared to tell and provoke it. I could 
 not see Lacketer. 
 
 " Where's Vale .'' " roared Mr. Blair, supposing he had been with 
 us. " But that prayers are waiting, Fd cane all four of you. Where 
 are you going, Todhetley ? " 
 
 " Don't stop me, Mr. Blair," said Tod, putting him aside with a 
 quiet authority and a pain in his voice that made Blair stare. We 
 called Blair, Baked Pie, because of his name, Pyefinch. 
 
 " Read the prayers without me, please Mr Blair," went on Tod. 
 " I must see Dr. Frost. If you don't know what has happened to- 
 night, sir, ask the rest to tell you." 
 
 He went out to his interview with the Doctor. Tod was not one 
 to shirk his duty. Seeing Vale's father and mother he had shrunk 
 from ; but the confession to Dr. Frost he made himself. What 
 passed between them we never knew : how much contrition Tod 
 spoke, how much reproach the Doctor. Roger and Miles, the man- 
 servant and boy, were called into the library, and sent abroad : we 
 thought it might be to search the banks of the river, or give notice 
 for it to be dragged. The next called in was Sanker. The ne.\t, 
 Lacketer. 
 
 But Lacketer did not answer the call. He had vanished. Mr. 
 Blair went searching for him high and low, and could not find him. 
 Lacketer had run away. He knew his time at Worcester House 
 was over, and thought he'd save himself from dismissal. It was he
 
 A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT. 163 
 
 who had been the thief, and whom Sanker suspected. As good 
 mention here that Dr. Frost got a letter from his aunt the next 
 Saturday, saying the school did not agree with her nephew, and 
 she had withdrawn him from it. 
 
 Whether the others slept that night, I can't tell ; I did not. Harry 
 Vale's drowned form was in my mind all through it ; and the sorrow 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Vale. In the morning .-Tod got up, looking more 
 like one dead than alive : he had one of his frightful headaches. I 
 felt ready to die myself ; it seemed that never another happy morning 
 could dawn on the world. 
 
 " Shall I ask if I may bring you some breakfast up here. Tod ? 
 
 And it's just possible, you know, that Vale " 
 
 "Hold your peace, Johnny!" he snapped. "If ever you tell 
 me a false thing of a fellow again, I'll thrash your life out of 
 you." 
 
 He came downstairs when he was dressed, and went out, waiting 
 neither for breakfast nor prayers. I went out to watch him away, 
 knowing he must be going to Vale Farm. 
 
 Oh, I never shall forget it. As Tod passed round the corner by 
 the railings, he ran up against him. Him^ Harry Vale. 
 
 My sight grew dim ; I couldn't see ; the field and railings were 
 reeling. But it only lasted for a moment or two. Tod's breath 
 was coming in great gasps then, and he had \^ale's two hands 
 grasped in his. I thought he was going to hug him ; a loud sob 
 broke from him. 
 
 " We have been thinking you were drowned ! " 
 Vale smiled. " I am too good a swimmer for that." 
 " But you disappeared at once." 
 
 " I struck back out of the river the instant I got into it ; I was 
 afraid you'd come in after me ; and crept round the alder trees lower 
 down. When you were all gone I swam across in my clothes ; see 
 how they've shrunk ! " 
 
 " Swam across ! Have you not been home ? " 
 " No, I went to my uncle's : it's nearer than home : and they 
 made me go to bed, and dried my things, and sent to tell Dr. Frost. 
 I did not say why I went into the water," added Vale, lifting his 
 kind face. " But the Doctor came round the ferry late, and he 
 knew all about it. They talked to me well, he and my uncle, about 
 being frightened at nothing, and I've promised not to be so stupid 
 
 ^o"- 
 
 " God bless you, Vale ! " cried Tod. " You know it was a 
 mistake." 
 
 " Yes, Dr. Frost said so. The half-crown was my own. My uncle 
 met us boys when we were out walking yesterday morning, and gave 
 it me. I thought you might have seen him give it,"
 
 i64 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Tod linked his arm within Vale's and walked off to the breakfast- 
 room. The wonder to me was how, with Vale's good honest face 
 and open manners, we could have thought him capable of theft. 
 But when you once go in for a mistake it carries you on in spite of 
 improbabilities. The boys were silent for an instant when Vale went 
 in, and then you'd have thought the roof was coming off with cheers. 
 Tod stood looking from the window, and I vow I saw him rub his 
 handkerchief across his eyes. 
 
 We went to Vale Farm on Sunday morning early : the four of us 
 invited, and Harding. Mr. Vale shook hands twice with us all 
 round so heartily, that we might see, 1 thought, they bore no malice ; 
 and Mrs. Vale's breakfast was a sight to do you good, with its jugs 
 of cream and home-made sausages. 
 
 After that, came church : it looked like a procession turning out 
 for it. Mr. and Mrs. Vale and the grandmother, an upright old 
 lady with a China-crape shawl and white hair, us five and a man 
 and maid-servant behind. The river lay on the right, the church 
 was in front of us ; people dotted the fields on their way to it, and 
 the bells were ringing as they do at a wedding. 
 
 " This is a different sort of Sunday from what we thought last 
 Thursday it would be," I said in Tod's car when we were together 
 for a minute at the gate. 
 
 " Johnny, if I were older, and went in for that kind of thing, as 
 perhaps I shall do sometime, I should like to put up a public thanks- 
 giving in church to-day." 
 
 " A public thanksgiving ? " 
 
 " For mercies received." 
 
 I stared at Tod. He did not seem to heed it, but took his hat off 
 and walked with it in his hand all across the churchyard.
 
 XI. 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 Perhaps this might be called the beginning of the end of the chain 
 of events that I alluded to in that other paper. An end that ter- 
 minated in distress, and death, and sorrow. 
 
 It was the half-year following that hunt of ours by moonlight. 
 Summer weather had come in, and we were looking forward to the 
 holidays, hoping the heat would last. 
 
 The half-mile field, so called from its length, on Vale Farm was 
 being mowed. Sunday intervened, and the grass was left to dry until 
 the Monday. The haymakers had begun to rake it into cocks. The 
 river stretched past along the field on one side ; a wooden fence 
 bounded it on the other. It was out of all proportion, that field, so 
 long and so narrow. 
 
 Tod and I and Sanker and Harry Vale were spending the Sunday 
 at the Farm. Since that hunt last autumn Mr. and Mrs. Vale 
 often invited us. There was no evening service, and we went into 
 the hay-field, and began throwing the hay at one another. It was 
 rare fun ; they might almost have heard our shouts at Worcester 
 House : and I don't believe but that every one of us forgot it was 
 Sunday. 
 
 What with the sultry weather and the hay, some of us got into a 
 tolerable heat. The river wore a tempting look ; and Tod and 
 Sanker, without so much as a thought, undressed themselves 
 behind the trees, and plunged in. It was twilight then; the air 
 had began to wear its weird silence ; the shadows were putting on 
 their ghastliness; the moon,*well up, sailed along under white 
 clouds. 
 
 I and Vale were walking slowly back towards the Farm, when a 
 great cry broke over the water, — a cry as of something in pain ; but 
 whether from anything more than a night-bird, was uncertain. Vale 
 stopped and turned his head. 
 
 A second cry : louder, longer, more distinct, and full of agony. It 
 came from one of those two in the water. Vale flew back- with his 
 fleet foot— fleeter than any fellow's in the school, except Tod's and 
 Snepp's. As I followed, a startling recollection canie over me, a.nd
 
 i66 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 I wondered how it was that all of us had been so senseless as to 
 forget it : that one particular spot on the river was known to be 
 dangerous. 
 
 "Bear up; I'm coming," shouted Vale. "Don't lose your 
 heads." 
 
 A foot-passenger walking on the other side the fence, saw some- 
 thing was wrong : if he did not hear Vale's words, he heard the 
 cry, and came cutting across the field, scattering the hay >vith his 
 feet. And then I saw it was Baked Pie . which meant our mathe- 
 matical master, Mr. Blair. They had given him at baptism the 
 name of " Pyefinch," after some old uncle who had money to leave ; 
 no second name, nothing but that : and the school had converted 
 him into " Baked Pie." But I don't think fathers and mothers 
 have any right to put odd names upon helpless babies and send 
 them out to be a laughing-stock to the world. 
 
 Blair was not a bad fellow, setting his name aside, and had gone 
 in for honours at Cambridge. We reached the place together. 
 
 " What is amiss, Ludlow ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir. Todhetley and Sanker arc in the water ; 
 and we've heard cries." 
 
 " In the water to-night ! And there 1 " 
 
 Vale, already in the middle of the river, was swimming back, 
 holding up Sanker. But Tod was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Blair 
 looked up and down ; and an awful fear came over me. The 
 current led down to Mr. Charles Vale's mill — Vale's uncle. More 
 than one man had found his death there. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Blair ! where is he ? What has become of him ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " breathed Blair. He was quietly slipping off some of 
 his things, his eyes fixed on a particular part of the river. In he 
 went, striking out without more splash than he could help, and 
 reached it just as Tod's head appeared above water. The third 
 time of rising. I did not go in for such a girl's trick as to faint ; 
 but I never afterwards could trace the minutes as they had passed 
 until Tod was lying on the grass under the trees. That I re- 
 member always. The scene is before my eyes now as plainly as it 
 \yas then, though more time has since gone by than perhaps you'd 
 think for : the treacherous river flowing on calmly, the quivering 
 leaves overhead, through which the moon was glittering, and Tod 
 lying there white and motionless. Mr. Blair had saved his life; 
 there could be no question about that, saved it only by a minute 
 of time; and I thought to myself I'd never call him Baked Pie 
 again. 
 
 " Instead of standing moonstruck, Ludlow, suppose you make a 
 run to the Farm and see what help you can get," spoke Mr. Blair. 
 " Todhetley must be carried there, and put between hot blankets."
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 167 
 
 Help was found. Sanker walked to the Farm, Tod was carried ; 
 
 and a regular bustle set in when they arrived there. Both were put 
 
 to bed : Tod had come-to then. Mrs. Vale and the servants ran 
 
 ■ up and down like wild Indians; and the good old lady with the 
 
 white hair insisted upon sitting up by Tod's bedside all night. 
 
 " No, mother," said Mr. Vale ; " some of us will do that." 
 
 " My son, I tell you that I shall watch by him myself," returned 
 the old lady ; and, as they deferred to her always, she did. 
 
 When explanation of the accident was given — as much of it as 
 ever could be given — it sounded rather strange. Both of them had 
 been taken with cramp, and the river was not in fault, after all. 
 Tod said that he had been in the water two or three minutes, when 
 he was seized with what he supposed to be cramp in the legs, though 
 he never had it before. He was turning to strike out for the bank, 
 when he found himself seized by Sanker. They loosed each other 
 in a minute, but Tod was helpless, and he sank. 
 
 Banker's story was very much the same. He was seized with 
 cramp, and in his fear caught hold of Tod for protection. Tod 
 was an excellent swimmer, Sanker a poor one ; but while Sanker's 
 cramp grew better, Tod's disabled him. Most likely, as we decided 
 when we heard this, Sanker, who never went down at all, would 
 have got out of the water without help ; Tod would have been 
 drowned but for Blair. He had sunk twice when the rescue came. 
 Mr. Featherston, the man of pills who attended the school, said it 
 was all through their having jumped into the water when they were 
 in a white heat ; the cold had struck to them. While Mrs. Hall, 
 with her grave face, thought it was through their having gone 
 bathing on a Sunday. 
 
 Whatever it was through, old Frost made a comTnotion. He 
 was not severe in general, but he raised noise enough over this. 
 What with one thing and another, the school, he declared, was 
 being everlastingly upset. 
 
 Tod and Sanker came back from Mr. Vale's the next day ; 
 Monday. The Doctor ordered them into his study, and sat there 
 with his cane in his hand while he talked, rapping the table with 
 it now and again as fiercely as if it had been their backs. And 
 the backs would surely have had it but for having just escaped 
 coffins. 
 
 All this would not have been much, but it was to lead to a great 
 deal more. To cjuite a chain of events, as I have said ; and to 
 trouble and sorrow in the far-off ending. Hannah, at home, was 
 fond of repeating to Lena what she called the sayings of poor 
 Richard : " For want of a nail the shoe was lost ; for want of a shoe 
 the horse was lost ; for want of a horse the rider was lost ; and all 
 for the want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail," The horse-
 
 1 68 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 shoe nail and the man's loss seemed a great deal nearer each other 
 than that Sunday night's accident, and what was eventually to comc 
 of it. A small mustard-seed, dropped into the ground, shoots forth 
 and becomes in the end a great tree. 
 
 On the Wednesday, who should come over but the Squire, clasp- 
 ing Pyefinch Blair's hand in his, and saying with tears in his good 
 old eyes that he had saved his son's life. Old Frost, you see, had 
 written the news to Dyke Manor. Tod, strong and healthy in con- 
 stitution, was all right again, not a hair of his head the worse for it ; 
 but Sanker had not escaped so well. 
 
 As early as the Monday night, the first night of his return home 
 from Vale Farm, it began to come on ; and the next morning the 
 boys, sleeping in the same room, told a tale of Sanker's having been 
 delirious. He had sat up in bed and woke them all up with his 
 cries, thinking he was trying to swim out of deep water, and could 
 not. Next he said he wanted some water to drink ; they gave him 
 one draught after another till the big water-jug was emptied, but 
 his thirst kept on saying " More ! more ! " Sanker did not seem 
 to remember any of this. He came down with the rest in the 
 morning, his face very white, except for a pinkish spot in the middle 
 of his cheeks, and he thought the fellows must be chaffing him. 
 The fellows told him they were not ; and one, it was Bill Whitney, 
 said they would not think of chaffing him just after his having been 
 so nearly drowned. 
 
 It went on to the afternoon. Sanker ate no dinner, for I looked 
 to see ; he was but one amidst the many, and it was not noticed 
 by the masters. And if it had been, they'd have thought that the 
 ducking had taken away his appetite. The drawing-master, Wilson, 
 followed suit with Hall, and said he was not surprised at their being 
 nearly drowned, after making hay on the Sunday. But, about four 
 o'clock, when the first-class were before Dr. Frost with their Greek 
 books, Sanker suddenly let his fall. Instead of stooping for it, his 
 eyes took a far-off look, as if they were seeking for it round the 
 walls of the room. 
 
 " Lay hold of him," said Dr. Frost. 
 
 He did not faint, but seemed dull ; it looked as much like a lazy 
 fit as anything ; and he was sensible. They put him to sit on one 
 of the benches, and then he began to tremble. 
 
 " He must be got to bed," said the Doctor. " Mr. Blair, kindly 
 see Mrs. Hall, will you. Tell her to warm it. Stay. Wait a 
 moment." 
 
 Dr. Frost followed Mr. Blair from the hall. It was to say that 
 Sanker had better go at once to the blue-room. If the bed there 
 was not aired, or otherwise ready, Sanker's own bedding could be 
 taken to it, " I'll give Mrs. Hall the orders myself," said the Doctor.
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 169 
 
 The blue-room— called so from its blue-stained walls— was the 
 one used on emergencies. When we found Sanker had been taken 
 there, we made up our minds that he was going to have an illness. 
 Featherston came and thought the same. 
 
 The next day, Wednesday, he was in a sort of fever, rambling 
 every other minute. The Squire said he should like to see him, 
 and Blair took him upstairs. Sanker lay with the same pink hue 
 on his cheeks, only deeper ; and his eyes were bright and glistening. 
 Hall, who was addicted to putting in her word on all occasions 
 when it could tell against us boys, said if he had stayed two or 
 three days in bed at Vale Farm, where he was first put, he'd have 
 had nothing of this. Perhaps Hall was right. It had been Sanker's 
 own doings to get up. When Mrs. Vale saw him coming down- 
 stairs, she wanted to send him back to bed again, but he told her 
 he was quite well, and came off to school. 
 
 Sanker knew the Squire, and put out his hand. The Squire 
 took it without saying a word. He told us later that to him 
 Sanker's face looked as if it had death in it. When he would have 
 spoken, Sanker's eyes had grown wild again, and he was talking 
 nonsense about his class-books. 
 
 *' Johnny, boy, you sit in this room a bit at times ; you are 
 patient and not rough," said the Squire, when he went out to his 
 carriage, for he had driven over. " I have asked them to let you 
 be up there as much as they can. The poor boy is very ill, and has 
 no relatives nenfr him." 
 
 Dwarf Giles, touching his hat to Tod and me, was at the horses' 
 heads. Bob and BUster. The cattle knew us: I'm sure of it. 
 They had had several hours' rest in old Frost's stables while the 
 Squire went on foot about the neighbourhood to call on people. 
 Dr. Frost, standing out with us, admired the fine dark horses very 
 much; at which Giles was prouder than if the Doctor had admired 
 ///;;/. He cared for nothing in the world so much as those two 
 animals, and groomed them with a will. 
 
 "You'll take care that he wants for nothing. Doctor," I heard 
 the Squire say as he shook hands. " Don't spare any care and ex- 
 pense to get him well again ; I wish to look upon this illness as my 
 charge. It seems something like an injustice, you see, that my 
 boy should come off without damage, and this poor fellow be lying 
 there." 
 
 He took the reins and stepped up to his seat, Giles getting up 
 beside him. As we watched the horses step off with the high 
 step that the Squire loved, he looked back and nodded to us. 
 And it struck me that, in this care for Sanker, the Pater was try- 
 ing to make some recompense for the suspicion cast on him a year 
 before a! Dvke Manor.
 
 I70 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 It was a sharp, short iUness, the fever raging, though not in- 
 fectious ; I had never been with any one in anything Hke it before, 
 and I did not wish to be again. To hear how Sanker's mind 
 rambled, was marvellous ; but some of us shivered when it came to 
 raving. Very often he'd be making hay ; fighting against numbers 
 that were throwing cocks at him, while he could not throw back at 
 them. Then he'd be in the water, buffeting with high waves, 
 and shrieking out that he was drowning, and throwing his thin 
 hot arms aloft in agony. Sometimes the trouble would be his 
 lessons, hammering at Latin derivations and Greek roots ; and 
 next he was toiling through a problem in Euclid. One night when 
 he was at the worst, old Featherston lost his head, and the next 
 day Mr. Garden came posting from Worcester in his carriage. 
 
 There were medical men of renown nearer ; but somehow in ex- 
 tremity we all turned to him. And his skill did not fail here. 
 Whether it might be any special relief he was enabled to give, or 
 that the disease had reached its crisis, I cannot tell, but from the 
 moment Mr. Garden stood at his bedside, Sanker began to mend. 
 Featherston said the next day that the worst of the danger had 
 passed. It seemed to us that it had just set in ; no rat was ever 
 so weak as Sanker. 
 
 The hohdays came then, and the boys went home : all but me. 
 Sanker couldn't lift a hand, but he could smile at us and understand, 
 and he said he should like to have me stay a bit with him; so 
 they sent word from home I might. Mr. Blair stayed also; Dr. 
 Frost wished it. The Doctor was subpoenaed to give evidence 
 on a trial at Westminster, and had to hasten up to London. Blair 
 had no relatives at all, and did not care to go anywhere. He told 
 me in confidence that his staying there saved his pocket. Blair was 
 strict in school, but over Sanker's bed he got as friendly with me 
 as possible. I liked him ; he was always gentlemanly ; and I 
 grew to dislike their calHng him Baked Pie as much as he dishked 
 it himself. 
 
 " You go out and get some air, Ludlow," he said to me the day 
 after the school broke up, " or we may have you ill next." 
 
 Upon that I demanded what I wanted with air. I had taken 
 precious long walks with the fellows up to the day before yesterday. 
 
 " You go," said he, curtly. 
 
 " Go, Johnny," said Sanker, in his poor weak voice, which 
 couldn't raise itself above a whisper. " I'm getting well, you 
 know." 
 
 My way of taking the air was to sit down at one of the school- 
 room desks and write to Tod. In about five minutes some one 
 walked round the house as if looking for an entrance, and then 
 stopped at the side-door. Putting my head out of the window, I
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END, 171 
 
 took a look at her. It was a young lady in a plain grey dress and 
 straw bonnet, with a cloak over her arm, and an umbrella put up 
 against the sun. The back regions were turned inside out, for they 
 had begun the summer cleaning that morning, and the cook came 
 clanking along in pattens to answer the knock. 
 
 " This is Dr. Frost's, I beheve. Can I see him ? " 
 
 It was a sweet, calm, gentle voice. The cook, who had no 
 notion of visitors arriving at the cleaning season, when the boys 
 were just got rid of, and the Doctor had gone away, stared at 
 her for a moment, and then asked in her surly manner whether 
 she had business with Dr. Frost. That cook and old Molly at 
 home might have run in a curricle, they were such a match in 
 temper. 
 
 " Business ! — oh, certainly, I must see him, if you please." 
 
 The cook shook off her pattens, and went up the back stairs, 
 leaving the young lady outside. As it was business, she supposed 
 she must call Mr. Blair. 
 
 " Somebody wants Dr. Frost," was her announcement to him. 
 " A girl at the side door." 
 
 Which of course caused Blair to suppose it might be a child from 
 one of the cottages come to ask for help of some sort ; as they did 
 come sometimes. He thought Hall might have been called to her, 
 but he went down at once ; without his coat, and his invalid-room 
 slippers on. Naturally, when he saw the young lady, it took him 
 aback, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; I hope you will not deem me an in- 
 truder, I have just arrived here." 
 
 Blair stared almost as much as the cook had done. The face 
 was so pleasant, the voice so refined, that Ife inwardly called himself 
 a fool for showing himself to her in that trim. For once, speech 
 fiuled him; a thing Blair had never done at mathematics, I can 
 tell you ; he had not the smallest notion who she was or what she 
 wanted. And the silence seemed to frighten her. 
 
 " Am I too late ? " she asked, her face growing white, " Has the 
 — the worse happened ? " 
 
 "Happened to what?" questioned Blair, for he never once 
 thought of the sick fellow above, and was all at sea. " Pardon me, 
 young lady, but I do not know what you are speaking of," 
 
 " Of my brother, Edward Sanker. Oh, sir ! is he dead ? " 
 
 " Miss Sanker ! Truly I beg your pardon for my stupidity. He 
 is out of danger ; is getting well." 
 
 She sat down for a minute on the old stone bench beyond the 
 door, roughed with the crowd of boys' names cut in it. Her lips 
 were trembling just a little, and the soft brown eyes had tears in 
 thenj I but the face was breaking into a happy smile.
 
 173 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Frost, thank you, thank you! Somehow I never 
 thought of him as dead until this moment, and it startled me." 
 
 Fancy her taking him for Frost ! Blair was a good-looking fellow 
 under thirty, slender and well made. The Doctor stood out an 
 old guy of fifty, with a stern face and black knee-breeches. 
 
 " My mother had your letter, sir, but she was not able to come. 
 My father is very ill, needing her attention every moment ; she 
 strove to see on which side her duty lay — to stay with him, or to 
 come to Edward ; and she thought it must lie in remaining with 
 papa. So she sent me. I left Wales last night." 
 
 " Is Mr. Sanker's a fever, too? " asked Blair, in wonder. 
 " No, an accident. He was hurt in the mine." 
 It was odd that it should be so; the two illnesses occurring at 
 the same time ! Mr. Sanker, it appeared, fell from the shaft ; his 
 leg was broken, and there were other injuries. At first they were 
 afraid for him. 
 
 Blair fell into a dilemma. He wouldn't have minded Mrs. 
 Sanker ; but he did not know much about young ladies, not being 
 accustomed to them. She got up from the bench. 
 
 " Mamma bade me say to you. Dr. Frost " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," interrupted Blair again. '• I am not Dr. 
 Frost; the Doctor went to London this morning. My name is 
 Blair — one of the masters. Will you walk in ? " 
 
 He shut her into the parlour on his way to call Hall, and to put 
 on his boots and coat. Seeing me, he turned into the schoolroom. 
 " Ludlow, are not the Bankers connections of yours ?" 
 " Not of mine. Of Mrs. Todhetley's." 
 
 " It's all the same. You go in and talk to her. I don't know 
 what on earth to do. She has come to be with Sanker, but she 
 won't like to stay here with only you and me. If the Doctor were 
 at home it would be different." 
 
 " She seems an uncommon nice girl, Mr. Blair." 
 " Good gracious ! " went on Blair in his dilemma. " The Doctor 
 told me he had written to Wales some time ago ; but he supposed 
 Mrs. Sanker could not make it convenient to come ; and yesterday 
 he wrote again, saying there was no necessity for it, as Sanker was 
 out of danger. I don't know what on earth to do with her," repeated 
 Blair, who had a habit of getting hopelessly bewildered on occa- 
 sions. " Hall ! Where's Mrs. Hall ? " 
 
 As he went calling out down the flagged passage, a boy came 
 whistling to the door, carrying a carpet-bag: Miss Banker's lug- 
 gage. The coach she had had to take on leaving the rail put her 
 down half-a-milc away, and she walked up in the sun, leaving her 
 bag to be brought after her. 
 
 It seemed that we were going in for mista,kes. When I went to
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 175 
 
 her, and began to say who I was, she mistook me for Tod. It 
 made me laugh. 
 
 " Tod is a great, strong fellow, as tall as Mr. Blair, Miss Sanker. 
 I am only Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 " Edward has told me all about you both," she said, taking my 
 hand, and looking into my face with her sweet eyes. " Tod's 
 proud and overbearing, though generous ; but you have ever been 
 pleasant with him. I am afraid I shall begin to call you ' Johnnj- ' 
 at once." 
 
 '• No one ever calls me anything else ; except the masters here." 
 
 " You must have heard of me — Mary .' " 
 
 " But you are not Mary ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 That she was telling truth any fellow might see, and yet at first 
 I hardly believed her. Sanker had told us his sister Mary was 
 beautiful as an angel. Her face had no beauty in it, so to say ; it 
 was only kind, nice, and loving. People called Mrs. Parrifer a 
 beautiful woman ; perhaps I had taken my notions of beauty from 
 her ; she had a Roman nose, and great big eyes that rolled about, 
 had a gruff voice, and a lovely peach-and-white complexion (but 
 people said it was paint), and looked three parts a fool. Mary 
 Sanker was just the opposite to all this, and her cheeks were 
 dimpled. But still she had not what people call beauty. 
 
 '• May I go up and see Edward ? " 
 
 " I should think so. Mr. Blair, I suppose, will be back directly. 
 He is looking very ill : you will not be frightened at him ? " 
 
 '■ After picturing him in my mind as dead, he will not frighten 
 me, however ill he may look." 
 
 " I should say the young lady had better take off her bonnet afore 
 going in. Young Mr. Sanker haven't seen bonnets of late, and 
 might be scared." 
 
 The interruption came from Hall ; we turned, and saw her 
 standing there. She spoke resentfully, as if Miss Sanker had 
 offended her ; and no doubt she had, by coming when the house 
 was not in company order, and had nothing better to send in for 
 dinner but cold mutton and half a rhubarb pie. Hall would have 
 to get the mutton hashed now, which she would ne\'er have done 
 for me and Blair. 
 
 " Yes, if you please; I should much like to take my bonnet off."' 
 said Miss Sanker, going up to Hall with a smile. " I think you 
 must be Mrs. Hall. IMy brother has talked of you." 
 
 Hall took her to a room, and presently she came forth all 
 fresh and nice, the travel dust gone, and her bright brown hair 
 smooth and glossy. Her grey dress was soft, one that would not 
 disturb a sick-room ; it had a bit of white lace at the throat and
 
 174 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 wrists, and a little pearl brooch in front. She was twenty-One last 
 birthday, but did not look as much. 
 
 Blair had been in to prepare Sanker, and his great eyes (only 
 great since his illness) were staring for her with a wild expectation. 
 You never saw brother and sister less alike ; the one so nice, the 
 other ugly enough to frighten the cfows. Sanker had my hand 
 clasped tight in his, when she stooped to kiss him. I don't think 
 he knew it; but I could not get away. In that moment I saw how 
 fond they were of each other. 
 
 " Could not the mother come, Mary ? " 
 
 " No, papa is— is not well," she said, for of course she would not 
 tell him yet of any accident. " Papa wanted her there, and you 
 wanted her here ; she thought her duty lay at home, and she was 
 not afraid but that God would raise up friends to take care of 
 you." 
 
 " What is the matter with him ? " 
 
 " Some complicated illness or other," Mary Sanker answered, in 
 careless tones. "He was a little better when I came away. You 
 have been very ill, Edward." 
 
 He held up his wasted hand as proof, with a half smile; but it 
 fell again. 
 
 " I don't believe I should have pulled through it all, Mary, but 
 for Blair. " 
 
 " That's the gentleman I saw. The one without a coat. Has he 
 nursed you ? " 
 
 Sanker motioned with his white lips. "Right well, too. He, 
 and Hall, and Johnny here. Old Hall is as good as gold when any 
 of us are ill." 
 
 " And pays herself out by being tarter than ever when we are 
 well," I could not help saying : for it was the truth. 
 
 " Blair saved Todhetley's life," Sanker went on. " We used to 
 call him Baked Pie before, and give him all the trouble we could." 
 " Ought you to talk, Edward ? " 
 
 " It is your coming that seems to give me strength for it," he 
 answered. " I did not know that Frost had written home." 
 
 " There was a delay with the letters, or I might have been here 
 three days ago," said Miss Sanker, speaking in penitent tones, as if 
 she were in the habit of taking other people's faults upon herself. 
 " While papa is not well, the clerk down at the mine opens the 
 business letters. Seeing one directed to papa privately, he neither 
 spoke of it nor sent it up, and for three days it lay unopened." 
 
 Sanker had gone off into one of his weak fits before she finished 
 speaking : lying with his eyes and mouth wide open, between sleep- 
 ing and waking. Hall came in and said with a tone that snapped 
 Miss Sanker up, // wouldii't do : if people could not be there with-
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 175 
 
 out talking, they must not be there at all. I don't say but that she 
 was a capable nurse, or that when a fellow was downright ill, 
 she spared the wine in the arrowroot, and the sugar in the tea. 
 Mary Sanker sat down by the bedside, her finger on her lips to 
 show that she meant to keep silence. 
 
 We had visitors later. Mrs. Vale came over, as she did most 
 days, to see how Sanker was getting on ; and Bill Whitney brought 
 his mother. Mrs. Vale told Mary Sanker that she had better sleep 
 at the Farm, as the Doctor was away ; she'd give her a nice room 
 and make her comfortable. Upon that, Lady Whitney offered a 
 spacious bed and dressing-room at the Hall. Mary thanked them 
 both, saying how kind they were to be so friendly with a stranger ; 
 but thought she must go to the Farm, as it would be within a 
 walk night and morning. Bill spoke up, and said the carriage 
 could fetch and bring her; but Vale Farm was decided upon ; and 
 when night came, I went with her to show her the way. 
 
 "That's the water they went into, Miss Sanker; and that's the 
 very spot behind the trees." She shivered just a little as she 
 looked, but did not say much. Mrs. Vale met us at the door, and 
 the old lady kissed Mary and told her she was a good girl to come 
 fearlessly all the way alone from Wales to nurse her sick brother. 
 When Mary came back the next morning, she said they had given 
 her such a beautiful room, the dimity curtains whiter than snow, 
 and the sheets scented with lavender. 
 
 Her going out to sleep appeased Hall ; — that, or something else. 
 She was gracious all day, and sent us in a couple of chickens for 
 dinner. Mr. Blair cut them up and helped us. He had written to 
 tell Dr. Frost in London of Miss Sanker's arrival, and while we 
 were at table a telegram came back, saying Mrs. Hall was to take 
 care of Miss Sanker, and make her comfortable. 
 
 It went on so for three or four days ; Mary sleeping at the Farm, 
 and coming back in the morning. Sanker got well enough to be 
 taken to a sofa in the pretty room that poor Mrs. Frost sat in 
 nearly to the last; and we were all four growing very jolly, as 
 intimate as if we'd known each other as infants. I had taken to 
 call her Mary, hearing Sanker do it so often ; and twice the name 
 slipped accidentally from IMr. Blair. The news from Wales was 
 better and better. For visitors we had Mrs. Vale, Lady Whitney, 
 and Bill, and old Featherston. Some of them came every day. 
 Dr. Frost was detained in London. The trial did not come on so 
 soon as it was put down for ; and when it did, it lasted a week, and 
 the witnesses had to stay there. He had written to Mary, telling 
 her to make herself quite happy, for she was in good hands. He 
 also wrote to Mrs. Vale, and to Hall. 
 
 Well, it was either the fourth or fifth day. I know it was on
 
 176 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Monday ; and at five o'clock we were having tea for the first time 
 in Sanker's sitting-room, the table drawn near the sofa, and Mary 
 pouring it out. It was the hottest of hot weather, the window was 
 up as high as it would go, but not a breath of air came in. There- 
 fore, to see Blair begin to shake as if he were taken with an ague, 
 was something inexplicable. His face looked grey, his ears and 
 hands had turned a sort of bluish white. 
 
 " Halloa ! " said Sanker, who was the first to notice him. "What's 
 the matter, sir ? " 
 
 Blair got up, and sat down again, his limbs shaking, his teeth 
 chattering. Mary Sanker hastily put some of the hot tea into a 
 saucer, and held it to his lips. His teeth rattled against the china ; 
 I thought they would bite a piece out of it ; and in trying to take 
 the saucer from Miss Sanker, the tea was spilt on the carpet. 
 
 "Just call Mrs. Hall, Johnny," said Sanker, who had propped 
 himself up on his elbow to stare. 
 
 Hall came, and Mr. Featherston came; but they could not make 
 anything out of it except that Blair had had a shaking-fit. He was 
 soon all right again (except for a burning heat) ; but the surgeon, 
 given naturally to croak (or he wouldn't have got so frightened 
 about Sanker when Mr. Garden was telegraphed for), said he hoped 
 the mathematical master had not set in for fever. 
 
 He had set in for something. That was clear. The shaking-fits 
 took him now and again, giving place to spells of low fever. 
 Featherston was not sure whether it had not a " typhoid character," 
 he said ; but the suspicion was quite enough, and our visitors fell 
 off. Mrs. Vale was the only one who came ; she laughed at sup- 
 posing she could be afraid of it. So there we still were, we four ; 
 prisoners, as may be said ; with some fever amongst us that per- 
 haps might be of a typhoid character. Mr. Featherston said (or 
 Hall, I forget which) that it must have been smouldering within 
 him ever since the Sunday night when he jumped into the river, 
 and Blair thought so himself. 
 
 Do not imagine he was as ill as Sanker had been. Nothing of 
 the sort. He got up every morning, and was in Mrs. Frost's sitting- 
 room with us until evening : but he grew nearly as weak as Sanker, 
 and wanted pretty nearly as much wailing on. Sometimes his 
 hands were like a burning coal ; sometimes so cold that Mary 
 would take them in hers to try and rub a little hfe into them. She 
 was the gentlest nurse possible, and did not seem to think anything 
 more of waiting on him than on her brother. Mrs. Hall would 
 stand by and say there was nothing left for her to do. 
 
 One day Lady Whitney came over, braving the typhoid sus- 
 picion, and asked to see Miss Sanker in the great drawing-room; 
 where she stood sniffing at a bottle of aromatic vinegar.
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 177 
 
 " I^Iy dear," she said, when I\Iary went to her, " I do not think 
 this is at all a desirable position for you to be placed in. I should 
 not exactly like it for one of my own daughters. Mr. Blair is a 
 very gentleman-like man, and all that, with quite proper feelings no 
 doubt; but sitting with him in illness is altogether different from 
 sitting with your brother. Featherston tells me there's little or no 
 danger of infection, and 1 have come to take you back to the Hall 
 with me." 
 
 But Mary would not go. It was not the position she should 
 have voluntarily chosen, but circumstances had led her into it, and 
 she thought her duty lay in staying where she was at present, was 
 the substance of her answer. Mr. Blair had nursed her brother 
 through his dangerous illness, and it would be cruelly ungrateful to 
 leave him, now that he was ill himself. It seemed a duty thrown 
 expressly in her way, she added ; and her mother approved of what 
 she was doing. 
 
 So Lady Whitney went away (leaving the bottle of aromatic 
 vinegar as a present for the sick-room) three parts convinced. Any 
 way, when she got home, she said that Mary Sanker was a sweet, 
 good girl, trusty to her fingers' ends. 
 
 I'm sure she was like sunshine in the room, and read to us out of 
 the Bible just as Harry Vale's fine old grandmother might have 
 done. The first day that Sanker took a drive in a fly, he was tired 
 afterwards, and went to bed and to sleep at tea-time. Towards 
 sunset, before I walked with her to the Farm, i\Iary took the Book 
 as usual ; and then hesitated, as if in doubt whether to presume to 
 read or not, Sanker being away. 
 
 " Oh yes ; yes, if you please," said Mr. Blair. 
 
 She began the tenth chapter of St. John. It is a passably long 
 one, as every one knows ; and when she laid the Book down again, 
 Blair had his eyes shut and his head resting on the back of the easy 
 chair where he generally sat. His face never looked more still and 
 white. I glanced at Mary and she at me; we thought he was 
 worse, and she went up to him. 
 
 " I ought not to have read so long a chapter," she gently said. 
 " I fear you are feeling worse." 
 
 "No;' I was only thinking. Thinking what an angel you are," 
 he added in low, impassioned, yet reverent tones, as he bent forward 
 to look up in her face, and took both her hands for a moment 
 in his. 
 
 She drew them away at once, saying, as she passed me, that she 
 was going to put on her bonnet, and should be ready in a minute. 
 Of course it might have been the reflection of the red sun-clouds, 
 but I never saw any face so glowing in all my life. 
 
 The next move old Featherston made, was to decide that the 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I- 1-^
 
 178 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 fever was not of a typhoid character ; and visitors came about us 
 again. It was something Hke opening a public-house after a spell 
 of closing ; all the Whitneys flocked in together, except Sir John, 
 who was in town for Parliament. Mrs. Hall was uncommonly 
 short with every one. She had said from the first there was nothing 
 infectious in the fever, told Featherston so to his face, and resented 
 people's having stayed away. I wrote home to tell them there. On 
 the Saturday Dr. Frost arrived, and we were glad to see him. Blair 
 was getting rather better then. 
 
 "Well, that Sunday night's plunge in the water has had its 
 revenge ! " remarked Dr. Frost. "It only wants Todhetley and 
 Vale to follow suit." 
 
 But neither of them had the least intention of following suit. On 
 the Monday Tod arrived to surprise us, strong as ever. The 
 Squire had trusted him to drive the horses : you should have seen 
 them spanking in at the gate of Worcester House, pawing the 
 gravel, as Tod in the high carriage, the ribbons in his hands, and 
 the groom beside him, brought them up beautifully to the door. 
 Some people called Tod ugly, saying his features were strong ; 
 but I know he promised to be the finest man in our two counties. 
 
 He brought an invitation for the sick and the well. When the 
 two invahds were able to get to Dyke Manor, Mr. and Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley expected to see them, for change of air. Mary Sanker and 
 I were to go as soon as we liked. Which we did in a few days, and 
 were followed by Sanker and Mr. Blair : both able to help them- 
 selves then, and getting well all one way. 
 
 It did not surprise people very much to hear that the mathema- 
 tical master and Mary Sanker had fallen in love with one another. 
 He (as Bill Whitney's mother had put in) was gentleman-like ; a 
 good-looking fellow to boot : and you have heard what she was. 
 The next week but one after arriving at Dyke Manor, Blair took 
 Mrs. Todhetley into his confidence, though he had said nothing to 
 Mary. They would be sure to marry in the end, she privately 
 told the Squire, for their likeness to each other had struck her at 
 first sight. 
 
 ' " Mary will not have a shilling, Mr. Blair ; she will go to her 
 husband (whenever she shall marry) with even a very poor outfit," 
 Mrs. Todhetley explained, wishing Blair to fully understand things. 
 " Her father, Philip Sanker, was a gentleman bred and born, but 
 his patrimony was small. He was persuaded to embark it in a 
 Welsh mine, and lost all. Report said some roguery was at work, 
 but I don't know that it was. It ended in his becoming overlooker 
 on the very same mine, at a salary so small that they could hardly 
 have reared their family anywhere but in Wales. Mary does not 
 play, or draw, you see ; she has no accomplishments."
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 179 
 
 " She has what is a great deal better ; she does not want them," 
 answered Blair, his pale face lighting up. 
 
 " In point of fact, the Sankers — as I fancy — have sacrificed the 
 girls' interests to the boys ; they of course must have a thorough 
 education," remarked Mrs. Todhetley. " They are good people, 
 both; you could not fail to like them. I sometimes think, Mr. 
 Blair, that the children of these refined men and women (and 
 Philip Sanker and his wife are that), compelled to live closely and 
 to look at every sixpence before it is spent, turn out all the better 
 for it." 
 
 " I am sure they do," answered Blair, earnestly. "It was my 
 
 own case." 
 
 Taking Mrs. Todhetley into confidence meant as to his means as 
 well as his love. He had saved a little money during the eight 
 years he had been at work for himself — about two hundred pounds. 
 It might be possible, he thought, to take a school with this, and set 
 up a tent at once : he and Mary. Mrs. Todhetley shook her head ; 
 she could make as much of small sums as any one, but fancied this 
 would scarcely be enough for what he wished. 
 
 " There would be the furniture," she ventured to say with some 
 hesitation, not hking to damp him. 
 
 " I think that is often included in the purchase-money for the 
 good-will," said Blair. 
 
 He had been acting on this notion before speaking to Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley, and a friend of his in London, the Reverend Mr. Lockett, 
 was already looking out for any schools that might be in the 
 market. In a few days news came down of one to be disposed of 
 in the neighbourhood of London. Mr. Lockett thought it was as 
 good an investment as Blair was likely to find, he wrote word : only, 
 the purchase-money, inclusive of furniture, was four hundred pounds 
 instead of two. 
 
 " It is of no use to think of it," said Mr. Blair, pushing his curly 
 hair (they used to say he was vain of it at Frost's) from his 
 perplexed brow. " My two hundred pounds will not go far towards 
 that." 
 
 " It seems to me that the first step will be to go up and see the 
 place," remarked Mrs. Todhetley. " If what IMr. Lockett says of the 
 school be true ; that is, if the people who have the disposal of it are 
 not deceiving him ; it must be a very good thing." 
 
 " I suppose you mean that half the purchase-money should remain 
 on it as a mortgage, to be paid off later," cried Blair, seizing the idea 
 and brightening up. 
 
 " No ; not exactly," said Mrs. Todhetley, getting as red as a rose, 
 for she did not like to tell him what she did mean ; it looked rather 
 like a conspiracy.
 
 iSo JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Look here, Blair," cried the Squire, taking him in the garden 
 by the button-hole, "/ will see about the other two hundred. 
 You go up and make inquiries on the spot; and perhaps I'll go 
 too ; I should like a run up ; and if the aflair is worth your 
 while, we'll pay the money down on the nail, and so have done 
 M-ith it." 
 
 It was Blair's turn to grow red now. " Do you mean, sir, that 
 you — that you — would advance the half of the money ? But it 
 would be too generous. I have no claim on you " 
 
 "^No claim on me ! " burst forth the Squire, in a passion, pinning 
 him against the wall of the pigeon-house. " No claim on me ! 
 When you saved my son from drowning only a few weeks ago ! 
 And had an ague through it ! No claim on me ! What next will 
 you say ? " 
 
 " But that was nothing, sir. Any man, with the commonest feelings 
 of humanity, would jump into the water if he saw a fellow-creature 
 sinking." 
 
 " Commonest fiddlestick ! " roared the Squire. "If this school 
 is one likely to answer your purpose, you put down your two 
 hundred pounds, and I will see to the rest. There ! We'll go up 
 to-day." 
 
 " Oh, sir, I never expected this. Perhaps in a year or two I shall 
 be able to pay the money back again : but the goodness I can never 
 repay." 
 
 " Don't you trouble your head about paying me back till you're 
 asked to do it," retorted the Squire, mortally offended at the notion. 
 " If you arc too proud to take it and say nothing about it, I'll give 
 it to Mary Sanker instead of you. I will, too. Mind, sir! that 
 half shall be your wife's, not yours." 
 
 If you'll believe me, there were tears in old Blair's eyes. He was 
 soft at times. The Squire gave him another thrust, which nearly 
 sent Blair into the pigeon-house, and then walked off with his head 
 up and his nankeen coat-skirts held out behind, to watch Drew give 
 the green meat to the pigs. Blair got over his push, and went to 
 find Miss Mary, his thin cheeks alight with a spot as red as Sanker's 
 had worn when his illness was coming on. 
 
 They went up to London that day. The Squire had plenty of 
 sense when he chose to exercise it ; and instead of trusting to 
 his own investigation and Blair's (which would have been the 
 likeliest thing for him to do in general) he took a lawyer to the 
 spot. 
 
 It proved to be all right. The gentleman giving up the school 
 had made some money at it, and was going abroad to his friends, 
 who had settled in Queensland. Any efficient man, he said to the 
 Squire, able to keep pupils when once he had secured them, could
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. i8i 
 
 not fail to do well at it. The clergyman, Mr. Lockett, had called on 
 one or two of the parents, who confirmed what was asserted. 
 Altogether it was a straightforward thing ; but they wouldn't abate 
 a shilling of the four hundred pounds. 
 
 The Squire concluded the bargain on the spot, for other appli- 
 cants were after it, and there was danger in delay. He came back 
 to Dyke Manor ; and the next thing he did was to accompany Mary 
 S anker home, and tell the news there. 
 
 Mr. Blair stayed in London to take possession, and get things in 
 order. He had only time for a few days' flying visit to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Sanker in Wales before opening his new school. There was 
 no opposition there : people are apt to judge prospects according to 
 their own circumstances ; and they seemed to think it a good ofter 
 for Mary. 
 
 There was no opposition anywhere. Dr. Frost found a new 
 mathematical master without trouble, and sent Blair his best wishes 
 and a full set of plated spoons and forks and things, engraved with 
 the initials P. M. B. He was wise enough to lay out the sum he 
 wished to give in useful things, instead of a silver tea-pot or any 
 other grand article of that kind, which would not be brought to light 
 once a year. 
 
 Blair cribbed a week's holiday at Michaelmas, and went down 
 to be married. We saw them at the week's end as they passed 
 through Worcester station. Mary looked the same sweet girl as 
 ever, in the same quiet grey dress (or another that was related 
 to it) ; and Blair was jolly. He clasped the Squire's hands 
 as if he wanted to take them with him. We handed in a big 
 basket of grapes and nectarines from Mrs. Todhetley ; and Mary's 
 nice face smiled and nodded her thanks to the last, as the train 
 puffed on. 
 
 " Good luck to them ! " said Tod. 
 
 Good luck to them. You will hear what luck they had. 
 
 For this is 7iot the end of that Sunday night's work, or it would 
 have hardly been worth relating, seeing that people get married 
 every day, and no one thinks cheese of it but themselves. The end 
 has to come.
 
 XI L 
 
 " JERRY'S GAZETTE." 
 
 The school, taken to by Mr. Blair, was in one of the suburbs of 
 London. It maybe as well not to mention which of them; but 
 some of the families yet living there cannot fail to remember the 
 circumstances when they read this. For what I am going to tell 
 you of is true. It did not happen last year ; nor the year before. 
 When it did happen, is of no consequence to any one. 
 
 When Pyefinch Blair got into the house, he found that it had 
 some dilapidations, which had escaped his notice, and would have 
 to be repaired. Not an uncommon case by any means. Mr. Blair 
 paid the four hundred pounds for the school, including the furniture 
 and good-will, and that drained him of his money. It was not a 
 bad bargain, as bargains go. He then had the house put into fair 
 order, and bought a little more furniture that seemed necessary to 
 him, intending that his boys should be comfortable, as well as the 
 young wife he was soon to bring home. 
 
 The school did not profess to be one of those higher-class schools 
 that charge a hundred a year and extras. It was moderate in terms 
 and moderate in size ; the pupils being chiefly sons of well-to-do 
 tradesmen, some of them living on the spot. At first, Blair (bring- 
 ing with him his Cambridge notions) entertained thoughts of raising 
 the school to a higher price and standard. But it would have been 
 a risk; almost like beginning a fresh venture. And when he found 
 that the school paid well, and masters and boys got on comfortably, 
 he dropped the wish. 
 
 More than two years went by. One evening, early in February, 
 Airs. Blair was sitting by the parlour fire after tea, with a great boy 
 on her lap, who was forward with his tongue, and had just begun to 
 walk with a totter. I don't think you could have seen much differ- 
 ence in her from what she was as Mary Sanker. She had the same 
 neat sort of dress and quiet manner, the fresh gentle face and sweet 
 eyes, and the pretty, smooth brown hair. Her husband told her 
 sometimes that she would spoil the boys with kindness. If any one ' 
 fell into disgrace, she was sure to beg him off; it was wonderful
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 1S3 
 
 what a good mother she was to them, and only twenty-four years 
 old yet. 
 
 Mr. Blair was striding the carpet with his head down, as one in 
 perplexed thought, a scowl upon his brow. It was something 
 unusual, for he was always bright. He was as slender and good- 
 looking a fellow as he used to be. Mrs. Blair noticed him and 
 spoke. 
 
 " Have you a headache, Pyefinch ? " She had long ago got over 
 the odd sound of his Christian name. Habit famiharizes most 
 things. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What is it, then ? " 
 
 He did not make any answer ; seemed not to hear her. Mrs. 
 Blair put the boy down on the hearthrug. The child was baptized 
 Joseph, after Squire Todhetley, whom they persisted in calling their 
 best friend. 
 
 " Run to papa, Joe. Ask him what the matter is." 
 
 The young gentleman went swaying across the carpet, with some 
 unintelligible language of his own. ]\Ir. Blair had no resource but 
 to pick him up : and he carried him back to his mother. 
 
 " What is the matter, Pyefinch ? " she asked again, taking his 
 hand. " I am sure you are not well." 
 
 " I am quite well," he said ; " but I have got into a little bother 
 lately. What ails me this evening is, that I find I must tell you of 
 it, and I don't like to do so. There, Mary, send the child away." 
 
 She knew the nursemaid was busy ; would not ring, but carried 
 him out herself. Mr. Blair was sitting down when she returned, 
 staring into the fire. 
 
 " I had hoped you would never know it, Mary ; I had not intended 
 that you should. The fact is " 
 
 ^Ir. Blair stopped. His wife glanced at him; a serene calm in 
 her eyes, a firm reliance in her loving tone. 
 
 " Do not hesitate, Pyefinch. The greater the calamity, the more 
 need that I should hear it." 
 
 " Nay, it is no such great mischief as to be called a calamity. 
 When I took to this house and school, I incurred a debt, and I am 
 suddenly called upon to pay it." 
 
 " Do you mean Mr. Todhetley's ? " 
 
 A smile at the question crossed the schoolmaster's face. " I\Ir. 
 Todhetley's was a present ; I thought you understood that, ]Mary. 
 When I would have spoken of returning it, you may remember that 
 he went into a passion." 
 
 " What debt is it, then ? " 
 
 " I paid four hundred pounds, you know, for the school ; half of 
 it I had saved; the other half was given by Mr. Todhetley. Well
 
 1^4 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 and good, so far. But I had not thought of one thing— the money 
 that would be wanted for current expenses, and for the hundred and 
 one odd things that stare you in the face upon taking to a new 
 concern. Repairs had to be done, furniture to be bought in ; and 
 not a penny coming in until the end of the quarter: not much then, 
 for most of the boys pay half-yearly. Lockett, who was down here 
 most days, saw that if I could not get some money to go on with, 
 there would be no resource but to re-sell the school. He bestirred 
 himself, and got me the loan of a hundred and fifty pounds from 
 a friend, at only five per cent, interest. This money I am suddenly 
 called upon to repay." 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Because he from whom I had it is dead, and the executors have 
 called it in. It was Mr Wells." 
 
 She recognized the_name as that of a gentleman with whom they 
 had been slightly acquainted ; he had died suddenly, in the prime 
 of life. 
 
 " Has any of it been paid off?" 
 
 " None. I could have repaid a portion every half-year as it came 
 round, but Mr. Wells would not let me. ' You had a great deal 
 better use it in improving the school and getting things comfortable 
 about you ; I am in no hurry,' was his invariable rejoinder. Lockett 
 thought he meant eventually to make me a present of the money, 
 being a wealthy man without near relatives. Of course I never 
 looked for anything of the sort ; but I was as easy as to the debt as 
 though I had not contracted it." 
 
 "Will the executors not let you have the use of the money 
 still ? " 
 
 "You should see their curt note, ordering its immediate repay- 
 ment ! Lockett seems more vexed at the turn affairs have taken 
 than even I am. He was here to-day." 
 
 Mrs. Blair sat in silent reflection, wishing she had known of this. 
 Many an odd shilling that she had thought justified in spending, 
 she would willingly have recalled now. Not that they could have 
 amounted to much in the aggregate. Presently she looked at her 
 husband. 
 
 " Pyefinch, it seems to me that there's only one thing to do. You 
 must borrow the sum from some one else, which of course will make 
 us only as much in debt as we are now ; and we must pay it off by 
 instalments as quickly as we possibly can." 
 
 " It is what Lockett and I have decided on already as the only 
 course. Why, Mary, this worry has been on our minds for a fort- 
 night past," he added, turning quickly. " But now that it has come 
 to borrowing again, and not from a friend, I felt that I ought to tell 
 you. Besides, there's another thing."
 
 '< JERRY'S GAZETTE." 185 
 
 " Go on," she said. 
 
 " We have found a man to advance the money. Lockett and I 
 picked him out from the Times advertisements. These fellows are 
 awful rogues, for the most part ; but this is not one of the worst. 
 Lockett made inquiries of a parishioner of his who understands 
 these things, and finds Gavity (that's his name) is tolerably fair 
 for a professional money-lender. I shall have to pay him higher 
 interest. And he wants me to give him a bill of sale on the 
 furniture." 
 
 " A bill of sale on the furniture ! What is that ? " 
 
 "That is what I meant when I said there was another thing," 
 replied Mr. Blair. " Wells was content with my note of hand ; 
 this man requires security on my goods. It is a mere matter of 
 form in my case, he says. As I am doing well, and there's no 
 fear of my not keeping the interest paid up, I suppose it is. In 
 two or three years from this, all being well, the debt itself will be 
 wiped off." ■ 
 
 " Oh yes ; I hope so. The school is prosperous." 
 
 Her tone was anxious, and Mr. Blair detected it. But for con- 
 sidering that she ought to know it, he would rather have kept 
 this trouble to himself. And he was not sure upon another point : 
 whether, in giving this bill of sale upon the furniture, Mr. Gavity 
 might deem it essential to come in and take a list, article by 
 article, bed by bed, table by table. If so, it would not have been 
 possible to conceal it from her. He mentioned this. She, with 
 himself, could not understand the necessity of their furniture being 
 brought into the transaction at all, seeing that there could be no 
 doubt as to their ability to repay. The one knew just as much 
 about bills of sale and the rights they gave, as the other : and, that, 
 was nothing. 
 
 And noAV that the communication to his wife was off his mind — 
 for in that had lain the chief weight- — Mr. Blair was more at ease. 
 As they sat talking together, discussing the future in all its aspects, 
 the shadow lifted itself, and things looked brighter. It did not 
 seem to either of them so formidable a matter after all. It was 
 only changing one creditor for another, and paying a little higher 
 interest. 
 
 The transaction was accomplished. Gavity advanced the money, 
 and took the bill of sale upon the furniture. He shot up the 
 expenses — as money-lenders of his stamp generally do — and brought 
 up the loan to a hundred and eighty, instead of a hundred and 
 fifty. Still, taking things for all in all, the position was perhaps 
 as fair and hopeful a one as can be experienced under debt. It 
 was but a temporary clog; Mr. and Mrs. Blair both knew that. 
 The school was flourishing; their prospects were good; they were
 
 i86 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 young, and healthy, and hopeful. And though Mr. Gavity would 
 of course exact his rights to the uttermost farthing, he had no 
 intention of playing the rogue. In all candour let it be avowed, the 
 gentleman money-lender did not see that it was a case affording 
 scope for it. 
 
 I had to tell that much as well as I could, seeing that it only came 
 to me by hearsay in the future. 
 
 And now to go back a little while, and to ourselves at Dyke 
 Manor. 
 
 After their marriage the Squire did not lose sight of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Blair. A basket of things went up now and then, and the 
 second Christmas they were invited to come down; but Mary 
 wrote to decline, on account of Joe, the baby. " Let them leave 
 Joe at home," cried Tod; but Mrs. Todhetley, shaking her head, 
 said the dear little infant would come to sad grief without its 
 mother. Soon after that, when the Squire was in London, he took 
 the omnibus and went to see them, and told us how comfortably 
 they were getting on. 
 
 Years went round to another Christmas, when the exacting Joe 
 would be some months over two years old. In the passing of time 
 you are apt to lose sight of interests, unless they are close ones ; 
 and for some months we had heard nothing of the Blairs. Mrs. 
 Todhetley spoke of it one evening. 
 
 " Send them a Christmas hamper," said the Squire. 
 
 The Christmas hamper went. With a turkey and ham, and a 
 brace of pheasants in it ; some bacon and apples to fill up, and 
 sweet herbs and onions. Lena put in her favourite doll, dressed 
 as a little mother, for young Joe. It had a false arm; and no 
 legs, so to say : Hugh cut the feet off one day, and Hannah had to 
 sew the stumps up. We hoped they would enjoy it all, including 
 the doll, and drank good luck to them on Christmas Day. 
 
 A week and a half went on, and no news came. Mrs. Todhetley 
 grew uneasy about the hamper, feeling sure it had been confiscated 
 by the railway. .Mary Blair had always written so promptly to 
 acknowledge everything sent to them. 
 
 One January day the letter came in by the afternoon post. We 
 knew Mary's handwriting. The Squire and Madam were at the 
 Sterlings', and it was nine o'clock at night when they drove in. 
 Mrs. Todhetley's face ached, which was quite usual she had a 
 white handkerchief tied round it. When they were seated round 
 the fire, I remembered the letter, and gave it to her. 
 
 " Now to hear the fate of the hamper ! " she exclaimed, carrj^ing 
 it to the lamp. But, what with the face-ache, and what with her
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 187 
 
 eyes, which were not so good by candle-light as they used to be, 
 Mrs. Todhetley could not read the contents readily. She looked 
 at the writing, page after page, and then gave a short scream of 
 dismay. Something was wrong. 
 
 " Those thieves have grabbed the hamper ! " cried the Squire. 
 
 " No ; I think the Blairs have had the hamper. I fear it is 
 something worse," she said faintly. " Perhaps you will read it 
 aloud." 
 
 The Squire put his spectacles on as he took the letter. We 
 gathered round the table, waiting. Mrs. Todhetley sat with her 
 head aside, nursing her cheek ; and Tod, who had been reading, 
 put his book down. The Squire hammered a good deal over the 
 writing, which was not so legible as ]\Iary's was in general. She 
 appeared to have meant it for ISIrs. Todhetley and the Squire 
 jointly. 
 
 ''■'My very Dear Friends, 
 
 " ' If I have delayed writing to you it was not for want 
 of in-ingredients ' " 
 
 " Ingredients ! " cried one of us. 
 
 " It must be gratitude," corrected the Squire. " Don't interrupt." 
 
 " ' Gratitude for your most welcome and liberal present, but 
 because my heart and hands have alike shrunk from the ex — ex — 
 explanation it must entail. Alas ! a series of very terrible mis- 
 fortunes have overwormed — overwhelmed us. We have had to 
 give up our school and our prospects together, and to turn out of 
 our once happy dome.' " 
 
 " Dome ! " put in Tod. 
 
 " I suppose it's home," said the Squire. " This confounded lamp 
 is as dim as it can be to-night ! " And he went on fractiously. 
 
 " ' Through no fault of my husband's he had to borrow a hundred 
 and fifty pounds nearly twelve months ago. The man he had it 
 from was a money-lender, a Mr. Gavity ; he charged a high rate of 
 interest, and brought the cost up to about thirty pounds ; but we 
 have no reason to think he wished to act un — unfar — unfairly by 
 us. He required security- — which I suppose was only reasonable. 
 The Reverend Mr. Lockett offered himself; but Gavity said parsons 
 were slippers.' " 
 
 " Good gracious ! " said Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " The word's slippery, I expect," cried the Squire with a frown. 
 " One would think she had emptied the water-bottle into the ink- 
 pot." 
 
 " ' Gavity said parsons Avere slippery ; meaning that they were 
 often worth no more than their word. He took, as security, a bill 
 of sale on the furnace. Stay, — furniture. Our school was quite
 
 i88 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 prosperous ; there was not the slightest doubt that in a short time 
 the whole of the debt could be cleared off; so we had no hesitation 
 in letting him have the bill of sale. And no harm would have come 
 of it, but for one dreadful misfortune, which (as it seems) was a 
 necessary part of the attendant proceedings. My husband got put 
 into Jer—Jer—Jcn-fs Gazclkr' 
 " Jerry's Gazelle ? " 
 
 " Jerry's Gazette^'' corrected the Squire. 
 " Jerry's Gazette ? " 
 
 We all spoke at once. He stared at the letters and then at us. 
 We stared back again. 
 
 " It is Jerry's Gazette— Tis I think. Come and see, Joe." 
 Tod looked over the Squire's shoulder. It certainly looked like 
 " Jerry's Gazette," he said ; but the ink was pale. 
 
 '"Jerry's Gazette.^ Go on, father. Perhaps you'll find an ex- 
 planation further on." 
 
 " ' This Jerry's Gazette, it appears, is circulated chiefly (and I 
 think privately) amongst comical men — commercial men ; mer- 
 chants, and tradespeople. When they read its list of names, they 
 know at once who is in difficulties. Of course they saw my 
 husband's name there, Pyefinch Blair ; unfortunately a name so 
 peculiar as not to admit of any doubt. I did not see the Gazette, 
 but I believe the amount of the debt was stated, and that Gavity 
 (but I don't know whether he was mentioned by name) had a bill 
 of sale on our household furniture.' " 
 
 " What the dickens is Jerry's Gazette ? " burst forth the Squire, 
 giving the letter a passionate flick. " I know but of one Gazette, 
 into which men of all conditions go, whether they are made lords 
 or bankrupts. What's this other thing ? " 
 
 He put up his spectacles, and stared at us all again, as if expect- 
 ing an answer. But he might as well have asked it of the moon. 
 Mrs. Todhetley sat with the most hopeless look you ever saw on 
 her face. So he went on reading again. 
 
 '"We knew nothing about Jerry's Gazette ourselves, or that 
 there was such a pub— pub — publication, or that the transaction 
 had appeared in it ; and could not imagine why the school began 
 to fall off. Some of the pupils were taken away, at once, some at 
 Lady-day ; and by Midsummer nearly every one had left. We 
 used to lie awake night after night, grieving and wondering what 
 could be the matter, searching in vain for any cause of offence, 
 given unwittingly to the boys or their parents. Often and often we 
 got up in the morning to go about our day's work, never having 
 closed our eyes. At last, a gentleman, whose son had been one of 
 the first renewed — removed, told Pyefinch the truth : that he had 
 appeared in Jerry's Gazette. The fathers who subscribed to
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 1S9 
 
 Jerry s Gazette had seen it for themselves ; and they informed the 
 others.' " 
 
 '' The devil take Jerry's Gazette^' interrupted Tod, deliberately. 
 "This reads like an episode of the Secret Inquisition, sir, in the 
 days of the French Revolution." 
 
 " It reads like a thing that an honest Englishman's ears ought to 
 redden to hear of," answered the Squire, as he put the lamp nearer, 
 for his outstretched arms were getting cramped. 
 
 " ' Pyefinch went round to every one of the boy's fathers. Some 
 would not see him, some not hear him ; but to those who did, he 
 imported — imparted — the whole circumstances ; showing how it 
 was that he had had to borrow the money (or rather to re-borrow 
 it, but I have not time in this letter to go so far into detail), and 
 that it could not by any possibility injure the boys or touch their 
 interests. Most of them, he said, were very kind and sympathizing, 
 so far as words went, saying that in this case Jerry's Gazette 
 appeared to have been the means of inflicting a cruel wrong ; but 
 they would not agree to replace their sons with us. They either 
 declined point-blank, or said they'd consider of it ; but you see the 
 greater portion of the bo)S were already placed at other schools. 
 All of them told Pyefinch one thing — that they were thoroughly 
 satisfied with his treatment in every respect, and but for this inter- 
 ruption would probably have left their sons with him as long as 
 they wanted intrusion— instruction. The long and short of it was 
 this, my dear friends : they did not choose to have their sons 
 educated by a man who was looked upon in the commercial world 
 as next door to a bankrupt. One of them delicately hinted as 
 much, and said Mr. Blair must be aware that he was liable to have 
 his house topped — stripped — at any moment under the bill of sale. 
 We said to ourselves that evening, as Pyefinch and I talked together, 
 that we might have removed boys of our own from a school under 
 the same circumstances.' " 
 
 " That's true enough," murmured Mrs. Todhetley. 
 " ' My letter has grown very long and I must hasten to conclude 
 it. Just before the rent was due at Michaelmas (we paid it half- 
 yearly, by agreement) Gavity put the bill of sale into force. One 
 morning several men came in and swept off the furniture. We 
 were turned out next : though indeed to have attempted to remain 
 in that large house were folly. The landlord came in a passion, 
 and told Pyefinch that he would put him in prison if he were worth 
 it ; as he was not, he had better go out of the pitch— place— forth- 
 with, as another tenant was ready to take possession. Since then 
 we have been staying here, Pyefinch vainly seeking to get some 
 employment. What we hoped was, that he would obtain an under- 
 mastership to some public fool "
 
 IQO JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Fool, sir ! " 
 
 " ' School. But it seems difficult. He sends his best regards to 
 you, and bids me say that the reason you have not heard from us 
 so long is, that we could not bear to tell you the ill news after 
 your former kindness to us. The arrival of the hamper leaves us 
 no resource. 
 
 " ' Thank you for that. Thank you very truly. The people at the 
 old house have our address, and re-directed it here. We received 
 it early on Christmas Eve. How good the things were, you do not 
 need to be told. I stuffed 'the turkey — I shall make a famous cook 
 in time — and sent it to the backhouse — bakehouse. You should 
 have seen the pill — picture— it was when it came home. Believe 
 me, my dear friends, we are both of us grateful for all your kindness 
 to us, past and present. Little Joe is so delighted with the doll, he 
 scarcely puts it out of his arms. Our best love to all, including 
 Hugh and Lena. Thank Johnny for the beautiful new book he 
 put in. I must apologize in conclusion for my writing ; the ink we 
 get in these penny bottles is pale ; and baby has been on my lap all 
 the time, never easy a minute. Do not say anything of all this, 
 please, should you be writing to Wales. 
 
 '' ' Ever most truly yours, 
 
 '"Mary Blair. 
 
 ii ( 
 
 1 3, Difford''s Buildings, Paddington^ " 
 
 The Squire put the letter down and his spectacles on it, quite 
 solemnly. You might have heard a pin drop in that room. 
 
 "This is a thing that must be inquired into. I shall go up 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "And I'd go too, sir, but for my engagement to the Whitneys," 
 said Tod. 
 
 " She must mean, in speaking of a baby, that there's another," 
 spoke Mrs. Todhetley, in a frightened sort of whisper, " Besides 
 little Joe. Dear me ! " 
 
 " I don't understand it," stamped the Squire, getting red. " Turned 
 out of house and home through Jerry's Gazette I Do we live in 
 England, I'd like to ask? — under English laws ? — enjoying English 
 rights and freedom ? Jerry s Gazette ? What the deuce is Jerrfs 
 Gazette ? W^here does it come from ? What issues it ? The Lord 
 Chamberlain's Office ? — or Scotland Yard i' — or some Patent society 
 that we've not heard of, down here ? The girl must have been im- 
 posed upon : her statement won't hold water." 
 
 " It looks as though she had been, sir." 
 
 " Looks like it, Johnny ! It must be so," said the Squire, growing 
 warmer. " I have temporary need of a sum of money, and I borrow 
 it straightforwardly, honestly purposing and undertaking to pay it
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 191 
 
 back with good interest, but not exactly wanting my neighbours to 
 know about it ; and you'd Hke me to believe that there's some 
 association, or publication, or whatever else it may be, that won't 
 allow this to be done privately, but must pounce upon the transac- 
 tion, and take it down in print, and send it round to the public, just 
 as if it were a wedding or a burying ! " 
 
 The Squire had grown redder than a roost-cock. He always did 
 when tremendously put out, and the matter would not admit of 
 calling in old Jones the constable. 
 
 " Folly ! Moonshine ! Blair, poor fellow, has been slipping into 
 some disaster, had his furniture seized, and so invents this fable to 
 appease his wife, not liking to tell her the truth. Jerrfs Gazette ! 
 When I was a youngster, my father took me to see an exhibition in 
 Worcester called 'Jerry's Dogs.' The worst damage you could get 
 there was a cold, from the holes in the canvas roof, or a pitch over 
 the front into the sawdust. But in Jerry's Gazette, according to 
 this tale, you may be damaged for life. Don't tell me ! Do we live 
 in Austria, or France, or any of those places, where — as it's said — a 
 man can't so much as put on a pair of clean stockings in a morning, 
 but its laid before high quarters in black and white at mid-day by 
 the secret police ! No, you need not tell me that." 
 
 " I never heard of Jerry''s Gazette in all my life ; I don't know 
 whether it is a stage performance or something to eat ; but I feel 
 convinced Mary Blair would not write this without having good 
 grounds for it," said Tod, bold as usual. 
 
 And do you know — though you may be slow to believe it — the 
 Squire had taken latterly to listen to him. He turned his red old 
 face on him now, and some of its fierceness went out of it. 
 
 " Then, Joe, all I can say is this — that English honour and 
 English notions have changed uncommonly from what they used 
 to be. ' Live and let live ' was one of our mottoes ; and most of 
 us tried to act up to it. I know no more of this," striking his hand 
 on the letter, " than you know, boys ; and I cannot think but that 
 she must have been under some unaccountable mistake in writing: 
 it. Any way, I'll go up to London to-morrow: and if you hke, 
 Johnny, you can go with me." 
 
 We went up. I did not feel sure of it until the train was off, 
 for Tod seemed three-parts inclined to give up the shooting at the 
 Whitneys', and start for London instead ; in which case the Squire 
 might not have taken me. Tod and some more young fellows were 
 invited to Whitney Hall for three days, to a shooting-match. 
 
 It was dusk when we reached London, and as cold as charity. 
 The Squire turned into the railway hotel and had some chops 
 served, but did not wait for a regular dinner. When once he was 
 in for impatience, he was in for it.
 
 192 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Difford's Buildings, Paddington," had been the address, so we 
 thought it would not be far to go. The Squire held on in his way 
 along the crowded streets, as if he were about to set things to rights, 
 elbowing the people, and asking the road at every turn. Some did 
 not know Difford's Buildings, and some directed us wrongly ; but 
 we got there at last. It was in a narrow, quiet street; a row of 
 what Londoners call eight-roomed houses, with little gates opening 
 to the square patches of smoky garden, and "Difford's Buildings" 
 written up as large as life at the corner. 
 
 " Let's see," said the Squire, looking sideways at the windows. 
 " Number thirteen, was it not, Johnny ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Difford's Buildings were not well lighted, and there was no seeing 
 the numbers. The Squire stopped before the one he thought must 
 be thirteen ; when some one came out at the house-door, shutting 
 it behind him, and met us at the gate. A youngish clergyman in 
 a white necktie. He and the Squire stood looking at each other in 
 the gathering darkness. 
 
 " Can you tell me if Mr. Blair lives here ? " 
 
 "Yes, he does," was the answer. "I think — I think I have the 
 pleasure of speaking to Mr. Todhetley." 
 
 The Squire knew him then — the Reverend Mr. Lockett. They 
 had met when Blair first took to the school. 
 
 " What z's all this extraordinary history ? " burst forth the Squire, 
 seizing him by the button of his great-coat, and taking him a few 
 yards further on. " Mrs. Blair has been writing us a strange rig- 
 marole, which nobody can make head or tail of; about ruin, and 
 sales, and something she calls Jerry's Gazetted 
 
 " Ay," quietly answered the clergyman in a tone of pain, as he 
 put his arm inside the Squire's, and they paced slowly up and 
 down. " It is one of the saddest histories my experience has ever 
 had to do with." 
 
 The Squire was near coming to an explosion in the open street. 
 '• Will you be pleased to tell me, sir, whether there exists such a 
 thing as Jcrrfs Gdseite, or whether it is a fable ? I have heard of 
 Jerry's Performing Dogs; went to see 'em once: but I don't know 
 what this other invention can be." 
 
 " Certainly there is such a thing," said Mr. Lockett. "It is, I 
 fancy, a list of people who unfortunately get into difficulties ; at 
 least, people who fall into difficulties seem to get shown up in it. 
 I am told it is meant chiefly for private circulation : which may 
 imply, as I imagine (but here I may be wrong) what may be called 
 secret circulation. Blair had occasion to borrow a little money, and 
 his name appeared in it. From that moment he was a marked man, 
 and his school fell off."
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 193 
 
 " Goodness bless my soul ! " cried the Squire solemnly, completely 
 taken aback at hearing Mary's letter confirmed. " Who gives Jerry^s 
 Gazette the right to do this ? " . 
 
 " I don't know about the right. It seems it has the power." ' 
 
 " It is a power I never heard of before, sir. We have a parson, 
 down our way, who tells us every Sunday the world's coming to an 
 end. I think it must be. I know it's getting too clever for me to 
 understand. If a man has the misfortune (perhaps after years of 
 struggling that nobody knows anything about but himself) to break 
 up at last, he goes into the country's Gazette in a straightforward 
 manner, and the public read it over their breakfast-tables, and 
 there's nothing underhand about it. But as to this other thing — if 
 I comprehend the matter rightly — Blair did not as much as know 
 of its existence, or that his name was going into it." 
 
 " I am sure he did not; or I, either," said Mr. Lockett. 
 
 " I should like its meaning explained, then," cried the Squire, 
 getting hotter and angrier. " Is it a fair, upright, honest thing; or 
 is it a sort of Spanish Inquisition ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell you," answered the parson, as they both stood still. 
 " Mr. Blair was informed by the father of one of his pupils that he 
 believed the sheet was first of all set up as a speculation, and was 
 found to answer so well that it became quite an institution. I do 
 not know whether this is true." 
 
 " I have heard of an institution for idiots, but I never heard of 
 one for selling up men's chairs and tables," stormed the Squire. 
 " No, sir, and I don't believe it now. I might take up my standing 
 to-morrow on the top of the Monument, and say to the public, 'Here 
 I am, and I'll ferret out what I can about you, and whisper it to one 
 another of you ; ' and so bring a serpent's trail on the unsuspecting 
 heads, and altogether play Old Gooseberry with the crowds below 
 nie. Do you suppose, sir, the Lord Chancellor would wink his eye 
 at me, stuck aloft there at my work, and would tolerate such a 
 spectacle ? " 
 
 " I fear the Lord Chancellor has not much to do with it," said 
 Mr. Lockett, smiHng at the Squire's random logic. 
 
 " Then suppose we say good men — public opinion — commercial 
 justice and honour ? Come ! " 
 
 He shook the frail railings, on which his hand was resting, mitil 
 they nearly came to grief. Mr. Lockett related the particulars of 
 the transaction from the beginning ; the original debt, which Blair 
 was suddenly called upon to pay off, and the contraction of the 
 one to Gavity. He said that he himself had had as much to do 
 with it as Blair, in the capacity of friend and adviser, and felt almost 
 as though he were responsible for the turn affairs had taken ; which 
 had caused him scarcely to enjoy an easy moment since. The 
 
 Johnny I.udlow. — I. 1'^
 
 194 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Squire began to abuse Gavity, but Mr. Lockett said the man did 
 not appear to have had any ill intention. As to his having sold 
 off the goods — if he had not sold them, the landlord would have 
 done so. 
 
 " And what's Blair doing now ? " asked Mr. Todhetley. 
 
 " Battling with illness for his life," said the clergyman. " I have 
 just been praying with him." 
 
 The Squire retreated towards the lamp-post, as if some one had 
 given him a blow. Mr. Lockett explained further. 
 
 It was in September that they had left their home. His own 
 lodging and the church of which he was curate were in Paddington, 
 and he found rooms for Blair and his wife in the same neighbour- 
 hood — two parlours in Difford's Buildings. Blair (who had lost 
 heart so terribly as to be good for little) spared no time or exertion 
 in seeking for something to do. He tried to get into King's 
 College ; they liked his appearance and testimonials, but at present 
 had no vacancy : he tried private schools for an ushership, but did 
 did not get one : nothing seemed to be vacant just then. Then he 
 tried for a clerk's place. Day after day, ill or well, rain or fine, 
 feasting or fasting, he went tramping about London streets. At 
 last, one of those who had had sons at his school, gave him some 
 out-door employment — that of making known a new invention and 
 soliciting customers for it from shop to shop : Blair to be paid on 
 commission. Naturally, he did not let weather hinder him, and 
 would come home to Difford's Buildings at night, wet through. 
 There had been a great deal of rain in November and December. 
 But he got wet once too often, and was attacked with rheumatic 
 fever. The fever was better now ; but the weakness it had left was 
 dangerous. 
 
 " She did not say anything about this in her letter," interrupted 
 the Squire resentfully, when Mr. Lockett had explained so far. 
 
 " Blair told her not to do so. He thought if their position were 
 revealed to the friends who had once shown themselves so kind, it 
 might look almost like begging for help again." 
 ; " Blair's a fool ! " roared the Squire. 
 
 " Mrs. Blair has not made the worst of it to her family in Wales. 
 It would only distress them, she says, for they could not help her. 
 Mr. Sanker has been ill again for some time past, has not been 
 allowed, I believe, to draw his full salary, and there's no doubt they 
 want every penny of their means for themselves ; and more too." 
 
 "How have they Hved here?" asked the Squire, as we went 
 slowly back to the gate. 
 
 " Blair earned a little while he could get about ; and his wife has 
 been enabled to procure some kind of wool-work from a warehouse 
 in the city, which pays her very well," said the clergyman, dropping
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 195 
 
 his voice to a whisper, as if he feared to be overheard. " Un- 
 fortunately there's the baby to take up much of her time. It was 
 born in October, soon after they came there." 
 
 And I should like to know what business there has to be a 
 baby ? '' cried the Squire, who was like a man off his head. 
 " Couldn't the baby have waited for a more convenient season ? " 
 
 " It might have been better ; it is certainly a troublesome, cry- 
 ing little thing," said the parson. " Yes, you can go straight in : 
 the parlour door is on the right. I have a service this evening at 
 seven, and shall be late for it. This is your son, I presume, sir.-* " 
 
 " My son ! law bless you ! My son is a strapping young fellow, 
 six feet two in his stockings. This is Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 He shook hands pleasantly, and was good enough to say he had 
 heard of me. The Squire went on, and I with him. There was 
 no lamp in the passage, and we had to feel on the right for the 
 parlour door. 
 
 " Come in," called out Mary, in answer to the knock. I knew 
 her voice again. 
 
 We can't help our thoughts. Things come into the mind without 
 leave or licence ; and it is no use saying they ought not to, or 
 asking why they do. Nearly opposite the door in the small room 
 was the fireplace. Mary Blair sat on a low stool before it, doing 
 some work with coloured wools with a big hooked needle, a baby 
 in white lying flat on her lap, and the little chap, Joe, sitting at 
 her feet. All in a moment it put me in mind of Mrs. Lease, 
 sitting on her stool before the fire that day long ago (though in 
 point of fact, as I discovered afterwards, hers had been a bucket 
 turned upside down) with the sick child on her lap, and the other 
 little ones round her. Why this, to-night, should have reminded 
 me of that other, I cannot say, but it did ; and in the light of an 
 omen. You must ridicule me if you choose : it is not my fault ; 
 and I am telling nothing but the truth. Lease had died. Would 
 Pyefinch Blair die ? 
 
 The Squire went in gingerly, as if he had been treading on 
 ploughshares. The candle stood on the mantel-piece, a table was 
 pushed back under the window. Altogether the room was poor, 
 and a small saucepan simmered on the hob. Mary turned her 
 head, and rose up with a flushed face, letting the work fall on the 
 baby's white nightgown, as she held out her hand. Little Joe, 
 a sturdy fellow in a scarlet frock, with big brown eyes, backed 
 against the wall by the fireplace and stood staring, Lena's doll 
 held safely under his pinafore. 
 
 She lost her presence of mind. The Squire was the veriest old 
 stupid, when he wanted to make-believe, that you'd see in a winter's 
 day. He began saying something about " happening to be in town,
 
 196 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 and so called." But he broke down, and blurted out the truth. 
 " We've come to see after you, my dear ; and to learn what all this 
 trouble means." 
 
 And then she broke down. Perhaps it was the sight of us, re- 
 calling the old time at Dyke Manor, when the future looked so fair 
 and happy ; perhaps it was the mention of the trouble. She put 
 her hands before her face, and the tears rained through her 
 fingers. 
 
 " Shut the door, will you, Johnny," she whispered. " Very 
 softly." 
 
 It was the other door she pointed to, one at the end of the 
 room, and I closed it without noise. Except for a sob now and 
 again, that she kept down as well as she could, the grief passed 
 away. Young Joe, frightened at matters, suddenly went at her, full 
 butt, and hid his eyes in her petticoats with a roar. I took him on 
 my knee and got him round again. Somehow children are never 
 afraid of me. The Squire rubbed his old red nose, and said he had 
 a cold. 
 
 But, was she not altered ! Now that the flush had faded, and 
 emotion passed, the once sweet, fresh, blooming face stood out 
 in its reality. Sweet, indeed, it was still ; but the bloom and fresh- 
 ness had given place to a haggard look, and to dark circles round 
 the soft brown eyes, weary now. 
 
 She had no more to tell of the past calamities than her letter 
 and Mr. Lockett had told. Jerry's Gazette was the sore point 
 with the Squire, but she did not seem to understand it better than 
 we did. 
 
 " I want to know one thing," said he, quite fiercely. " How did 
 yerrfs Gazette get at the transaction between your husband and 
 Gavity .'' Did Gavity go to it, open-mouthed, with the news ? " 
 
 Mary did not know. She had heard something about a register 
 — that the bill of sale had to be registered somewhere, and thought 
 Jerrys Gazette might have obtained the information from that 
 source. 
 
 " Heaven bless us all ! " cried the Squire. " Can't a man borrow 
 a bit of money but it must become known to his enemies, if he has 
 any, bringing them down upon him like a pack of hounds in full 
 cry ? This used to be the freest land on earth." 
 
 The baby began to scream. She put down the wool-work, and 
 hushed it to her. I am sure the Squire had half a mind to tell 
 her to give it a gentle shaking. He looked upon screaming babies 
 as natural enemies : the truth is, with all his abuse, he was afraid of 
 them. 
 
 " Has it got a name ? " he asked gruffly. 
 
 " Yes— Mary : he wished it," she said, glancing at the door.
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 197 
 
 " I thought we should have to call it Polly, in contradistinction to 
 mine." 
 
 Polly! That was another coincidence. Lease's eldest girl was 
 Polly. And what made her speak of things in the past tense? 
 She caught me looking at her; caught, I fancy, the fear on my 
 face. I told her hurriedly that little Joe must be a Dutchman, for 
 not a word could I understand of the tale he was whispering about 
 his doll. 
 
 What with Mary's work, and the little earned by Blair while he 
 was about, they had not wanted for necessaries in a plain way. I 
 suppose Lockett took care they should not do so ; but he was only 
 a curate. 
 
 The baby needed its supper, to judge by the squealing. Mary 
 poured the contents of the saucepan — some thin gruel — into a 
 saucer, and began feeding the little mite by teaspoonfuls, putting 
 each one to her own lips first to test it. 
 
 " That's poor stuff," cried the Squire, in a half-pitying, half- 
 angry tone, his mind divided between resentment against babies in 
 general and sympathy with this one. As the baby was there, of 
 course it had to be fed, but what he wanted to know was, why it 
 need have come just when trouble was about. When put out, he 
 had no reason at all. Mrs. Blair suddenly turned her face towards 
 the end door, Hstening; and we heard a faint voice calling " Mary." 
 
 " Joe, dear, go and tell papa that I will be with him in one 
 minute." 
 
 The little chap slid down, giving me his doll to nurse, and went 
 pattering across the carpet, standing on tiptoe to open the door. 
 The Squire said he should like to go in and see Blair. Mary went 
 on first to warn him of our advent. 
 
 My goodness ! That Pyefinch Blair, who used to flourish his 
 cane, and cock it over us boys at Frost's ! I should never have 
 known him for the same. 
 
 He lay in bed, too weak to raise his head from the pillow, the 
 white skin drawn tightly over his hollow features ; the cheeks 
 slightly flushing as he watched us coming. And again I thought of 
 Lease ; for the same look was on this face that had been on his 
 when he was dying. 
 
 " Lord bless us ! " cried the Squire, in what would have been a 
 solemn tone but for surprise. And Mr. Blair began faintly to offer 
 a kind of apology for his illness, hoping he should soon get over it 
 now. 
 
 It was nothing but the awful look, putting one unpleasantly in 
 mind of death, that kept the Squire from breaking out with a storm 
 of abuse all round. Why could they not have sent word to Dyke 
 Manor, he wanted to know. As to asking particulars about Jerrfs
 
 198 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Gazette, which the Squire's tongue was burning to do, Blair was too 
 far gone for it. While we stood there the doctor came in ; a little 
 man in spectacles, a friend of Mr. Lockett's. He told Blair he was 
 getting on all right, spoke to Mrs. Blair, and took his departure. 
 The Squire, wishing good night in a hurry, went out after the doctor, 
 and collared him as he was walking up the street. 
 " Won't he get over it ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, I am afraid not. His state of weakness is alarming." 
 
 The Squire turned on him with a storm, just as though he had 
 
 known him for years : asking why on earth Blair's friends (meaning 
 
 himself) had not been written to, and promising a prosecution if he 
 
 let him die. The doctor took it sensibly, and was cool as iced water. 
 
 " We medical men are only gifted at best with human skill, sir," 
 
 he said, looking the Squire full in the face. 
 
 " Blair is young — not much turned thirty." 
 
 " The young die as well as the old, when it pleases Heaven to 
 take them." 
 
 " But it doesn't please Heaven to take /z/;«," retorted the Squire, 
 worked up to the point when he was not accountable for his words. 
 " But that you seem in earnest, young man, probably meaning no 
 irreverence, I'd ask you how you dare bring Heaven's name into 
 such a case as this ? Did Heaven fling him out of house and home 
 into Jerrfs Gazette, ^o you suppose? Or did man? Man, sir: 
 selfish, hard, unjust man. Don't talk to me, Mr. Doctor, about 
 Heaven." 
 
 " All I wished to imply, sir, was, that Mr. Blair's hfe is not in 
 my keeping, or in that of any human hands," said the doctor, when 
 he had listened quietly to the end. " I will do my best to bring 
 him round ; I can do no more." 
 " You must bring him round." 
 
 " There can be no ' must ' about it : and I doubt if he is to be 
 brought round. Mr. Blair has not naturally a large amount of 
 what we call stamina, and this illness has laid a very serious hold 
 upon him. It would be something in his favour if the mind were at 
 ease : which of course it cannot be in his circumstances." 
 
 "Now look here— you just say outright he is going to die," 
 stormed the Squire. " Say it and have done with it. I like people 
 to be honest." 
 
 " But I cannot say he is. Possibly he may recover. His life 
 and his death both seem to hang on the turn of a thread." 
 
 " And there's that squealing young image within earshot ! Could 
 Blair be got down to my place in the country ? You might come 
 with him if you liked. There's some shooting." 
 
 " Not yet. It would kill him. What we have to fight against 
 now is the weakness : and a hard fight it is."
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 199 
 
 The Squire's face was rueful to look at. " This London has a 
 reputation for clever physicians : you pick out the best, and bring 
 him here with you to-morrow morning. Do you hear, sir.'"' 
 
 " I will bring one, if you wish it. It is not essential." 
 
 "Not essential!" wrathfuUy echoed the Squire. "If Blair's 
 recovery is not essential, perhaps you'll tell me, sir, whose is ! 
 What is to become of his poor young wife if he dies ? — and the 
 little fellow with the doll.'' — and that cross-grained puppet in white? 
 Who will provide for them ? Let me tell you, sir, that I won't have 
 him die — if doctors can keep him alive. He belongs to me, sir, in a 
 manner • he saved my son's life — as fine a fellow as you could set 
 eyes on, six feet two without his boots. Not essential ! What 
 next ? " 
 
 " It is not so much medical skill he requires now as care, and 
 rest, and renovation," spoke the doctor in his calm way. 
 
 " Never mind. You take a physician to him, and let him attend 
 him with you, and don't spare expense. In all my life I never saw 
 anybody want patching up so much as he wants it." 
 
 The Squire shook hands with him, and went on round the corner. 
 I was following, when the doctor touched me on the shoulder. 
 
 " He has a good heart, for all his hot speech," whispered he, 
 nodding towards the Squire. " In talking with him this evening, 
 when yc 1 find him indulging hopes of Blair's recovery, dorit 
 encourag e them : rather lead him, if possible, to look at the other 
 side of the question." 
 
 The surgeon was off before I recovered from my surprise. But 
 it was now my turn to run after him. 
 
 " Do you know that he will not get well, sir ? " 
 
 " I do not know it ; the weak and the strong are alike in the 
 hands of God ; but I think it scarcely possible that he can 
 recover," was the answer ; and the voice had a solemn tone, the 
 face a solemn aspect, in the uncertain light. " And I would prepare 
 friends always to meet the worst when it is in my power to do so." 
 
 " Now then, Johnny ! You were going to take the wrong turning, 
 were you, sir ! Let me tell you, you might get lost in London 
 before knowing it." 
 
 The Squire had come back to the corner, looking for me. I 
 walked on by his side in silence, feeling half dazed, the hopeless 
 words playing pranks in my brain. 
 
 " Johnny, I wonder where we can find a telegraph office ? I 
 shall telegraph to your mother to send up Hannah to-morrow. 
 Hannah knows what the sick need : and that poor thing with her 
 children ought not to be left alone." 
 
 But as to giving any hint to the Squire of the state of affairs, I 
 should like the doctor to have tried it himself. Before I had
 
 200 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 finished the first syllable, he attacked me as if I had been a tiger ; 
 demanding whether those were my ideas of Christianity, and if I 
 supposed there'd be any justice in a man's dying because he had 
 got into Jerry''s Gazette. 
 
 In the morning the Squire went on an expedition to Cavity's 
 office in the city. It was a dull place of two rooms, with a man to 
 answer people. We had not been there a minute when the Squire 
 began to explode, going on like anything at the man for saying Mr. 
 Cavity was engaged and could not be seen. The Squire demanded 
 if he thought we were creditors, that he should deny Cavity. 
 
 What with his looks and his insistence, and his promise to bring 
 in Sir Richard Mayne, he got to see Cavity. We went into a good 
 room with a soft red carpet and marble-topped desk in it. Mr. 
 Cavity politely motioned to chairs before the blazing fire, and I sat 
 down. 
 
 Not the Squire. Out it all came. He walked about the room, 
 just as he walked at home when he was in a way, and said all 
 kinds of things ; wanting to know who had ruined Pyefinch Blair, 
 and what Jerrfs Gazette meant. Cavity seemed to be used to 
 explosions : he took it so coolly. 
 
 When the Squire calmed down, he almost grew to see things in 
 Cavity's own light — namely, that Cavity had not been to blame. 
 To say the truth, I could not understand that he had. Except in 
 selling them up. And Cavity said if he had not done it, he land- 
 lord would. 
 
 So nothing was left for the Squire to vent his wrath on but 
 Jerrfs Gazette. He no more understood what Jerry^s Gazette 
 really was, or whether it was a good or bad thing in itself, than he 
 understood the construction of the planet Jupiter. It's well Dwarf 
 Ciles was not present. The day before we came to London, he 
 overheard Ciles swearing in a passion, and the Squire had pounced 
 upon him with an indignant inquiry if he thought swearing was the 
 way to get to heaven. What he said about Jej-rfs Gazette caused 
 Cavity's eyes to grow round with wonder. 
 
 " Lord love ye ! " said Cavity, " Jerrfs Gazette a thing that 
 wants putting down ! Why, it is the blessedest of institutions to 
 us City men. It is a public Benefactor. The commercial world 
 has had no boon like it. Did you know the service it does, you'd 
 sing its praises, sir, instead of abusing it." 
 
 " How dare you tell me so to my face? " demanded the Squire. 
 
 ^•Jerrfs Gazette''s like a gold mine, sir. It is making its fortune. 
 A fine one, too." 
 
 " / shouldn't like to make a fortune out of my neighbours' tears, 
 and blood, and homes, and hearths," was the wrathful answer. 
 "If Pyefinch Blair dies in his illness, will Jerry's Gazette settle a
 
 "JERRY'S GAZETTE." 201 
 
 pension from its riches on his widow and children? Answer me 
 that, Mr. Gavity." 
 
 Mr. Gavity, to judge by his looks, thought the question nearly 
 as unreasonable as he thought the Squire. He wanted to tell of 
 the vast benefit Jerry's Gazette had proved in certain cases ; but 
 the Squire stopped his ears, saying Blair's case was enough for him. 
 
 " I do not deny that the Gazette may work mischief once in a 
 way," acknowledged Mr. Gavity. " It is but a solitary instance, 
 sir ; and in all commercial improvements the few must suffer for 
 the many." 
 
 No good. The Squire went at him again, hammer and tongs, 
 and at last dashed away without saying good morning, calling out 
 to me to come on, and not stop a moment longer in a nest of thieves 
 and casuists. 
 
 Difford's Buildings had us in the afternoon. The baby was in its 
 basket, little Joe lay asleep before the fire, the doll against his 
 cheek, and Mary was kneeling by the bed in the back room. She 
 got up hastily when she saw us. 
 
 " I think he is weaker," she said in a whisper, as she came 
 through the door and pushed it to. " There is a look on his face 
 that I do not like." 
 
 There was a look on hers. A wan, haggard, patiently hopeless 
 look, that seemed to say she could struggle no longer. It was not 
 natural ; neither was the calm, lifeless tone. 
 
 " Stay here a bit, my dear, and rest yourself," said the Squire to 
 her. " I'll go in and sit with him." 
 
 There could be no mistake now. Death was in every line of his 
 face. His head was a little raised on the pillow ; and the hollow 
 eyes tried to smile a greeting. The Squire was good for a great 
 deal, but not for making believe with that sight before him. He 
 broke down with a great sob. 
 
 " Don't grieve for me," murmured poor Blair. " Hard though 
 it seems to leave her, I have learnt to say, * God's will be done.' It 
 is all for the best— oh, it is all for the best. We must through 
 much tribulation enter into the Kingdom." 
 
 And then / broke down, and hid my face on the counterpane. 
 Poor old Blair ! And we boys had called him Baked Pie ! 
 
 I went to Paddington station to meet the train. Hannah was in 
 it, and came bursting out upon me with a shriek that might have 
 been heard at Oxford. Upon the receipt of the telegram, she and 
 Mrs. Todhetley came to the conclusion that I had been run over, 
 and was lying in some hospital with my legs off. That was through 
 the Squire's wording of the message ; he would not let me write it. 
 " Send Hannah to London to-morrow by mid-day train, to nurse 
 somebody that's in danger."
 
 202 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Blair lingered three days yet before he died, sensible to the last, 
 and quite happy. Not a care or anxiety on his mind about what 
 had so troubled him all along — the wife and children. 
 
 " Through God's mercy ; He knows how to soothe the death- 
 bed," said Mr. Lockett. 
 
 Whether Mary would have to go home to Wales with her babies, 
 or stay and do what she could for them in London, depending on 
 the wool-work, the clergyman said he did not knojv, when talking 
 to us at the hotel. He supposed it must be one of the two. 
 
 "We'll have them down at the Manor, and fatten 'em up a bit, 
 Johnny," spoke the Squire, a rueful look on his good old face. 
 " Mercy light upon us ! and all through Jerrfs Gazette P'' 
 
 I must say a word for myself. Jerry's Gazette (if there is such a 
 thing still in existence) may be, as Mr. Gavity expressed it to us 
 then, the " blessedest of institutions to him and commercial men." 
 I don't wish to deny it, and I could not if I wished ; for except in 
 this one instance (which may have been an exceptional case, as 
 Gavity insisted) I know nothing of it or its working. But I declare 
 on my honour I have told nothing but the truth in regard to what 
 it did for the schoolmaster, Pyefinch Blair.
 
 XIII. 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 
 
 The horses went spanking along the frosty road, the Squire 
 driving, his red comforter wrapped round his neck. Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley sat beside him; Tod and I behind. It was one of the 
 jolHest days that early January ever gave us ; dark blue sky, and 
 icicles on the trees : a day to tempt people out. Mrs. Todhetley, 
 getting to her work after breakfast, said it was a shame to stay 
 indoors : and it was hastily decided to drive over to the Whitneys' 
 place and see them. So the large phaeton was brought round. 
 
 I had not expected to go. When there was a probability of their 
 staying anywhere sufficiently long for the horses to be put up, 
 Giles was generally taken : the Squire did not like to give trouble 
 to other people's servants. It would not matter at the Whitneys': 
 they had a host of them, 
 
 " I don't know that I care about going," said Tod, as we stood 
 outside, waiting for the others, Giles at the horses' heads. 
 
 " Not care, Tod ! Anna's at home." 
 ! He flicked his glove at my face for the impudence. We laughed 
 as him about Anna Whitney sometimes. They were great friends. 
 The Squire, hearing some nonsense one day, took it seriously, and 
 told Tod it would be time enough for him to get thinking about 
 sweethearts when he was out of leading-strings. Which of course 
 Tod did not like. 
 
 It was a long drive ; I can tell you that. And as we turned in at 
 the wide gravel sweep that led up to the house, we saw their 
 family coach being brought round with some luggage on it, the 
 postilion in his undress jacket, just laced at the seams with crim- 
 son. The Whitneys never drove from the box. 
 
 Whitney Hall was a long red-brick house with a good many 
 windows and wide circular steps leading to the door, its park and 
 grounds lying around it. Anna came running to meet us as we 
 went in, dressed for a journey. She was seventeen; very fair; 
 with a gentle face, and smooth, bright, dark auburn hair ; one of 
 the sweetest girls you could see on a summer's day. Tod was the
 
 204 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 first to shake hands with her, and I saw her cheeks blush as crim- 
 son as Sir John's state hveries. 
 
 " You are going out, my dear," said Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " Oh yes," she answered, the tears rising in her eyes, which 
 were as blue as the dark blue sky, "We have had bad news. 
 William " 
 
 The dining-room door across the hall opened, and a host of them 
 came forth. Lady Whitney in a plaid shawl, the strings of her 
 bonnet untied; Miss Whitney (Helen), Harry, and some of the 
 young ones behind. Anna's quiet voice was drowned, for they all 
 began to tell of it together. 
 
 Sir John and William were staying at some friend's house at 
 Ombersley, Lady Whitney thought they would have been home 
 to-day : instead of which the morning's post had a brought 
 letter to say that an accident had occurred to William in hunt- 
 ing ; some muff who couldn't ride had gone swerving right against 
 Bill's horse, and he was thrown. Except that Bill was insensible, 
 nothing further of the damage could be gathered from the letter ; 
 for Sir John, if put out, could write no more intelligibly than the 
 Squire. The chief of what he said was— that they were to come off 
 at once. 
 
 " We are going, of course ; I with the two girls and Harry ; the 
 carriage is waiting to take us to the station," said poor Lady 
 Whitney, her bonnet pushed off. " But I do wish John had ex- 
 plained further : it is such suspense. We don't think it can be 
 extremely serious, or there would have been a telegram. I'm sure 
 I have shivered at every ring that has come to the door this 
 morning." 
 
 " And the post was never in, as usual, until nearly ten o'clock," 
 complained Harry. " I wonder my father puts up with it." 
 
 " And the worst is that we had a visitor coming to-day," added 
 Helen. " Mamma would have telegraphed to London for her not 
 to start, but there was not time. It's Sophie Chalk." 
 
 " Who is Sophie Chalk ? " asked Tod. 
 
 Helen told us, while Lady Whitney was finding places for every- 
 one at the table. They had been taking a scrambling luncheon ; 
 sitting or standing : cold beef, mince-pies, and cheese. 
 
 " Sophie Chalk was a schoolfellow of mine," said Helen. " It 
 was an old promise — that she should come to visit us. Different 
 things have caused it to be put off, but we have kept up a corre- 
 spondence. At length I got mamma to say that she might come 
 as soon as Christmas was turned ; and to-day was fixed. We don't 
 know what on earth to do." 
 
 " Let her come to us until you see how things turn out," cried the 
 Squire, in his hearty good-nature, as he cut himself a slice of beef.
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 205 
 
 "We can take her home in the carriage : one of these boys can ride 
 back if you'll lend him a horse." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley said he took the very words out of her mouth. 
 The Whitneys were too flurried to affect ceremony, and very 
 gladly accepted the offer. But I don't think it would ever have 
 been made had the Squire and madam known what was to come 
 of it. 
 
 "There will be her luggage," observed Anna; who usually 
 remembered things for every one. And Lady Whitney looked 
 round in consternation. 
 
 "It must come to us by rail; we will send for it from the 
 station," decided Tod, always ready at a pinch. " What sort of a 
 damsel is this Sophie Chalk, Anna?" 
 
 " I never saw her," replied Anna, " You must ask Helen." 
 
 Tod whispered something to Anna that made her smile and 
 blush. " I'll write you my sentiments about her to Ombersley," 
 he said aloud. " Those London girls are something to look at." 
 And I knew by Tod's tone that he was prepared ?iot to like Miss 
 Sophie Chalk. 
 
 We saw them out to the carriage ; the Squire putting in my 
 lady J Tod, Helen and Anna. One of the housemaids, Lettice 
 Lane, was wildly running in and out, bringing things to the 
 carriage. She had lived with us once; but Hannah's temper and 
 Letty's propensity for gossip did not get on together. Mrs. Todhet- 
 ley, when they had driven away, asked her how she liked her place 
 — which she had entered at Michaelmas. Oh, pretty well, Lettice 
 answered : but for her old mother, she should emigrate to 
 Australia. She used to be always saying so at Dyke Manor, and 
 it was one of the things that Hannah would not put up with, telling 
 her decent girls could find work at home. 
 
 Tod went off next, on horseback : and, before three o'clock, we 
 drove to the station to meet the London train. The Squire stayed 
 in the carriage, sending me and Mrs. Todhetley on the platform. 
 
 Two passengers got out at the small station ; a little lady in 
 feathers, and a butcher in a blue frock, who had charge of a calf 
 in the open van. Mrs. Todhetley stepped up to the lady and 
 inquired whether she was Miss Chalk. 
 
 " I am Miss Chalk. Have I the honour of speaking to Lady 
 Whitney?" 
 
 Whik matters were being explained, I stood observing her. A 
 very small, slight person, with pretty features white as ivory; and 
 wide-open light blue eyes, that were too close together, and had a 
 touch of boldness in them. It would take a great deal to daunt 
 their owner, if I could read countenances : and that I was always 
 doing so was no fault of mine, for the instinct, strong and irre-
 
 2o6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 pressible, lay within me — as old Duffham once said. I did not like 
 her voice; it had no true ring in it ; I did not much like her face. 
 But the world in general no doubt found her charming, and the 
 Squire thought her so. 
 
 She sat in front with him, a carpet-bag between them : and I, 
 behind, had a great black box crowding my legs. She could not 
 do without that much of her luggage : the rest might come by 
 rail. 
 
 " Johnny," whispered Mrs. Todhetley to me, " I am afraid she is 
 very grand and fashionable. I don't know how we shall manage 
 to amuse her. Do you like her?" 
 
 " Well — she has got a stunning lot of hair." 
 
 " Beautiful hair, Johnny !" 
 
 With the hair close before us, I cOuld only say so. It was brown ; 
 rather darker than Anna Whitney's, but with a red tinge in it, and 
 about double the quantity. Nature or art was giving it a wonderful 
 gloss in the light of the setting sun, as she turned her head about, 
 laughing and talking with the Squire. Her dress was some bright 
 purple stuff trimmed with white fur ; her hands, lying in repose on 
 her lap, had yellow gauntlets on. 
 
 " I'm glad I ordered a cluck for dinner, in addition to the boiled 
 veal and bacon, Johnny," whispered Mrs. Todhetley again. " The 
 fish won't be much : it is only the cold cod done up in parsley 
 sauce." 
 
 Tod, at home long before, was at the door ready for us when we 
 arrived. I saw her staring at him in the dusk. 
 
 "Who was the gentleman that handed me out?" she asked me 
 as we went in. 
 
 " Mr. Todhetley's son." 
 
 " I — think — I have heard Helen Whitney talk of him," she said 
 in reflection. " He will be very rich, will he not?" 
 
 " Pretty well. He will have what his father has before him, 
 Miss Chalk." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley suggested tea, but she said she would prefer a 
 glass of wine ; and went up to her chamber after taking it. Hannah 
 and the housemaid were hastily putting one in order for her. 
 Sleepy with the frosty air, I was nodding over the fire in the 
 drawing-room when the rustle of silk awoke me. 
 
 It was Miss Chalk. She came in gleaming like a fairy, her 
 dress shining in the fire-light; for they had not been in to light 
 the candles. It had a green-and-gold tinge, and was cut very low. 
 Did she think we had a party? — or that dressing for dinner was 
 the fashion in our plain country house — as it might have been at 
 a duke's? Her shoulders and arms were white as snow; she wore 
 a silver necklace, the like of which I had never seen, silver 
 
 t)
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 207 
 
 bracelets, and a thick cord of silver twisting in and out of her 
 complicated hair. 1 
 
 " I'm sure it is very kind of your people to take me in," she said, 
 standing still on the hearthrug in her beauty. " They have lighted 
 a fire in my room ; it is so comfortable. I do like a country house. 
 At Lady Augustus Difford's " 
 
 Her head went round at the opening of the door. It was Tod. 
 She stepped timidly towards him, like a schoolgirl : dressed as 
 now, she looked no older than one. Tod might have made up his 
 mind not to like her ; but he had to surrender. Holding out her 
 hand to him, he could only yield to the vision, and his heart shone 
 in his eyes as he bent them upon her. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for having passed you without notice ; I 
 did not even thank you for lifting me down ; but I was frozen with 
 the drive," she said, in low tones. " Will you forgive me, Mr. 
 Todhetley ? " 
 
 Forgive her ! As Tod stood there with her hand in his, he looked 
 inclined to eat her. Forgiveness was not enough. He led her to 
 the fire, speaking soft words of gallantry. 
 
 " Helen Whitney has often talked to me about you, ]\Ir. Tod- 
 hetloy. I little thought I should ever make your acquaintance ; 
 still less, be staying in your father's house." 
 
 "And I as httlc dreamt of the good fortune that was in store for 
 me," answered Tod. 
 
 He was a tall, fine young fellow then, rising twenty, looking 
 older than his age ; she (as she looked to-night) a delicate, beauti- 
 ful fairy, of any teens fancy might please to picture. As Tod stood 
 over her, his manner took a gentle air, his eyes a shy light — quite 
 unusual with him. She did not look up, except by a modest 
 glance now and again, dropping her eyes when they met his own. 
 He had the chance to take his fill of gazing, and used it. 
 
 Tod was caught. From the very first night that his eyes fell on 
 Sophie Chalk, his heart went out to her. Anna Whitney ! What 
 child's play had the joking about her been to this ! Anna might 
 have been his sister, for all the regard he had for her of a certain 
 sort ; and he knew it now. 
 
 A looker-on sees more than a player, and I did not like one thing 
 — she drew him on to love her. If ever a girl spread a net to 
 entangle a man's feet, that girl was Sophie Chalk. She went 
 about it artistically, too ; in the sweetest, most natural way imagin- 
 able ; and Tod did not see or suspect an atom of it. No fellow in 
 a similar case ever does. If their heart's not engaged, their vanity 
 is ; and it utterly blinds them. I said a word or two to him, and
 
 2o8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 was nearly knocked over for my pains. At the end of the fort- 
 night— and she was with us nearly that length of time— Tod's heart 
 had made its choice for weal or for woe. 
 
 She took care that it should be so ; she did, though he cut my 
 head off now for saying it. You shall judge. She began en that 
 first night when she came down in her glistening silk, v/ith the 
 silver on her neck and hair. In the drawing-room, after dinner, she 
 sat by him on the sofa, talking in a low voice, her face turned to 
 him, lifting her eyes and dropping them again. My belief is, she 
 must have been to a school where they taught eye-play. Tod 
 thought it was sweet, natural, shy modesty. I thought it was all 
 artistic. ]\Irs. Todhetley was called from the room on domestic 
 matters ; the Squire, gone to sleep in his dinner-chair, had not 
 come in. After tea, when all were present, she v/ent to the piano, 
 which no one ever opened but me, and played and sang, keeping 
 Tod by her side to turn the music, and to talk to her at available 
 moments. In point of execution, her singing was perfect, but the 
 voice was rather harsh — not a note of real melody in it. 
 
 After breakfast the next morning, when we were away together, 
 she came to us in her jaunty hat, all feathers, and her purple dress 
 with its white fur. She lured him off to show her the dyke and 
 goodness knows what else, leaving Lena, who had come out with 
 her, to be taken home by me. In the afternoon Tod drove her 
 out in the pony-chaise ; they had settled the drive between them 
 down by the dyke, and I know she had plotted for it, just as surely 
 as though I had been behind the hedge listening. I don't say Tod 
 was loth ; it was quite the other way from the first. They took a 
 two-hours' drive, returning home at dusk ; and then she laughed 
 and talked with him and me round the fire until it was time to get 
 ready for dinner. That second evening she came down in a gauzy 
 sort of dress, with a thin white body. Mrs. Todhetley thought she 
 would be cold, but she said she was used to it. 
 
 And so it went on ; never were they apart for an hour — no, nor 
 scarcely for a minute in the day. 
 
 At first Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley saw nothing. Rather were they 
 glad Tod should be so attentive to a stranger; for special politeness 
 had not previously been one of Tod's virtues ; but they could only 
 notice as the thing went on. Mrs. Todhetley grew to have an 
 uneasy look in her eyes, and one day the Squire spoke out. Sophie 
 Chalk had tied a pink woollen scarf over her head to go out with 
 Tod to see the rabbits fed : he ran back for something, and the 
 Squire caught his arm. 
 
 " Don't carry that on too far, Joe. You don't know who the girl is." 
 
 " What nonsense, sir ! " returned Tod, with a ready laugh ; but he 
 turned the colour of a peony.
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 209 
 
 We did not know much about her, except that she seemed to be 
 on the high ropes, talking a good deal of great people, and of Lord 
 and Lady Augustus Difford, with whom she had been- staying for 
 two months before Christmas. Her home in London, she said, was 
 at her sister's, who had married a wealthy merchant, and lived 
 fashionably in Torriana Square. Mrs. Todhetley did not like to 
 appear inquisitive, and would not ask questions. Miss Chalk was 
 with us as the Whitneys' friend, and that was sufficient. 
 
 Bill Whitney's hurt turned out to be something complicated 
 about the ribs. There was no danger after the first week, and they 
 returned home during the second, bringing Bill with them. Helen 
 Whitney wrote the same day for Sophie Chalk, and she said that 
 her mamma would be happy also to see Tod and me for a short 
 time. 
 
 We went over in the large phaeton. Tod driving, Miss Chalk 
 beside him ; I and Dwarf Giles behind. She had thanked Mrs. 
 Todhetley in the prettiest manner ; she told the Squire, as he 
 handed her into the carriage, that she should never forget his 
 kindness, and hoped some time to find an opportunity of repay- 
 ing it. 
 
 Such kissing between Helen and Sophie Chalk! I thought they'd 
 never leave off. Anna stood by Tod, while he looked on : a hungry 
 light in his eyes, as if envying Helen the kisses she took. He had 
 no eyes now for Anna. Lady Whitney asked if we would go up- 
 stairs to William : he was impatient to see us both. 
 
 " Halloa, old Johnny ! " 
 
 He was lying on his back on a broad flat sofa, looking just as 
 well as ever in the face. They had given him up the best bedroom 
 and dressing-room because he was ill : nice rooms, both — with the 
 door opening between. 
 
 " How did it happen, Bill?" 
 
 " Goodness knows ! Some fellow rode his horse pretty near over 
 mine — don't believe he had ever been astride anything but a 
 donkey before. Where's Tod ? " 
 
 " Somewhere. — I thought he was close behind me." 
 
 " I'm so glad you two have come. It's awfully dull, lying here 
 all day." 
 
 " Are you obliged to lie ? " 
 
 " Garden says so." 
 
 " Do you have Garden ? " 
 
 " As if our folk would be satisfied without him in a surgical case, 
 and one of danger! He was telegraphed for on the spot, and came 
 over in less than an hour. It happened near the Ombersley station. 
 He comes here every other day, and Featherston between whiles 
 as his locum tenens." 
 
 Johnny Ludlow— I. 14
 
 210 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Tod burst in with a laugh. He had been talking to the girls in 
 the gallery outside. Leaving him and Bill Whitney to have out 
 their own chaffer, I went through the door to the other room — the 
 fire there was the largest. " How do you do, sir .'' " 
 
 Some one in a neat brown gown and close white cap, sewing at 
 a table behind the door, had got up to say this with a curtsey. 
 Where had I seen her? — a woman of three or four and thirty, 
 with a meek, delicate face, and a subdued expression. She saw 
 the puzzle. 
 
 " I am Harry Lease's widow, sir. He was pointsman at South 
 Crabb ? " 
 
 Why, yes, to be sure! And she was not much altered either. 
 But it was a good while now since he died, and she and the 
 children had moved away at the time. I shook hands : the sight of 
 her brought poor Harry Lease to my mind— and many other things. 
 
 " Are you living here ? " 
 
 " I have been nursing young Mr. Whitney, sir. Mr. Garden sent 
 me over from Worcester to the place where he was lying ; and my 
 lady thought I might as well come on here with them for a bit, 
 though he don't want more done for him now than a servant could 
 do. What a deal you have grown, sir ! " 
 
 " Have I ? You should see Joseph Todhetley. You knew me, 
 though, Mrs. Lease ? " 
 
 " I remembered your voice, sir. Besides, I heard Miss Anna say 
 that you were coming here." 
 
 Asking after Polly, she gave me the family history since Lease's 
 death. First of all, after moving to her mother's at Worcester, she 
 tried to get a living at making gloves. Her two youngest children 
 caught some disorder, and died ; and then she took to go out 
 nursing. In that she succeeded so well — for it seemed to be her 
 vocation, she said — as to be brought under the notice of some of 
 the medical gentlemen of the town. They gave her plenty to do, 
 and she earned an excellent living, Polly and the other two being 
 cared for by the grandmother. 
 
 " After the scuffle, and toil, and sorrow of the old days, nursing 
 seems like a holiday to me. Master Ludlow," she concluded ; " and 
 I am at home with the children for a day or two as often as I 
 can be." 
 
 "Johnny!" 
 
 The call was Bill Whitney's, and I went into the other room, 
 Helen was there, but not Tod, She and Bill were disputing. 
 
 " I tell you, William, I shall bring her in. She has asked to 
 come. You can't think how nice she is." 
 
 "And I tell you, Helen, that I won't have her brought in. 
 What do I want with your Sophie Chalks ? "
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 2II 
 
 " It will be your loss." 
 
 " So be it ! I can't do with strange girls here." 
 
 " You will see that." 
 
 " Now look here, Helen — / won't have it. To-morrow is Mr. 
 Garden's day for coming, and I'll tell him that I can't be left in 
 peace. He will soon give you a word of a sort." 
 
 " Oh, well, if you are so serious about it as that, let it drop," 
 returned Helen, good-humouredly. " I only thought to give you 
 pleasure — and Sophie Chalk did ask to come in." 
 
 " Who is this Sophie Chalk ? That's about the nineteenth time 
 I have asked it." 
 
 " The sweetest girl in the world." 
 
 " Let that pass. Who is she ? " 
 
 " I went to school with her at Miss Lakon's. She used to do 
 my French for me, and touch up my drawings. She vowed a 
 lasting friendship, and I am not going to forget it. Every one loves 
 her. Lord and Lady Augustus Difford have just had her staying 
 with them for two months." 
 
 " Good souls ! " cried Bill, satirically. 
 
 " She is the loveliest fairy in the world, and dresses like an angel. 
 Will you see her now, William ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Helen went off with a flounce. Bill was half laughing, half 
 peevish over it. Confinement made him fretful. 
 
 "As if I'd let them bring a parcel of girls in to bother me! 
 Yon\& had her for these past three weeks, I hear, Johnny." 
 
 " Pretty near it." 
 
 "Do you like her ? " 
 
 " Tod does." 
 
 " What sort of a creature is the syren ? " 
 
 " She'd fascinate the eyes out of your head, Bill, give her the 
 chance." 
 
 " Then I'll be shot if she shall have the chance as far as I am 
 concerned ! Lease ! " — raising his voice — " keep all strange ladies 
 out of here. If they attempt to enter, tell them we've got rats 
 about." 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 Other visitors were staying in the house. A Miss Deveen, and 
 her companion Miss Cattledon. We saw them first at dinner. 
 Miss Deveen sat by Sir John — an ancient lady, active and upright, 
 with a keen, pleasant face and white hair. She had on a worked- 
 muslin shirt-front, with three emerald studs in it that glittered as 
 bright as diamonds. They were beautiful. After dinner, when the 
 four old ones began whist, and we were at the other end of the 
 drawing-room in a group, some one spoke of the studs.
 
 213 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " They are nothing compared with some of her jewellery," said 
 Helen Whitney. " She has a whole set of most beautiful diamonds. 
 I hardly know what they are worth." 
 
 " But those emeralds she has on to-night must be of great value," 
 cried Sophie Chalk. " See how they sparkle ! " 
 
 It made us all turn. As Miss Deveen moved in throwing down 
 her cards, the rays from the wax-lights fell on the emeralds, bringing 
 out the purest green ever imagined by a painter. 
 
 " I should like to steal them," said Sophie Chalk ; " they would 
 look well on me." 
 
 It made us laugh. Tod had his eyes fixed on her, a strange love 
 in their depths. Anna Whitney, kneeling on the ground behind 
 me, could see it. 
 
 " I would rather steal a set of pink topaz studs that she has," 
 spoke Helen; "and the opals, too. Miss Deveen is great in 
 studs." 
 
 " Why in studs ? " 
 
 "Because she always wears this sort of white body; it is her 
 habitual evening dress, with satin skirts. I know she has a different 
 set of studs for every day in the month." 
 
 " Who is she ? " asked Sophie Chalk. 
 
 " A cousin of mamma's. She has a great deal of money, and no 
 one in particular to leave it to. Harry says he hopes she'll remember, 
 in making her will, that he is only a poor younger son." 
 
 "Just you shut up, Helen," interrupted Harry, in a whisper. " I 
 believe that companion has ears at the back of her head." 
 
 Miss Cattledon glanced round from the whist-table, as though 
 the ears were there and wide open. She was a wiry lady of middle 
 age, quite forty, with a screwed-in waist and creaking stays, a piece 
 of crimson velvet round her long thin neck, her scanty hair light as 
 
 criiiorei-. 
 
 " It is she that has charge of the jewel-box," spoke Helen, when 
 we thought it safe to begin again, " Miss Deveen is a wonderful 
 old lady for sixty; she has come here without a maid this time, 
 and dresses herself. I don't see what use Miss Cattledon is to 
 her, unless it is to act as general refrigerator, but she gets a 
 hundred a year salary and some of the old satins. Sophie, I'm 
 sure she heard what we said— that we should like to steal the 
 trinkets." 
 
 " Hope she relished it ! " quoth Harry. " She'll put them under 
 double lock and key, for fear we should break in." 
 
 It was all jesting.' Amid the subdued laughing. Tod bent his face 
 over Sophie Chalk, his hand touching the lace on her sleeve. She 
 had on blue to-night with a pearl necklace. 
 
 " Will you sing that song for me, Miss Chalk ? "
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 213 
 
 She rose and took his arm. Helen jumped up and arrested them 
 ere they reached the piano. 
 
 "We must not have any music just now. Papa never hkes it 
 when they are at whist." 
 
 " How very unreasonable of him ! " cried Tod, looking fiercely at 
 Sir John's old red nose and steel spectacles. 
 
 " Of course it is," agreed Helen. "If he played for guinea 
 stakes instead of sixpenny, he could not be more particular about 
 having no noise. Let us go into the study : we can do as we like 
 there." 
 
 We all trooped off. It was a small square room with a shabby 
 carpet and worn horse-hair chairs. Helen stirred up the fire; and 
 Sophie sat down on a low stool and said she'd tell us a fairy tale. 
 
 We had been there just a week when it came out. The week was 
 a good one. Long walks in the frosty air ; a huge swing between 
 the cedar trees ; riding by turns on the rough Welsh pony for fun ; 
 bagatelle indoors, work, music, chatter ; one dinner-party, and a 
 small dance. Half my time was spent in Bill's room. Tod seemed 
 to find little leisure for coming up; or for anything else, except 
 Sophie Chalk. It was a gone case with Tod : looking on, I could 
 see that ; but I don't think any one else saw it, except Anna. He 
 liked Sophie too well to make it conspicuous. Harry made open 
 love to her; Sir John said she was the prettiest little lady he 
 had seen for many a day. I dare say Tod told her the same in 
 private. 
 
 And she ? Well, I don't know what to say. That she kept Tod 
 at her side, quietly fascinating him always, was certain ; but her 
 liking for him did not appear real. To me it seemed that she was 
 acting it. " I can't make that Sophie Chalk out, Tod," I said to 
 him one day by the beeches : " she seems childishly genuine, but I 
 believe she's just as sharp as a needle." Tod laughed idly, 
 and told me I was the simplest muff that ever walked in shoe- 
 leather. She was no rider, and some one had to walk by her side 
 when she sat on the Welsh pony, holding her on at all the turnings. 
 It was generally Tod : she made believe to be frightfully timid 
 with him. 
 
 It was at the end of the week that the loss was discovered : Miss 
 Deveen's emerald studs were gone. You never heard such a com- 
 motion. She, the owner, took it quietly, but Miss Cattledon made 
 noise enough for ten. The girls were talking round the study fire 
 the morning after the dance, and I was writing a note at the table, 
 when Lettice Lane came in, her face white as death. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, young ladies, for asking, but have any of you 
 geen Miss Deveen's emerald studs, please?"
 
 214 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 They turned round in surprise. 
 
 " Miss Deveen's studs ! " exclaimed Helen. " We are not likely 
 to have seen them, Lettice. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because, Miss Helen, they are gone — that is, Miss Cattledon 
 says they are. But, with so much jewellery as there is in that case, 
 it is very easy to overlook two or three little things." 
 
 Why Lettice Lane should have shaken all over in telling this, 
 was a marvel. Her very teeth chattered. Anna inquired ; but all 
 the answer given by the girl was, that it had " put her into a twitter." 
 Sophie Chalk's countenance was full of compassion, and I liked her 
 for it. 
 
 "Don't let it trouble you, Lettice," she said kindly. "If the 
 studs are missing, I dare say they will be found. Just before I 
 came down here my sister lost a brooch from her dressing-table. 
 The whole house was searched for it, the servants were uncomfort- 
 able " 
 
 " And was it found, miss .'' " interrupted Lettice, too eager to let 
 her finish. 
 
 " Of course it was found. Jewels don't get hopelessly lost in 
 gentlemen's houses. It had fallen down, and, caught in the lace of 
 the toilette drapery, was lying hid within its folds." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, miss ; yes, perhaps the studs have fallen too," 
 said Lettice Lane as she went out. Helen looked after her in some 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Why should the loss trouble ^^■r .? Lettice has nothing to do 
 Avith Miss Deveen's jewels." 
 
 " Look here, Helen, I wish we had never said we should like to 
 steal the things," spoke Sophie Chalk. " It was all in jest, of course, 
 but this would not be a nice sequel to it." 
 
 " Why— yes— you did say it, some of you," cried Anna, who, until 
 then, had seemed buried in thought ; and her face flushed. 
 
 " What if we did ? " retorted Helen, looking at her in some slight 
 surprise. 
 
 Soon after this, in going up to Bill's room, I met Lettice Lane. 
 She was running down with a plate, and looked whiter than 
 ever. 
 
 "Are the studs found, Lettice?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 The answer was short, the manner scared. Helen had wondered 
 why the loss should affect her; and so did I. 
 
 " Where's the use of your being put out over it, Lettice ? You 
 did not take them." 
 
 " No, Master Johnny, I did not ; but — but " looking round and 
 
 dropping her voice, " I am afraid I know who did ; and it was through 
 me. I'm a'most mad."
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 215 
 
 This was rather mysterious. She gave no opportunity for more, 
 but ran down as though the stairs were on fire. 
 
 I went on to Bill's chamber, and found Tod and Harry with him : 
 they were laughing over a letter from some fellow at Oxford. Stand- 
 ing at the window close by the inner door, which was ajar, I heard 
 Lettice Lane go into the dressing-room and speak to Mrs. Lease in 
 a half whisper. 
 
 " I can't bear this any longer," she said. "If you have taken 
 those studs, for Heaven's sake put them back. I'll make some 
 excuse — say I found them under the carpet, or slipped under the 
 drawers — anything — only put them back ! " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," replied Mrs. Lease, who always 
 spoke as though she had only half a voice. 
 
 " Yes, you do. You have got the studs." 
 
 By the pause that ensued. Nurse Lease seemed to have lost the 
 power of speech. Lettice took the opportunity to put it more 
 strongly. 
 
 " If you've got them about you, give them into my hand now, and 
 I'll manage the rest. Not a living soul shall ever know of this if 
 you will. Oh, do give them to me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Lease spoke then. " If you say this again, Lettice Lane, 
 I'll tell my lady all. And indeed, I have been wanting to tell her 
 ever since I heard that something had gone. It was for your sake 
 I did not." 
 
 " For my sake ! " shrieked Lettice. 
 
 "Well, it was. I'm sure I'd not like to say it if I could help, 
 Lettice Lane ; but it did strike me that you might have been tempted 
 to — to — you know." 
 
 So it was accusation and counter-accusation. Which of the two 
 confessed first was uncertain ; but in a short time the whole was 
 known to the house, and to Lady Whitney. 
 
 On the previous night the upper housemaid was in bed with some 
 slight illness, and it fell to Lettice Lane to put the rooms to rights 
 after the ladies had dressed. Instead of calling one of the other 
 servants she asked Mrs. Lease to help her — which must have been 
 for nothing but to gossip with the nurse, as Lady Whitney said. 
 On Miss Deveen's dressing-table stood her case of jewels, the key 
 in the lock. Lettice lifted the hd. On the top tray ghttered a 
 heap of ornaments, and the two women feasted their eyes with 
 them. Nurse Lease declared that she never put " a finger's end " 
 on a single article. Lettice could not say as much. Neither (if 
 they were to be beheved) had observed the green studs ; and the 
 upper tray was not lifted to see what was underneath. Miss 
 Cattledon, who made one at the uproar, put in her word at this, to 
 say they were telling a falsehood, and her face had enough vinegar
 
 2i6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 in it to pickle a salmon. Other people might like Miss Cattledon, 
 but I did not. She was in a silent rage with Miss Deveen for having 
 chosen to keep the jewel-case during their stay at Whitney Hall, 
 and for carelessly leaving the key in it. Miss Deveen took the loss 
 calmly, and was as cool as a cucumber. 
 
 " I don't know that the emerald studs were in the upper tray 
 last night; I don't remember to have seen them," Miss Deveen 
 said, as if bearing out the assertion of the two women. 
 
 " Begging your pardon, madam, they were there, stiffly corrected 
 Miss Cattledon. " I saw them. I thought you would put them 
 on, as you were going to wear your green satin gown, and asked if 
 I should lay them out ; but you told me you would choose for 
 yourself." 
 
 Miss Deveen had worn diamonds ; we had noticed their lustre. 
 
 " I'm sure it is a dreadful thing to have happened ! " said poor 
 Lady Whitney, looking flurried. " I dare not tell Sir John ; he 
 would storm the windows out of their frames. Lease, I am 
 astonished ?iX. yon. How could you dare open the box? " 
 
 *' I never did open it, my lady," was the answer. " When I got 
 round from the bed, Lettice was standing with it open before her." 
 
 " I don't think there need be much doubt as to the guilty party," 
 struck in Miss Cattledon with intense acrimony, her eyes swooping 
 down upon Lettice. And if they were not sly and crafty eyes, never 
 you trust me again. 
 
 " I do not think there need be so much trouble made about it," 
 corrected Miss Deveen. " It's not your loss, Cattledon — it is mine : 
 and my own fault too." 
 
 But Miss Cattledon would not take the hint. She stuck to it 
 like a leech, and sifted evidence as subtly as an Old Bailey lawyer. 
 Mrs. Lease carried innocence on the surface ; no one could doubt 
 It : Lettice might have been taken for a seven-years' thief. She 
 sobbed, and choked, and rambled in her tale, and grew as confused 
 as a hunted hare, contradicting herself at every second word. The 
 Australian scheme (though it might have been nothing but foolish 
 talk) told against her now. 
 
 Things grew more uncomfortable as the day went on, the house 
 being ransacked from head to foot. Sophie Chalk cried. She was 
 not rich, she said to me, but she would give every shilling of money 
 she had with her for the studs to be found ; and she thought it was 
 very wrong to accuse Lettice, when so many strangers had been in 
 the house. I liked Sophie better than I had hked her yet : she 
 looked regularly vexed. 
 
 Sir John got to know of it : Miss Cattledon told him. He did not 
 storm the windows out, but he said the police must come in and 
 see Lettice Lane. Miss Deveen, hearing of this, went straight to
 
 SOPHIE CHALK. 217 
 
 Sir John, and assured him that if he took any serious steps while 
 the affair was so doubtful, she would quit his house on the instant, 
 and never put foot in it again. He retorted that it must have been 
 Lettice Lane — common sense and Miss Cattledon could not be 
 mistaken — and that it ought to be investigated. 
 
 They came to a compromise. Lettice was not to be given into 
 custody at present; but she must quit the Hall. That, said Miss 
 Deveen, was of course as Sir John and Lady Whitney pleased. To 
 tell the truth, suspicion did seem strong against her. 
 
 She went away at eventide. One of the men was charged to 
 drive her to her mother's, about five miles off. I and Anna, hasten- 
 ing home from our walk — for we had lost the others, and the stars 
 were coming out in the wintry sky — saw them as we passed the 
 beeches. Lettice's face was swollen with crying. 
 
 " We are so sorry this has happened, Lettice," Anna gently said, 
 going up to the gig. " I do hope it will be cleared up soon. Re- 
 member one thing — I shall think well of you^ until it is. / do 
 not suspect you." 
 
 " I am turned out like a criminal, Miss Anna," sobbed the girl. 
 "They searched me to the skin; that Miss Cattledon standing on 
 to see that the housekeeper did it properly ; and they have searched 
 my boxes. The only one to speak a kind word to me as I came 
 away, was Miss Deveen herself. It's a disgrace I shall never get 
 over." 
 
 "That's rubbish, Lettice, you know,"— for I thought I'd put in 
 a good word, too. " You will soon forget it, once the right fellow 
 is pitched upon. Good luck to you, Lettice." 
 
 Anna shook hands with her, and the man drove on, Lettice 
 sobbing aloud. Not hearing Anna's footsteps, I looked round and 
 saw she had sat down on one of the benches, though it was white 
 with frost. I went back. 
 
 " Don't you go and catch cold, Anna." 
 
 " Johnny, you cannot think how this is troubling 7neP 
 
 " Why you — in particular ? " 
 
 " Well— for one thing 1 can't beheve that she is guilty. I have 
 always hked Lettice." 
 
 " So did we at Dyke Manor. But if she is not guilty, who is .^ " 
 
 " I don't know, Johnny," she continued, her eyes taking a thought- 
 ful, far-off look. " What I cannot help thinking, is this— though 
 I feel half ashamed to say it. Several visitors were in the house 
 last night ; suppose one should have found her way into the room, 
 and taken them ? If so, how cruel this must be on Lettice Lane." 
 
 " Sophie Chalk suggested the same thing to me to-day. But a 
 visitor would not do such a thing. Fancy a lady steahng jewels ! " 
 
 "The open box might prove a strong temptation. People do
 
 2i8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 things in such moments, Johnny, that they would fly from at other 
 times." 
 
 " Sophie said that too. You have been talking together." 
 
 " I have not exchanged a word with Sophie Chalk on the subject. 
 The ideas might occur naturally to any of us." 
 
 I did not think it at all likely to have been a visitor. How 
 should a visitor know there was an open jewel-box in Miss Deveeii's 
 room? The chamber, too, was an inner one, and therefore not 
 liable to be entered accidentally. To get to it you had to go through 
 Miss Cattledon's. 
 
 " The room is not easy of access, you know, Anna." 
 
 " Not very. But it might be reached." 
 
 " I say, are you saying this for any purpose ? " 
 
 She turned round and looked at me rather sharply. 
 
 " Yes. Because I do not believe it was Lettice Lane." 
 
 "Was it Miss Cattledon herself, Anna? 1 have heard of such 
 curious things. Her eyes took a greedy look to-day when they 
 rested on the jewels." 
 
 As if the suggestion frightened her — and I hardly know how I 
 came to whisper it — Anna started up, and ran across the lawn, 
 never looking back or stopping until she reached the house.
 
 XIV. 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 
 
 The table was between us as we stood in the dining-room at Dyke 
 Manor— I and Mrs. Todhetley— and on it lay a three-cornered 
 article of soft geranium-coloured wool, which she called a " fichu." 
 I had my great coat on my arm ready for travelling, for I was going 
 up to London on a visit to Miss Deveen. 
 
 It was Easter now. Soon after the trouble, caused by the loss of 
 the emerald studs at Whitney Hall in January, the party had 
 dispersed. Sophie Chalk returned to London ; Tod and I came 
 home; Miss Deveen was going to Bath. The studs had not been 
 traced — had never been heard of since ; and Lettice Lane, after a 
 short stay in disgrace at her mother's cottage, had suddenly dis- 
 appeared. Of course there were not wanting people to affirm that 
 she had gone off to her favourite land of promise, Australia, carry- 
 ing the studs with her. 
 
 The Whitneys were now in London. They did not go in for 
 London seasons ; in fact. Lady Whitney liardly remembered to have 
 had a season in London at all, and she c^uite dreaded this one, 
 saying she should feel like a fish out of water. Sir John occupied 
 a bedroom when he went up for Parliament; and dined at his club. 
 But Helen was nineteen, and they thought she ought to be presented 
 to the Queen. So Miss Deveen was consulted about a furnished 
 house, and she and Sir John took one for six weeks from just before 
 Easter. They left Whitney Hall at once to take possession ; and 
 Bill Whitney and Tod, who got an invitation, joined them the day 
 before Good Friday. 
 
 The next Tuesday I received a letter from Miss Deveen. We 
 were very good friends at W'hitney, and she had been polite 
 enough to say she should be glad to see me in London. I never 
 expected to go, for three-parts of those invitations do not come to 
 anything. She wrote now to ask me to go up ; it might be plea- 
 sant for me, she added, as Joseph Todhetley was staying with the 
 Whitneys. 
 
 It is of no use going on until I have said a word about Tod. If 
 ever a fellow was hopelessly in love with a girl, he was with Sophie
 
 220 JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 Chalk. I don't mean hopeless as to the love, but as to getting out 
 of it. On the day that we were quitting Whitney Hall — it was on 
 the 26th of January, and the icicles were clustering on the trees— 
 they had taken a long walk together. What Tod said I don't 
 know, but I think he let her know how much he loved her, and 
 asked her to wait until he should be of age and could ask the 
 question — would she be his wife ? We went with her to the station, 
 and the way Tod wrapped her up in the railway-carriage was as 
 good as a show. (Pretty little Mrs. Hughes, who had been visiting 
 old Featherston, went up by the same train and in the same 
 carriage.) They corresponded a little, she and Tod. Nothing 
 particular in her letters, at any rate — nothing but what the world 
 might see, or that she might have written to Mrs. Todhetley, who 
 had one from her on occasion— but I know Tod just lived on those 
 letters and her remembrance ; he could not hide it from me ; and I 
 saw without wishing to see or being able to help myself. Why, he 
 had gone up to London now in one sole hope — that of meeting again 
 with Miss Chalk ! 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley saw it too — had seen it from the time when Sophie 
 Chalk was at Dyke Manor — and it grieved and worried her. But 
 not the Squire : he no more supposed Tod was going to take up 
 seriously with Sophie Chalk, than with the pink-eyed lady exhibited 
 the past year at Pershore Fair. 
 
 Well, that's all of explanation. This was Wednesday morning, 
 and the Squire was going to drive me to the station for the 
 London train. Mrs. Todhetley at the last moment was giving me 
 charge of the fichu, which she had made for Sophie Chalk's sister. 
 
 "I did not send it by Joseph; I thought it as well not to do 
 so," she observed, as she began to pack it up in tissue paper. 
 " Will you take it down to Mrs. Smith yourself, Johnny, and 
 deliver it ? " 
 " All right." 
 
 " I— you know, Johnny, I have the greatest dishke to anything 
 that is mean or underhand," she went on, dropping her voice a 
 little. " But I do not think it would be wrong, under the circum- 
 stances, if I ask you to take a little notice of what these Smiths are. 
 I don't mean in the way of being fashionable, Johnny ; I suppose 
 they are all that ; but whether they are nice, good people. Some- 
 how I did not like Miss Chalk, with all her fascinations, and it is 
 of no use to pretend that I did." 
 
 " She was too fascinating for ordinary folk, good mother." 
 " Yes, that was it. She seemed to put the fascinations on. And, 
 Johnny, though we were to hear that she had a thousand a year to 
 her fortune, I should be miserable if I thought Joe would choose her 
 for his wife."
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 221 
 
 " She used to say she was poor." ^ 
 
 " But she seemed to have a whole list of lords and ladies for her 
 friends, so I conclude she and her connections must be people of 
 note. It is not that, Johnny— rich or poor — it is that I don't hke 
 her for herself, and I do not think she is the one to make Joe 
 happy. She never spoke openly about her friends, you know, or 
 about herself. At any rate, you take down this httle parcel to 
 Mrs. Smith, with my kind regards, and then you'll see them for 
 yourself. And in judgment and observation you are worth fifty of 
 Joe, any day." 
 
 " Not in either judgment or observation ; only in instinct." 
 
 " And that's for yourself," she added, slipping a sovereign into my 
 pocket. " I don't know how much Mr. Todhetley has given you. 
 Mind you spend your money in right things, Johnny. But I am not 
 afraid ; I could trust you all over the world." 
 
 Giles put in my portmanteau, and we drove off. The hedges 
 were beginning to bud ; the fields looked green. From observa- 
 tions about the young lambs, and a broken fence that he went 
 into a passion over, the Squire suddenly plunged into something 
 else. 
 
 " You take care of yourself, sir, in London ! Boys get into all 
 kinds of pitfalls there, if they don't mind." 
 
 " But I do not call myself a boy, sir, now." 
 
 "Not call yourself a boy!" retorted the Squire, staring. "I'd 
 like to know what else you are. Tod's a boy, sir, and nothing else, 
 though he does count twenty years. I wonder what the world's 
 coming to ! " he added, lashing up Bob and Blister. "In my days, 
 youngsters did not think themselves men before they had done 
 growing." 
 
 " What I meant was that I am old enough to take care of my- 
 self. Mrs. Todhetley has just said she could trust me all over the 
 world." 
 
 " Just like her foolishness ! Take care you don't get your pockets 
 picked : there's sure to be a thief at every corner. And don't you 
 pick them yourself, Master Johnny. I knew a young fellow once 
 who went up to London with ten pounds in his pocket. He was 
 staying at the Castle and Falcon Hotel, near the place where the 
 mails used to start from — and a fine sight it was to see them bowl 
 out, one after another, with their lamps lighted. Well, Johnny, this 
 young fellow got back again in four days by one of these very mails, 
 every shilling spent, and his fare down not paid. You'd not think 
 that was steady old Jacobson; but it was." 
 
 I laughed. The Squire looked more inclined to cry. 
 
 " Cleaned out, he was ; not a rap left ! Money melts in London 
 — that's a fact — and it is very necessary to be cautious. His went
 
 222 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 in seeing the shows ; so he told his father. Don't you go in for too 
 many of them, Johnny, or you may find yourself without funds to 
 bring you home, and railways don't give trust. You might go to the 
 Tower, now; and St. Paul's; and the British'; Museum ; they are 
 steady places. I wouldn't advise a theatre, unless it's just once — 
 some good, respectable play ; and mind you go straight home after 
 it. Some young men slink off to singing-shops now, they say, but 
 I am sure such places can bring no good." 
 
 " Being with Miss Deveen, sir, I don't suppose I shall have the 
 opportunity of getting into much harm." 
 
 " Well, it's right in me to caution you, Johnny. London is a 
 dreadful place, full of sharpers and bad people. It used to be in the 
 old days, and I don't suppose it has improved in these. You have 
 no father, Johnny, and I stand to you in the light of one, to give 
 you these warnings. Enjoy your visit rationally, my boy, and come 
 home with a true report and a good conscience. That's the charge 
 my old father always gave to me." 
 
 Miss Deveen lived in a very nice house, north-westward, away 
 from the bustle of London. The road was wide, the houses were 
 semi-detached, with gardens around and plenty of trees in view. 
 Somehow I had hoped Tod would be at the Paddington terminus, 
 and was disappointed, so I took a cab and went on. Miss Deveen 
 came into the hall to receive me, and said she did not consider 
 me too big to be kissed, considering she was over sixty. Miss 
 Cattledon, sitting in the drawing-room, gave me a finger to shake, 
 and did not seem to like my coming. Her waist and throat were 
 thinner and longer than ever ; her stays creaked like parchment. 
 
 If I'd never had a surprise in my life, I had one before I was 
 in the house an hour. Coming down from the bedroom to which 
 they had shown me, a maid-servant passed me on the first-floor 
 landing. It was Lettice Lane ! I wondered — believe me or not, 
 as you will — I wondered whether I saw a ghost, and stood back 
 against the pillar of the banisters. 
 
 " Why, Lettice, is it you ? " 
 
 '• Yes, sir." 
 
 "But — what are you doing here?^^ 
 
 " I am here in service, sir." 
 
 She ran on upstairs. Lettice in Miss Deveen's house. It was 
 worse than a Chinese puzzle. 
 
 " Is that you, Johnny ? Step in here } " 
 
 The voice — Miss Deveen's — came from a half-opened door, close 
 at hand. It was a small, pretty sitting-room, with light blue cur- 
 tains and chairs. Miss Deveen sat by the fire, ready for dinner. In 
 her white body shone amethyst studs, quite as beautiful as the lost 
 emeralds.
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 223 
 
 " We call this the blue-room, Johnny. It is my own exclusively, 
 and no one enters it except upon invitation. Sit down. Were you 
 surprised to see Lettice Lane ? " 
 
 " I don't think I was ever so much surprised in all my life. She 
 says she is hving here." 
 
 " Yes ; I sent for her to help my housemaid." 
 
 I was thoroughly mystified. ISIiss Deveen put down her book 
 and spectacles. 
 
 " I have taken to glasses, Johnny." 
 
 " But I thought you saw so well." 
 
 " So I do, for anything but very small type— and that book seems 
 to have been printed for none but the youngest eyes. And I see 
 people as well as things," she added significantly. 
 
 I felt sure of that. 
 
 "Do you remember, Johnny, the day after the uproar at Whitney 
 Hall, that I asked you to pilot me to Lettice Lane's mother's, and 
 to say nothing about it ? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly. You walked the whole four miles of the way. 
 It is five by road." 
 
 " And back again. I am good for more yet than some of the 
 young folk are, Johnny ; but I always was an excellent walker. 
 Next day the party broke up ; that pretty girl, Sophie Chalk, 
 departed for London, and you and young Todhetley left later. 
 When you reached your home in the evening, I don't suppose you 
 thought I had been to Dyke Manor the same day." 
 
 " No ! Had you really, Miss Deveen ?" 
 
 " Really and truly. I'll tell you now the reason of those journeys 
 of mine. As Lettice Lane was being turned out of the Hall, she 
 made a remark in the moment of departure, accidentally I am 
 sure, which caused me to be almost certain she was not guilty of 
 stealing the studs. Before, whilst they were all condemning her 
 as guihy, / had felt doubtful of it ; but of course I could not be 
 sure, and Miss Cattledon reproaches me with thinking every one 
 innocent under every circumstance — which is a mistake of hers. 
 Mind, Johnny, the few words Lettice said might have been used 
 designedly, by one crafty and guilty, on purpose to throw me off 
 suspicion : but I felt almost persuaded that the girl had spoken 
 them in unconscious innocence. I went to her mother's to see 
 them both ; I am fond of looking into things with my own eyes ; 
 and I came away with my good opinion strengthened. I went next 
 to Mrs. Todhetley's to hear what she said of the girl ; I saw her 
 and your old nurse, Hannah, making my request to both not to 
 speak of my visit. They gave the girl a good character for honesty ; 
 Mrs. Todhetley thought her quite incapable of taking the studs ; 
 Hannah could not say what a foolish girl with roving ideas o
 
 224 JOHNNY LUDLOV/. 
 
 Australia in her head might do in a moment of temptation. In less 
 than a fortnight I was back in London, having paid my visit to 
 Bath. I had been reflecting all that time, Johnny, on the cruel 
 blight this must be on Lettice Lane, supposing that she was 
 innocent. I thought the probabilities were that she was innocent, 
 not guilty ; and I determined to offer her a home in my own house 
 during the uncertainty. She seemed only too glad to accept it, 
 and here she is. If the girl should eventually turn out to be inno- 
 cent, I shall have done her a real service ; if guilty, why I shall not 
 regret having held out a helping hand to her, that may perhaps 
 save her for the future." 
 
 " It was very kind and thoughtful of you. Miss Deveen ! " 
 
 " My chief difficulty lay in keeping the suspicion lying on Lettice 
 Lane a secret from my household. Fortunately I had taken no 
 servants with me to Whitney Hall, my maid having been ill at the 
 time ; but Cattledon is outrageously virtuous, and of course pro- 
 portionally bitter against Lettice. You saw that at Whitney." 
 
 " She would have been the first to tell of her." 
 
 "Yes. I had to put the thing rather strongly to Miss Cattle- 
 don — ' Hold your tongue or leave me.' It answered, Johnny. 
 Cattledon likes her place here, and acts accordingly. She picks up 
 her petticoats from contamination when she meets the unfortunate 
 Lettice ; but she takes care to hold her tongue." 
 
 " Do you think it will ever be found out. Miss Deveen ? " 
 
 " I hope it will." 
 
 " But who — could have taken them ? " And the thought of what 
 I had said to Anna Whitney, that it might be Miss Cattledon her- 
 self, flashed over me as I put the question. 
 
 " I think " — Miss Deveen glanced round as if to make sure we 
 were alone, and dropped her voice a little — " that it must have 
 been one of the guests who came to Whitney Hall that night. 
 Cattledon let out one thing, but not until after we were at home 
 again, for the fact seemed not to have made the least impression on 
 her memory at the time ; but it came back afterwards. When she 
 was quitting her room after dressing that evening — I being already 
 out of mine and downstairs — she saw the shawl she had worn in the 
 afternoon lying across a chair just as she had thrown it off. She 
 is very careful of her clothes ; and hesitated, she said, whether lo 
 go back then and fold it ; but, knowing she was late, did not do 
 so. She had been downstairs about ten minutes, when I asked her 
 to fetch my fan, which I had forgotten. Upon going through her 
 room to mine, she saw the shawl lying on the floor, and picked 
 it up, wondering how it could have come there. At that time the 
 maids had not been in to put either her room or mine to rights. 
 Now, what I infer, Johnny, is that my jewel-case was visited and
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 225 
 
 the studs were stolen before Lettice Lane and Mrs. Lease went near 
 the rooms, and that the thief, in her hurry to escape, brushed against 
 the shawl and threw it down." 
 
 " And cannot Miss Cattledon see the probability of that ? " 
 
 " She will not see it. Lettice Lane is guilty with her and no one 
 else. Prejudice goes a long way in this world, Johnny. The 
 people who came to the dance that night were taking off their 
 things in the next room to Miss Cattledon's, and I think it likely 
 that some one of them may have found a way into my chamber, 
 perhaps even by accident, and the sight of the brilliant emerald 
 studs — they were more beautiful than any they were lying with — 
 was too much for human equanimity. It was my fault for leaving 
 the dressing-case open — and do you know, Johnny, I believe I left 
 it literally open — I can never forget that." 
 
 " But Lettice Lane said it was shut ; shut but not locked." 
 
 " Well, it is upon my conscience that I left it open. Whoever 
 took the studs may have shut down the lid, in caution or forget- 
 fulness. Meanwhile, Johnny, don't you say anything of what I 
 have told you ; at the Whitneys' or elsewhere. They do not know 
 that Lettice Lane is with me ; they are prejudiced against her, 
 especially Sir John ; and Lettice has orders to keep out of the way 
 of visitors. Should they by chance see her, why, I shall say that 
 as the case was at best doubtful, I am giving the girl a chance to 
 redeem her good name. We are going there after dinner. So 
 mind you keep counsel." 
 
 " To the Whitneys' ? " 
 
 " It is only next door, as you may say. I did not mention that 
 you were coming up," she added, " so there will be a surprise for 
 them. And now we will go down. Here, carry my book for me, 
 Johnny." 
 
 In the drawing-room we found a grey-haired curate, with a mild 
 voice ; Miss Cattledon was simpering and smiling upon him. I 
 gathered that he did duty in the church hard by, and had come to 
 dinner by invitation. He took in Miss Deveen, and that other 
 blessed lady fell to me. It was a very good dinner, uncommonly 
 good to me after my journey. Miss IDeveen carved. And didn't 
 she make me eat ! She said she knew what boys' appetites were. 
 The curate took his leave, but Miss Deveen sat on ; she fancied to 
 have heard that the Whitneys were to have friends to dinner that 
 night, and would not go in too early. 
 
 About half-a-dozen houses lay between, and Miss Deveen put a 
 shawl over her head and walked the distance. " Such a mistake, to 
 have taken a place for them so near Hyde Park!" whispered Miss 
 Cattledon as we were following — and I'm sure she must have been 
 in a gracious mood to give me the confidence. " Neither Sir John 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 15
 
 226 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 nor Miss Deveen has much notion of the requirements of fashion- 
 able society, Mr. Ludlow : as to poor Lady Whitney, she is a very 
 owl in all that relates to it." 
 
 Poor Lady Whitney — not looking like an owl, but a plain, good- 
 hearted English mother — was the first to see us. There was no 
 dinner-party after all. She sat on a chair just inside the drawing- 
 room, which was precisely the same in build and size as Miss 
 Deveen's, but had not her handsome furniture and appointments. 
 She said she was glad to see me, and would have invited me with 
 Joe, but for want of beds. 
 
 They were all grouped at the other end of the room, playing at 
 forfeits, and a great deal too busy to notice me. I had leisure to 
 look at them. Helen was talking very fast : Harry shouting ; Anna 
 sat leaning her cheek on her hand ; Tod stood frowning and angry 
 against the wall; the young ones were jumping about like savages; 
 and Bill Whitney was stuck on a stool, his eyes bandaged, and the 
 tips of a girl's white fingers touching his hands. A fairy, rather 
 than a girl, for that's what she looked like, with her small, light 
 figure and her gauze skirts floating : Miss Sophie Chalk. 
 
 But what on earth had come to her hair? It used to be brown; 
 it was now light, and gleaming with gold spangles. Perhaps it 
 belonged to her fairy nature. 
 
 Suddenly Bill shouted out " Miss Chalk," threw off the bandage, 
 and caught her hands to kiss her#! It was all in the forfeits : he 
 had a right to do it, because he guessed her name. She laughed 
 and struggled, the children and Helen were as wild Indians with 
 glee, and Tod looked ready to bring the roof down. Just as Bill 
 gave the kiss, Anna saw me. 
 
 Of course it created an interlude, and the forfeits were thrown up. 
 Tod came out of his passion, feeUng a little frightened. 
 
 "Johnny! Why, what in the world brings you here.' Anything 
 wrong with my father .? " 
 
 " I am only come up on a visit to Miss Deveen, Tod." 
 
 " Well, I'm sure ! " cried Tod ; as if he thought he ought to have 
 all the visiting, and I none of it. 
 
 Sophie put her hand into mine. " I am so glad to see you again," 
 she said in her softest tone. " And dear Mrs. Todhet'ley, how is 
 she ? and the sweet children ? " 
 
 But she never waited to hear how ; for she turned away at some 
 question put by Bill Whitney. 
 
 Sir John came in, and the four old ones sat down to their whist 
 in the small drawing-room opening from this. The children were 
 sent to bed. Sophie Chalk went to the piano to sing a song in 
 hushed tones. Tod putting himself on one side. Bill on the other. 
 
 "Are both of them going in for the lady's favour.'" I asked of
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 227 
 
 Anna, pointing to the piano, as she made room for me on the 
 sofa. 
 
 " I think Miss Chalk would like it, Johnny." 
 
 " How well Bill is looking ! " 
 
 " Oh, he has quite recovered ; he seems all the stronger for his 
 accident, I suppose the rest and the nursing set him up." 
 
 " Is Sophie Chalk staying here?" 
 
 " No ; there's hardly room for her. But she has been here every 
 day and all day since we came up. They send her home in a cab 
 at night, and one of the maids has to go with her. It is Helen's 
 arrangement." 
 
 " Do you hke London, Anna ? " 
 
 " No. I wish I had stayed at home." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Well — but I can't tell you every reason." 
 
 " Tell me one ? " 
 
 Anna did not answer. She sat looking out straight before her, 
 her eyes full of trouble. 
 
 " Perhaps it is all nothing, Johnny. I may be fanciful and 
 foolish, and so take up mistaken notions. Wrong ones, on more 
 points than one." 
 
 "Do you mean anything — there ? " 
 
 "Yes. It would be — / think— a terrible misfortune for us, if 
 William were to engage himself to Sophie Chalk." 
 
 " You mean Tod, Anna ? " I said, impulsively. 
 
 She blushed like a rose. " Down at Whitney 1 did think it was 
 he ; but since we came here she seems to have changed ; to be — 
 to be " 
 
 " Going in for Bill. I put it plainly you see, Anna." 
 
 " I cannot help fearing that it would be a very sad mistake for 
 either of them. Oh, Johnny, I am just tormented out of my peace, 
 doubting whether or not I ought to speak. Sometimes I say to 
 myself, yes it would be right, it is my duty. And then again 1 
 fancy that I am altogether mistaken, and that there's nothing for 
 me to say." 
 
 " But what could you say, Anna ? " 
 
 Anna had been nervously winding her thin gold chain round her 
 finger. She unwound it again before answering. 
 
 " Of course — what could I ? And if I were to speak, and — and 
 —find there was no cause," she dreamily added, " I should never 
 forgive myself. The shame of it would rest upon me throughout 
 life." 
 
 " Well, I don't see that, Anna. Just because you fancied things 
 were serious when they were not so ! Where would be the shame?" 
 
 "You don't understand, Johnny. / should feel it. And so I
 
 228 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 wish I had stayed down at Whitney, out of the reach of torment. 
 I wish another thing with all my heart — that Helen would not have 
 Sophie Chalk here." 
 
 " I think you may take one consolation to yourself, Anna — that 
 whatever you might urge against her, it would most likely make 
 not the smallest difference one way or the other. With Tod I am 
 sure it would not. If he set his mind on marrying Sophie Chalk, 
 other people's grumbhng would not turn him from it." 
 
 " It might depend a little on what the grumbhngs were," returned 
 Anna, as if fighting for the last word. " But there ; let it drop. I 
 would rather say no more." 
 
 She took up a photograph book, and we began looking over it 
 together. 
 
 " Good gracious ! Here's Miss Cattledon ? Small waist and 
 all ! " 
 
 Anna laughed. " She had it taken in Bath, and sent it to William. 
 He had only asked her for it in joke." 
 
 " So those studs have never turned up, Anna ? " 
 
 " No. I wish they would. I should pray night and morning for 
 it, if I thought it would do no one an injury." 
 
 " Johnny ! " called out Sir John. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Come you, and take my hand for five minutes. I have just 
 remembered a note I ought to have written this afternoon." 
 
 " I shall be sure to play badly," I said to Lady Whitney, who had 
 fallen to Sir John in cutting for partners. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, what does it matter ? " she kindly answered. " I 
 don't mind if you do. I do not play well myself." 
 
 The next morning Miss Cattledon went out to ten-o'clock daily 
 service. Miss Deveen said she had taken to the habit of doing so. 
 I wondered whether it was for the sake of religion, or for that grey- 
 haired curate who did the prayers. Sitting by ourselves, I told Miss 
 Deveen of the commission I had from Mrs. Todhetley ; and some- 
 how, without my intending it, she gathered a little more. 
 
 " Go by all means, and learn what you can, Johnny. Go at once. 
 I don't think you need, any of you, be afraid, though," she added, 
 laughing. " I have seen very much of boy-and-girl love ; seen that 
 it rarely comes to anything. Young men mostly go through one or 
 two such episodes before settling seriously to the business of life." 
 
 The omnibus took me to Oxford Street, and I found my way 
 from thence to Torriana Square. It proved to be a corner house, 
 its front entrance being in the square. But there was a smaller 
 entrance on the side (which was rather a bustling street), and a
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 229 
 
 sort of office window, on the wire blind of which was written, in 
 white letters, " Mr. Smith, wine-merchant." 
 
 A wine-merchant ! Well, I was surprised. Could there be any 
 mistake ? No, it was the right number. But I thought there must 
 be, and stood staring at the place with both eyes. That was a come- 
 down. Not but that wine-merchants are as good as other people ; 
 only Sophie Chalk had somehow imparted the notion of their living 
 up to lords and ladies. 
 
 I asked at the front-door for Mrs. Smith, and was shown upstairs 
 to a handsome drawing-room. A little girl, with a sallow face, thin 
 and sickly, was seated there. She did not get up, only stared at me 
 with her dark, keen, deep-set eyes. 
 
 " Do you know where your mamma is, Miss Trot ? " asked the 
 servant, putting a chair. 
 
 " You can go and search for her ? " 
 
 She looked at me so intently as the maid left the room, that I told 
 her who I was, and what I had come for. The child's tongue— it 
 seemed as sharp a one as Miss Cattledon's— was let loose. 
 
 " I have heard of you, Johnny Ludlow. Mrs. Smith would be 
 glad to see you. You had better wait." 
 
 I don't know how it is that I make myself at home with people ; 
 or, rather, that people seem so soon to be at home with me. I 
 don't try to do it, but it is always so. In two or three minutes, 
 when the girl was talking to me as freely as though I were her 
 brother, the maid came back again. 
 
 " Miss Trot, I cannot find your mamma." 
 
 "Mrs. Smith's out. But I was not obliged to tell you so. Ill 
 not spare you any work when you call me Miss Trot." 
 
 The maid's only answer was to leave the room: and the little 
 girl— who spoke like a woman — shook her dark hair from her face 
 in temper. 
 
 " I've told them over and over again I will not be called Miss 
 Trot. How would you like it ? Because my mamma took to say 
 it when I was a baby, it is no reason why other people should say 
 it." 
 
 " Perhaps your mamma says it still, and so they fall into it also." 
 
 " My mamma is dead." 
 
 Just at the moment I did not take in the meaning of the words. 
 " Mrs. Smith dead ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Smith is not my mother. Don't insult me, please. She 
 came here as my governess. If papa chose to make a fool of him- 
 self by marrying her afterwards, it was not my fault. What are 
 you looking at ? " 
 
 I was looking at her : she seemed so strange a child ; and feeling 
 slightly puzzled between the other Mrs. Smith and this o«e, They
 
 230 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 say I am a muff at many things ; I am sure I am at understanding 
 complicated relationships. 
 
 " Then— Miss Chalk is— this Mrs. Smith's sister ? " 
 
 " Well, you might know that. They are a pair, and I don't like 
 either of them. There are two crying babies upstairs now." 
 
 " Mrs. Smith's ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Smith's " — with intense aggravation. " Papa had 
 quite enough with me, and I could have managed the house and 
 servants as well as she does. And because Nancy Chalk was not 
 enough, in addition we must be never safe from Sophonisba ! Oh, 
 there are crosses in life ! " 
 
 " Who is Sophonisba ? " 
 
 " She is Sophonisba." 
 
 " Perhaps you mean Sophie Chalk ? " 
 
 " Her name's not Sophie, or Sophia either. She was christened 
 Sophonisba, but she hates the name, and takes care to drop it 
 always. She is a deep one, is Sophonisba Chalk ! " 
 
 "Is this her home? " 
 
 " She makes it her home, when she's not out teaching. And 
 papa never seems to think it an encroachment. Sophonisba Chalk 
 does not keep her places, you know. She thought she had got into 
 something fine last autumn at Lord Augustus Difford's, but Lady 
 Augustus gave her warning at the first month's end." 
 
 " Then Miss Chalk is a governess ? " 
 
 " What else do you suppose she is ? She comes over people, and 
 gets a stock of invitations on hand, and goes to them between 
 times. You should hear the trouble there is about her dresses, that 
 she may make a good appearance. And how she does it I can't 
 think : they don't tell me their contrivances. Mrs. Smith must 
 give her some — I am sure of it — which papa has to pay for ; and 
 Sophonisba goes in trust for others." 
 
 " She was always dressed well down with us." 
 
 "Of course she was. Whitney Hall was her great-card place; 
 but the time for the visit was so long before it was fixed, she 
 thought it had all dropped through. It came just right : just when 
 she was turned out of Lady Augustus Difford's. Helen Whitney 
 had promised it a long while before." 
 
 " I know ; when they were schoolfellows at Miss Lakon's." 
 
 " They were not schoolfellows. Sophonsiba was treated as the 
 rest, but she was only improving pupil. She gave her services, 
 learnt of some of the masters, and paid nothing. How old do you 
 think she is ? " broke off Miss Trot. 
 " About twenty." 
 
 " She was six-and-twenty last birthday ; and they say she will look 
 like a child till she's six-and-thirty. I call it a shame for a young
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 231 
 
 woman of that age to be doing nothing for herself, but to be hving 
 on strangers : and papa and I are nothing else to her." 
 
 " How old are you ? " I could not help asking. 
 
 " Fifteen ; nearly sixteen. People take me to be younger, because 
 I am short, and it vexes me. They would not think me young if 
 they knew how I feel. Oh, I can tell you it is a sharpening thing 
 for your papa to marry again, and to find yourself put down in your 
 own home." 
 
 " Has Miss Chalk any engagement now?" 
 
 " She has not had an engagement all this year, and now it's 
 April ! I don't believe she looks after one. She pretends to teach 
 me — while she's waiting, she says ; but it's all a farce ; I won't learn 
 of her. I heard her tell Mr. Everty I was a horrid child. Fancy 
 that!" 
 
 " Who is Mr. Everty ? " 
 
 " Papa's head-clerk. He is a gentleman, you know, and Sopho- 
 nisba thinks great things of him. Ah, I could tell something, if I 
 liked ! but she put me on my honour. Oh, she's a sly one ! Just 
 now, she is all her time at the Whitneys', red-hot for it. You are 
 not going ? Stay to luncheon." 
 
 "I must go; Miss Deveen will be waiting for me. You can 
 deliver the parcel, please, with Mrs. Todhetley's message. I will 
 call in to see Mrs. Smith another day." 
 
 " And to see me too ? " came the quick retort. 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " Now, mind, you can't break your word. I shall say it is me 
 you are coming to call upon ; they think I am nobody in this house. 
 Ask for Miss Smith when you come. Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow !" 
 
 She never stirred as I shook hands ; she seemed never to have 
 stirred hand or foot throughout the interview. But, as I opened 
 the door, there came an odd sort of noise, and I turned to look 
 what it was. 
 
 She. Hastening to cross the room, with a crutch, to ring the 
 bell ! And I saw that she was both lame and deformed. 
 
 In passing down the side street by the office, some one brushed 
 by, with the quick step of a London business man. Where had I 
 seen the face before ? Whose did it put me in mind of? Why 
 — it came to me all in a minute — Roger Monk's ! He who had 
 lived at Dyke Manor for a short time as head-gardener under 
 false auspices. But, as I have not said anything about him before, 
 I will not enter into the history now. Before I could turn to look. 
 Monk had disappeared; no doubt round the corner of the square. 
 
 " Tod," I said, as soon as I came across him, " Sophie Chalk's a 
 governess." 
 
 " Well, what of that ? " asked Tod.
 
 232 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Not much ; but she might as well have been candid with us at 
 Dyke Manor." 
 
 " A governess is a lady." 
 
 " Ought to be. But why did she make out to us that she had 
 been a visitor at the Diffords', when she was only the teacher? 
 We should have respected her just as much ; perhaps made more 
 of her." 
 
 " What are you cavilling at ? As if a lady was never a teacher 
 before ! " 
 
 "Oh, Tod! it is not that. Don't you see? — if she had kept a 
 chandler's shop, and been open about it, what should we have 
 cared ? It was the saihng under false colours ; trying to pass her- 
 self off for what she is not," 
 
 He gave no answer to this, except a whistle. 
 
 " She is turned six-and-twenty. Tod. And she was not a school- 
 girl at Miss Lakon's, but governess-pupil." 
 
 " I suppose she was a schoolgirl once ? " 
 
 " I suppose she was." 
 
 " Good. What else have you to say, wise Johnny ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Nothing ; for where was the use ? Sophie Chalk would have 
 been only an angel in his eyes, though he heard that she had sold 
 apples at a street-corner. Sophie, that very morning, had begged 
 Lady Whitney to let her instruct the younger children, " as a 
 friend," so long as they were in town ; for the governess at Whitney 
 was a daily one, and they had not brought her. Lady Whitney at 
 first demurred, and then kissed Sophie for her goodness. The 
 result was, that a bed was found for Miss Chalk, and she stayed 
 with them altogether. 
 
 But I can't say much for the teaching. It was not Sophie 
 Chalk's fault, perhaps. Helen would be in the schoolroom, and 
 Harry would be there ; and I and Anna sometimes ; and Tod and 
 Bill always. Lady Whitney looked upon this London sojourn as a 
 holiday, and did not mind whether the children learnt or played, 
 provided they were kept passably quiet. I told Sophie of my visit 
 to take the fichu, and she made a wry face over the lame girl. 
 
 " That Mabel Smith ! Poor morbid little object ! What she 
 would have grown into but for the fortunate chance of my sister's 
 marrying into the house, I can't imagine, Johnny. I'll draw you 
 her portrait in her night-cap, by-and-by." 
 
 The days went on. We did have fun : but war was growing up 
 between William Whitney and Tod. There could no longer be a 
 mistake (to those who understood things and kept their eyes open) 
 of the part Sophie Chalk was playing ; and that was trying to throw 
 Tod over for William Whitney, and to make no fuss about it. I
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 233 
 
 don't believe she cared a brass button for either ; but Bill's future 
 position in life would be better than Tod's, seeing that his father 
 was a baronet. Bill was going in for her favour ; perhaps not 
 seriously : it might have been for the fun of the moment, or to 
 amuse himself by spiting Tod. Sir John and my lady never so 
 much as dreamt of the by-playing going on before their faces, and 
 I don't think Helen did. 
 
 " I told you she'd fascinate the eyes out of your head, Bill, give 
 her the chance," said I to him one day in the schoolroom, when 
 Miss Chalk was teaching her pupils to dance. 
 
 " You shut up, Johnny," he said, laughing, and shied the atlas at me. 
 
 Before the day was out, there was a sharp, short quarrel. They 
 were all coming for the evening to Miss Deveen's. I went in at 
 dusk to tell them not to make it nine at night. Turning into the 
 drawing-room, I interrupted a scene — Bill Whitney and Tod railing 
 at one another. What the bone of contention was I never knew, 
 for they seemed to have reached the end of it. 
 
 " You did," said Tod. 
 
 " I did not," said Bill. 
 
 " I tell you, you did, William Whitney." 
 
 " Let it go ; it's word against word, and we shall never decide it. 
 You are mistaken, Todhetley ; but I am not going to ask your leave 
 as to what I shall do, or what I shan't." 
 
 " You have no right to say to Miss Chalk what I heard you say- 
 ing to-day." 
 
 " I tell you, you did not hear me say anything of the sort. Put 
 it that you did — what business is it of yours? If I chose to go in 
 for her, to ask her to be the future Lady Whitney — though it may 
 be many a year, I hope, before I step into my father's place, good 
 old man ! — who has the right to say me nay ? " 
 
 Tod was foaming. Dusk though it was, I could see that. They 
 took no more account of my being present, than of Harry's little 
 barking dog. 
 
 " Look here. Bill Whitney. If " 
 
 " Are you boys quarrelling ? " 
 
 The interruption was Anna's. Passing through the hall, she had 
 heard the voices and looked in. As if glad of the excuse to get 
 away. Bill Whitney followed her from the room. Tod went out and 
 banged the hall-door after him. 
 
 I waited, thinking Anna might come in, and strolled into the 
 little drawing-room. There, quiet as a mouse, stood Sophie Chalk. 
 She had been listening, for certain ; and I hope it gratified her : 
 her eyes sparkled a little. 
 
 " Why, Johnny ! was it you making all that noise ? What was 
 the matter ? Anything gone wrong ? "
 
 234 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 It was all very fine to try it on with me. I just looked straight at 
 her, and I think she saw as much. Saying something about going 
 to search for Helen, she left the room. 
 
 " What was the trouble, Johnny ? " whispered Anna, stealing up 
 to me. 
 
 " Only those two having a jar." 
 
 " I heard that. But what was it about ? Sophie Chalk ?" 
 " Well, yes ; that was it, Anna." 
 
 We were at the front window then. A man was lighting the 
 street-lamps, and Anna seemed to be occupied in watching him. 
 There was enough care on her face to set one up in the dismals for 
 life. 
 
 " No harm may come of it, Anna. Any way, you can do no- 
 thing."' 
 
 " Oh, Johnny, I wish I knew ! " she said, clasping her hands. " I 
 wish I could satisfy myself which way right lies. If I were to 
 speak, it might be put down to a wrong motive. I try to see 
 whether that thought is not a selfish one, whether I ought to let 
 it deter me. But then — that's not the worst." 
 " That sounds like a riddle, Anna." 
 
 " I wish I had some good, judicious person who would hear all 
 and judge for me," she said, rather dreamily. " If you were older, 
 Johnny, I think I would tell you." 
 
 " I am as old as you are, at any rate." 
 
 " That's just it. We are neither of us old enough nor experi- 
 enced enough to trust to our own judgment." 
 " There's your mother, Anna." 
 " I know." 
 
 " What you mean is, that Sir John and Lady Whitney ought to 
 have their eyes opened to what's going on, that they may put an 
 end to Miss Chalk's intimacy here, if they deem the danger war- 
 rants it ? " 
 
 "That's near enough, Johnny. And I don't see my way suffi- 
 ciently clearly to do it." 
 " Put the case to Helen." 
 
 "She would only laugh in my face. Hush! here comes some 
 one." 
 
 It was Sophie Chalk. She looked rather sharply at us both, and 
 said she could not find Helen anywhere. 
 
 And the days were to go on in outward smoothness and private 
 discomfort, Miss Sophie exercising her fascinations on the whole 
 of us. 
 
 But for having promised that lame child to call again in Tor- 
 riana Square, I should not have cared to go. It was afternoon
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 235 
 
 this time. The servant showed me upstairs, and said her mistress 
 was for the moment engaged. Mabel Smith sat in the same seat 
 in her black frock ; some books lay on a small table drawn before 
 her. 
 
 " I thought you had forgotten to come." 
 
 " Did you ? I should be sure not to forget it." 
 
 " I am so tired of my lessons," she said, irritably, sweeping the 
 books away with her long thin fingers. " I always am when they 
 teach me. Mrs. Smith has kept me at them for two hours ; she has 
 gone down now to engage a new servant." 
 
 " I get frightfully tired of my lessons sometimes." 
 
 "Ah, but not as I do; you can run about: and learning, you 
 know, will never be of use to me. I want you to tell me something. 
 Is Sophonisba Chalk going to stay at Lady Whitney's ? " 
 
 " I don't know. They will not be so very long in town." 
 
 "But I mean is she to be governess there, and go into the 
 country with them ? " 
 
 " No, I think not." 
 
 " She wants to. If she does, papa says he shall have some nice 
 young lady to sit with me and teach me. Oh, I do hope she will 
 go with them, and then the house would be rid of her. I say she 
 will : it is too good a chance for her to let slip Mrs. Smith says 
 she won't : she told Mr. Everty so last night. He wouldn't believe 
 her, and was very cross over it." 
 
 " Cross over it ? " 
 
 " He said Sophonisba ought not to have gone there at all 
 without consulting him, and that she had not been home once 
 since, and only written him one rubbishing note that had nothing 
 in it ; and he asked Mrs. Smith whether she thought that was right." 
 
 A light flashed over me. " Is Miss Chalk going to marry Mr. 
 Everty ? " 
 
 " I suppose that's what it will come to," answered the curious 
 child. " She has promised to ; but promises with her don't go for 
 much when it suits her to break them. Sophonisba put me on 
 my honour not to tell ; but now that Mr. Everty has spoken to 
 Mrs. Smith and papa, it is different. I saw it a long while ago ; 
 before she went to the Diffords'. I have nothing to do but to sit 
 and watch and think, you see, Johnny Ludlow; and I perceive 
 things quicker than other people." 
 
 " But — why do you fancy Miss Chalk may break her promise to 
 Mr. Everty ? " 
 
 " If she meant to keep it, why should she be scheming to go away 
 as the Whitneys' governess ? I know what it is : Sophonisba does 
 not think Mr. Everty good enough for her, but she would like to 
 keep him waiting on, for fear of not getting anybody better."
 
 236 JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 Anything so shrewd as Mabel Smith's manner in saying this, 
 was never seen. I don't think she was naturally ill-natured, poor 
 thing; but she evidently thought she was being wronged amongst 
 them, and it made her spitefully resentful. 
 
 " Mr. Everty had better let her go. It is not I that would marry 
 a wife who dyed her hair." 
 
 " Is Miss Chalk's dyed ? I thought it might be the gold dust." 
 
 "Have you any eyes?" retorted Mabel. "When she was down 
 in the country with you her hair was brown ; it's a kind of yellow 
 now. Oh, she knows how to set herself off, I can tell you. Do 
 you happen to remember who was reigning in England when the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew took place in France ? " 
 
 The change of subject was sudden. I told her it was Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 "Queen Elizabeth, was it? I'll write it down. Mrs. Smith says 
 I shall have no dessert to-day, if I don't tell her. She puts those 
 questions only to vex me. As if it mattered to anybody. Oh, 
 here's papa ! " 
 
 A little man came in with a bald head and pleasant face. He 
 said he was glad to see me and shook hands. She put out her 
 arms, and he came and kissed her : her eyes followed him every- 
 where ; her cheeks had a sudden colour : it was easy to see that 
 he was her one great joy in life. And the bright colour made her 
 poor thin face look almost charming. 
 
 " I can't stay a minute, Trottie ; going out in a hurry. I think I 
 left my gloves up here." 
 
 " So you did, papa. There was a tiny hole in the thumb and 
 I mended it for you." 
 
 " That's my little attentive daughter ! Good-bye. Mr. Ludlow, 
 if you will stay to dinner we shall be happy." 
 
 Mrs. Smith came in as he left the room. She was rather a plain 
 likeness of Miss Chalk, not much older. But her face had a 
 straightforward, open look, and I liked her. She made much of 
 me and said how kind she had thought it of Mrs. Todhetley to be 
 at the trouble of making a fichu for her, a stranger. She hoped— 
 she did hope, she added rather anxiously, that Sophie had not 
 asked her to do it. And it struck me that Mrs. Smith had not 
 quite the implicit confidence in Miss Sophie's sayings and doings 
 that she might have had. 
 
 It was five o'clock when I got away. At the door of the office in 
 the side street stood a gentleman — the same I had seen pass me the 
 other day. I looked at him, and he at me. 
 
 " Is it Roger Monk ? " 
 
 A startled look came over his face. He evidently did not 
 remember me. I said who I was,
 
 AT MISS DEVEEN'S. 237 
 
 "Dear mel How you have grown! Do walk in." And he 
 spoke to me in the tones an equal would speak, not as a servant. 
 
 As he was leading the way into a sort of parlour, we passed a 
 clerk at a desk, and a man talking to him. 
 
 "Here's Mr. Everty; he will tell you," said the clerk, indicating 
 Monk. " He is asking about those samples of pale brandy, sir : 
 whether they are to go." 
 
 " Yes, of course i you ought to have taken them before this, 
 Wilson," was Roger Monk's answer. And so I saw that /le was 
 Mr. Everty. 
 
 " I have resumed my true name, Everty," he said to me in low 
 tones. " The former trouble, that sent me away a wanderer, is over. 
 Many men, I believe, are forced into such episodes in life." 
 
 " You are with Mr. Smith ? " 
 
 "These two years past. I came to him as head-clerk; I now 
 have a commission on sales, and make a most excellent thing of it. 
 I don't think the business could get on without me now." 
 
 " Is it true that you are to marry Miss Chalk?" 1 asked, speaking 
 on a sudden impulse. 
 
 " Quite true ; if she does not throw me over," he answered, and 
 I wondered at his candour. " I suppose you have heard of it in- 
 doors ? " 
 
 " Yes. I wish you all success." — And didn't I wish it in my 
 inmost heart ! 
 
 " Thank you. I can give her a good home now. Perhaps you 
 will not talk about that old time if you can help it, Mr. Ludlow. 
 You used to be good-natured, I remember. It was a dark page in 
 my then reckless life ; I am doing what I can to redeem it." 
 
 I dare say he was ; and I told him he need not fear. But I did 
 not like his eyes yet, for they had the same kind of shifty look 
 that Rop-er Monk'r used to have. He might get on none the worse 
 in business; tor, as the Squire says, it is a shifty world. 
 
 Sophie Chalk engaged to Mr. Everty, and he Roger Monk ! Well, 
 it was a complication. I went back to Miss Deveen's without, so 
 to say, seeing daylight.
 
 XV. 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 
 
 The clang of the distant church bell was ringing out for the daily 
 morning service, and Miss Cattledon was picking her way across 
 the road to attend to it, her thin white legs displayed, and a water- 
 proof cloak on. It had rained in the night, but the clouds were 
 breaking, promising a fine day. I stood at the window, watching 
 the legs and the pools of water; Miss Deveen sat at the table 
 behind, answering a letter that had come to her by the morning 
 post. 
 
 "Have you ever thought mine a peculiar name, Johnny?" she 
 suddenly asked. 
 ( " No," I said, turning to answer her. " I think it a pretty one." 
 
 " It was originally French : De Vigne : but like many other 
 things has been corrupted with time, and made into what it is. Is 
 that ten o'clock striking?" 
 
 Yes : and the bell was ceasing. Miss Cattledon would be late. 
 It was a regular penalty to her, I knew, to go out so early, and 
 quite a new whim, begun in the middle of Lent. She talked a little 
 in her vinegar way of the world's wickedness in not spending some 
 of its working hours inside a church, listening to that delightful 
 curate with the mild voice, whose hair had turned prematurely grey. 
 Miss Deveen, knowing it was meant for her, laughed pleasantly, 
 and said if the many years' prayers from her chamber had not been 
 heard as well as though she had gone into a church to offer them 
 up, she should be in a poor condition now. I went with Miss 
 Cattledon one Monday morning out of politeness. There were 
 nine-and-twenty in the pews, for I counted them : eight-and-twenty 
 being single ladies (to judge by the look), some young, some as old 
 as Cattledon. The grey-haired curate Avas assisted by a young 
 deacon, who had a black beard and a lisp and his hair parted down 
 the middle. It was very edifying, especially the ten-minutes' gossip 
 with the two clergymen coming out, when we all congregated in 
 the aisle by the door. 
 
 " My great-grandfather was a grand old proprietor in France,
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 239 
 
 Johnny; a baron," continued Miss Deveen, " I don't think I have 
 much of the French nature left in me." 
 
 " I suppose you speak French well, Miss Deveen?" 
 
 " Not a word of it, Johnny. They pretended to teach it mc when 
 I was a child, but I'm afraid I was unusually stupid. Why, who 
 can this be?" 
 
 She alluded to a ring at the visitors' bell. One of the servants 
 came in and said that the gentleman who had called once or twice 
 before had come again. 
 
 Miss Deveen looked up, first at the servant, then at me. She 
 seemed to be considering. 
 
 " I will see him in two or three minutes, George " — and the man 
 shut the door. 
 
 " Johnny," she said, " I have taken you partly into my confidence 
 in this affair of the lost studs; I think I will tell you a little more. 
 After I sent for Lettice Lane here — and my impression, as I told 
 you, was very strongly in favour of her innocence — it occurred to 
 me that I ought to see if anything could be done to prove it ; or at 
 least to set the matter at rest, one way or the other, instead of 
 leaving it to time and chance. The question was, how could I do 
 it ? I did not like to apply to the police, lest more should be made 
 of it than I wished. One day a friend of mine, to whom I was 
 relating the circumstances, solved the difficulty. He said he would 
 send to me some one with whom he was well acquainted, a Mr. 
 Bond, who had once been connected with the detective police, and 
 who had got his dismissal through an affair he was thought to have 
 mismanaged. It sounded rather formidable to my ears, 'once 
 connected with the detective pohce ; ' but I consented, and Mr. 
 Bond came. He has had the thing in hand since last February." 
 
 " And what has he found out ? " 
 
 " Nothing, Johnny. Unless he has come to tell me now that he 
 has — for it is he who is waiting. I think it may be so, as he has 
 called so early. First of all, he was following up the matter down 
 in Worcestershire, because the notion he entertained was, that the 
 studs must have been taken by one of the Whitneys' servants. He 
 stayed in the neighbourhood, pursuing his inquiries as to their 
 characters and habits, and visiting all the pawnbrokers' shops that 
 he thought were at available distances from the Hall." 
 
 " Did he think it was Lettice Lane ? " 
 
 " He said he did not : but he took care (as I happen to know) to 
 worm out all he could of Lettice's antecedents while he was 
 inquiring about the rest. I had the girl in this room at his first 
 visit, not alarming her, simply saying that I was relating the 
 history of the studs' disappearance to this friend who had called, 
 and desired her to describe her share in it to make the story com-
 
 240 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 plete. Lattice suspected nothing; she told the tale simply and 
 naturally, without fear : and from that very moment, Johnny, I 
 have felt certain in my own mind the girl is as innocent as I am. 
 Mr. Bond 'thought she might be,' but he would not go beyond 
 that ; for women, he said, were crafty, and knew how to make one 
 think black was white." 
 
 " Miss Deveen, suppose, after all, it should turn out to have been 
 Lettice } " I asked. " Should you proceed against her ? " 
 
 " I shall not proceed against any one, Johnny ; and I shall hush 
 the matter up if I can," she answered, ringing for Mr. Bond to be 
 shown in. 
 
 I was curious to see him also ; ideas floating through my brain 
 of cocked-hats and blue uniform and Richard Mayne. Mr. Bond 
 turned out to be a very inoffensive-looking individual indeed ; a 
 little man, wearing steel spectacles, in a black frock-coat and grey 
 trousers. 
 
 " When I last saw you, madam," he began, after he was seated, 
 and Miss Deveen had told him he might speak before me, " I 
 mentioned that I had abandoned my search in the country, and 
 intended to prosecute my inquiries in London." 
 
 " You did, Mr. Bond." 
 
 " That the theft lay amongst Sir John Whitney's female servants, 
 I have thought likely all along," continued Mr. Bond. " If the 
 thief felt afraid to dispose of the emeralds after taking them — and 
 I could find no trace of them in the country— the probability was 
 that she would keep them secreted about her, and get rid of them 
 as soon as she came to London, if she were one of the maids 
 brought up by Lady Whitney. There were two I thought in par- 
 ticular might have done it ; one was the lady's maid ; the other, 
 the upper-housemaid, who had been ill the night of their dis- 
 appearance. All kinds of ruses are played off in the pursuit of 
 plunder, as we have cause to learn every day ; and it struck me 
 the housemaid might have feigned illness, the better to cover her 
 actions and throw suspicion off herself. I am bound to say I could 
 not learn anything against either of these two young women ; but 
 their business took them about the rooms at Whitney Hall; and an 
 open jewel-case is a great temptation." 
 
 "It is," assented Miss Deveen. "That carelessness lay at my 
 door, and therefore I determined never to prosecute in this case ; 
 never, in fact, to bring the offender to open shame of any sort in 
 regard to it." 
 
 " And that has helped to increase the difficulty," remarked Mr. 
 Bond. " Could the women have been searched and their private 
 places at Whitney Hall turned out, we might or might not have 
 found the emeralds ; but "
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 241 
 
 " I wouldn't have had it done for the Lord Chancellor, sir," 
 interrupted IMiss Deveen, hotly. " One was searched, and that was 
 quite enough for me, for I believe her to be innocent. If you can 
 get at the right person quietly, for my own satisfaction, well and 
 good. My instructions went so far, but no farther." 
 
 Mr. Bond took off his spectacles for a minute, and put them on 
 again. " I understood this perfectly when I took the business in 
 hand," he said quietly. " Well, madam, to go on. Lady Whitney 
 brought her servants to London, and I came up also. Last night 
 I gleaned a little light on the matter." 
 
 He paused, and put his hand into his pocket. I looked, and Miss 
 Deveen looked. 
 
 " Should you know the studs again ? " he asked her. 
 
 " You may as well ask me if I should know my own face in the 
 glass, Mr, Bond. Of course I should." 
 
 Mr. Bond opened a pill-box : three green studs lay in it on white 
 cotton. He held it out to ^Nliss Deveen. 
 
 " Are these they ? " 
 
 " No, certainly not," replied Miss Deveen, speaking like one in 
 disappointment. " Those are not to be compared with mine, sir." 
 
 Mr. Bond put the lid on the box, and returned it to his pocket. 
 Out came another box, long and thin. 
 
 " These are my studs," quickly exclaimed INIiss Deveen, before 
 she had given more than a glance. " You can look yourself for the 
 private marks I told you about, Mr. Bond." 
 
 Three brilliant emeralds, that seemed to light up the room, con- 
 nected together by a fine chain of gold. At either end, the chain 
 was finished off by a small square plate of thin gold, on one of 
 which was an engraved crest, on the other Miss Deveen's initials. 
 In shape the emeralds looked like buttons more than studs. 
 
 " I never knew they were linked together, Miss Deveen," I 
 exclaimed in surprise. 
 
 " Did you not, Johnny?" 
 
 Never. I had always pictured them as three loose studs. Mr. 
 Bond, who no doubt had the marks by heart before he brought 
 them up, began shutting them into the box as he had the others. 
 
 " Anticipating from the first that the studs would most probably 
 be found at a pawnbroker's, if found at all, I ventured to speak to 
 you then of a difficulty that might attend the finding," said he to 
 Miss Deveen. " Unless a thing can be legally proved to have been 
 stolen, a pawnbroker cannot be forced to give it up. And I am 
 under an engagement to return these studs to the pawnbroker, 
 whence I have brought them, in the course of the morning." 
 
 " You may do so," said Miss Deveen. " I dare say he and I can 
 come to an amicable arrangement in regard to giving them up 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. lo
 
 242 JOHNNY LUDLOW 
 
 later. My object has been to discover who stole them, not to 
 bring trouble or loss upon pawnbrokers. How did you discover 
 them, Mr. Bond?" 
 
 . " In a rather singular manner. Last evening, in making my 
 way to Regent Street to a place I had to go to on business, I saw 
 a young woman turn out of a pawnbroker's shop. The shutters 
 were put up, but the doors were open. Her face struck me as 
 being familiar ; and I remembered her as Lady Whitney's house- 
 maid — the one who had been ill in bed, or pretended to be, the 
 night the studs were lost. Ah, ah, I thought, some discovery may 
 be looming up here. I have some acquaintance with the proprietor 
 of the shop; a very respectable man, who has become rich by dint 
 of hard, honest work, and is a jeweller now as well as a pawn- 
 broker. My own business could wait, and I went in and found 
 him busy with accounts in his private room. He thought at first 
 I had only called in to see him in passing. I gave him no par- 
 ticulars ; but said I fancied a person in whom I was professionally 
 interested, had just been leaving some emerald studs in his 
 shop." 
 
 "What is the pawnbroker's name?" interrupted Miss Deveen. 
 
 "James. He went to inquire, and came back, saying that his 
 assistant denied it. There was only one assistant in the shop : the 
 other had left for the night. This assistant said that no one had 
 been in during the last half-hour, excepting a young woman, a 
 cousin of his wife's ; who did not come to pledge anything, but 
 simply to say how-d'ye-do, and to ask where they were living now, 
 that she might call and see the wife. Mr. James added that the 
 man said she occupied a good situation in the family of Sir John 
 and Lady Whitney, and was not likely to require to pledge any- 
 thing. Plausible enough, this, you see. Miss Deveen ; but the 
 coincidence was singular. I then told James that I had been in 
 search for these two months of some emerald studs lost out of Sir 
 John Whitney's house. He stared a little at this, paused a moment 
 in thought, and then asked whether they were of unusual value and 
 very beautiful. Just so, I said, and minutely described them. Mr. 
 James, without another word, went away and brought the studs in. 
 Your studs, Miss Deveen." 
 
 " And how did he come by them ? " 
 
 " He won't tell me much about it — except that they took in the 
 goods some weeks ago in the ordinary course of business. The 
 fact is he is vexed : for he has really been careful and has managed 
 to avoid these unpleasant episodes, to which all pawnbrokers are 
 liable. It was with difficulty I could get him to let me bring them 
 up here : and that only on condition that they should be in his 
 hands again before the clock struck twelve."
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 243 
 
 "You shall keep faith with him. But now, Mr. Bond, what is 
 your opinion of all this?" 
 
 , " My opinion is that that same young woman stole the studs : 
 and that she contrived to get them conveyed to London to this 
 assistant, her relative, who no doubt advanced money upon them. 
 I cannot see my way to any other conclusion under the circum- 
 stances," continued Mr. Bond, firmly. " But for James's turning 
 crusty, I might have learned more." 
 
 " I will go to him myself," said Miss Deveen, with sudden reso- 
 lution. " When he finds that my intention is to hold his pocket 
 harmless and make no disturbance in any way, he will not be 
 crusty with me. But this matter must be cleared up if it be 
 possible to clear it." 
 
 Miss Deveen was not one to be slow of action, once a resolve 
 was taken. Mr. Bond made no attempt to oppose her : on the 
 contrary, he seemed to think it might be well that she should go. 
 She sent George out for a cab, in preference to taking her carriage, 
 and said I might accompany her. We were off long before Miss 
 Cattledon's conference with the curates within the church was 
 over. 
 
 The shop was in a rather obscure street, not far from Regent 
 Street. I inquired for Mr. James at the private door, and he came 
 out to the cab. Miss Deveen said she had called to speak to him 
 on particular business, and he took us upstairs to a handsomely 
 furnished room. He was a well-dressed, portly, good-looking man, 
 with a pleasant face and easy manners. Miss Deveen, bidding 
 him sit down near her, explained the affair in a few words, and 
 asked him to help her to elucidate it. He responded frankly at 
 once, and said he would willingly give all the aid in his power. 
 
 " Singular to say, I took these studs in myself," he observed. 
 " I never do these things now, but my foreman had a holiday that 
 day to attend a funeral, and I was in the shop. They were pledged 
 on the 27th of January : since Mr. Bond left this morning I have 
 referred to my books." 
 
 The 27th of January. It was on the night of the 23rd that the 
 studs disappeared. Then the thief had not lost much time ! I 
 said so. 
 
 ( " Stay a minute, Johnny," cried Miss Deveen : " you young ones 
 sum up things too quickly for me. Let me trace past events. The 
 studs, as you say, were lost on the 23rd ; the loss was discovered 
 on the 24th, and Lettice Lane was discharged ; on the 25th those 
 of us staying at Whitney Hall began to talk of leaving; and on 
 the 26th you two went home after seeing Miss Chalk off by rail to 
 London." 
 
 "And Mrs. Hughes also. They went up together."
 
 244 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Hughes?" asked Miss Deveen. 
 
 " Don't you remember ? — that young married lady who came to 
 the dance with the Featherstons. She hves somewhere in London." 
 
 Miss Deveen considered a httle. " I don't remember any Mrs. 
 Hughes, Johmiy." 
 
 " But, dear Miss Deveen, you must remember her," I persisted. 
 "She was very young-looking, as little as Sophie Chalk; Harry 
 Whitney, dancing with her, trod off the tail of her thin pink dress. 
 I heard old Featherston telling you about Mrs. Hughes, saying it 
 was a sad history. Her husband lost his money after they were 
 married, and had been obliged to take a small situation." 
 
 Recollection flashed upon Miss Deveen. " Yes, I remember 
 now. A pale, lady-like little woman with a sad face. But let us 
 go back to business. You all left on the 26th; I and Miss Cattle- 
 don on the 27th. Now, while the visitors were at the Hall, I don't 
 think the upper-housemaid could have had time to send off the 
 studs by rail. Still less could she have come up herself to pledge 
 them." 
 
 Miss Deveen's head was running on Mr. Bond's theory. 
 
 " It was no housemaid that pledged the studs," spoke Mr. James. 
 
 " I was about to say, Mr. James, that if you took them in your- 
 self over the counter, they could not have been sent up to your 
 assistant." 
 
 "All the people about me are trustworthy, I can assure you, 
 ma'am," he interrupted. " They would not lend themselves to such 
 a thing. It was a lady who pledged those studs." 
 
 " A lady ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, a lady. And to tell the truth, if I may venture to 
 say it, the description you have now given of a lady just tallies 
 with her." 
 
 "Mrs. Hughes.?" 
 
 " It seems so to me," continued Mr. James. " Little, pale, and 
 lady-like : that is just what she was." 
 
 "Dear me!" cried Miss Deveen, letting her hands drop on her 
 lap as if they had lost their power. " You had better tell me as 
 much as you can recollect, please." 
 
 " It was at dusk," said Mr. James. " Not quite dark, but the 
 lamps were lighted in the streets and the gas indoors : just the 
 hour, ma'am, that gentlefolk choose for bringing their things to us. 
 I happened to be standing near the door, when a lady came into 
 the shop and asked to see the principal. I said I was he, and 
 retired behind the counter. She brought out these emerald studs " 
 — touching the box — " and said she wanted to sell them, or pledge 
 them for their utmost value. She told me a tale, in apparent 
 confidence, of a brother who had fallen into debt at college, and
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 245 
 
 she was trying to get together some money to help him, or frightful 
 trouble might come of it. If it was not genuine," broke off Mr. 
 James, " she was the best actor I ever saw in all my life." 
 " Please go on." 
 
 " I saw the emeralds were very rare and beautiful. She said 
 they were an heirloom from her mother, who had brought the 
 stones from India and had them linked together in England. I 
 told her I could not buy them ; she rejoined that it might be better 
 only to pledge them, for they would not be entirely lost to her, and 
 she might redeem them ere twelve months had passed if I would keep 
 them as long as that. I explained that the law exacted it. The 
 name she gave was Mary Drake, asking if I had ever heard of the 
 famous old forefather of theirs, Admiral Drake. The name answers 
 to the initials on the gold." 
 
 " ' M. D.' They were engraved for Alargaret Deveen. Per- 
 haps she claimed the crest, also, Mr. James," added that lady, 
 sarcastically. 
 
 " She did, ma'am ; in so far as that she said it was the crest of 
 the Drake family." 
 
 " And you call her a lady ? " 
 
 " She had every appearance of one, in tone and language too. 
 Her hand — she took one of her gloves off when showing the studs 
 — was a lady's hand ; small, delicate, and white as alabaster. 
 Ma'am, rely upon it, though she may not be a lady in deeds, she 
 must be living the life of one." 
 " But now, who was it ? " 
 
 Yes, who was it? Miss Deveen, looking at us, seemed to wait 
 for an answer, but she did not get one. 
 
 " How much did you lend upon the studs ? " 
 " Ten pounds. Of course that is nothing like their value." 
 " Should you know her again ? How was she dressed ? " 
 " She wore an ordinary Paisley shawl ; it was cold weather ; and 
 had a thick veil over her face, which she never lifted." 
 
 " Should not that have excited your suspicion ? " interrupted Miss 
 Deveen. " I don't hke people who keep their veils down while they 
 talk to you." 
 
 ■ The pawnbroker smiled. " Most ladies keep them down when 
 they come here. As to knowing her again, I am quite certain that 
 I should ; and her voice too. Whoever she was, she went about 
 it very systematically, and took me in completely. Her asking for 
 the principal may have thrown me somewhat off my guard." 
 
 We came away, leaving the studs with Mr. James : the time had 
 not arrived for Miss Deveen to redeem them. She seemed very 
 thoughtful as we went along in the cab. 
 
 " Johnny," she said, breaking the silence, " we talk lightly enough
 
 246 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 about the Finger of Providence ; but I don't know what else it can 
 be that has led to this discovery so far. Out of the hundreds of 
 pawnbroking establishments scattered about the metropolis, it is 
 wonderfully strange that this should have been the one the studs 
 were taken to ; and furthermore, that Bond should have been pass- 
 ing it last night at the moment Lady Whitney's housemaid came 
 forth. Had the studs been pledged elsewhere, we might never have 
 heard of them ; neither, as it is, but for the housemaid's being 
 connected with Mr. James's assistant." 
 
 Of course it was strange. 
 
 "You were surprised to see the studs connected together, Johnny. 
 That was the point I mentioned in reference to Lettice Lane. ' 0?ie 
 might have fallen down,' she sobbed out to me, in leaving Whitney 
 Hall ; ' even two ; but it's beyond the bounds of probability that 
 three should, ma'am.' She was thinking of the studs as separated ; 
 and it convinced me that she had never seen them. True, an 
 artful woman might say so purposely to deceive me, but I am sure 
 that Lettice has not the art to do it. But now, Johnny, we must 
 consider what steps to take next. I shall not rest until the matter 
 is cleared." 
 
 " Suppose it should never get on any further ! " 
 
 " Suppose you are like a young bear, all your experience to come ? " 
 retorted Miss Deveen. "Why, Johnny Ludlow, do you think that 
 when that Finger I ventured to speak of is directing an onward 
 course. It halts midway ? There cannot, I fear, be much doubt as 
 to the thief ; but we must have proof. 
 
 " You think it was " 
 
 " Mrs. Hughes. What else can I think ? She is very nice, 
 and I could not have believed it of her. I suppose the sight of 
 the jewels, combined with her poverty, must have proved the 
 temptation. I shall get back the emeralds, but we must screen 
 her." 
 
 " Miss Deveen, I don't believe it was Mrs. Hughes." 
 
 " Not beheve it?" 
 
 " No. Her face is not that of one who would do such a thing. 
 You might trust it anywhere." 
 
 " Oh, Johnny ! there you are at your faces again ! " 
 
 "Well, I was never deceived in any face yet. Not in one that 
 I thoroughly trusted." 
 
 " If Mrs. Hughes did not take the studs, and bring them to 
 London, and pledge them, who else could have brought them ? 
 They were taken to Mr. James's on the 27th, remember." 
 
 " That's the puzzle of it." 
 
 "We must find out Mrs. Hughes, and then contrive to bring her 
 within sight of Mr. James."
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 247 
 
 " The Whitneys know where she lives. Anna and Helen have 
 been to call upon her." 
 
 "Then our way is pretty plain. Mind you don't breathe a 
 syllable of this to mortal ear, Johnny. It might defeat our aims. 
 Miss Cattledon, always inquisitive, will question where we have 
 been this morning with her curious eyes; but for once she will not 
 be satisfied." 
 
 " I should not keep her, Miss Deveen." 
 
 "Yes you would, Johnny. She is faithful; she suits me very 
 well ; and her mother and I were girls together." 
 
 It was a sight to be painted. Helen Whitney standing there in 
 her presentation dress. She looked wonderfully well. It was all 
 white, with a train behind longer than half-a-dozen peacocks' tails, 
 lace and feathers about her hair. The whole lot of us were round 
 her; the young ones had comefromthenursery, the servants peeped 
 in at the door ; Miss Cattledon had her eye-glass up ; Harry danced 
 about the room. 
 
 " Helen, my dear, I admire all very much except your necklace 
 and bracelets," said Miss Deveen, critically. " They do not match : 
 and do not accord with the dress." 
 
 The necklace was a row of turquoises, and did not look much ; 
 the bracelets were gold, with blue stones in the clasps. The Whitney 
 family did not shine in jewels, and the few diamonds they possessed 
 were on Lady Whitney to-day. 
 
 " But I had nothing else. Miss Deveen," said Helen, simply. 
 " Mamma said these must do." 
 
 Miss Deveen took off the string of blue beads as if to examine 
 them, and left in its place the loveliest pearl necklace ever seen. 
 There was a scream of surprise ; some of us had only met with such 
 transformations in fairy tales. 
 
 " And these are the bracelets to match, my dear. Anna, I shall 
 give you the same when your turn for making your curtsey to your 
 queen comes." 
 
 Anna smiled faintly as she looked her thanks. She always 
 seemed regularly down in spirits now, not to be raised by pearl 
 necklaces. For the first time her sad countenance seemed to strike 
 Tod. He crossed over. 
 
 "What is wrong, Anna?" he whispered. "Are you not 
 well .? " 
 
 " Quite well, thank you," she answered, her cheeks flushing 
 painfully. 
 
 At this moment Sophie Chalk created a diversion. Unable to 
 restrain her feelings longer, she burst into tears, knelt down outside
 
 248 JOHNNY LUDLOW 
 
 Helen's dress, and began kissing her hand and the pearl bracelet in 
 a transport of joy. 
 
 " Oh, Helen, my dear friend, how rejoiced I am ? I said upstairs 
 that your ornaments were not worthy of you." 
 
 Tod's eyes were glued on her. Bill Whitney called out Bravo. 
 Sophie, kneeling before Helen in her furbelows, made a charming 
 tableau. 
 
 " It is good acting, Tod," I said in his ear. 
 
 He turned sharply. But instead of cuffing me into next week, he 
 just sent his eyes straight out to mine. 
 
 " Do you call it acting ? " 
 
 " I am sure it is. But not for you." 
 
 " You are bold, Mr. Johnny." 
 
 But I could tell by the subdued tone and the subdued manner, 
 that his own doubts had been at last awakened whether or not it 
 was acting. 
 
 Lady Whitney came sailing downstairs, a blaze of yellow satin ; 
 her face, with flurry, like a peony. She could hardly say a word of 
 thanks for the pearls, for her wits had gone wool-gathering. When 
 she was last at Court herself. Bill was a baby in long-clothes. We 
 went out with them to the carriage ; the lady's-maid taking at least 
 five minutes to settle the trains : and Bill said he hoped the eyes at 
 the windows all round enjoyed the show. The postillion — an 
 unusual sight in London — ^and the two men behind wore their state 
 liveries, white and crimson ; their bouquets bigger than cabbages. 
 
 " You will dance with me the first dance to-night ? " Tod whispered 
 to Sophie Chalk, as they were going in after watching the carriage 
 away. 
 
 Sophie made a slight pause before she answered ; and I saw her 
 eyes wander out in the distance towards Bill Whitney. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," she said, with a great display of gratitude. 
 " But I think I am engaged." 
 
 " Engaged for the first dance ? " 
 
 " Yes. I am so sorry." 
 
 " The second, then ? " 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure," 
 
 Anna heard it all as well as L Tod gave Sophie's hand a squeeze 
 to seal the bargain, and went away whistling. 
 
 Not being in the world of fashion, we did not know how other 
 people finished up Drawing-room days (and when Helen Whitney 
 went to Court they luere Drawing-rooms), but the Whitneys' pro- 
 gramme was this : A cold collation in lieu of dinner, when Fate 
 should bring them home again, and a ball in the evening. The 
 ball was our joint invention. Sitting round the schoolroom fire 
 one night we settled it for ourselves : and after Sir John and my
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 249 
 
 lady had stood out well, they gave in. Not that it would be much 
 of a ball, for they had few acquaintances in London, and the house 
 was small. 
 
 But now, had any aid been wanted by Miss Deveen to carry out 
 her plans, she could not have devised better than this. For the 
 Whitneys invited (all unconsciously) Mrs. Hughes to the ball. 
 Anna came into Miss Devcen's after they had been sending out the 
 invitations (only three days before the evening), and began telling 
 her the names as a bit of gossip. She came at last to Mrs. 
 Hughes. 
 
 " Mrs. Hughes," interrupted Miss Deveen, " I am glad of that, 
 Anna, for I want to see her." 
 
 Miss Deveen's seeing her would not go for much in the matter 
 of elucidation ; it was Mr. James who must see her ; and the plan 
 by which he might do so was Miss Deveen's own. She went down 
 and arranged it with him, and before the night came, it was all cut 
 and dried. He and she and I knew of it ; not another soul in the 
 world. 
 
 " You will have to help me in it a little, Johnny," she said. " Be 
 at hand to watch for Mr. James's arrival, and bring him up to me." 
 
 We saw them come back from the Drawing-room between five 
 and six, Helen with a brilliant colour in her cheeks ; and at eight 
 o'clock we went in. London parties, which begin when you ought 
 to be in your first sleep, are not understood by us country people, 
 and eight was the hour named in the Whitneys' invitations. 
 Cattledon was screwed into a rich sea-green satin (somebody else's 
 once), with a water-lily in her thin hair; and Miss Deveen wore all 
 her diamonds. Sir John, out of his element and frightfully dis- 
 consolate, stood against the wall, his spectacles lodged on his old 
 red nose. The thing was not in his line. Miss Deveen went up to 
 shake hands. 
 
 " Sir John, I am rather expecting a gentleman to call on me on 
 business to-night," she said ; " and have left word for him to step in 
 and see me here. Will you forgive the liberty .'' " 
 • " I'm sure it's no liberty ; I shall be glad to welcome him," replied 
 Sir John, dismally. " There'll not be much here but stupid boys 
 and girls. We shall get no whist to-night. The plague only knows 
 who invented balls." 
 
 It was a little odd that, next to ourselves, Mrs. Hughes should be 
 the first to arrive. She was very pale and pretty, and her husband 
 was a slender, quiet, delicate man, looking like a finished gentleman. 
 Miss Deveen followed them with her eyes as they went up to 
 Lady Whitney. 
 
 " She does not look like it, does she, Johnny ? " whispered Miss 
 Deveen to me. No, I was quite sure she did not.
 
 250 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Sophie Chalk was in white, with ivy leaves in her spangled hair, 
 the sweetest fairy to look at ever seen out of a moonlight ring. 
 Helen, in her Court dress and pearls, looked plain beside her. 
 They stood talking togethei", not noticing that I and Tod were in 
 the recess behind. Most of the people had come then, and the 
 music was tuning 'up. The rooms looked well; the flowers, 
 scattered about, had come up from Whitney Hall. Helen called 
 to her brother. 
 
 " We may as well begin dancing, William." 
 
 " Of course we may," he answered. " I don't know what we have 
 waited for. I must find a partner. Miss Chalk, may I have the 
 honour of dancing the first dance with you ? " 
 
 That Miss Chalk's eyes went up to his with a flash of gratitude, 
 and then down in modesty to the chalked floor, I knew as well as 
 though they had been behind her head instead of before it. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said she, " I shall be so happy." And I no 
 more dared glance at Tod than if he had been an uncaged crocodile. 
 She had told hint she was engaged for it. 
 
 But just as William was about to give her his arm, and some one 
 came and took away Helen, Lady Whitney called him. He spoke 
 with his mother for a minute or two and came back with a cloud on 
 his face. 
 
 " I am awfully sorry, Sophie. The mother says I must take 
 out Lady Esther Starr this first time, old Starr's wife, you know, as 
 my father's dancing days are over. Lady Esther is seven-and-thirty 
 if she's a day," growled Bill, " and as big as a lighthouse. I'll have 
 the second with you, Sophie." 
 
 " I am afraid I am engaged for the second," hesitated Miss 
 Sophie. " I think I have promised Joseph Todhetley." 
 
 " Never mind him," said Bill. " You'll dance it with me, 
 mind." 
 
 " I can tell him I mistook the dance," she softly suggested, 
 
 " Tell him anything. All right." 
 
 He wheeled round, and went up to Lady Esther, putting on nis 
 glove. Sophie Chalk moved away, and I took courage to glance 
 sideways at Tod. 
 
 His face was white as death : I think with passion. He stood 
 with his arms folded, never moving throughout the whole quadrille, 
 only looking out straight before him with a fixed stare. A waltz 
 came next, for which they kept their partners. And Sophie 
 Chalk had enjoyed the luck of sitting down all the time. Whilst 
 they were making ready for the second quadrille, Tod went up 
 to her, 
 
 " This is our dance, Miss Chalk." 
 
 Well, she had her share of boldness. She looked steadily in his
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 251 
 
 face, assuring him that he was mistaken, and vowing through thick 
 and thin that it was the tJiird dance she had promised him. Whilst 
 she was excusing herself, Bill came up to claim her. Tod put out 
 his strong arm to ward him off. 
 
 " Stay a moment, Whitney," he said, with studied calmness, " let 
 me have an understanding first with Miss Chalk. She can dance 
 with you afterwards if she prefers to do so. Miss Chalk, jj'(?« knoio 
 that you promised yourself to me this morning for the second dance. 
 I asked you for the first : you were engaged for that, you said, and 
 would dance the second with me. There could be no mistake, on 
 your side or on mine." 
 
 " Oh, but indeed I understood it to be the third, dear ^Ir. Tod- 
 hetley," said she. " I am dreadfully sorry if it is my fault. I will 
 dance the third with you." 
 
 " I have not asked you for the third. Do as you please, If you 
 throw me over for this second dance, I wiU never ask you for another 
 again as long as I live." 
 
 Bill Whitney stood by laughing ; seeming to treat the whole as a 
 good joke. Sophie Chalk looked at him appealingly. 
 
 " And you certainly promised me, ]\Iiss Chalk," he put in. 
 " Todhetley, it is a misunderstanding. You and I had better draw 
 lots." 
 
 Tod bit his lip nearly to bleeding. All the notice he took of Bill's 
 speech was to turn his back upon him, and address Sophie. 
 
 " The decision lies with you alone. Miss Chalk. You have engaged 
 yourself to him and to me : choose between us." 
 
 She put her hand within Bill's arm, and went away with him, 
 leaving a little honeyed flattery for Tod. But Bill Whitney looked 
 back curiously into Tod's white face, all his brightness gone ; for 
 the first time he seemed to realize that it was serious, almost an 
 affair of life or death. His handkerchief up, wiping his damp 
 brow, Tod did not notice which way he was going, and ran 
 against Anna. " I beg your pardon," he said, with a start, as if 
 waking out of a dream. " Will you go through this dance with me, 
 Anna?" 
 
 • Yes. He led her up to it ; and they took their places opposite 
 Bill and Miss Chalk. 
 
 I Mr. James was to arrive at half-past nine. I was waiting for him 
 near the entrance door. He was punctual to time ; and looked very 
 well in his evening dress. I took him up to Miss Deveen, and she 
 made room for him on the sofa by her side, her diamonds glisten- 
 ing. He must have seen their value. Sir John had his rubber then 
 in the little breakfast-parlour : Miss Cattledon, old Starr, and another 
 making it up for him. Wanting to see the game played out. I kept 
 by the sofa.
 
 252 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 This was not the dancing-room : but they came into it in 
 couples between the dances, to march round in the cooler air. 
 Mr. James looked and Miss Deveen looked ; and I confess that 
 whenever Mrs. Hughes passed us, I felt queer. Miss Deveen 
 suddenly arrested her and kept her talking for a minute or two. 
 Not a word bearing upon the subject said Mr. James. Once, 
 when the room was clear and the measured tread to one of Strauss's 
 best waltzes could be heard, Lady Whitney approached. Catch- 
 ing sight of the stranger by Miss Deveen, she supposed he had 
 been brought by some of the guests, and came up to make his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "A friend of mine, dear Lady Whitney," said Miss Deveen. 
 
 Lady Whitney, never observing that no name was mentioned, 
 shook hands at once with Mr. James in her homely country fashion. 
 He stood up until she had moved away, 
 
 " Well ? " said Miss Deveen, when the dancers had come in again. 
 " Is the lady here?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 I had expected him to say No, and could have struck him for 
 destroying my faith in Mrs. Hughes. She was passing at the 
 moment. 
 
 " Do you see her now ? " whispered Miss Deveen. 
 
 " Not now. She was at the door a moment ago." 
 
 "Not now!" exclaimed Miss Deveen, staring at Mrs. Hughes. 
 "Is it not //za^ lady ? " 
 
 Mr. James sent his eyes in half-a-dozen directions. 
 
 " Which lady, ma'am ? " 
 
 " The one who has just passed in black silk, with the simple white 
 net quilling round the neck." 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! " said Mr. James. " I never saw that lady in my 
 life before. The lady, the lady, is dressed in white." 
 
 Miss Deveen looked at him, and I looked. Here, in the rooms, 
 and yet not Mrs, Hughes ! 
 
 " This is the one," he whispered, " coming in now." 
 
 The one, turning in at that particular instant, was Sophie Chalk. 
 But others were before her and behind her. She was on Harry 
 Whitney's arm. 
 
 " Why don't you dance, Miss Deveen ? " asked bold Harry, halting 
 before the sofa. 
 
 " Will you dance with me, Master Harry ? " 
 
 " Of course I will. Glad to get you," 
 
 " Don't tell fibs, young man, I might take you at your word, if I 
 had my dancing-shoes on," 
 
 Harry laughed, Sophie Chalk's blue eyes happened to rest on 
 Mr. James's face : they took a puzzled expression, as if wondering
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 253 
 
 where she had seen it. Mr. James rose and bowed to her. She 
 must have recognized him then, for her features turned hvid, in 
 spite of the powder upon theni. 
 
 '• Who is it, Johnny ? " she whispered, in her confusion, loosing 
 Harry's arm and coming behind. 
 
 "Well, you must ask that of Miss Deveen. He has come here 
 to see her : something's up, I fancy, about those emerald studs." 
 
 Had it been to save my fortune, I could not have helped saying 
 it. I saw it all as in a mirror. She it was tvho had taken them, 
 and pledged them afterwards. A similar light flashed on Miss 
 Deveen. She followed her with her severe face, her condemning 
 eyes. 
 
 " Take care, Johnny ! " cried Miss Deveen. 
 
 I was just in time to catch Sophie Chalk. She would have 
 fallen on my shoulder. The room was in a commotion at once : 
 a young lady had fainted. What from ? asked every one. Oh, 
 from the heat, of course. And no other reason was breathed. 
 
 Mr. James's mission was over. It had been successful. He made 
 his bow to Lady W^hitney, and withdrew. 
 
 Miss Deveen sent for Sophie Chalk the next day, and they had 
 it out together, shut up alone. Sophie's coolness was good for any 
 amount of denial, but it failed here. And then she took the other 
 course, and fell on her knees at Miss Deveen's feet, and told a 
 pitiable story of being alone in the world, without money to dress 
 herself, and the open jewel-casket in Miss Deveen's chamber (into 
 which accident, not design, had really taken her) proving too 
 much in the moment's temptation. Miss Deveen beheved it ; she 
 told her the affair should never transpire beyond the two or three 
 who already knew it ; that she would redeem the emeralds herself, 
 and say nothing even to Lady W'hitney ; but, as a matter of course, 
 Miss Chalk must close her acquaintance with Sir John's family. 
 
 And, singular to say, Sophie received a letter from someone that 
 same evening, inviting her to go out of town. At least, she said 
 she did. 
 
 So, quitting the Whitneys suddenly was plausibly accounted for ; 
 and Helen Whitney did not know the truth for many a day. 
 
 What did Tod think ? For that, I expect, is what you are all 
 wanting to ask. That was another curious thing — that he and 
 Bill Whitney should have come to an explanation before the ball 
 was over. Bill went up to him, saying that had he supposed Tod 
 could mean anything serious in his admiration of Sophie Chalk, 
 he should never have gone in for admiring her himself, even in
 
 25+ JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 pastime ; and certainly would not continue to do so or spoil sport 
 again, 
 
 " Thank you for telling me," answered Tod, with indifference. 
 "You are quite welcome to go in for Sophie Chalk in any way you 
 please. / have done with her." 
 
 " No," said Bill, " good girls must grow scarcer than they are 
 before I should go in seriously for Sophie Chalk. She's all very 
 well to talk and laugh with, and she is uncommonly fascinating." 
 
 It was my turn to put in a word. "As I told you, Bill, months 
 ago, Sophie Chalk would fascinate the eyes out of your head, give 
 her the chance." 
 
 Bill laughed. " Well she has had the chance, Johnny : but she 
 has not done it." 
 
 Altogether, Sophie, thanks to her own bad play, had fallen to a 
 discount. 
 
 When Miss Deveen announced to the Avorld that she had found 
 her emerald studs (lost through an accident, she discovered, and 
 recovered in the same way) people were full of wonder at the 
 chances and mistakes of life. Lettice Lane was cleared triumph- 
 antly. Miss Deveen sent her home for a week to shake hands 
 with her friends and enemies, and then took her back as her own 
 maid. 
 
 And the only person I said a syllable to was Anna. I knew it 
 would be safe : and I dare say you would have done the same in 
 my place. But she stopped me at the middle of the first sentence. 
 
 " I have known it from the first, Johnny : I was nearly as sure 
 of it as I could be ; and it is that that has made me so miserable." 
 
 " Known it was Sophie Chalk .'' " 
 
 " As good as known it. I =had no proof, only suspicion. And I 
 could not see whether I ought to speak the suspicion even to 
 mamma, or to keep it to myself. As things have turned out, I am 
 very thankful to have been silent." 
 
 " How was it, then ? " 
 
 "That night at Whitney Hall, after they had all come down 
 from dressing, mamma sent me up to William's room with a mes- 
 sage. As I was leaving it — it is at the end of the long corridor, 
 you know — I saw some one peep cautiously out of Miss Cattledon's 
 chamber, and then steal up the back stairs. It was Sophie Chalk. 
 Later, when we were going to bed, and I was quite undressed, 
 Helen, who was in bed, espied Sophie's comb and brush on the 
 table — for she had dressed in our room because of the large glass 
 — and told me to run in with them : she only slept in the next 
 room. It was very cold. I knocked and entered so sharply that 
 the door-bolt, a thin, creaky old thing, gave way. Of course I 
 begged her pardon ; but she seemed to start up in terrible fear,
 
 THE GAME FINISHED. 255 
 
 as if I had been a ghost. She had not touched her hair, but sat 
 in her shawl, sewing at her stays ; and she let them drop on the 
 carpet and threw a petticoat over them. I thought nothing, 
 Johnny ; nothing at all. But the next morning when commotion 
 arose and the studs were missing, I could not help recalling all 
 this ; and I quite hated myself for thinking Sophie Chalk might 
 have taken them when she stole out of Miss Cattledon's room, and 
 w^as sewing them later into her stays." 
 
 " You thought right, you see." 
 
 " Johnny, I am very sorry for her. I wish we could help her to 
 some good situation. Depend upon it, this will be a lesson to her : 
 she will never so far forget herself again." 
 
 " She is quite able to take care of herself, Anna. Don't let it 
 trouble you. I dare say she will marry Mr. Everty." 
 
 "Who is Mr. Everty'?" 
 
 " Some one who is engaged in the wine business with Sophia 
 Chalk's brother-in-law, Mr. Smith."
 
 XVI. 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 
 
 " I NEVER went to St. John's mop in my life," said Mrs. 
 Todhetley. 
 
 " That's no reason why you never should go," returned the 
 Squire. 
 
 " And never thought of engaging a servant at one." 
 
 " There are as good servants to be picked up at a mop as out of 
 it ; and you have a great deal better choice," said he. " My mother 
 has hired many a man and maid at the mop : first-rate servants 
 too." 
 
 " Well, then, perhaps we had better go into Worcester to-morrow 
 and see," concluded she, rather dubiously. 
 
 "And start early," said the Squire. "What is it you are afraid 
 oi?" he added, noting her doubtful tone. "That good servants 
 don't go to the mop to be hired ? " 
 
 " Not that," she answered. " I know it is the only chance farm- 
 house servants have of being hired when they change their places. 
 It was the noise and crowd I was thinking of." 
 
 " Oh, that's nothing," returned the Pater. " It is not half as bad 
 as the fair." 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley stood at the parlour window of Dyke Manor, 
 the autumn sun, setting in a glow, tingeing her face and showing 
 up its thoughtful expression. The Squire was in his easy-chair, 
 looking at one of the Worcester newspapers. 
 
 There had been a bother lately about the dairy-work. The old 
 dairy-maid, after four years of the service, had left to be married ; 
 two others had been tried since, and neither suited. The last had 
 marched herself off that day, after a desperate quarrel with Molly; 
 the house was nearly at its wits' end in consequence, and perhaps 
 the two cows were also. Mrs. Todhetley, really not knowing what 
 in the world to do, and fretting herself into the face-ache over it, 
 was interrupted by the Pater and his newspaper. He had just read 
 there the reminder that St. John's annual Michaelmas Mop would 
 take place on the morrow : and he told Mrs. Todhetley that she 
 could go there and hire a dairy-maid at will. Fifty if she wanted
 
 GOING TO THE MOP 257 
 
 them. At that time the mop was as much an institution as the 
 fair or the wake. Some people called it the Statute Fair. 
 
 Molly, whose sweet temper you have had a glimpse or two of 
 before, banged about among her spoons and saucepans when she 
 heard what was in the wind. " Fine muck it 'ud be," she said, 
 "coming out o' that there Worcester mop." Having the dairy- 
 work to do as well as her own just now, the house scarcely held her. 
 We breakfasted early the next morning and started betimes in 
 the large open carriage, the Squire driving his pair of fine horses, 
 Bob and Blister, Mrs. Todhetley sat with him, and I behind. 
 Tod might have gone if he would : but the long drive out and 
 home had no charms for him, and he said ironically he should like 
 to see himself attending the mop. It was a lovely morning, 
 bright and sunny, with a suspicion of crispness in the air : the 
 trees were putting on their autumn colours, and shoals of black- 
 berries were in the hedges. 
 
 Getting some refreshment again at Worcester, and leaving the 
 Squire at the hotel, I and Mrs. Todhetley walked to the mop. It 
 was held in the parish of St. John's — a suburb of Worcester on the 
 other side of the Severn, as all the country knows. Crossing the 
 bridge and getting well up the New Road, we plunged into the thick 
 of the fun. 
 
 The men were first, standing back in a line on the foot-path, 
 fronting the passers-by. Young rustics mostly in clean smock- 
 frocks, waiting to be looked at and questioned and hired, a broad 
 grin on their faces with the novelty of the situation. We passed 
 them : and came to the girls and women. You could tell they 
 were nearly all rustic servants too, by their high colours and awk- 
 ward looks and manners. As a rule, each held a thick cotton 
 umbrella, tied round the middle after the fashion of Mrs. Gamp's, 
 and a pair of pattens whose bright rings showed they had not been 
 in use that day. To judge by the look of the present weather, we 
 were not likely to have rain for a month : but these simple people 
 liked to guard against contingencies. Crowds of folk were passing 
 along like ourselves, some come to hire, some only to take up the 
 space and stare. 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley elbowed her way amongst them. So did I. She 
 spoke to one or two, but nothing came of it. Whom should we 
 come upon, to my intense surprise, but our dairy-maid — the one who 
 had taken herself off the previous day ! 
 
 " I hope you will get a better place than you had with me, Susan," 
 said the Mater, rather sarcastically. 
 
 " I hopes as how I shall, missis," was the insolent retort. " 'Twon't 
 be hard to do. any way, that won't, with that there overbearing 
 Molly in yourn." 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 4 (
 
 2S8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 We went on. A great hulking farmer as big as a giant, and 
 looking as though he had taken more than was good for him in the 
 morning, came lumbering along, pushing every one right and left. 
 He threw his bold eyes on one of the girls. 
 
 " What place be for you, my lass ? " 
 
 " None o' yourn, master," was the prompt reply. 
 
 The voice was good-natured and pleasant, and I looked at the 
 girl as the man went shouldering on. She wore a clean light 
 cotton gown, a smart shawl all the colours of the rainbow, and a 
 straw bonnet covered with sky-blue bows. Her face was fairer than 
 most of the faces around ; her eyes were the colour of her ribbons ; 
 and her mouth, rather wide and always smiling, had about the nicest 
 set of teeth I ever saw. To take likes and dislikes at first sight 
 without rhyme or reason, is what I am hopelessly given to, and 
 there's no help for it. People laugh mockingly : as you have 
 heard me say. "There goes Johnny with his fancies again! " they 
 cry : but I know that it has served me well through life. I took a 
 liking to this girl's face : it was an honest face, as full of smiles as 
 the bonnet was of bows. Mrs. Todhetley noticed her too, and 
 halted. The girl dropped a curtsey. 
 
 " What place are you seeking ? " she asked. 
 
 " Dairy-maid's, please, ma'am." 
 
 The good Mater stood, doubtful whether to pursue inquiries or to 
 pass onwards. She liked the face of the girl, but did not hke the 
 profusion of blue ribbons. 
 
 " I understand my work well, ma'am, please; and I'm not afraid 
 of any much of it, in reason." 
 
 This turned the scale. Mrs. Todhetley stood her ground and 
 plunged into questioning. 
 
 " Where have you been living ? " 
 
 " At Mr. Thorpe's farm, please, near Severn Stoke." 
 
 " For how long ? " 
 
 "Twelve months, please. I went there Old Michaelmas Day, 
 last year." 
 
 " Why are you leaving ? " 
 
 " Please, ma'am " — a pause here — " please, I wanted a change, 
 and the work was a great sight of it ; frightful heavy ; and missis 
 often cross. Quite a herd o' milkers, there was, there." 
 
 " What is your name ? " 
 
 " Grizzel Clay. I be strong and healthy, please, ma'am ; and I 
 was twenty-two in the summer." 
 
 " Can you have a character from Mrs. Thorpe ? " 
 
 " Yes, please, ma'am, and a good one. She can't say nothing 
 against me." 
 
 And so the queries went on ; one would have thought the Mater
 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 259 
 
 was hiring a whole regiment of soldiers, Grizzel was ready and 
 willing to enter on her place at once, if hired. Mrs. Thorpe was 
 in Worcester that day, and might be seen at the Hare and Hounds 
 inn. 
 
 " What do you think, Johnny ? " whispered the Mater. 
 
 " I should hire her. She's just the girl I wouldn't mind taking 
 without any character." 
 
 " With those blue bows ! Don't be simple, Johnny. Still I like 
 the girl, and may as well see Mrs. Thorpe." 
 
 " By the way, though," she added, turning to Grizzel, " what 
 wages do you ask ? " 
 
 " Eight pounds, please, ma'am," replied Grizzel, after some hesi- 
 tation, and with reddening cheeks. 
 
 " Eight pounds ! " exclaimed Mrs. Todhetley. " That's very 
 high." 
 
 " But you'll find me a good servant, ma'am." 
 
 We went back through the town to the Hare and Hounds, an 
 inn near the cathedral. Mrs. Thorpe, a substantial dame in a long 
 cloth skirt and black hat, by which we saw she had come in on 
 horse-back, was at dinner. 
 
 She gave Grizzel Clay a good character. Saying the girl was 
 honest, clean, hardworking, and very sweet-tempered; and, in 
 truth, she was rather sorr)' to part with her. Mrs. Todhetley 
 asked about the blue bows. Ay, Mrs. Thorpe said, that was 
 Grizzel Clay's great fault — a love of finery : and she recommended 
 Mrs. Todhetley to "keep her under " in that respect. In going 
 out we found Grizzel waiting under the archway, having come down 
 to learn her fate. Mrs. Todhetley said she should engage her, and 
 bade her follow us to the hotel. 
 
 " It's an excellent character, Johnny," she said, as we went along 
 the street. " I like everything about the girl, except the blue 
 ribbons." 
 
 " I don't see any harm in blue ribbons. A girl looks nicer in 
 ribbons than without them." 
 
 " That's just it," said the Mater. " And this girl is good-looking 
 enough to do without them. Johnny, if Mr. Todhetley has no 
 objection, I think we had better take her back in the carriage. 
 You won't mind her sitting by you ? " 
 
 " Not I. And I'm sure I shall not mind the ribbons." 
 
 So it was arranged. The girl was engaged, to go back with us 
 in the afternoon. Her box would be sent on by the carrier. She 
 presented herself at the Star at the time of starting with a small 
 bundle: and a httle birdcage, something like a mouse-trap, that 
 had a bird in it. 
 
 "' Could I be let take it, ma'am ? " she asked of Mrs. Todhetley.
 
 26o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " It's only a poor linnet that I found hurt on the ground the last 
 morning I went out to help milk Thorpe's cows. I'm a-trying, 
 please, to nurse it back to health." 
 
 " Take it, and welcome," cried the Squire. " The bird had better 
 die, though, than be kept to live in that cage." 
 
 " I was thinking to let it fly, please, sir, when it's strong again." 
 
 Grizzel had proper notions. She screwed herself into the corner 
 of the seat, so as not to touch me. I heard all about her as we 
 went along. 
 
 She had gone to live at her Uncle Clay's in Gloucestershire when 
 her mother died, working for them as a servant. The uncle was 
 " well-to-do," rented twenty acres of land, and had two cows and 
 some sheep and pigs of his own. The aunt had a nephew, and this 
 voung man wanted to court her, Grizzel : but she'd have nothing 
 to say to him. It made matters uncomfortable, and last year they 
 turned her out : so she went and hired herself at Mrs. Thorpe's. 
 
 " Well, I should have thought you had better be married and 
 have a home of your own than go out as dairy-maid, Grizzel." 
 
 " That depends upon who the husband is, sir," she said, laughing 
 shghtly. " I'd rather be a dairy-maid to the end o' my days — I'd 
 rather be a prisoner in a cage like this poor bird — than have any- 
 thing to say to that there nephew of aunt's. He had red hair, and 
 I can't abide it." 
 
 Grizzel proved to be a good servant, and became a great favourite 
 in the house, except with Molly. Molly, never taking to her kindly, 
 was for quarrelling ten times a day, but the girl only laughed back 
 again. She was superior to the general run of dairy-maids, both 
 in looks and manners : and her good-humoured face brought sweet- 
 hearts up in plenty. 
 
 Two of them were serious. The one was George Roper, bailift''s 
 man on a neighbouring farm ; the other was Sandy Lett, a wheel- 
 wright in business for himself at Church Dykely. Of course matters 
 ran in this case, as they generally do run in such cases, all cross 
 and contrary : or, as the French say, a tort et a travets. George 
 Roper, a good-looking young fellow with curly hair and a hand- 
 some pair of black whiskers, had not a coin beyond the weekly 
 wages he worked for : he had not so much as a chair to sit in, or 
 a turn-up bedstead to lie on ; yet Grizzel loved him with her whole 
 heart. Sandy Lett, who was not bad-looking either, and had a 
 good home and a good business, she did not care for. Of course 
 the difficulty lay in deciding which of the two to choose : ambition 
 and her friends recommended Sandy Lett ; imprudence and her own 
 heart, George Roper. Like the donkey between the two bundles of
 
 GOING TO The mop. 26r 
 
 hay, Grizzel was unable to decide on either, and kept both the swains 
 on the tenter-hooks of suspense. 
 
 Sunday afternoons were the great trouble of Grizzel's life. Roper 
 had holiday then, and came : and Lett, whose time was his own, 
 though of course he could not afford to waste it on a week-day, 
 also came. One would stand at the stile in one field, the other 
 at a stile in another field : and Grizzel, arrayed in one of the light 
 print gowns she favoured, the many- coloured shawl, and the 
 dangerous blue-ribboned bonnet, did not dare to go out to either, 
 lest the other should pounce upon his rival, and a fight ensue. It 
 was getting quite exciting in the household to watch the progress 
 of events. Spring passed, the summer came round ; and between 
 the two, Grizzel had her hands full. The other servants could not 
 imagine what the men saw in her. 
 
 " It is those blue ribbons she's so fond of! " said Mrs. Todhetley 
 to us two, with a sigh. " I doubted them from the first." 
 
 " I should say it is the blue eyes," dissented Tod. 
 
 "And I the white teeth and laughing face. Nobody can help 
 liking her." 
 
 "You shut up, Johnny. If I were Roper " 
 
 " Shut up yourself, Joseph : both of you shut up : you know nothing 
 about it," interrupted the Squire, who had seemed to be asleep in his 
 chair. " It comes of woman's coquetry and man's folly. As to these 
 two fellows, if Grizzel can't make up her mind, I'll warn them both 
 to keep off my grounds at their peril." 
 
 One evening during the Midsummer holidays, in turning out of 
 the oak-walk to cross the fold-yard, I came upon Grizzel leaning on 
 the gate. She had a bunch of sweet peas in her hand, and tears 
 in her eyes. George Roper, who must have been talking to her, 
 passed me quickly, touching his hat. 
 
 " Good evening, sir." 
 
 " Good evening. Roper." 
 
 He walked away with his firm, quick stride : a well-made, hand- 
 some, trustworthy fellow. His brown velveteen coat (an old one of 
 his master's) was shabby, but he looked well in it ; and his gaitered 
 legs were straight and strong. That he had been the donor of the 
 sweet peas, a rustic lover's favourite offering, was evident. Grizzel 
 attempted to hide them in her gown when she saw me, but was not 
 quick enough, so she was fain to hold them openly in her hand, and 
 make believe to be busy with her milk-pail. 
 
 " It's a drop of skim milk I've got over; I was going to take it to 
 the pigs," said she. 
 
 " What are you crying about ? " 
 
 "Me crying !" returned Grizzel. "It's the sun a shinin' in my 
 eyes, sir."
 
 262 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Was it ! " Look here, Grizzel, why don't you put an end to this 
 state of bother ? You won't be able to milk the cows next." 
 
 " 'Tain't any in'ard bother o' that sort as '11 keep me from doing 
 my proper work," returned she, with a flick to the handle of the 
 pail. 
 
 " At any rate, you can't marry two men : you would be taken 
 up by old Jones the constable, you know, and tried for bigamy. 
 And I'm sure you must keep thetn in ferment. George Roper's 
 gone off with a queer look on his face. Take him, or dismiss 
 him." 
 
 " I'd take him to-morrow, but for one thing," avowed] the girl in 
 a half whisper. 
 
 " His short wages, I suppose — sixteen shillings a week." 
 
 " Sixteen shillings a week short wages ! " echoed Grizzel. " I call 
 'em good wages, sir. I'd never be afraid of getting along on them 
 with a steady man — and Roper's that. It ain't the wages, Master 
 Johnny. It is, that I promised mother never to begin life upon less 
 than a cottage and some things in it." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " Poor mother was a-dying, sir. Her illness lasted her many a 
 week, and she might be said to be a-dying all the time. I was 
 eighteen then. ' Grizzy,' says she to me one night, ' you be a likely 
 girl and '11 get chose afore you be many summers older. But you 
 must promise me that you'll not, on no temptation whatsoever, say 
 yes to a man till he has a home of his own to take you to, and beds 
 and tables and things comfortable about him. Once begin without 
 'em, and you and him '11 spend all your after life looking out for 'em ; 
 but they'll not come any the more for that. And you'll be at sixes- 
 and-sevens always : and him, why perhaps he'll take to the beer- 
 shop — for many a man does, through having, so to say, no home. 
 I've seen the ill of it in my days,' she says, 'and if I thought you'd 
 tumble into it I'd hardly rest quiet in the grave where you be so 
 soon a-going to place me.' ' Be at ease, mother,' says I to her in 
 answer, 'and take my promise, which I'll never break, not to set-up 
 for marriage without a home o' my own and proper things in it.' 
 That promise I can't break. Master Johnny ; and there has laid the 
 root of the trouble all along." 
 
 I saw then. Roper had nothing but a lodging, not a stick or 
 stone that he could call his own. And the foohsh man, instead of 
 saving up out of his wages, spent the remnant in buying pretty 
 things for Grizzel. It was a hopeless case. 
 
 " You should never have had anything to say to Roper, knowing 
 this, Grizzel." 
 
 Grizzel twirled the sweet peas round and round in her fingers, and 
 looked foolish, answering nothing.
 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 263 
 
 " Lett has a good home to give you and means to keep it going. 
 He must make a couple of pounds a week. Perhaps more." 
 
 " But then I don't care for him, Master Johnny." 
 
 " Give him up then. Send him about his business." 
 
 She might have been counting the blossoms on the sweet-pea 
 stalks. Presently she spoke, without looking up. 
 
 "You see. Master Johnny, one does not like to — to lose all one's 
 chances, and grow into an old maid. And, if I canH have Roper, 
 perhaps — in time — I might bring myself to take Lett. It's a better 
 opportunity than a poor dairy-maid like me could ever ha' looked 
 for." 
 
 The cat was out of the bag. Grizzel was keeping Lett on for a 
 remote contingency. When she could make up her mind to say 
 No to Roper, she meant to say Yes to him. 
 
 " It is awful treachery to Roper ; keeping him on only to drop 
 him at last," ran my thoughts. "Were I he, I should give her a 
 good shaking, and leave " 
 
 A sudden movement on Grizzel's part startled me. Catching up 
 her pail, she darted across the yard by the pond as fast as her 
 pattens would go, poured the milk into the pig-trough with a dash, 
 and disappeared indoors. Looking round for any possible cause for 
 this, I caught sight of a man in light fustian clothes hovering about 
 in the field by the hay-ricks. It was Sandy Lett ; he had walked 
 over on the chance of getting to see her. But she did not come out 
 again. 
 
 The next move in the drama was made by Lett. The following 
 Monday he presented himself before the Squire — dressed in his 
 Sunday-going things, and a new hat on — to ask him to be so good 
 as to settle the matter, for it was " getting a'most beyond him." 
 
 " Why, how can I settle it ? " demanded the Squire. " What 
 have I to do with it ? " 
 
 " It's a tormenting of me pretty nigh into fiddle-strings," pleaded 
 Lett. " What with her caprices — for sometimes her speaks to me 
 as pleasant as a angel, while at others her won't speak nohow ; 
 and what with that dratted folk over yonder a-teasing of me" — 
 jerking his head in the direction of Church Dykely — " I don't get 
 no peace of my life. It be a shame, Squire, for any woman to treat 
 a man as she's a-treating me." 
 
 " I can't make her have you if she won't have you," exploded 
 the Squire, not liking the appeal. " It is said, you know, that she 
 would rather have Roper." 
 
 Sandy Lett, who had a great idea of his own merits, turned his 
 nose up in the air. " Beg pardon. Squire," he said, " but that won't 
 wash, that won't. Grizzel couldn't have nothing serious to say to 
 that there Roper ; nought but a day-labourer on a farm ; she
 
 264 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 coulcMi : and if he don't keep his distance from her, I'll wring 
 his ugly head round for him. Look at me beside him !— my good 
 home wi' its m'hogany furniture in't. I can keep her a'most like 
 a lady. She may have in a wench once a week for the washing 
 and scrubbing, if she likes : I'd not deny her nothing in reason. 
 And for that there Roper to think to put hisself atween us ! No ; 
 'twon't do : the moon's not made o' green cheese. Grizzel's a bit 
 light-hearted, sir ; fond o' chatter ; and Roper he've played upon 
 that. I5ut if you'd speak a word for me, Squire, so as I may have 
 the banns put up " 
 
 " What the deuce, Lett, do you suppose I have to do with my 
 women-servants and their banns ? " testily interrupted the Squire. 
 " I can't interfere to make her marry you. But I'll tell you thus 
 much, and her too : if there is to be this perpetual uproar about 
 Grizzel, she shall quit my house before the twelvemonth she en- 
 gaged herself for is up. And that's a disgrace for any young 
 woman." 
 
 So Sandy Lett got nothing by coming, poor unfortunate man. 
 And yet— in a sense he did. The Squire ordered the girl before 
 him, and told her in a sharp, decisive tone that she must either 
 put an end to the state of things— or leave his service. And 
 Grizzel, finding that the limit of toleration had come, but unable 
 in her conflicting difficulties to decide which of the swains to retain 
 and which discard, dismissed the two. After that, she was plunged 
 over head and ears in distress, and for a week could hardly see 
 to skim off the cream for her tears. 
 
 '' This comes of hiring dairy wenches at a statty fair ! " cried 
 wrathful Molly. 
 
 The summer went on. August was waning. One morning when 
 Mr, Duffham had called in and was helping Mrs. Todhetley to 
 give Lena a spoonful of jam (with a powder in it), at which Lena 
 kicked and screamed, Grizzel ran into the room in excitement so 
 great, that they thought she was going into a fit. 
 
 " Why, what is it t " questioned Mrs. Todhetley, with a temporary 
 truce to the jam hostilities. " Has either of the cows kicked you 
 down, Grizzel ? " 
 
 "I'm— I'm come into a fortin!" shrieked Grizzel hysterically, 
 laughing and crying in the same breath. 
 
 Mr. Duffham put her into a chair, angrily ordering her to be 
 calm— for anger is the best remedy in the world to apply to 
 hysterics— and took a letter from her that she held out. It told her 
 that her LIncle Clay was dead, and had left her a bequest of forty 
 pounds. The forty pounds to be paid to her in gold whenever she
 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 265 
 
 should go and apply for it. This letter had come by the morning 
 post : but Grizzel, busy in her dairy, had only just now opened it. 
 
 " For the poor old uncle to have died in June, and them never to 
 ha' let me hear on"t ! " she said, sobbing. " Just like 'em ! And me 
 never to have put on a bit o' mourning for him ! " 
 
 She rose from the chair, drying her eyes with her apron, and 
 held out her hand for the letter. As Mrs. Todhetley began to say 
 she was very glad to hear of her good luck, a shy look and a half- 
 smile came into the girl's face. 
 
 " I can get the home now, ma'am, with all this fortin," she 
 whispered. 
 
 Molly banged her pans about worse than ever, partly in envy at 
 the good luck of the girl, partly because she had to do the dairy 
 Avork during Grizzel's absence in Gloucestershire : a day and a half, 
 which was given her by Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " There won't be no standing anigh her and her finery now," cried 
 rampant Molly to the servants. " She'll tack her blue ribbons 
 on to her tail as well as her head. Lucky if the dairy some fine 
 day ain't found turned all sour ! " 
 
 Grizzel came back in time ; bringing her forty pounds in gold 
 wrapped-up in the foot of a folded stocking. The girl had as much 
 sense as one here and there, and a day or two after her arrival she 
 asked leave to speak to her mistress. It was to say that she should 
 like to leave at the end of her year, Michaelmas, if her mistress 
 would please look out for some one to replace her. 
 
 "And what are you going to do, Grizzel, when you do leave? 
 What are your plans ? " 
 
 Grizzel turned the colour of a whole cornfield of poppies, and con- 
 fessed that she was going to be married to George Roper. 
 
 " Oh," said Mrs. Todhetley. But she had nothing to urge 
 against it. 
 
 " And please, ma'am," cried Grizzel, the poppies deepening and 
 glowing, " we'd like to make bold to ask if the master would let to 
 us that bit of a cottage that the Claytons have went out of." 
 
 The Mater was quite taken aback. It seemed indeed that Grizzel 
 had been laying her plans to some purpose. 
 
 "It have a nice piece o' ground to grow pertaters and garden 
 stuff, and it have a pigsty," said Grizzel. " Please, ma'am, we 
 shall get along famous, if we can have that." 
 
 " Do you mean to set up a pig, Grizzel ? " 
 
 Grizzel's face was all one smile. Of course they did. With such 
 a fortune as she had come into, she intended herself and her hus- 
 band to have everything good about them, including a pig. 
 
 " I'll give Grizzel away," wrote Tod when he heard the news of 
 the legacy and the projected marriage. " It will be fun ! And if
 
 266 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 you people at home don't present her with her wedding-gown it 
 will be a stingy shame. Let it have a good share of blue bows." 
 
 " No, though, will he ! " exclaimed Grizzel with sparkling eyes, 
 when told of the honour designed her by Tod. " Give me away ! 
 Him ! I've always said there's not such another gentleman in these 
 parts as Mr. Joseph." 
 
 The banns were put up, and matters progressed smoothly ; with 
 one solitary exception. When Sandy Lett heard of the treason 
 going on behind his back, he was ready to drop with blighted love 
 and mortification. A three-days' weather blight was nothing to his. 
 Quite forgetting modesty, he made his fierce way into the house, 
 without saying with your leave or by your leave, and thence to the 
 dairy where Grizzel stood making-up butter, startling the girl so 
 much with his white face and wild eyes that she stepped back into 
 a pan of cream. Then he enlarged upon her iniquity, and wound 
 up by assuring her that neither she nor her " coward of a Roper " 
 could ever come to good. After that, he left her alone, making no 
 further stir. 
 
 Grizzel quitted the Manor and went into the cottage, which the 
 Squire had agreed to let to them : Roper was to come to it on the 
 wedding-day. A daughter of Goody Picker's, one Mary Standish 
 (whose husband had a habit of going off on roving trips and stay- 
 ing away until found and brought back by the parish), stayed 
 with Grizzel, helping her to put the cottage in habitable order, and 
 arrange in it the articles she bought. That sum of forty pounds 
 seemed to be doing wonders : I told Grizzel I could not have made 
 a thousand go as far. 
 
 ''Any left, Master Johnny? Why of course I shall have plenty 
 left," she said. " After buying the bed and the set o' drawers and 
 the chairs and tables ; and the pots and pans and crockeryware for 
 the kitchen ; and the pig and a cock and hen or two ; and perviding 
 a joint of roast pork and some best tea and white sugar for the 
 wedding-day, we shall still have pounds and pounds on't left. 
 'Tisn't me, sir, nor George nether, that 'ud like to lavish away all 
 we've got and put none by for a rainy day." 
 
 " All right, Grizzel. I am going to give you a tea-caddy." 
 
 " Well now, to think of that. Master Johnny ! " she said, lifting 
 her hands. " And after the mistress giving me such a handsome 
 gownd !— and the servants clubbing together, and bringing a roast- 
 ing oven and beautiful set o' flat irons. Roper and me '11 be set 
 up like a king and queen." 
 
 On Saturday, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and 
 Tod were passing the cottage— a kind of miniature barn, to look 
 at, with a thatched roof, and a broken grindstone at the door — 
 and went in : rather to the discomfiture of Grizzel and Mrs. Stan-
 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 267 
 
 dish, who had their petticoats shortened and their arms bare, 
 scouring and scrubbing and making ready for the morrow. Re- 
 turning across the fields later, we saw Grizzel at the door, gazing 
 out all ways at once. 
 
 " Consulting the stars as to whether it will be fine to-morrow, 
 Grizzel ? " cried Tod, who was never at a loss for a ready word, 
 
 " I was a-looking out for Mary Standish, sir," she said. " George 
 Roper haven't been here to-night, and we be all at doubtings about 
 several matters he was to have come in to settle. First he said 
 he'd go on betimes to the church 0' Sunday morning ; then he said 
 he'd come here and we'd all walk together : and it was left at a 
 uncertainty. There's the blackberry pie, too, that he've not 
 brought." 
 
 " The blackberry pie ! " said I. 
 
 " One that Mrs. Dodd, where he lodges, have made a present of 
 to us for dinner, Master Johnny. Roper was to ha' brought it in 
 to-night ready. It won't look well to see him carrying of a baked- 
 pie on a Sunday morning, when he've got on his wedding-coat. I 
 can't think where he have got to ! " 
 
 At this moment, some one was seen moving towards us across 
 the field path. It proved to be Mary Standish : her gown turned 
 up over her head, and a pie in her hands the size of a pulpit cushion. 
 Red syrup was running down the outside of the dish, and the crust 
 looked a little black at the edges. 
 
 " My, what a big beauty ! " exclaimed Grizzel. 
 
 " Do take it, Grizzel, for my hands be all cramped with its 
 weight," said Mrs. Standish : who, as it turned out, had been over 
 to Roper's lodgings, a mile and a half away, with a view to seeing 
 what had become of the bridegroom elect. And she nearly threw 
 the pie into Grizzel's arms, and took down her gown. 
 
 " And what do Roper say ? " asked Grizzel. " And why have he 
 not been here ? " 
 
 " Roper's not at home," said Mary Standish. " He come in from 
 work about six ; washed and put hisself to rights a bit, and then 
 went out with a big bundle. Mrs. Dodd called after him to bring 
 the pie, but he called back again that the pie might wait." 
 
 "What was in the bundle.?" questioned Grizzel, resenting the 
 slight shown to the pie. 
 
 "Well, by the looks on't. Mother Dodd thought 'twas his working 
 clothes packed up," repHed Mary Standish. 
 
 " His working clothes! " cried Grizzel. 
 
 " A going to take 'em to the tailor's, maybe, to get 'em done up. 
 And not afore they wanted it." 
 
 " Why, it's spending money for nothing," was Grizzel's comment. 
 " I could ha' done up them clothes."
 
 268 Johnny ludlow, 
 
 "Well, it's what Mother Dodd thought," concluded Mary 
 Standish. 
 
 We said good night, and went racing home, leaving the two 
 women at the door, Grizzel lodging the heavy blackberry pie on the 
 old grindstone. 
 
 It was a glorious day foi Grizzel's wedding. The hour fixed by 
 the clerk (old Bumford) was ten o'clock, so that it might be got well 
 over before the bell rang out for service. We reached the church 
 early. Amongst the few spectators already there was cross-grained 
 Molly, pocketing her ill-temper and for once meaning to be gracious 
 to Grizzel. 
 
 Ten o'clock struck, and the big old clock went ticking on. Clerk 
 Bumford (a pompous man when free from gout) began abusing the 
 wedding-party for not keeping its time. The quarter past was 
 striking when Grizzel came up, with Mary Standish and a young 
 girl. She looked white and nervous, and not at all at ease in her 
 bridal attire— a green gown of some kind of stuff, and no end of 
 pink ribbons : the choice of colours being Grizzel's own. 
 
 " Is Roper here yet?" whispered Mary Standish. 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " It's too bad of him! " she continued. " Never to send a body 
 word whether he meant to call for us, or not : and us a waiting there 
 till now, expecting of him." 
 
 But where was George Roper? And (as old Bumford asked) 
 what did he mean by it ? The clergyman in his surplice and hood 
 looked out at the vestry twice, as if questioning what the delay 
 meant. We stood just inside the porch, and Grizzel grew whiter 
 and whiter. 
 
 "Just a few minutes more o' this delay, and there won't be no 
 wedding at all this blessed morning," announced Clerk Bumford 
 for the public benefit. " George Roper wants a good blowing up, 
 he do." 
 
 Ere the words were well spoken, a young man named Dicker, 
 who was a fellow-lodger of Roper's and was to have accompanied 
 him to church, made his appearance alone. That something had 
 gone wrong was plainly to be seen : but, what with the publicity of 
 his present position, and what with the stern clerk pouncing down 
 upon him in wrath, the young man could hardly get his news out. 
 
 In the first place. Roper had never been home all night; never 
 been seen, in short, since he had left Mrs. Dodd's with the bundle, 
 as related by Mary Standish. That morning, while Dicker in his 
 consternation knew not what to be at— whether to be off to church 
 alone, or to wait still, in the hope that Roper would come— two
 
 GOING TO THE MOP, 269 
 
 notes were delivered at Mrs. Dodd's by a strange boy : the one ad- 
 dressed to himself, John Dicker, the other to " Miss Clay," meaning 
 Grizzel. They bore ill news ; George Roper had gi\'en up his 
 marriage, and gone away for good. 
 
 At this extraordinary crisis, pompous Clerk Bumford was so 
 taken aback, that he could only open his mouth and stare. It gave 
 Dicker the opportunity to put in a few words. 
 
 "What we thought at Mother Dodd's was, that Roper had took 
 a drop too much somewhere last evening, and couldn't get home. 
 He's as sober a man as can be — but whatever else was we to think ? 
 And when this writed note come this morning, and we found he 
 had gone off to Ameriky o' purpose to avoid being married, wc 
 was downright floundered. This is yours, Grizzel," added the young 
 man in as gently considerate a tone as any gentleman could have 
 used. 
 
 Grizzel's hand shook as she took the letter he held out. She was 
 biting her pale lips hard to keep down emotion. " Take it and read 
 it," she whispered to Mary Standish — for in truth she herself could 
 not, with all that sea of curious eyes upon her. 
 
 But Mary Standish laboured under the slight disadvantage of 
 not being able to read writing : conscious of this difficulty, she 
 would not touch the letter. Mr. Bumford, his senses and his tongue 
 returning together, snatched it without ceremony out of Grizzel's 
 hand. 
 
 " I'll read it," said he. And he did so. And I, Johnny Ludlow, 
 give you the copy verbatim. 
 
 " Der Grisl, saterdy evenin, this comes hoppin you be wel as it 
 leves me at presint. Which this is to declar to you der grisl that 
 our marage is at an end, it hav ben to much for me and praid on 
 my sperits, I cant stand it no longer nohow and hav took my 
 leve of you for ivir, Der Grisl I maks my best way this night to 
 Livirpol to tak ship for Ameriky, and my last hops for you hearby 
 xprest is as you may be hapy with annother, I were nivir worthey 
 of you der grisl and thats a fac, but I kep it from you til now when 
 I cant kep it no longer cause of my conshunse, once youv red this 
 hear letter dont you nivir think no mor on me agen, which I shant 
 on you, Adew for ivir, 
 
 " your unfortnit friend George Roper. 
 
 " Ide av carred acros that ther blakbured pi but shoud have ben 
 to late, my good hops is youl injoy the pi with another better nor 
 \ ou ivir could along with me, best furwel wishes to Mary Standish, 
 G R."
 
 270 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 What with the penmanship and what with the speUing, it took old 
 Bumford's spectacles some time to get through. A thunderbolt 
 could hardly have made more stir than this news. No one spoke, 
 however ; and Mr. Bumford folded the letter in silence. 
 
 " I always knowed what that there Roper was worth," broke 
 forth Molly. " He pipe-clayed my best black cloak on the sly one 
 day when I ordered him off the premises. You be better without 
 him, Grizzel, girl — and here's my hand and wishing you better luck 
 in token of it." 
 
 " Mrs. Dodd was right — them was a change a' clothes he was a 
 taking with him to Ameriky," added Mary Standish. 
 
 " Roper's a jail-bird, I should say," put in old Bumford. " A 
 nice un too." 
 
 " But what can it be that's went wrong — what is it that have 
 took him off.-"' wondered the young man. Dicker. 
 
 The parson in his surplice had come down the aisle and was 
 standing to listen. Grizzel, in the extremity of mental bitterness 
 and confusion, but striving to put a face of indifference on the 
 matter before the public, gazed around helplessly. 
 
 " I'm better without him, as Molly says — and what do I care?" 
 she cried recklessly, her lips quivering. The parson put his hand 
 gravely on her arm. 
 
 " My good young woman, I think you are in truth better without 
 him. Such a man as that is not worthy of a regret." 
 
 " No, sir, and I don't and won't regret him," was her rapid 
 answer, the voice rising hysterically. 
 
 As "she turned, intending to leave the church, she came face to 
 face with Sandy Lett. I had seen him standing there, drinking in 
 the words of the note with all his ears and taking covert looks at 
 Grizzel. 
 
 " Don't pass me by, Grizzel," said he. " I feel hearty sorry for 
 all this, and I hope that villain '11 come to be drowned on his way 
 to Ameriky. Let me be your friend. I'll make you a good one." 
 
 " Thank you," she answered. " Please let me go by." 
 
 " Look here, Grizzel," he rejoined with a start, as if some thought 
 had at that moment occurred to him. " Why shouldn't you and 
 me make it up together ? Now. If the one bridegroom's been a 
 wicked runagate, and left you all forsaken, you see another here 
 ready to put on his shoes. Do, Grizzel, do!" 
 
 " Do what?" she asked, not taking his meaning. 
 
 " Let's be married, Grizzel. You and me. There's the parson 
 and Mr. Bumford all ready, and we can get it over afore church 
 begins. It's a good home I've got to take you to. Don't say nay, 
 my girl." 
 
 Now what should Griz-zel do ? Like the lone lorn widow in
 
 GOING TO THE MOP. 271 
 
 " David Copperfield," who, when a ship's carpenter offered her 
 marriage, "instead of saying, 'Thank you, sir, I'd rather not,' up 
 with a bucket of water and dashed it over him," Grizzel " up " 
 with her hand and dealt Mr. Sandy a sounding smack on his left 
 cheek. Smarting under the infliction, Sandy Lett gave vent to a 
 word or two of passion, out of place in a church, and the parson 
 administered a reprimand. 
 
 Grizzel had not waited. Before the sound of her hand had died 
 away, she was outside the door, quickly traversing the lonely 
 churchyard. A fine end to poor Grizzel's wedding ! 
 
 The following day, Monday, Mrs. Todhetley went over to the 
 cottage. Grizzel, sitting with her hands before her, started up, and 
 made believe to be desperately busy with some tea-cups. We were 
 all sorry for her. 
 
 " Mr. Todhetley has been making inquiry into this business, 
 Grizzel," said the Mater, " and it certainly seems more mysterious 
 than ever, for he cannot hear a word against Roper. His late 
 master says Roper was the best servant he ever had ; he is as sorry 
 to lose him as can be." 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, but he's not worth troubling about — my thanks and 
 duty to the master all the same." 
 
 " Would you mind letting me see Roper's note?" 
 
 Grizzel took it out of the tea-caddy I had given her — which caddy 
 was to have been kept for show. Mrs. Todhetley, mastering the 
 contents, and biting her lips to suppress an occasional smile, sat in 
 thought. 
 
 " I suppose this is Roper's own handwriting, Grizzel.''" 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, it's his, safe enough. Not that I ever saw him 
 write. He talks about the blackberry pie, you see ; one might 
 know it is his by that." 
 
 "Then, judging by what he says here, he must have got into 
 some bad conduct, or trouble, I think, which he has been clever 
 enough to keep from you and the world." 
 
 " Oh yes, that's it," said Grizzel. " Poor mother used to say one 
 might be deceived in a saint." 
 
 " Well, it's a pity but he had given some clue to its nature : it 
 would have been a sort of satisfaction. But now — I chiefly came 
 over to ask you, Grizzel, what you purpose to do?" 
 
 " There's only one thing for me now, ma'am," returned poor crest- 
 fallen Grizzel, after a pause: " I must get another place." 
 
 " Will you come back to the Manor?" 
 
 A hesitation — a struggle — and then she flung her apron up to her 
 face and burst into tears. Dairy-maids have their feelings as well 
 as their betters,' and Grizzel's " lines " were very bitter just then. 
 She had been so proud of this poor cottage home ; she had grown
 
 272 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to love it so in only those few days, and to look forward to years of 
 happiness within it in their humble way : and now to find that she 
 must give it up and go to service again ! 
 
 " The Squire says he will consider it as though you and Roper 
 had not taken the cottage ; and he thinks he can find some one to 
 rent it who will buy the furniture of you — that is, if you prefer to 
 sell it," she resumed very kindly. " And I think you had better 
 come back to us, Grizzel. The new maid in your place does not 
 suit at all." 
 
 Grizzel took down her apron and rubbed her eyes. " It's very 
 "•ood of you, ma'am — and of the master — and I'd like to come back 
 only for one thing. I'm afraid Molly would let me have no peace 
 in my life : she'd get tanking at me about Roper before the others. 
 Perhaps I'd hardly be able to stand it." 
 
 " I will talk to her," said Mrs. Todhetley, rising to leave. 
 " Where is Mary Standish to-day ? " 
 
 " Gone over to Alcester, ma'am. She had a errand there she 
 said. But I think it was only to tell her folks the tale of my 
 trouble." 
 
 Molly had her " talking to " at once. It put her out a little ; for 
 she was really feeling some pity for Grizzel, and did not at all 
 intend to "get tanking" at her. Molly had once experienced a 
 similar disappointment herself ; and her heart was opening to 
 Grizzel. After her dinner was served that evening, she ran over to 
 the cottage, in her coarse cooking apron and without a bonnet. 
 
 " Look here," she said, bursting in upon Grizzel, sitting alone in 
 the dusk. " You come back to your place if you like— the missis 
 says she has given you the option — and don't you be afeard of me, 
 'Tisn't me as'U ever give back to you a word about Roper ; and, 
 mind, when I says a thing I mean it." 
 
 " Thank you, Molly," humbly replied poor Grizzel, catching her 
 breath. 
 
 "The sooner you come back the better," continued Molly, 
 fiercely. " For it's not me and that wench we've got now as is 
 going to stop together. I had to call the missis into the dairy this 
 blessed morning, and show her the state it was in. So you'll come 
 back, Grizzel — and we'll be glad to see you." 
 
 Grizzel nodded her head : her heart was too full to speak. 
 
 " And as to that false villain of a Roper, as could serve a woman 
 such a pitiful trick, I only wish I had the doctoring of him ! He 
 
 should get a — a — a " Molly's voice, pitched in a high tone, 
 
 died gradually away. What on earth was it, stepping in upon 
 them? Some most extraordinary object, who opened the door 
 softly, and came in with a pitch. Molly peered at it in the dark- 
 ness with open mouth.
 
 GOING TO tHE MOP. 273 
 
 A cry from Grizzel. A cry half of terror, half of pain. For she 
 had recognized the object to be a man, and George Roper. George 
 Roper with his hair and handsome whiskers cut off, and white 
 sleeves in his brown coat — so that he looked like a Merry 
 Andrew. 
 
 He seemed three parts stupefied : not at all like a traveller in 
 condition to set off to America. Sinking into the nearest wooden 
 chair, he stared at Grizzel in a dazed way, and spoke in a slow, 
 questioning, wondering voice. 
 
 " I can't think what it is that's the matter with me." 
 
 " Where be your whiskers — and your hair ? " burst forth Molly. 
 
 The man gazed at her for a minute or two, taking in the question 
 gradually; he then raised his trembling hand to either side his 
 face — feeling for the whiskers that were no longer there. 
 
 "A nice pot o' mischief_j'<7«'ve been a getting into!" cried sharp 
 Molly. " Is that your own coat? What's gone of the sleeves?" 
 
 For, now that the coat could be seen closely, it turned out that 
 its sleeves had been cut out, leaving the bare white shirt-sleeves 
 underneath. Roper looked first at one arm, then at the other. 
 
 " What part of Ameriky be you bound for, and when do the ship 
 sail?" pursued sarcastic Molly. 
 
 The man opened his mouth and closed it again; like a born 
 natural, as Molly put it. Grizzel suddenly clung to him with a 
 sobbing cry. 
 
 " He is ill, Molly ; he's ill. He has had some trick played on him. 
 George, what be it ? " But still George Roper only gazed about him 
 as if too stupid to understand. 
 
 In short, the man was stupid. That is, he had been stupefied, 
 and as yet was only partially recovering its effects. He remem- 
 bered going into the barber's shop on Saturday night to have his 
 hair cut, after leaving his bundle of clothes at the tailors. Some 
 ale was served round at the barber's, and he. Roper, took a glass. 
 After that he remembered nothing : all was blank, until he woke 
 up an hour ago in the unused shed at the back of the blacksmith's 
 shop. 
 
 That the ale had been badly drugged, was evident. The 
 question arose — who had played the trick? In a day or two, 
 when Roper had recovered, an inquiry was set on foot : but nothing 
 came of it. The barber testified that Roper seemed sleepy after 
 the ale, and a joke went round that he must have been drinking 
 some previously. He went out of the shop without having his 
 hair cut, with several more men — and that was all the barber 
 knew. Of course Sandy Lett was suspected. People said he had 
 done it in hope to get himself substituted as bridegroom. Lett, 
 however, vowed through thick and thin that he was innocent ; and 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. io
 
 274 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 nothing was traced home to him. Neither was the handwriting of 
 the note. 
 
 They were married on the Thursday. Grizzel was too glad to 
 get him back unharmed to make bones about the shorn whiskers. 
 No difficulty was made about opening the church on a week-day. 
 Clerk Bumford grumbled at it, but the parson put him down. And 
 the blackberry pie served still for the wedding-dinner.
 
 XVII. 
 BREAKING DOWN. 
 
 '•' Have him here a bit." 
 
 " Oh ! But would you hke it ? " 
 
 " Like it } " retorted the Squire. " I know this : if I were a hard- 
 worked London clerk, ill for want of change and rest, and I had 
 friends living in a nice part of the country, I should feel it uncom- 
 monly hard if they did not invite me." 
 
 " I'm sure it is very kind of you to think of it," said Mrs. 
 Todhetley. 
 
 " Write at once and ask him," said the Squire. 
 
 They were speaking of a Mr. Marks. He was a lelation of Mrs. 
 Todhetley's; a second or third cousin. She had not seen him 
 since she was a girl, when he used sometimes to come and stay 
 at her father's. He seemed not to have got on very well in 
 life ; was only a clerk on a small salary, was married and had some 
 children. A letter now and then passed between them and Mrs. 
 Todhetley, but no other acquaintanceship had been kept up. About 
 a month before this, Mrs. Todhetley had written to ask how 
 they were going on ; and the wife in answering — for it Avas she 
 who wrote — said her husband was killing himself with work, and 
 she quite believed he would break down for good unless he had 
 a rest. 
 
 X We heard more about it later. James Marks was clerk in the 
 great financial house of Brown and Co. Not particularly great as 
 to reputation, for they made no noise in the world, but great as to 
 their transactions. They did a little banking in a small way, and 
 had mysterious money dealings with no end of foreign places : but 
 if you had gone into their counting-house in London you'd have 
 seen nothing to show for it, except Mr. Brown seated at a table- 
 desk in a small room, and half-a-dozen clerks, or so, writing hard, 
 or bending over columns of figures, in a larger one. Mr. Brown was 
 an elderly little gentleman in a chestnut wig, and the " Co." existed 
 only in name. 
 
 James Marks had been thrown on the world when he was seven- 
 teen, with a good education, good principles, and a great anxiety to
 
 2-](i JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 get on in life. He had to do it ; for he had only himself to look to 
 — and, mind you, I have lived long enough to learn that that's not 
 at all the worst thing a young man can have. When some friends 
 of his late father's got him into Brown and Co.'s house, James 
 Marks thought his fortune was made. That is, he thought he was 
 placed in a position to work up to one. But no. Here he was, 
 getting on for forty years of age, and with no more prospect of 
 fortune, or competency either, than he had had at the beginning. 
 
 How many clerks, and especially bankers' clerks, are there in 
 that City of London now who could say the same ! Who went 
 into their house (whatsoever it may be) in the hey-day of youth, 
 exulting in their good luck in having obtained the admission for 
 which so many others were striving. They saw not the long years 
 of toil before them, the weary days of close work, with no rest or 
 intermission, except Sunday ; they saw not the struggle to Hve and 
 pay ; they saw not themselves middle-aged men, with a wife and 
 family, hardly able to keep the wolf from the door. It was James 
 Marks's case. He had married. And what with having to keep 
 up the appearance of gentlepeople (at least to make a pretence 
 at it) and to Hve in a decent-looking dwelling, and to buy clothes, 
 and to pay doctors' bills and children's schooling, I'll leave you to 
 guess how much he had left for luxuries out of his two hundred a 
 year. 
 
 When expenses were coming upon him thick and fast, Marks 
 sought out some night employment. A tradesman in the neigh- 
 bourhood — Pimlico — a butterman doing a flourishing business, 
 advertised for a book-keeper to attend two or three hours in the 
 evening. James Marks presented himself and was engaged. It 
 had to be done in secrecy, lest offence should be taken at head- 
 quarters. Had the little man in the chestnut wig heard of it, he 
 might have objected to his clerk keeping any books but his own. 
 Shut up in the butterman's small back-closet that he called his 
 counting-house, Mr. Marks could be as private as need be. So 
 there he was ! After coming home from his day's toil, instead of 
 taking recreation, the home-sitting with his wife, or the stroll in the 
 summer weather, in place of throwing work to the winds and 
 giving his brain rest, James Marks, after snatching a meal, tea and 
 supper combined, went forth to work again, to weary his eyes with 
 more figures and his head with casting them up. He generally 
 managed to get home by eleven except on Saturday; but the day's 
 work was too much for any man. Better for him (could he have 
 pocketed pride, and gained over Brown and Co.) that he had hired 
 himself to stand behind the evening counter and serve out the 
 butter and cheese to the customers. It would at least have been a 
 relief from the accounts. And so the years had gone on.
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 2^ 
 
 A portion of the wife's letter to Mrs. Todhetley had run as follows : 
 " Thank you very much for your kind inquiries after my husband, 
 and for your hope that he is not overworking himself. He is. But 
 I suppose I must have said something about it in my last letter 
 (F am ashamed to remember that it was written two years ago!) 
 that induced you to refer to it. That he is overworking himself I 
 have known for a long time : and things that he has said lately 
 have tended to alarm me. He speaks of sometimes getting confused 
 in the head. In the midst of a close calculation he will suddenly 
 seem to lose himself — lose memory and figures and all, and then he 
 has to leave off for some minutes, close his eyes, and keep perfectly 
 still, or else leave his stool and take a few turns up and down the 
 room. Another thing he mentions — that the figures dance before 
 his eyes in bed at night, and he is adding them up in his brain as if 
 it were daytime and reality. It is very evident to me that he wants 
 change and rest." 
 
 "And what a foolish fellow he must have been not to take it 
 before this ! " cried the Squire, commenting on parts of the letter, 
 while Mrs. Todhetley wrote. 
 
 " Perhaps that is what he has not been able to do, sir," I said. 
 " Not able ! Why, what d'ye mean, Johnny ? " 
 " It is difficult for a banker's clerk to get holiday. Their work 
 has to go on all the same." 
 
 " Difficult ! when a man's powers are breaking down ! D'ye 
 think bankers are made of flint and steel, not to give their clerks 
 holiday when it is needed ? Don't you talk nonsense, Johnny 
 Ludlow." 
 
 But I was not so far wrong, after all. There came a letter oi 
 warm thanks from Mr. Marks himself in answer to Mrs. Todhetley's 
 invitation. He said how much he should have liked to accept it 
 and what great good it would certainly have done him ; but that 
 upon applying for leave he found he could not be spared. So there 
 seemed to be an end of it ; and we hoped he would get better 
 without the rest, and rub on as other clerks have to rub on. But 
 in less than a month he wrote again, saying he would come if the 
 Squire and Mrs. Todhetley were still pleased to have him. He had 
 been so much worse as to be obliged to tell Mr. Brown the truth — 
 that he believed he must have rest ; and Mr. Brown had granted it 
 to him. 
 
 It was the Wednesday in Passion Week, and a fine spring day, 
 when James Marks arrived at Dyke ]\Ianor. Easter was late that 
 year. He was rather a tall man, with dark eyes and very thin hair ; 
 he wore spectacles, and at first was rather shy in manner. 
 
 You should have seen his delight in the change. The walks he 
 took, the enjoyment of what he called the sweet country. " Oh,"
 
 278 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 he said one day to us, " yours must be the happiest lot on earth. 
 No forced work ; your hving assured; nothing to do but to revel 
 in this health-giving air ! Forgive my freedom, Mr. Todhetley,'' 
 he added a moment after : " I was contrasting your lot with my 
 own." 
 
 We ^were passing through the fields towards the Court : the 
 Squire was taking him to see the Sterlings, and he had said he 
 would rather walk than drive. The hedges were breaking into 
 green : the fields were yellow with buttercups and cowslips. This 
 was on the Monday. The sun shone and the breeze was soft. Mr. 
 Marks sniffed the air as he went along. 
 
 " Six months of this would make a new man of me," we heard 
 him say to himself in a low tone. 
 
 " Take it," cried the Squire. 
 
 Mr. Marks laughed, sadly enough. " You might as well tell me, 
 sir, to— to take heaven," he said impulsively. "The one is no 
 more in my power than the other. — Hark ! I do believe that's the 
 cuckoo ! " 
 
 We stood to listen. It was the cuckoo, sure enough, for the first 
 time that spring. It only gave out two or three notes, though, and 
 then was silent,' 
 
 " How many years it is since I heard the cuckoo ! " he exclaimed, 
 brushing his hand across his eyes. " More than twenty, I suppose. 
 It seems to bring back my youth to me. What a thing it would be 
 for us, sir, if we could only go to the mill that grinds people young 
 again ! " 
 
 The Squire laughed. " It is good of you to talk of age, Marks ; 
 why, I must be nearly double yours," he added— which of course 
 was random speaking. 
 
 " I feel old, Mr. Todhetley : perhaps older than you do. Think 
 of the difference in our mode of life. I, tied to a desk for more 
 hours of the twenty-four than I care to think of, my brain ever at 
 work ; you, revelling in this beautiful, healthy freedom ! " 
 
 " Ay, well, it is a difference, when you come to think of it," said 
 the Squire soberly. 
 
 " I must not repine," returned Marks. " There are more men 
 in my case than in yours. No doubt it is well for me," he con- 
 tinued, dropping his voice, with a sigh. " Were your favoured lot 
 niine, sir, I might find so much good in it as to forget that this 
 world is not our home." 
 
 Perhaps it had never struck the Squire before how much he was 
 to be envied; but Marks put it strongly. "You'd find crosses 
 and cares enough in my place, I can tell you, Marks, of one sort 
 or another. Johnny, here, knows how I am bothered sometimes." 
 
 " No doubt of it," replied Marks, with a smile. " No lot on
 
 BREAKING DOWN. -79 
 
 earth can be free from its duties and responsibilities ; and they 
 must of necessity entail care. That is one thing, Mr. Todhetley ; 
 but to be working away your life at high pressure — and to know 
 that you are working it away — is another." 
 
 " You acknowledge, then, that you ai'e working too hard, Marks," 
 said the Squire. 
 
 " I know I am, sir. But there's no help for it." 
 
 " It is a pity." 
 
 " Why it should begin to tell upon me so early I don't know. 
 There are numbers of other men, who work as long and as hard as 
 I do, and are seemingly none the worse for it." 
 
 " The time will come though when they will be, I presume." 
 
 " As surely as that sun is shining in the sky." 
 
 " Possibly you have been more anxious than they, Marks." 
 
 " It may be so. My conscience has always been in my work, to 
 do it efficiently. I fear, too, I am rather sensitively organized as to 
 nerves and brain. Upon those who are so, I fancy work tells 
 sooner than on others." 
 
 The Squire put his arm within Marks's. " You must have a bit 
 of a struggle to get along, too, on your small salary." 
 
 " True : and it all helps. Work and struggle together are not 
 the most desirable combination. But for being obliged to increase 
 my means by some stratagem or other, I should not have taken on 
 the additional evening's work." 
 
 " How long are you at it, now, of an evening? " 
 
 " Usually about two hours. On Saturdays and at Christmas-time 
 longer." 
 
 "And I suppose you must continue this night-work?" 
 
 " Yes. I get fifty pounds a year for it. And I assure you I 
 should not know how to spare one pound of the fifty. No one 
 knows the expenses of children, except those who have to look at 
 every shilling before it can be spent." 
 
 There was a pause. Mr. Marks stooped, plucked a cowslip and 
 held it to his lips. 
 
 " Don't you think, Marks," resumed the Squire, in a con- 
 fidential, friendly tone, " that you were just a little imprudent to 
 marry ? " 
 
 " No, I do not think I was," he replied slowly, as if considering 
 the question. " I did not marry very early : I was eight-and- 
 twenty ; and I had got together the wherewithal to furnish a house, 
 and something in hand besides. The question was mooted among 
 us at Brown's the other day — whether it was wiser, or not, for young 
 clerks to marry. There is a great deal to be urged both ways — 
 against marrying and against remaining single." 
 
 " What can you urge against remaining single ? "
 
 28o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 "A very great deal, sir. I feel sure, Mr. Todhetley, that you 
 can form no idea of the miserable temptations that beset a young 
 fellow in London. Quite half the London clerks, perhaps more, 
 have no home to go to when their day is over ; I mean no parent's 
 home. A solitary room and no one to bear them company in it ; 
 that's all they have ; perhaps, in addition, a crabbed landlady. 
 Can you blame them very much if they go out and escape this 
 solitude ? — they are at the age, you know, when enjoyment is most 
 keen ; the thirst for it well-nigh irrepressible " 
 
 " And then they go off to those disreputable singing places ! " 
 exploded the Squire, not allowing him to finish. 
 
 "Singing places, yes; and other places. Theatres, concerts, 
 supper-rooms — oh, I cannot tell you a tithe of the temptation that 
 meets them at every turn and corner. Many and many a poor 
 young fellow, well-intentioned in the main, has been ruined both 
 in pocket and in health by these snares ; led into them at first by 
 dangerous companions." 
 
 " Surely all do not get led away." 
 
 " Not all. Some strive on manfully, remembering early precepts 
 and taking God for their guide, and so escape. But it is not the 
 greater portion who do this. Some marry early, and secure them- 
 selves a home. Which is best ? — I put the question only in a 
 worldly point of view. To commit the imprudence of marrying, 
 and so bring on themselves and wives intolerable perplexity and 
 care : or to waste their substance in riotous living ! " 
 
 " I'll be shot if I know! " cried the Squire, taking off his hat to 
 rub his puzzled head. " It's a sad thing for poor little children to 
 be pinched, and for men like you to be obliged to work yourselves 
 to shatters to keep them. But as to those others, I'd give 'em all 
 a night at the treadmill. Johnny! Johnny Ludlow ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "You may be thankful that you don't live in London." 
 
 I had been thinking to myself that I was thankful not to be one 
 of those poor young clerks to have no home to go to when work was 
 over. Some fellows would rather tramp up and down the streets, 
 than sit alone in a solitary room ; and the streets, according to 
 Marks, teemed with temptations. He resumed. 
 
 " In my case I judged it the reverse of imprudence to marry, for 
 my wife expected a fairly good fortune. She was an only child, 
 and her father had realized enough to live quietly ; say three or four 
 hundred a year. Mr. Stockleigh had been a member of the Stock 
 Exchange, but his health failed and he retired. Neither I nor his 
 daughter ever doubted — no, nor did he himself— that this money 
 must come to us in time." 
 
 " And won't it ? " cried the Squire,
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 281 
 
 Marks shook his head. " I fear not. A designing servant, that 
 they had, got over him after his daughter left — he was weak in 
 health and weak in mind — and he married her. Caroline— my 
 \vife — resented it naturally ; there was some recrimination on either 
 side, and since then they have closed the door against her and me. 
 So you see, with no prospect before us, there's nothing for me but 
 to work the harder," he concluded, with a kind of plucked-up 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 " But, to do that, you should get up your health and strength, 
 Marks. You must, you know. What would you do if you broke 
 down ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " came the involuntary and almost affrighted answer. 
 " Don't remind me of it, sir. Sometimes I dream of it, and cannot 
 bear to awaken." 
 
 We had got to like Marks very much only in those few days. 
 He was a gentleman in mind and manners and a pleasant one. 
 into the bargain, though he did pass his days adding up figoires and 
 was kept down by poverty. The Squire meant to keep him for a 
 month : two months if he would stay. 
 
 On the following morning, Tuesday, during breakfast-time, a 
 letter came for him by the post— the tirst he had had. He had 
 told his wife she need not write to him, wanting to have all the time 
 for idle enjoyment : not to spend it in answering letters. 
 
 " From home, James ? " asked Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " No," said he, smiling. "It is only a reminder that I am due 
 to-morrow at the house." 
 
 " What house ? " cried the Squire. 
 
 " Our house, sir. Brown and Co.'s." ^ 
 
 The Squire put down his buttered roll — for Molly had graciously 
 sent in hot rolls that morning — and stared at the speaker. 
 
 "What on earth are you talking of.'" he cried. "You don't 
 mean to say you are thinking of going back ? " 
 
 " Indeed I am — unfortunately. I must get up to London to- 
 night." 
 
 " Why, bless my heart," cried the Squire, getting up and standing 
 a bit, " you've not been here a week ! " 
 
 " It is all the leave I could get, Mr. Todhetley : a week. I 
 thought you understood that." 
 
 " You can't go away till you are cured," roared the Squire. 
 " Why didn't you go back the day you came? Don't talk nonsense, 
 Marks." 
 
 " Indeed I should like to stay longer," he earnestly said. " I 
 wish I could. Don't you see, Mr. Todhetley, that it does not lie 
 v.'ith me?" 
 
 •* Po you dare to look me in the face, Marks, and tell me thig
 
 2S2 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 one week's rest has cured you? What on earth !— are you turning 
 silly?" 
 
 " It has done me a great, great deal of good " 
 
 " It has not, Marks. It can't have done it ; not real good," 
 came the Squire's interruption. " One would think you were a 
 child." 
 
 " It was with difficulty I obtained this one week's leave," he ex- 
 plained. " I am really required in the office ; my absence I know 
 causes trouble. This holiday has done so much for me that I shall 
 go back with a good heart." 
 
 " Look here," said the Squire : " suppose you take French leave, 
 and stay?" 
 
 " In that case my discharge would doubtless arrive by the first 
 post." 
 
 " Look here again : suppose in a month or two you break down 
 and have to leave? What then?" 
 
 " Brown and Co. would appoint a fresh clerk in m^ place." 
 
 " Why don't Brown and Co. keep another clerk or two, so as to 
 work you all less?" 
 
 Marks smiled at the very idea. " That would increase their 
 expenses, Mr. Todhetley. They will never do that. It is a part 
 of the business of Brown's life to keep expenses down." 
 
 Well, Marks had to go. The Squire was very serious in thinking 
 more rest absolutely needful— of what service could a week be, he 
 reiterated. Down he sat, wrote a letter to Brown and Co., telling 
 them his opinion, and requesting the favour of their despatching 
 James Marks back for a longer holiday. This he sent by post, and 
 they would get it in the morning. 
 
 "No, I'll not trust it to you, Marks," he said: "you might 
 never deliver it. Catch an old bird with chaff! " 
 
 To this letter there came no answer at all ; and Mr. Marks did 
 not come back. The Squire relieved his mind by calling Brown 
 and Co. thieves and wretches — and so it passed. It must be 
 remembered that I am writing of past years, when holidays were 
 not so universal for any class, clerk or master, as they are at 
 present. Not that I am aware whether financiers' clerks get 
 them now. 
 
 The next scene in the drama I can only tell by hearsay. It took 
 place in London, where I was not. 
 
 It was a dull, rainy day in February, and Mrs. Marks sat in her 
 parlour in Pimlico. The house was one of a long row, and the 
 parlour just about large enough to turn in. She sat by the fire, 
 nursing a little two-year-old girl, and thinking; and three other
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 283 
 
 children, the eldest a boy of nine, were playing at the table — 
 building houses on the red cloth with little wooden bricks. Mrs. 
 Marks was a sensible woman, understanding proper management, 
 and had taken care to bring up her children not to be trouble- 
 some. She looked about thirty, and must have been pretty once, 
 but her face was faded now, her grey eyes had a sad look in 
 them. The chatter at the table and the bricks fell unheeded on 
 her ear. 
 
 " Mamma, will it soon be tea-time?" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "Didn't you hear, mamma? Carry asked if it would soon be 
 tea-time. What were you thinking about?" 
 
 She heard this time, and started out of her reverie. " Very 
 soon now, Willy dear. Thinking ? Oh, I was thinking about your 
 papa." 
 
 Her thoughts were by no means bright ones. That her hus- 
 band's health and powers were failing, she felt as sure of as though 
 she could foresee the ending that was soon to come. How he went 
 on and did his work was a marvel : but he could not give it up, or 
 bread would fail. 
 
 The week's rest in the country had set Mr. Marks up for some 
 months. Until the next autumn he worked on better than he had 
 been able to do for some time past. And then he failed again. 
 There was no particular failing outwardly, but he felt all too con- 
 scious that his overtaxed brain was getting worse than it had 
 ever been. He struggled on ; making no sign. That he should 
 have to resign part of his work was an inevitable fact : he must 
 give up the evening book-keeping to enable him to keep his more 
 important place. " Once let me get Christmas work over," thought 
 he, " and as soon as possible in the New Year, I will resign." 
 
 He got the Christmas work over. \"ery heavy it was, at both 
 places, and nearly did for him. It is the last straw, you know, 
 that breaks the camel's back : and that work broke James Marks. 
 Towards the end of January' he was laid up in bed with a violent 
 cold that settled on his chest. Brown and Co. had to do without 
 him for eleven days : a calamity that — so far as Marks was con- 
 cerned — had never happened in Brown and Co.'s experience. Then 
 he went back to the city again, feehng shaken; but the evening 
 labour was perforce given up. 
 
 No one knew how ill he was : or, to speak more correctly, how 
 unfit for work, how more incapable of it he was growing day by 
 day. His wife suspected a little. She knew of his sleepless nights, 
 the result of overtaxed nerves and brain, when he would toss and 
 turn and get up and walk the room ; and dress himself in the 
 morning without having slept.
 
 -84 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " There are times," he said to her in a sort of horror, " when I 
 cannot at all collect my thoughts. I am as long again at my 
 work as I used to be, and have to go over it again and again. 
 There have been one or two mistakes, and old Brown asks what is 
 coming to me. I can't help it. The figures whirl before me, and 
 I lose my power of mind." 
 
 " If you could only sleep well!" said Mrs. Marks. 
 
 " Ay, if I could. The brain is as much at work by night as by 
 day. There are the figures mentally before me, and there am I, 
 adding them up." 
 
 " You should see a clever physician, James. Spare the guinea, 
 and go. It may be more than the guinea saved." 
 
 Mr. Marks took the advice. He went to a clever doctor ; ex- 
 plained his position, the kind of work he had to do, and described 
 his symptoms. " Can I be cured?" he asked. 
 
 " Oh yes, I think so," said the doctor, cheerfully, without telling 
 him that he had gone on so far as to make it rather doubtful. 
 " The necessary treatment is very simple. Take change of scene 
 and perfect rest." 
 
 " For how long?" 
 
 " Twelve months, at least." 
 
 " Twelve months ! " repeated Marks, in a queer tone. 
 
 "At least. It is a case of absolute necessity. I will write you 
 a prescription for a tonic. You must live well. You have not 
 lived well enough for the work you have to do." 
 
 As James Marks went out into the street he could have laughed 
 a laugh of bitter mockery. Twelve months' rest for him ? The 
 doctor had told him one thing — that had he taken rest in time, 
 a very, very much shorter period would have sufficed. " I wonder 
 how many poor men there are like myself in London at this 
 moment," he thought, " who want this rest and cannot take it, and 
 who ought to live better and cannot afford to do it ! " 
 
 It was altogether so very hopeless that he did nothing, except 
 take the tonic, and he continued to go to the City as usual. Some 
 two or three weeks had elapsed since then : he of course growing 
 worse, though there was nothing to show it outwardly : and this 
 was the end of February, and Mrs. Marks sat thinking of it all over 
 the fire ; thinking of what she knew, and guessing at what she did 
 not know, and her children were building houses at the table. 
 
 The servant came in with the tea-things, and took the little 
 girl. Only one servant could be kept — and hardly that. Mrs. 
 Marks had made her own tea and was pouring out the children's 
 milk-and-water, when they heard a cab drive up and stop at the 
 door. A minute after Mr. Marks entered, leaning on the arm of 
 one of his fellow-clerks,
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 285 
 
 "Here, Mrs. Marks, I have brought you an invahd,'' said the 
 latter gaily, making hght of it for her sake. "He seems better 
 now. I don't think there's much the matter with him." 
 
 Had it come? Had what she had been dreading come — that he 
 was going to have an iUness, she wondered. But she was a trump 
 of a wife, and showed herself calm and comforting. 
 
 " You shall both of you have some tea at once," she said, cheer- 
 fully. " Willy, run and get more tea-cups." 
 
 It appeared that Mr. Marks had been, as the clerk expressed it, 
 very queer that day ; more so than usual. He could not do his 
 work at all ; had to get assistance continually from one or the other, 
 and ended by falling off his stool to the floor, in what he called, 
 afterwards, a "sensation of giddiness." He seemed fit for nothing, 
 and Mr. Brown said he had better be taken home. 
 
 That day ended James Marks's work. He had broken down. 
 At night he told his wife what the physician had said ; which he 
 had not done before. She could scarcely conceal her dismay. 
 
 A twelvemonth's rest for him ! What would become of them ? 
 Failing his salary, they would have no means whatever of living. 
 
 "Oh, if my father had only acted by us as he ought!" she 
 mentally cried. " James could have taken rest in time then, and 
 all would have been well. Will he help us now it has come to this? 
 Will j-//^ let him? — for it is she who holds him in subjection and 
 steels his heart against us." 
 
 Mr. Stockleigh, the father, lived at Sydenham. She, the new 
 wife, had taken him off there from his residence in Pimlico as soon 
 as might be after the marriage ; and the daughter had never been 
 invited inside the house. But she resolved to go there now. 
 Saying nothing to her husband, Mrs. Marks started for Sydenham 
 the day after he was brought home ill, and found the place without 
 trouble. 
 
 The wife, formerly the cook, was a big brawny woman with a 
 cheek and a tongue of her own. When Mrs. Marks was shown in, 
 she forgot herself in the surprise ; old habits prevailed, and she half 
 dropped a curtsey. 
 
 " I wish to see papa, Mrs. Stockleigh." 
 
 " Mr. Stockleigh's out, ma'am." 
 
 " Then I must wait until he returns." 
 
 Mrs. Stockleigh did not see her way clear to turn this lady from 
 the house, though she would have liked to do it. She made a 
 show of hospitality, and ordered wine and cake to be put on the 
 table. Of which wine, Mrs. Marks noticed with surprise, she drank 
 four glasses. " Now and then we used to suspect her of drinking 
 in the kitchen ! " ran through Mrs. Marks's thoughts. " Has it grown 
 upon her ? "
 
 286 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 The garden gate opened, and Mr. Stockleigh came through it. 
 He was so bowed and broken that his daughter scarcely knew him. 
 She hastened out and met him in the path. 
 
 "CaroHne!" he exclaimed in amazement. "Is it really you? 
 How much you have changed ? " 
 
 " I came down to speak to you, papa. May we stay and talk 
 here in the garden ? " 
 
 He seemed glad to see her, rather than not, and sat down with 
 her on the garden bench in the sun. In a quiet voice she told 
 him all: and asked him to help her. Mrs. Stockleigh had come 
 out and stood listening to the treason, somewhat unsteady in her 
 walk. 
 
 " I — I would help you if I could, Caroline," he said, in hesitation, 
 glancing at his wife. 
 
 " Yes, but you can't, Stockleigh," she put in, " Our own expenses 
 is as much as iver we [can manage, Mrs. Marks. It's a orful cost, 
 living out here, and our two servants is the very deuce for extravi- 
 gance. I've changed 'em both ten times for others, and the last lot 
 is always worse than the first." 
 
 " Papa, do you see our position ? " resumed Mrs. Marks, after 
 hearing the lady patiently. ." It will be a long time before James 
 is able to do anything again — if he ever is — and we have not been 
 able to save money. What are we to do ? Go to the workhouse ? 
 I have four little children." 
 
 " You know that you can't help, Stockleigh," insisted Mr. Stock- 
 leigh's lady, taking up the answer, her face growing more inflamed. 
 " You've not got the means to do anything : and there's an end 
 on't." 
 
 " It is true, Caroline ; I'm afraid I have not," he said— and his 
 daughter saw with pain how tremblingly subject he was to his 
 wife. " I seem short of money always. How did you come down, 
 my dear ? " 
 
 " By the train, papa. Third class." 
 
 " Oh dear ! " cried Mr. Stockleigh. " My health's broken, Caroline, 
 It is, indeed, and my spirit too. I am sure I am very sorry for you. 
 Will you come in and take some dinner ? " 
 
 "We've got nothing but a bit of 'ashed beef," cried Mrs, Stock- 
 leigh, as if to put a damper upon the invitation. " Him and 
 me fails in our appetites dreadful : I can't think what's come 
 to 'em." 
 
 Mrs. Marks dechned dinner: she had to get back to the 
 children. That any sort of pleading would be useless while that 
 woman held sway, she saw well. "Good-bye, papa," she said. 
 " I suppose we must do the best we can alone. Good morning, 
 Mrs. Stockleigh."
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 287 
 
 To her surprise her father kissed her ; kissed her with quivering 
 lips. " I will open the gate for you, my dear," he said, hastening 
 on to it. As she was going through, he slipped a sovereign into 
 her hand. 
 
 " It will pay for your journey, at least, my dear. I am sorry to 
 hear of your travelling third class. Ah, times have changed. It 
 is not that I won't help you, child, but that I can't. She goes up 
 to receive the dividends, and keeps me short. I should not have 
 had that sovereign now, but it is the change out of the spirit bill 
 that she sent me to pay. Hush ! the money goes in drink. She 
 drinks like a fish. Ah, Carohne, I was a fool — a 'fool! Fare you 
 well, my dear." 
 
 " Fare yo2( well, dear papa, and thank you," she answered, turning 
 away with brimming eyes and an aching heart. 
 
 After resting for some days and getting no better, James Marks 
 had to give it up as a bad job. He went to the City house, saw 
 Mr. Brown, and told him. 
 
 " Broken down ! " cried old Brown, hitching back his wig, as he 
 always did when put out. " I never heard such nonsense. At your 
 age ! The thing's incomprehensible." 
 
 " The work has been very wearing to the brain, sir ; and my 
 application to it was close. During the three-and-twenty years I 
 have been with you I have never had but one week's holiday : the 
 one last spring." 
 
 " You told me then you felt like a man breaking down, as if you 
 were good for nothing," resentfully spoke old Brown. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I told you that I believed I was breaking down for 
 want of a rest," replied Marks. " It has proved so." 
 
 " Why, you had your rest." ' 
 
 " One week, sir. I said I feared it would not be of much use. 
 But — it was not convenient for you to allow me more." 
 
 " Of course it was not convenient ; you know it could not be 
 convenient," retorted old Brown. " D'you think I keep my clerks 
 for play, Marks? D'you suppose my business will get done of 
 itself?" 
 
 " I was aware myself, sir, how inconvenient my absence would 
 be, and therefore I did not press the matter. That one week's 
 rest did me a wonderful amount of service : it enabled me to go on 
 until now." 
 
 Old Brown looked at him. " See here, Marks — we are sorry to 
 lose you : suppose you take another week's change now, and try what 
 it will do. A fortnight, say. Go to the sea-side, or somewhere." 
 
 Marks shook his head. "Too late, sir. The doctors tell me 
 it will be twelve months before I am able to work again at calcula- 
 tions."
 
 2§8 JOHNKV LUDLOW. 
 
 "• Oh, my service to you," cried Mr. Brown. " Why, what are 
 you going to do if you cannot work ? " 
 
 " That is a great deal more than I can say, sir. The thought of 
 it is troubhng my brain quite as much as work ever did. It is never 
 out of it, night or day." 
 
 For once in his screwy hfe, old Brown was generous. He told 
 Mr. Marks to draw his salary up to the day he had left, and he 
 added ten pounds to it over and above. 
 
 During that visit I paid to Miss Deveen's in London, when Tod 
 was with the Whitneys, and Helen made her first curtsey to the 
 Queen, and we discovered the ill-doings of that syren, Mademoiselle 
 Sophie Chalk, I saw Marks. Mrs. Todhetley had given me two or 
 three commissions, as may be remembered : one amongst them was 
 to call in Pimlico, and see how Marks was getting on. 
 
 Accordingly I went. We had heard nothing, you must under- 
 stand, of what I have told above, and did not know but he was 
 still in his situation. It was a showery day in April : just a twelve- 
 month, by the way, since his visit to us at Dyke Manor. I found 
 the house out readily ; it was near Ebury Street ; and I knocked. 
 A young lad opened the door, and asked me to walk into the 
 parlour. 
 
 " You are Mr. Marks's son," I said, rubbing my feet on the mat : 
 " I can tell by the likeness. What's your name ? " 
 
 '' William. Papa's is James." 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " He is ill," whispered the lad, with his hand on the door handle. 
 " Mamma's downstairs, making him some arrowroot." 
 
 Well, I think you might have knocked me down with a feather 
 when I knew him — for at first I did not. He was sitting in an 
 easy-chair by the fire, dressed, but wrapped round with blankets : 
 and instead of being the James Marks we had known, he was like 
 a living skeleton, with cheek-bones and hollow eyes. But he 
 was glad to see me, smiled, and held out his hand from the 
 blanket. 
 
 It is uncommonly awkward for a young fellow to be taken un- 
 awares like this. You don't know what to say. I'm sure I as much 
 thought he was dying as I ever thought anything in this world. At 
 last I managed to stammer a word or two about being sorry to see 
 him so ill. 
 
 " Ay," said he, in a weak, panting voice, '' I am different from 
 what I was when with your kind people, Johnny. The trouble I 
 foresaw then has come." 
 
 "You used sometimes to feci then as though you would not long
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 289 
 
 keep up," was my answer, for really I could find nothing else to 
 say. 
 
 He nodded. " Yes, I felt that I was breaking down — that I 
 should inevitably break down unless I could have rest. I went on 
 until February, Johnny, and then it came. I had to give up my 
 situation ; and since then I have been dangerously ill from another 
 source — chest and lungs." 
 
 " I did not know your lungs were weak, Mr. Marks." 
 
 " I'm sure I did not," he said, after a fit of coughing. " I had one 
 attack in January through catching a cold. Then I caught another 
 cold, and you see the result : the doctor hardly saved me. I never 
 was subject to take cold before. I suppose the fact is that when a 
 man breaks down in one way he gets weak in all, and is more liable 
 to other ailments." 
 
 " I hope you will get better as the warm weather comes on. We 
 sliall soon have it here." 
 
 " Better of this cough, perhaps : I don't know : but not better 
 yet of my true illness that I think most of — the overtaxed nerves 
 and brain. Oh, if I could only have taken a sufficient rest in 
 lime ! " 
 
 '* Mr. Todhetley said you ought to have stayed with us for three 
 months. He says it often still." 
 
 " I believe," he said, solemnly hfting his hand, '• that if I could 
 have had entire rest then for two or three months, it would have 
 set me up for life. Heaven hears me say it." 
 
 And what a dreadful thing it now seemed that he had not ! 
 
 " I don't repine. My lot seems a hard one, and I sometimes feel 
 sick and weary when I dwell upon it. I have tried to do my duty : 
 I could but keep on and work, as God knows. There was no other 
 course open to me." 
 
 I supposed there was not, 
 
 " I am no worse off than many others, Johnny. There are men 
 breaking down every day from incessant application and want of 
 needful rest. Well for them if their hearts don't break with it ! " 
 
 And, to judge by the tone he spoke in, it was as much as to say 
 that his heart had broken. 
 
 " I am beginning to dwell less on it now," he went on. " Per- 
 haps it is that I am too weak to feel so keenly. Or that Christ's 
 words are being indeed realized to me : ' Come unto me, all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' God 
 does not forsake us in our trouble, Johnny, once we have learnt to 
 turn to Him." 
 
 Mrs. Marks came into the room with the cup of arrowroot. Th'i 
 boy had run down to tell her I was there. She was very pleasant 
 and cheerful : you could be at home with her at once. While he 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 19
 
 290 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 was waiting for the arrowroot to cool, he leant back in his chair 
 and dropped into a doze, 
 
 " It must have been a frightful cold that he caught," I whispered 
 to her. 
 
 •' It was caught the day he went into the City to tell Mr. Brown 
 he must give up his situation," she answered. " There's an old 
 saying, of being penny wise and pound foolish, and that's what 
 poor James was that day. It was a fine morning when he started ; 
 but rain set in, and when he left Mr. Brown it was pouring, and 
 the streets were wet. He ought to have taken a cab, but did not, 
 and waited for an omnibus. The first that passed was full ; by the 
 time another came he had got wet and his feet were soaking. That 
 brought on a return of the illness he had had in January." 
 
 " I hope he will get well." 
 
 "It lies with God," she answered. 
 
 They made me promise to go again. " Soon, Johnny, soon," 
 said Mr. Marks with an eagerness that was suggestive. " Come in 
 the afternoon and have some tea with me." 
 
 I had meant to obey literally and go in a day or two ; but one 
 thing or other kept intervening, and a week or ten days passed. 
 One Wednesday Miss Deveen was engaged to a dinner-party, and 
 I took the opportunity to go to Pimhco. It was a stormy after- 
 noon, blowing great guns one minute, pouring cats and dogs the 
 next. Mrs. Marks was alone in the parlour, the tea-things on the 
 table before her. 
 
 " We thought you had forgotten us," she said in a half-whisper, 
 shaking hands. " But this is the best time you could have come ; 
 for a kind neighbour has invited all the children in for the evening, 
 and we shall be quiet. James is worse." 
 
 "Worse!" 
 
 "At least, weaker. He cannot sit up long now without great 
 fatigue. He lay down on the bed an hour ago and has dropped 
 asleep," she added, indicating the next room. " I am waiting for 
 him to awake before I make the tea." 
 
 He awoke then : the cough betrayed it. She went into the room, 
 and presently he came back with her. No doubt he was worse ! 
 my heart sank at seeing him. If he had looked like a skeleton 
 before, he was like a skeleton's ghost now." 
 
 " Ah, Johnny ! I knew you would come." 
 
 I told him how it was I had not been able to come before, going 
 into details. It seemed to amuse him to hear of the engagements, 
 and I described Helen Whitney's Court dress as well as I could — 
 and Lady Whitney's — and the servants' great bouquets — and the 
 ball at night. He ate one bit of thin toast and drank three big 
 cups of tea. Mrs. Marks said he was always thirsty.
 
 BREAKING DOWN. 291 
 
 After tea he had a violent fit of coughing and thought he must 
 lie down to rest for a bit. Mrs. Marks came back and sat with me. 
 
 " I hope he will get well," I could not help saying to her. 
 
 She shook her head. " I fear he has not much hope of it him- 
 self," she answered. " Only yesterday I heard him tell Willy — 
 that — that God would take care of them when he was gone." 
 
 She could hardly speak the last words, and broke down with a 
 sob. I wished I had not said anything. 
 
 " He has great trust, but things trouble him very much," she 
 resumed. " Nothing else can be expected, for he knows that our 
 means are almost spent." 
 
 " It must trouble you also, Mrs. Marks." 
 
 " I seem to have so much to trouble me that I dare not dwell 
 upon it. I pray not to, every hour of the day. If I gave way, 
 what would become of them?" 
 
 At dark she lighted the candles and drew down the blinds. Just 
 after that, there came a tremendous knock at the front-door, loud 
 and long. "Naughty children." she exclaimed. "It must be 
 they." 
 
 " I'll go ; don't you stir, Mrs. Marks." 
 
 I opened the door, and a rush of wind and rain seemed to blow 
 in an old gentleman. He never said a word to me, but went 
 banging into the parlour and sank down on a chair out of breath. 
 
 " Papa !" exclaimed Mrs. Marks. " Papa !" 
 
 " Wait till I get up my speech, my dear," said the old gentleman. 
 " She is gone." 
 
 " Who is gone ! " cried Mrs. Marks. 
 
 " She. I don't want to say too much against her now she's gone, 
 Caroline ; but she is gone. She had a bad fall downstairs in a 
 tipsy fit some days ago, striking her head on the flags, and the 
 doctors could do nothing for her. She died this morning, poor 
 soul : and I am coming to live with you and James, if you will have 
 me. We shall all be so comfortable together, my dear." 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Marks remembered at once what it implied — that 
 the pressure of poverty was suddenly lifted and she and those dear 
 ones would be at ease for the future. She bent her head in her 
 hands for a minute or two, keeping silence. 
 
 " Your husband shall have rest now, my dear, and all that he 
 needs. So will i-ou, Caroline." 
 
 It had come too late. James Marks died in May. 
 
 It was about three or four years afterwards that we saw the 
 death of Mr. Brown in the Times. The newspapers made a flourish
 
 292 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 of trumpets over him ; saying he had died worth two hundred 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 " There must be something wrong somewhere, Johnny," remarked 
 the Squire, in a puzzle. " / should not like to die worth all that 
 money, and know that I had worked my clerks to the bone to get 
 it together. I wonder how he will like meeting poor Marks in the 
 next world? "
 
 XVIII. 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 
 
 This is a ghost story. Every word of it is true. And I don't 
 mind confessing that for ages afterwards some of us did not care 
 to pass the spot alone at night. Some people do not care to pass 
 it yet. 
 
 It was autumn, and we were at Crabb Cot. Lena had been 
 ailing; and in October IMrs. Todhetley proposed to the Squire that 
 they should remove with her there, to see if the change would do 
 her good. 
 
 We Worcestershire people call North Crabb a village ; but one 
 might count the houses in it, little and great, and not find four-and- 
 twenty. South Crabb, half a mile off, is ever so much larger ; but 
 the church and school are at North Crabb. 
 
 John Ferrar had been employed by Squire Todhetley as a sort 
 of overlooker on the estate, or working bailiff. He had died the 
 previous winter ; leaving nothing behind him except some debts ; 
 for he was not provident ; and his handsome son Daniel. Daniel 
 Ferrar, who was rather superior as far as education went, disliked 
 work : he would make a show of helping his father, but it came 
 to Uttle. Old Ferrar had not put him to any particular trade or 
 occupation , and Daniel, who was as proud as Lucifer, would not 
 turn to it himself. He liked to be a gentleman. All he did now 
 was to work in his garden, and feed his fowls, ducks, rabbits, and 
 pigeons, of which he kept a great quantity, selling them to the 
 houses around and sending them to market. 
 
 But, as every one said, poultry would not maintain him. Mrs. 
 Lease, in the pretty cottage hard by Ferrar's, grew tired of saying 
 it. This Mrs. Lease and her daughter, Maria, must not be con- 
 founded with Lease the pointsman : they were in a better condition 
 of life, and not related to him. Daniel Ferrar used to run in and 
 out of their house at will when a boy, and he was now engaged to 
 be married to Maria. She would have a little money, and the 
 Leases were respected in North Crabb. People began to whisper 
 a query as to how Ferrar got his corn for the poultry : he was not 
 known to buv much ; and he would have to go out of his house at
 
 294 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Christmas, for its owner, Mr. Coney, had given him notice. Mrs. 
 Lease, anxious about Maria's prospects, asked Daniel what he 
 intended to do then, and he answered, "Make his fortune: he 
 should begin to do it as soon as he could turn himself round." 
 But the time was going on, and the turning round seemed to be as 
 far off as ever. 
 
 After Midsummer, a niece of the schoolmistress's. Miss Timmens, 
 had come to the school to stay : her name was Harriet Roe. The 
 father, Humphrey Roe, was half-brother to Miss Timmens. He 
 had married a Frenchwoman, and lived more in France than in 
 England until his death. The girl lad been christened Henriette ; 
 but North Crabb, not understanding much French, converted it into 
 Harriet. She was a showy, free-mannered, good-looking girl, and 
 made speedy acquaintance with Daniel Ferrar; or he with her. 
 They improved upon it so rapidly that Mai-ia Lease grew jealous, 
 and North Crabb began to say he cared for Harriet more than for 
 Maria. When Tod and I got home the latter end of October, to 
 spend the Squire's birthday, things were in this state. James Hill, 
 the bailiff who had been taken on by the Squire in John Ferrar's 
 place (but a far inferior man to Ferrar ; not much better, in fact, 
 than a common workman, and of whose doings you will hear soon 
 in regard to his little step-son, David Garth) gave us an account of 
 matters in general. Daniel Ferrar had been drinking lately, Hill 
 added, and his head was not strong enough to stand it ; and he was 
 also beginning to look as if he had some care upon him. 
 
 " A nice lot, he, for them two women to be fighting for," cried 
 Hill, who was no friend to Ferrar. " There'll be mischief between 
 'em if they don't draw in a bit. Maria Lease is next door to mad 
 over it, I know ; and t'other, finding herself the best liked, crows 
 over her. It's something like the Bible story of Leah and Rachel, 
 young gents, Dan Ferrar Hkes the one, and he's bound by promise 
 to the t'other. As to the French jade," concluded Hill, giving his 
 head a toss, " she'd make a show of liking any man that followed 
 her, she would ; a dozen of 'em on a string." 
 
 It was all very well for surly Hill to call Daniel Ferrar a "nice 
 lot," but he was the best-looking fellow in church on Sunday morn- 
 ing—well-dressed too. But his colour seemed brighter; and his 
 hands shook as they were raised, often, to push back his hair, that 
 the sun shone upon through the south-window, turning it to gold. 
 He scarcely looked up, not even at Harriet Roe, with her dark eyes 
 roving everywhere, and her streaming pink ribbons. Maria Lease 
 was pale, quiet, and nice, as usual ; she had no beauty, but her face 
 was sensible, and her deep grey eyes had a strange and curious 
 earnestness. The new parson preached, a young man just appointed 
 to the parish of Crabb. He went in for great observances of Saints'
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 295 
 
 days, and told his congregation that he should expect to see them 
 at church on the morrow, which would be the Feast of All 
 Saints. 
 
 Daniel Ferrar walked home with Mrs. Lease and Maria after 
 service, and was invited to dinner. I ran across to shake hands 
 with the old dame, who had once nursed me through an illness, 
 and promised to look in and see her later. We were going back to 
 school on the morrow. As I turned away, Harriet Roe passed, her 
 pink ribbons and her cheap gay silk dress gleaming in the sunlight. 
 She stared at me, and I stared back again. And now, the explana- 
 tion of matters being over, the real story begins. But I shall have 
 to tell some of it as it was told by others. 
 
 The tea-things waited on Mrs. Lease's table in the afternoon ; 
 waited for Daniel Ferrar. He had left them shortly before to go 
 and attend to his poultry. Nothing had been said about his coming 
 back for tea : that he would do so had been looked upon as a 
 matter of course. But he did not make his appearance, and the 
 tea was taken without him. At half-past five the church-bell rang 
 out for evening service, and Maria put her things on. Mrs. Lease 
 did not go out at night. 
 
 " You are starting early, Maria. You'll be in church before other 
 people." 
 
 " That won't matter, mother." 
 
 A jealous suspicion lay on IVIaria — that the secret of Daniel 
 Ferrar's absence was his having fallen in with Harriet Roe: 
 perhaps had gone of his own accord to seek her. She walked 
 slowly along. The gloom of dusk, and a deep dusk, had stolen 
 over the evening, but the moon would be up later. As INIaria 
 passed the school-house, she halted to glance in at the little sitting- 
 room window ; the shutters were not closed yet, and the room was 
 lighted by the blazing fire. Harriet was not there. She only saw 
 I\Iiss Timmens, the mistress, who was putting on her bonnet before 
 a hand-glass propped upright on the mantel-piece. Without warn- 
 ing, Miss Timmens turned and threw open the window. It was only 
 for the purpose of pulling-to the shutters, but Maria thought she 
 must have been observed, and spoke. 
 
 " Good evening. Miss Timmens." 
 
 "Who is it? "cried out Miss Timmens, in answer, peering into 
 the dusk. " Oh, it's you, Maria Lease I Have you seen anything 
 of Harriet ? She went off somewhere this afternoon, and never 
 came in to tea." 
 
 " I have not seen her." 
 
 " She's gone to the Batleys', I'll be bound. She knows I don't 
 like her to be with the Batley girls ; they make her ten times 
 flightier than she would otherwise be."
 
 C96 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Miss Timmens drew in her shutters with a jerk, without which 
 they would not close, and Maria Lease turned away. 
 
 " Not at the Batleys', not at the Batleys', but with /«"w," she cried, 
 in bitter rebellion, as she turned away from the church. From the 
 church, not to it. Was Maria to blame for wishing to see whether 
 she was right or not ? — for walking about a little in the thought of 
 meeting them ? At any rate it is what she did. And had her reward ; 
 such as it was. 
 
 As she was passing the top of the withy walk, their voices reached 
 her ear. People often walked there, and it was one of the ways to 
 South Crabb. Maria drew back amidst the trees, and they came 
 on : Harriet Roe and Daniel Ferrar, walking arm-in-arm. 
 
 " I think I had better take it off," Harriet was saying. " No need 
 to invoke a storm upon my head. And that would come in a shower 
 of hail from stiff old Aunt Timmens." 
 
 The answer seemed one of quick accent, but Ferrar spoke low. 
 Maria Lease had hard work to control herself: anger, passion, 
 jealousy, all blazed up. With her arms stretched out to a friendly 
 tree on either side,— with her heart beating,— with her pulses 
 coursing on to fever-heat, she watched them across the bit of com- 
 mon to the road. Harriet went one way then ; he another, in the 
 direction of Mrs. Lease's cottage. No doubt to fetch her — Maria 
 — to church, with a plausible excuse of having been detained. Until 
 now she had had no proof of his falseness ; had never perfectly be- 
 lieved in it. 
 
 She took her arms from the trees and went forward, a sharp faint 
 cry of despair breaking forth on the night air. Maria Lease was 
 one of those silent-naturcd girls who can never speak of a wrong 
 like this. She had to bury it within her ; down, down, out of sight 
 and show; and she went into church with her usual quiet step. 
 Harriet Roe with Miss Timmens came next, quite demure, as if she 
 had been singing some of the infant scholars to sleep at their own 
 homes. Daniel Ferrar did not go to church at all : he stayed, as 
 was found afterwards, with Mrs. Lease. 
 
 Maria might as well have been at home as at church : better 
 perhaps that she had been. Not a syllable of the service did she 
 hear : her brain was a sea of confusion ; the tumult within it rising 
 higher and higher. She did not hear even the text, " Peace, be still," 
 or the sermon; both so singularly appropriate. The passions in 
 men's minds, the preacher said, raged and foamed just like the 
 angry waves of the sea in a storm, until Jesus came to still them, 
 
 I ran after Maria when church was over, and went in to pay the 
 promised visit to old Mother Lease, Daniel Ferrar was sitting in 
 the parlour. He got up and offered Maria a chair at the fire, but 
 she turned her back and stood at the table under the window, taking
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 297 
 
 off her gloves. An open Bible was before Mrs. Lease : I wondered 
 whether she had been reading aloud to Daniel. 
 
 '• What was the text, child ?" asked the old lady. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Do you hear, Maria ! What was the text ? " 
 
 Maria turned at that, as if suddenly awakened. Her face was 
 white ; her eyes had in them an uncertain terror. 
 
 "The text?" she stammered. "I — I forget it, mother. It was 
 from Genesis, I think." 
 
 " Was it, Master Johnny ? " 
 
 " It was from the fourth chapter of St. Mark, ' Peace, be still.' " 
 
 Mrs. Lease stared at me. "Why, that is the very chapter I've 
 been reading. Well now, that's curious. But there's never a better 
 in the Bible, and never a better text was taken from it than those 
 three words. I have been telling Daniel here. Master Johnny, that 
 when once that peace, Christ's peace, is got into the heart, storms 
 can't hurt us much. And you are going away again to-morrow, 
 sir ? " she added, after a pause. " It's a short stay ? " 
 
 I was not going away on the morrow. Tod and I, taking the 
 Squire in a genial moment after dinner, had pressed to be let stay 
 until Tuesday, Tod using the argument, and laughing while he 
 did it, that it must be wrong to travel on All Saints' Day, when 
 the parson had specially enjoined us to be at church. The Squire 
 told us we were a couple of encroaching rascals, and if he did let 
 us stay it should be upon condition that we did go to church. 
 This I said to them. 
 
 "He may send you all the same, sir, when the morning comes," 
 remarked Daniel Ferrar. 
 
 " Knowing Mr. Todhetley as you do Ferrar, you may remember 
 that he never breaks his promises." 
 
 Daniel laughed. " He grumbles over them, though, Master 
 Johnny." 
 
 " Well, he may grumble to-morrow about our staying, say it is 
 wasting time that ought to be spent in study, but he will not send 
 us back until Tuesday." 
 
 Until Tuesday! If I could have foreseen then what would have 
 happened before Tuesday ! If all of us could have foreseen ! Seen 
 the few hours between now and then depicted, as in a mirror, event 
 by event ! Would it have saved the calamity, the dreadful sin that 
 could never be redeemed? Why, yes; surely it would. Daniel 
 Ferrar turned and looked at Maria. 
 
 " Why don't you come to the fire ? " 
 
 " I am very well here, thank you." 
 
 She had sat down where she was, her bonnet touching the curtain. 
 Mrs. Lease, not noticing that anything was wrong, had begun talking
 
 298 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 about Lena, whose illness was turning to low fever, when the house 
 door opened and Harriet Roe came in. 
 
 " What a lovely night it is ! " she said, taking of her own accord 
 the chair I had not cared to take, for I kept saying I must go. 
 " Maria, what went with you after church ? I hunted for you every- 
 where." 
 
 Maria gave no answer. She looked black and angry ; and her 
 bosom heaved as if a storm were brewing. Harriet Roe slightly 
 laughed. 
 
 " Do you intend to take holiday to-morrow, Mrs. Lease?" 
 
 " Me take holiday ! what is there in to-morrow to take holiday 
 for ? " returned Mrs. Lease. 
 
 " I shall," continued Harriet, not answering the question : '• I 
 have been used to it in France. All Saints' Day is a grand 
 holiday there ; we go to church in our best clothes, and pay visits 
 afterwards. Following it, like a dark shadow, comes the gloomy 
 Jour des Morts." 
 
 " The what ? " cried Mrs. Lease, bending her ear. 
 
 " The day of the dead. All Souls' Day, But you English don't 
 go to the cemeteries to pray." 
 
 Mrs. Lease put on her spectacles, which lay upon the open pages 
 of the Bible, and stared at Harriet Perhaps she thought they 
 might help her to understand. The girl laughed. 
 
 " On All Souls' Day, whether it be wet or dry, the French 
 cemeteries are full of kneeling women draped in black ; all praying 
 for the repose of their dead relatives, after the manner of the Roman 
 Catholics." 
 
 Daniel Ferrar, who had not spoken a word since she came in, but 
 sat with his face to the fire, turned and looked at her. Upon which 
 she tossed back her head and her pink ribbons, and smiled till all 
 her teeth were seen. Good teeth they were. As to reverence in her 
 tone, there was none. 
 
 " I have seen them kneeling when the slosh and wet have been 
 ankle-deep. Did you ever see a ghost ? " added she, with energy. 
 " The French believe that the spirits of the dead come abroad 
 on the night of All Saints' Day. You'd scarcely get a French 
 woman to go out of her house after dark. It is their chief 
 superstition." 
 
 " What is the superstition ? " questioned Mrs. Lease, 
 
 " Why, that" said Harriet. " They believe that the dead arc 
 allowed to revisit the world after dark on the Eve of All Souls ; that 
 they hover in the air, waiting to appear to any of their living 
 relatives, who may venture out, lest they should forget to pray on 
 the morrow for the rest of their souls." * 
 
 * A superstition obtaining amongst some of tlie lower orders in France.
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? C99 
 
 '" Well, I never ! " cried Mrs. Lease, staring excessively. " Did 
 you ever hear the like of that, sir .'' " turning to me. 
 
 " Yes ; I have heard of it." 
 
 Harriet Roe looked up at me ; I was standing at the corner of the 
 mantel-piece. She laughed a free laugh. 
 
 " I say, wouldn't it be fun to go out to-morrow night, and meet the 
 ghosts ? Only, perhaps they don't visit this country, as it is not 
 under Rome." 
 
 " Now just you behave yourself before your betters, Harriet Roe," 
 put in Mrs. Lease, sharply. " That gentleman is young Mr. Ludlow 
 of Crabb Cot." 
 
 "And very happy I am to make young Mr. Ludlow's acquaint- 
 ance," returned easy Harriet, flinging back her mantle from her 
 shoulders. " How hot your parlour is, Mrs. Lease." 
 
 The hook of the cloak had caught in a thin chain of twisted gold 
 that she wore round her neck, displaying it to view. She hurriedly 
 folded her cloak together, as if wishing to conceal the chain. But 
 Mrs. Lease's spectacles had seen it. 
 
 " What's that you've got on, Harriet ? A gold chain ? " 
 
 A moment's pause, and then Harriet Roe flung back her mantle 
 again, defiance upon her face, and touched the chain with her 
 hand. 
 
 " That's what it is, Mrs. Lease : a gold chain. And a very pretty 
 one, too." 
 
 " Was it your mother's ? " 
 
 " It was never anybody's but mine. I had it made a present to 
 me this afternoon ; for a keepsake." 
 
 Happening to look at Maria, I was startled at her face, it was so 
 white and dark : white with emotion, dark with an angry despair 
 that I for one did not comprehend. Harriet Roe, throwing at her 
 a look of saucy triumph, went out with as little ceremony as she 
 had come in, just calling back a general good night ; and we heard 
 her footsteps outside getting gradually fainter in the distance. 
 Daniel Ferrar rose. 
 
 " I'll take my departure too, I think. You are very unsociable 
 to-night, Maria." 
 
 " Perhaps I am. Perhaps I have cause to be." 
 
 She flung his hand back when he held it out ; and in another 
 moment, as if a thought struck her, ran after him into the passage 
 to speak. I, standing near the door in the small room, caught the 
 words. 
 
 " I must have an explanation with you, Daniel Ferrar. Now. 
 To-night. We cannot go on thus for a single hour longer." 
 
 " Not to-night, Maria ; I have no time to spare. And I don't know 
 what you mean."
 
 300 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " You do know. Listen. I will not go to my rest, no, though it 
 were for twenty nights to come, until we have had it out. I vow I 
 will not. There. You are playing with me. Others have long said 
 so, and I know it now." 
 
 He seemed to speak some quieting words to her, for the tone 
 was low and soothing ; and then went out, closing the door be- 
 hind him. Ma,ria came back and stood with her face and its 
 ghastliness turned from us. And still the old mother noticed 
 nothing. 
 
 " V/hy don't you take your things off, Maria ? " she asked. 
 
 " Presently," was the answer. 
 
 I said good night in my turn, and went away. Half-way home 
 I met Tod with the two young Lexoms. The Lexoms made us 
 go in and stay to supper, and it was ten o'clock before we left 
 them. 
 
 " We shall catch it," said Tod, setting off at a run. They never 
 let us stay out late on a Sunday evening, on account of the 
 reading. 
 
 But, as it happened, we escaped scot-free this time, for the house 
 was in a commotion about Lena. She had been better in the 
 afternoon, but at nine o'clock the fever returned worse than ever. 
 Her little cheeks and lips were scarlet as she lay on the bed, her 
 wide-open eyes were bright and glistening. The Squire had 
 gone up to look at her, and was fuming and fretting in his usual 
 fashion. 
 
 " The doctor has never sent the medicine," said patient Mrs. 
 Todhetley, who must have been worn out with nursing. " She ought 
 to take it ; I am sure she ought." 
 
 " These boys are good to run over to Cole's for that," cried the 
 Squire. " It won't hurt them ; it's a fine night." 
 
 Of course we were good for it. And we got our caps again ; 
 being charged to enjoin Mr, Cole to come over the first thing in the 
 morning. 
 
 "Do you care much about my going with you, Johnny?" Tod 
 asked as we were turning out at the door. " I am awfully tired." 
 
 " Not a bit. I'd as soon go alone as not. You'll see me back in 
 half-an-hour." 
 
 I took the nearest way ; flying across the fields at a canter, and 
 startling the hares. Mr. Cole lived near South Crabb, and I don't 
 believe more than ten minutes had gone by when I knocked at his 
 door. But to get back as quickly was another thing. The doctor 
 was not at home. He had been called out to a patient at eight o'clock, 
 and had not yet returned. 
 
 I went in to wait : the servant said he might be expected to come 
 ill from miniite to rniqute. It was of no iise to go away without tho
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 301 
 
 medicine ; and I sat down in the surgery in front of the shelves, and 
 fell asleep counting the white jars and physic bottles. The doctor's 
 entrance awoke me, 
 
 " I am sorry you should have had to come over and to wait," he 
 said. " When my other patient, with whom I was detained a con- 
 siderable time, was done with, I went on to Crabb Cot with the 
 child's medicine, which I had in my pocket." 
 
 " They think her very ill to-night, sir." 
 
 *' I left her better, and going quietly to sleep. She will soon be 
 well again, I hope." 
 
 " Why ! is that the time ? " I exclaimed, happening to catch 
 sight of the clock as I was crossing the hall. It was nearly 
 twelve. Mr. Cole laughed, saying time passed quickly when folk 
 were asleep. 
 
 I went back slowly. The sleep, or the canter before it, had 
 made me feel as tired as Tod had said he was. It was a night to 
 be abroad in and to enjoy ; calm, warm, light. The moon, high in 
 the sky, illumined every blade of grass ; sparkled on the water 
 of the little rivulet ; brought out the moss on the grey walls 
 of the old church ; played on its round-faced clock, then striking 
 twelve. 
 
 Twelve o'clock at night at North Crabb answers to about three 
 in the morning in London, for country people are mostly in bed and 
 asleep at ten. Therefore, when loud and angry voices struck up 
 in dispute, just as the last stroke of the hour was dying away on the 
 midnight air, I stood still and doubted my ears. 
 
 I was getting near home then. The sounds came from the back 
 of a building standing alone in a solitary place on the left-hand side 
 of the road. It belonged to the Squire, and was called the yellow 
 barn, its walls being covered with a yellow wash ; but it was in fact 
 used as a storehouse for corn. I was passing in front of it when 
 the voices rose upon the air. Round the building I ran, and saw — 
 jMaria Lease : and something else that I could not at first compre- 
 hend. In the pursuit of her vow, not to go to rest until she had 
 " had it out " with Daniel Ferrar, Maria had been abroad searching 
 for him. What ill fate brought her looking for him up near our 
 barn ? — perhaps because she had fruitlessly searched in every other 
 spot. 
 
 At the back of this barn, up some steps, was an unused door. 
 Unused partly because it was not required, the principal entrance 
 being in front ; partly because the key of it had been for a long 
 time missing. Stealing out at this door, a bag of corn upon his 
 shoulders, had come Daniel Ferrar in a smock-frock. Maria saw 
 him, and stood back in the shade. She watched him lock the 
 door and put the key in his pocket ; she watched him give the
 
 302 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 heavy bag a jerk as he turned to come down the steps. Then 
 she burst out. Her loud reproaches petrified him, and he stood 
 there as one suddenly turned to stone. It was at that moment that 
 I appeared. 
 
 I understood it all soon ; it needed not Maria's words to enlighten 
 me. Daniel Ferrar possessed the lost key and could come in and 
 out at will in the midnight hours when the world was sleeping, and 
 help himself to the corn. No wonder his poultry throve ; no wonder 
 there had been grumblings at Crabb Cot at the mysterious disap- 
 pearance of the good grain. 
 
 Maria Lease was decidedly mad in those few first moments. 
 Stealing is looked upon in an honest village as an awful thing ; a 
 disgrace, a crime ; and there was the night's earlier misery besides. 
 Daniel Ferrar was a thief! Daniel Ferrar was false to her! A 
 storm of words and reproaches poured forth from her in confusion, 
 none of it very distinct. " Living upon theft ! Convicted felon ! 
 Transportation for life ! Squire Todhetley's corn ! Fattening poultry 
 on stolen goods ! Buying gold chains with the profits for that bold, 
 flaunting French girl, Harriet Roe ! Taking his stealthy walks with 
 her ! " 
 
 My going up to them stopped the charge. There was a pause ; 
 and then Maria, in her mad passion, denounced him to me, as 
 representative (so she put it) of the Squire — the breaker-in upon our 
 premises ! the robber of our stored corn ! 
 
 Daniel Ferrar came down the steps ; he had remained there still 
 as a statue, immovable; and turned his white face to me. Never a 
 word in defence said he : the blow had crushed him ; he was a proud 
 man (if any one can understand that), and to be discovered in this 
 ill-doing was worse than death to him, 
 
 " Don't think of me more hardly than you can help. Master 
 Johnny," he said in a quiet tone. " I have been almost tired of my 
 life this long while." 
 
 Putting down the bag of corn near the steps, he took the key from 
 his pocket and handed it to me. The man's aspect had so changed ; 
 there was something so grievously subdued and sad about him alto- 
 gether, that I felt as sorry for him as if he had not been guilty. 
 Maria Lease went on in her fiery passion. 
 
 " You'll be more tired of it to-morrow when the police are taking 
 you to Worcester gaol. Squire Todhetley will not spare you, though 
 your father was his many-years bailiff. He could not, you know, if 
 he wished ; Master Ludlow has seen you in the act." 
 
 '•' Let me have the key again for a minute, sir," he said, as quietly 
 as though he had not heard a word. And I gave it to him. 
 I'm not sure but I should have given him my head had he asked 
 for it.
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION.? 303 
 
 He swung the bag on his shoulders, unlocked the granary door, 
 and put the bag beside the other sacks. The bag was his own, as 
 we found afterwards, but he left it there. Locking the door again, 
 he gave me the key, and went away with a weary step. 
 
 " Good-bye, Master Johnny." 
 
 I answered back good night civilly, though he had been stealing. 
 When he was out of sight, Maria Lease, her passion full upon her 
 still, dashed off towards her mother's cottage, a strange cry of 
 despair breaking from her lips. 
 
 " Where have you been lingering, Johnny ? " roared the Squire, 
 who was sitting up for me. " You have been throwing at the owls, 
 sir, that's what you've been at; you have been scudding after the 
 hares." 
 
 I said I had waited for Mr. Cole, and had come back slower than 
 I went ; but I said no more, and went up to my room at once. And 
 the Squire went to his. 
 
 I know I am only a muff; people tell me so, often : but I can't 
 help it ; I did not make myself. I lay awake till nearly daylight, 
 first wishing Daniel Ferrar could be screened, and then thinking it 
 might perhaps be done. If he would only take the lesson to heart 
 and go on straight for the future, what a capital thing it would be. 
 We had liked old Ferrar ; he had done me and Tod many a good 
 turn : and, for the matter of that, we liked Daniel. So I never said 
 a word when morning came of the past night's work. 
 
 " Is Daniel at home?" I asked, going to Ferrar's the first thing 
 before breakfast. I meant to tell him that if he would keep right, I 
 would keep counsel. 
 
 " He went out at dawn, sir," answered the old woman who did for 
 him, and sold his poultry at market. " He'll be in presently : he 
 liave had no breakfast yet." 
 
 " Then tell him when he comes, to wait in, and see me : tell him 
 it's all right. Can you remember. Goody ? ' It is all right.' " 
 
 " I'll remember, safe enough, Master Ludlow." 
 
 Tod and I, being on our honour, went to church, and found 
 about ten people in the pews. Harriet Roe was one, with her pink 
 ribbons, the twisted gold chain showing outside a short-cut velvet 
 jacket. 
 
 " No, sir ; he has not been home yet ; I can't think where he can 
 have got to," was the old Goody's reply when I went again to 
 Ferrar's. And so I wrote a word in pencil, and told her to give it 
 him when he came in, for I could not go dodging there every hour 
 of the day. 
 
 After luncheon, strolling by the back of the barn : a certain 
 reminiscence I suppose taking me there, for it was not a frequented 
 spot : I saw Maria Lease coming along.
 
 304 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Well, it was a change ! The passionate woman of the previous 
 night had subsided into a poor, wild-looking, sorrow-stricken thing, 
 ready to die of remorse. Excessive passion had wrought its usual 
 consequences ; a re-action : a re-action in favour of Daniel Ferrar. 
 .She came up to me, clasping her hands in agony — beseeching that 
 I would spare him ; that I would not tell of him ; that I would give 
 him a chance for the future : and her lips quivered and trembled, 
 and there were dark circles round her hollow eyes. 
 
 I said that I had not told and did not intend to tell. L^pon 
 Avhich she was going to fall down on her knees, but I rushed off. 
 
 " Do you know where he is ? " I asked, when she came to her 
 sober senses. 
 
 '• Oh, I wish I did know ! Master Johnny, he is just the man to 
 go and do something desperate. He would never face shame ; 
 and I was a mad, hard-hearted, wicked girl to do what I did last 
 night. He might run away to sea; he might go and enlist for a 
 soldier." 
 
 " I dare say he is at home by this time. I have left a word for 
 him there, and promised to go in and see him to-night. If he will 
 undertake not to be up to wrong things again, no one shall ever 
 know of this from me." 
 
 She went away easier, and I sauntered on towards South Crabb. 
 Eager as Tod and I had been for the day's holiday, it did not seem 
 to be turning out much of a boon. In going home again — there 
 was nothing worth staying out for — I had come to the spot by the 
 three-cornered grove where I saw Maria, when a galloping policeman 
 overtook me. My heart stood still; for I thought he must have 
 come after Daniel Ferrar. 
 
 " Can you tell me if I am near to Crabb Cot — Squire Todhetley's ? " 
 he asked, reining-in his horse. 
 
 " You will reach it in a minute or two. I live there. Squire 
 Todhetley is not at home. What do you want with him ? " 
 
 " It's only to give in an official paper, sir. I have to leave one 
 personally upon all the county magistrates." 
 
 He rode on. When I got in I saw the folded paper upon the 
 hall-table ; the man and horse had already gone onwards. It was 
 worse indoors than out ; less to be done. Tod had disappeared 
 after church ; the Squire was abroad ; Mrs. Todhetley sat upstairs 
 with Lena: and I strolled out again. It was only three o'clock 
 then. 
 
 An hour, or more, was got through somehow ; meeting one, talk- 
 ing to another, throwing at the ducks and geese; anything. Mrs. 
 Lease had her head, smothered in a yellow shawl, stretched out over 
 the palings as I passed her cottage. 
 
 "Don't catch ccld, mother."
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 505 
 
 " I am looking for Maria, sir. I can't think what has come to 
 her to-day, Master Johnny," she added, dropping her voice to a 
 confidential tone. " The girl seems demented : she has been going 
 in and out ever since daylight like a dog in a fair." 
 
 " If I meet her I will send her home." 
 
 And in another minute I did meet her. For she was coming 
 out of Daniel Ferrar's yard. I supposed he was at home again. 
 
 " No," she said, looking more wild, worn, haggard than before ; 
 " that's what I have been to ask. I am just out of my senses, sir. 
 He has gone for certain. Gone ! " 
 
 I did not think it. He would not be likely to go away without 
 clothes. 
 
 •' Well, I know he is. Master Johnny ; something tells me. I've 
 been all about everywhere. There's a great dread upon me, sir ; I 
 never felt anything like it." 
 
 '• Wait until night, Maria ; I dare say he will go home then. 
 Your mother is looking out for you ; I said if I met you I'd send 
 you in." 
 
 Mechanically she turned towards the cottage, and I went on. 
 Presently, as I was sitting on a gate watching the sunset, Harriet 
 Roe passed towards the withy walk, and gave me a nod in her free 
 but good-natured way. 
 
 " Are you going there to look out for the ghosts this evening ? " I 
 asked : and I wished not long afterwards I had not said it. " It 
 will soon be dark." 
 
 " So it will," she said, turning to the red sky in the west. " But I 
 have no time to give to the ghosts to-night." 
 
 "Have you seen Ferrar to-day.''" I cried, an idea occurring 
 to me. 
 
 " No. And I can't think where he has got to ; unless he is off 
 to Worcester. He told me he should have to go there some day 
 this week." 
 
 She evidently knew nothing about him, and went on her way with 
 another free-and-easy nod. I sat on the gate till the sun had gone 
 down, and then thought it was time to be getting homewards. 
 
 Close against the yellow barn, the scene of last night's trouble, 
 whom should I come upon but Maria Lease. She was standing 
 still, and turned quickly at the sound of my footsteps. Her face 
 was bright again, but had a puzzled look upon it. 
 
 " I have just seen him : he has not gone," she said in a happy 
 whisper. " You were right. Master Johnny, and I was wrong." 
 
 " Where did you see him ? " 
 
 " Here; not a minute ago. I saw him twice. He is angry, very, 
 and will not let me speak to him ; both times he got away I^efore I 
 could reach him. He is close by somewhere." 
 
 Johnny I.iidlow. — I. -'J
 
 3o6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 I looked round, naturally ; but Ferrar was nowhere to be seen. 
 There was nothing to conceal him except the barn, and that was 
 locked up. The account she gave was this — and her face grew 
 puzzled again as she related it. 
 
 Unable to rest indoors, she liad wandered up here again, and saw 
 Ferrar standing at the corner of the barn, looking very hard at her. 
 She thought he was waiting for her to come up, but before she got. 
 close to him he had disappeared, and she did not see which way. 
 She hastened past the front of the barn, ran round to the back, and 
 there he was. He stood near the steps looking out for her ; waiting 
 for her, as it again seemed ; and was gazing at her with the same 
 fixed stare. But again she missed him before she could get quite 
 up ; and it was at that moment that I arrived on the scene. 
 
 I went all round the barn, but could see nothing of Ferrar. It 
 was an extraordinary thing where he could have got to. Inside 
 the barn he could not be : it was securely locked ; and there was 
 no appearance of him in the open country. It was, so to say, broad 
 daylight yet, or at least not far short of it ; the red light was still 
 in the west. Beyond the field at the back of the barn, was a grove 
 of trees in the form of a triangle ; and this grove was flanked by 
 Crabb Ravine, which ran right and left. Crabb Ravine had the 
 reputation of being haunted ; for a light was sometimes seen dodg- 
 ing about its deep descending banks at night that no one could 
 account for. A lively spot altogether for those who liked gloom. 
 
 "Are you sure it was Ferrar, Maria?" 
 
 " Sure ! " she returned in surprise. " You don't think I could 
 mistake him, Master Johnny, do you ? He wore that ugly seal-skin 
 winter-cap of his tied over his ears, and his thick grey coat. The 
 coat was buttoned closely round him. I have not seen him wear 
 either since last winter." 
 
 That Ferrar must have gone into hiding somewhere seemed 
 quite evident ; and yet there was nothing but the ground to receive 
 him. Maria said she lost sight of him the last time in a moment ; 
 both times in fact ; and it was absolutely impossible that he could 
 have made off to the triangle or elsewhere, as she must have seen 
 him cross the open land. For that matter I must have seen him 
 also. 
 
 On the whole, not two minutes had elapsed since I came up, 
 though it seems to have been longer in telling it : when, before we 
 could look further, voices were heard approaching from the direction 
 of Crabb Cot ; and Maria, not caring to be seen, went away quickly. 
 I was still puzzling about Ferrar's hiding-place, when they reached 
 me — the Squire, Tod, and two or three men. Tod came slowly up, 
 his face dark and grave. 
 
 " I say, Johnny, what a shocking thing this is ! "
 
 REALITY OR DELUSION? 307 
 
 " What is a shocking thing ? " 
 
 " You have not heard of it ? — But I don't see how you could 
 hear it." 
 
 I had heard nothing. I did not know what there was to hear. 
 Tod told me in a whisper. 
 
 " Daniel Ferrar's dead, lad." 
 
 " What?'' 
 
 " He has destroyed himself. Not more than half-an-hour ago. 
 Hung himself in the grove." 
 
 I turned sick, taking one thing with another, comparing this 
 recollection with that ; which I dare say you will think no one but 
 a muff would do. 
 
 Ferrar was indeed dead. He had been hiding all day in the 
 three-cornered grove : perhaps waiting for night to get away— 
 perhaps only waiting for night to go home again. Who can tell 'i 
 About half-past two, Luke IMacintosh, a man who sometimes 
 worked for us, sometimes for old Coney, happening to go through 
 the grove, saw him there, and talked with him. The same man, 
 passing back a little before sunset, found him hanging from a tree, 
 dead. Macintosh ran with the news to Crabb Cot, and they were 
 now flocking to the scene. When facts came to be examined there 
 appeared only too much reason to think that the unfortunate ap- 
 pearance of the galloping policeman had terrified Ferrar into the 
 act ; perhaps — we all hoped it ! — had scared his senses quite away. 
 Look at it as we would, it was very dreadful. 
 
 But what of the appearance Maria Lease saw.'' At that time, 
 Ferrar had been dead at least half-an-hour. Was it reality or 
 delusion? That is (as the Squire put it), did her eyes see a real, 
 spectral Daniel Ferrar ; or were they deceived by some imagination 
 of the brain ? Opinions were divided. Nothing can shake her own 
 steadfast belief in its reality ; to her it remains an awful certainty, 
 true and sure as heaven. 
 
 If I say that I believe in it too, I shall be called a muff and a 
 double muff. But there is no stumbling-block difficult to be got 
 over. Ferrar, when found, was wearing the seal-skin cap tied over 
 the ears and the thick grey coat buttoned up round him, just as 
 Maria Lease had described to me ; and he had never worn them 
 since the previous winter, or taken them out of the chest where they 
 were kept. The old woman at his home did not know he had done 
 it then. When told that he died in these things, she protested that 
 they were in the chest, and ran up to look for them. But the things
 
 XIX. 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 It was the following year, and we were again at Crabb Cot. Fever 
 had broken out at Dr. Frost's, and the school was dismissed. The 
 leaves were falling late that year, for November was nearly half 
 through, and they strewed the ground. But if the leaves were late, 
 the frost was early. The weather had come in curiously cold. 
 Three days before the morning I am about to speak of, the warm 
 weather suddenly changed, and it was now as freezing as January. 
 It is not often that you see ice mingling with the dead leaves of 
 autumn. Both the ice and the leaves have to do with what 
 happened : and I think you often find that if the weather is par- 
 ticularly unseasonable, we get something by which to remember it. 
 
 At the corner of a field between our house and North Crabb, 
 stood a small solitary dwelling, called Willow Brook Cottage : but 
 the brook from which it took its name was dry now. The house 
 had a lonely look, and was lonely ; and perhaps that kept it empty. 
 It had been unoccupied for more than a year, when the Squire, tired 
 of seeing it so, happened to say in the hearing of James Hill, that 
 new bailiff of ours, that he would let it for an almost nominal rent. 
 Hill caught at the words and said he would be glad to rent it : for 
 some cause or other he did not like the house he was in, and had 
 been wanting to leave it. At least, he said so : but he was of a 
 frightfully stingy turn, and we all thought the low rent tempted 
 him. Hill, this working bailiff, was a steady man, but severe upon 
 every one. 
 
 It was during this early frost that he began to move in. One 
 morning after breakfast, I was taking the broad pathway across 
 the fields to North Crabb, which led close by Willow Cottage, and 
 saw Hill wheeling a small truck up with some of his household 
 goods. He was a tall, strong man, and the cold was tolerably 
 sharp, but the load had warmed him. 
 
 " Good morning, Master Johnny." 
 
 " Making ready for the flitting, Hill ? " 
 
 Hill wheeled the truck up to the door, and sat down on one of 
 the handles whilst he wiped his face. It was an honest, though
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 309 
 
 cross face ; habitually red. The house had a good large garden at 
 its side, enclosed by wooden palings ; with a shed and some pigstys 
 at the back. Trees overshadowed the palings : and the fallen 
 leaves, just now, inside the garden and out were ankle-deep. 
 
 " A fine labour I shall have, getting the place in order ! " cried 
 Hill, pointing to some broken palings and the overgrown branches. 
 " Don't think but what the Squire has the best of the bargain, after 
 all ! " 
 "You'd say that. Hill, if he gave you a house rent-free." 
 Hill took the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and we 
 went in. This lower room was boarded ; the kitchen was at the 
 back ; above were two fair-sized chambers. One of them looked 
 towards Crabb Ravine ; the other was only lighted by a skylight in 
 the roof. 
 " You have had fires here, Hill ! " 
 
 " I had 'em in every room all day yesterday, sir, and am going 
 to light 'em again now. My wife said it must be done ; and she 
 warn't far wrong ; for a damp house plays the mischief with one's 
 bones. The fools that women be, to be sure !— and my wife's the 
 worst of 'em." 
 " What has your wife done .'' " 
 
 " She had a bit of a accident yesterday, Master Johnny. A 
 coming out with a few things for this place, she stepped upon some 
 ice, and fell ; it gave her ankle a twist, and she had to be helped 
 home. I'm blest if she's not a-saying now that it's a bad omen ! 
 Because she can't get about and help shift the things in here, she 
 says we shan't have nothing but ill-luck in the place." 
 
 I had already heard of the accident. Hill's wife was a little 
 shrinking woman, mild and gentle, quite superior to him. She was 
 a widow when he married her a short time ago, a Mrs. Garth, with 
 one son, David. Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress at North 
 Crab, was her sister. On the previous morning a letter had come 
 from Worcester, saying their mother, Mrs. Timmens, was taken 
 dangerously ill, and asking them to go over. Miss Timmens went ; 
 Hill refused for his wife. How could he get along at moving-time 
 without her, he demanded. She cried and implored, but Hill was 
 hard as flint. So she had to remain at home, and set about her 
 preparations for removal ; surly Hill was master and mistress too. 
 In starting with the first lot of movables— a few things carried in 
 her arms — the accident occurred. So that, in the helping to move, 
 she was useless ; and the neighbours, ever ready to take part in a 
 matrimonial grievance, said it served Hill right. Any way, it did 
 not improve his temper. ^ 
 
 " When do you get in here, Hill ? " 
 
 "To-morrow, Master Johnny, please the pigs. But for tlic wife's
 
 3IO JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 avvk'ardness we'd ha' been in to-day. As to any help Davvy could 
 give, it's worth no more nor a rat's ; he haven't got much more 
 strength in him nor one neither. Drat the boy ! " 
 
 Leaving Hill to his task, I went on ; and in passing Mrs. Hill's 
 dwelling, I thought I'd give a look in to inquire after the ankle. 
 The cottage stood alone, just as this other one did, but was less 
 lonely, for the Crabb houses were round about. Davy's voice called 
 out, " Come in." 
 
 He was the handiest little fellow possible for any kind of house- 
 work — or for sewing, either ; but not half strong enough or rough 
 enough for a boy. His soft brown eyes had a shrinking look in 
 them, his face was delicate as a girl's, and his hair hung in curls. 
 But he was a little bit deformed in the back — some called it only 
 a stoop in the shoulders — and, though fourteen, might have been 
 taken for ten. The boy's love for his mother was something 
 wonderful. They had lived at Worcester ; she had a small income, 
 and he had been well brought up. When she married Hill — all 
 her friends were against it, and it was in fact a frightful mistake — 
 of course they had to come to North Crabb ; but Davy was not 
 happy. Always a timid lad, he could not overcome his first fear of 
 Hill. Not that the man was unkind, only rough and resolute. 
 
 Davy was washing up the breakfast-things ; his mother sat near, 
 sorting the contents of a chest : a neat little woman in a green stuff 
 gown, with the same sweet eyes as David and the same shrinking 
 look in them. She left off when I went in, and said her ankle was 
 no worse. 
 
 " It's a pity it happened just now, Mrs. Hill." 
 
 '• I'd have given a great deal for it not to, sir. They call me 
 foolish, I know ; always have done ; but it just seems to me like 
 an omen. I had a few articles in my arms, the first trifles we'd 
 begun to move, and down I fell on going out at this door. To me 
 it seems nothing but a warning that we ought not to move into 
 Willow Cottage." 
 
 David had halted in his work at the tea-cups, his brown eyes 
 fixed on his mother. That it was not the first time he had listened 
 to the superstition, and that he was every whit as bad as she, might 
 plainly be seen. 
 
 " I have never liked the thought of that new place from the first, 
 Master Johnny. It is as if something held me back from it. Hill 
 keeps saying that it's a convenient dweUing, and dirt-cheap ; and 
 so it is ; but I don't like the notion of it. No more does David." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say you will like it when you get in, Mrs. Hill, and 
 David, too." ^ 
 
 " It is to be hoped so, sir." 
 
 The day went on ; and its after events I can only speak of from
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 311 
 
 hearsay. Hill moved in a good many of his goods, David carrying 
 some of the lighter things, Luke Macintosh was asked to go and 
 sleep in the house that night as a safeguard against thieves, but 
 he flatly refused, unless some one slept there with him. Hill ridi- 
 culed his cowardice ; and finally agreed that David should bear 
 him company. 
 
 He made the bargain without his wife. She had other views for 
 David. Her intention was to send the lad over to Worcester by 
 the seven-o'clock evening train ; not so much because his bed and 
 bedding had been carried off and there was nothing for him to 
 «;leep on, as that his dying grandmother had expressed a wish to 
 ee him. To hear then that David was not to go, did not please 
 Mrs. Hill. 
 
 It was David himself who carried in the news. She had tea 
 waiting on the table when they came in : David first, for his step- 
 father had stopped to speak to some one in the road. 
 
 " But, David, dear — you must go to Worcester," she said, when 
 he told her. 
 
 " He will never let me, mother," was David's answer. " He says 
 the things might be stolen if nobody takes care of them : and 
 Macintosh is afraid to be there alone." 
 
 She paused and looked at him, a thought striking her. The boy 
 was leaning upon her in his fond manner, his hand in hers. 
 
 " Should you be afraid, David ? " 
 
 " Not — I think — with Luke. We are to be in the same room, 
 mother." 
 
 But Mrs. Hill noticed that his voice was hesitating ; his small 
 weak hand trembled in hers. There was not a more morally brave 
 heart than David Garth's ; he had had a religious training ; but 
 at being alone in the dark he was a very coward, afraid of ghosts 
 and goblins. 
 
 " Hill," said she to her husband when he stamped in, the lad 
 having gone to wash his hands, " I cannot let David sleep in the 
 other house to-night. He will be too timid." 
 
 " Timid ! " repeated Hill, staring at the words. " Why, Luke 
 Macintosh will be with him." 
 
 "David won't like it. Macintosh is nothing but a coward 
 himself." 
 
 " Don't thee be a fool, and show it," returned Hill, roughly. 
 '' Thee'll keep that boy a baby for his life. Dawy would as soon 
 sleep in the house alone, as not, but for the folly put into his head 
 by you. And why not ? He's fourteen." 
 
 Hill— to give him his due — only spoke as he thought. That any 
 one in the world, grown to fourteen and upwards, could be afraid 
 of sleeping in a house alone, was to him literally incomprehensible.
 
 313 JOHNNY LUDLO\V. 
 
 " I said he must go over to Worcester to see mother, James," she 
 meekly resumed ; " you know I did." 
 
 " Well, he can't go to-night ; he shall go in the morning. There ! 
 He may stop with her for a week, an' ye like, for all the good he 
 is to me." 
 
 " Mother's looking for him to-night, and he ought to go. The 
 dying " 
 
 " Now just you drop it, for he can't be spared," interrupted Hill. 
 " The goods might be stole, with all the loose characters there is 
 about, and that fool of a Macintosh won't go in of himself. He's a 
 regular coward ! Davvy must keep him company — it's not so much 
 he does for his keep — and he may start for Worcester by daylight." 
 
 Whenever Hill came down upon her with this resolute decision, 
 it struck her timid forthwith. The allusion to the boy's keep was 
 an additional thrust, for it was beginning to be rather a sore subject. 
 An uncle at Worcester, who had no family and was well to do, had 
 partly offered to adopt the lad ; but it was not yet settled. Davy 
 was a great favourite with all the relatives ; Miss Timmens, the 
 schoolmistress, doted on him. Mrs. Hill, not venturing on further 
 remonstrance, made the best of the situation. 
 
 " Davy, you are to go to Worcester the first thing in the morn- 
 ing," she said, when he came back from washing his hands. " .So 
 as soon as you've been home and had a bit o' breakfast, you sliall 
 run off to the train." 
 
 Tea over. Hill went out on some business, saying he should be 
 in at eight, or thereabouts, to go with Davy to the cottage. As 
 the hour drew near, David, sitting o\*er the fire with his mother in 
 pleasant talk, as they loved to do, asked if he should read before 
 he went : for her habit was to read the Bible to him, or cause h-'m 
 to read to her, the last thing. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she said. " Read the ninety-first Psalm." 
 
 So David read it. Closing the book when it was over, he sat 
 with it on his knee, thoughtfully. 
 
 "'If we could only ^^^ the angels, mother! It is so difficult to 
 remember always that they are close around, taking care of us." 
 
 " So it is, Davy. Most of us forget it." 
 
 " When life's over it will be so pleasant for them to carry us away 
 to heaven I I wish you and I could go together, mother." 
 
 '' We shall each go when God pleases, David." 
 
 '= Oh yes, I know that." 
 
 Mrs. Hill, remembering this little bit of conversation, word for 
 word, repeated it afterwards to me and others, with how they had 
 sat, and David's looks. 1 say this for fear people might think I 
 had invented it. 
 
 Hill came in, and they prepared to go to the other house.
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 513 
 
 David, his arms full — for, of course, with things to be carried, they 
 did not go out empty-handed — came suddenly back from the door 
 in going out, flung his load down, and clasped his mother. She 
 bent to kiss him. 
 
 " Good night, my dear one ! Don't you and Luke get chattering 
 all night. Go to sleep betimes." 
 
 He burst into tears, clinging to her with sobs. It was as if his 
 heart were breaking. 
 
 '' Are you afraid to go ? " she whispered. 
 
 '■ I must go," was his sobbing answer. 
 
 "Now then, Davvy!" called back Hill's rough tones. "What 
 the plague are you lagging for ? '' 
 
 " Say good-bye to me, mother ! Say good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye, and God bless you, David I Remember the angels 
 are around you ! " 
 
 '•' I know '; I know ! " 
 
 Taking up his bundles, he departed, keeping some paces behind 
 Hill all the way ; partly to hide his face, down which the tears were 
 raining ; partly in his usual awe of that formidable functionary who 
 stood to him as a step-father. 
 
 Arrived at the house, Hill was fumbling for the key, when some 
 one came darting out from the shadow of its eaves. It proved to 
 be Luke Macintosh. 
 
 " I was a-Iooking round for you," said crusty Hill. " I began to 
 think you'd forgot the time o' meeting." 
 
 "No, I'd not forgot it; but I be come to say that 1 can't oblige 
 you by sleeping there," was Luke's reply. "The master have 
 ordered me off with the waggon afore dawn, and so — I'm a-going 
 to sleep at home." 
 
 Had I been there, I could have said the master had ?ioi ordered 
 Luke oft' before dawn; but after his breakfast. It was just a ruse 
 of his, to avoid doing what he had never relished, sleeping in the 
 house. Hill suspected as much, and went on at him, mockingly 
 asking if he was afraid of hobgoblins. Luke dodged away in the 
 midst of it, and Hill relieved his anger by a little hot language. 
 
 " Come along, Davvy," said he at last ; " we must put these here 
 things inside." 
 
 Unlocking the door, he went in ; and, the first thing, fell against 
 something or other in the dark. Hill swore a little at that, and 
 struck a light, the fire having gone out. This lower room was full 
 of articles, thrown down out of hand ; the putting things straight 
 had been left to the morrow. 
 
 " Carry the match afore me. Davvy. These blankets must go 
 upstairs."' 
 
 By some oversight no candles had been taken to the house ; only
 
 314 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 the box of matches. David lighted one match after the other, while 
 Hill arranged the blankets on the mattress for sleeping. This room 
 — the one with the skylight — was to be David's. 
 
 "There," said Hill, taking the box of matches from him, "you'll 
 be comfortable here till morning. If you find it cold, you might 
 keep on your trousers." 
 
 David Garth stood speechless, a look of horror struggling to his 
 face. In that first moment he dared not remonstrate; his awe of 
 Hill was too great. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" asked Hill, striking another match. 
 " What ails you ? " 
 
 "You'll not leave me here, all by myself?" whispered the unhappy 
 boy, in desperate courage. 
 
 "Not leave you here by yourself ! Why, what d'ye think is to 
 harm you ? Don't you try on your nonsense and your games with 
 me. Master Davvy. I'm not soft, like your mother. Say your 
 prayers and get to sleep, and I'll come and let you out in the 
 morning." 
 
 By a dexterous movement, Hill got outside, and closed the door 
 softly, slipping the bolt. The match in his fingers was nearly burnt 
 out ; nevertheless, it had shown a last faint vision of a boy kneeling 
 in supplication, his hands held up, his face one of piteous agony. 
 As Hill struck another match to light the staircase, a wailing cry 
 mingled with the sound : entreaties to be let out ; prayers not to 
 be left alone ; low moans, telling of awful terror. 
 
 " Drat the boy ! This comes of his mother's coddling. Hold 
 your row, Davvy," he roared out, wrathfuUy : "you'd not like me to 
 come back and give you a basting." 
 
 And Mr. James Hill, picking his way over the bundles, locked 
 the outer door, and betook himself home. That was our respectable 
 bailiff. What do you think of him ? 
 
 "Did you leave Davy comfortable?" asked Mrs. Hill, when he 
 got back. 
 
 " He'll be comfortable enough when he's asleep," shortly answered 
 Hill. "Of all hardened, ungrateful boys, that of yourn's the worst." 
 
 "Had Luke come when you got there?" she resumed, passing 
 over the aspersion on Davy. 
 
 " He was waiting : he came right out upon us like an apparition," 
 was Hill's evasive answer. And he did not tell the rest. 
 
 But now, a singular thing happened that night. Mrs. Hill was 
 in a sound sleep, when a loud, agonized cry of " Mother " aroused 
 her from it. She started up, wide awake instantly, and in terror 
 so great that the perspiration began to pour off her face. In that 
 moment the call was repeated. The voice was David's voice; it 
 had appeared to be in the room, close to her, and she peered
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 315 
 
 into every corner in vain. Then she supposed it must have come 
 through the window; that David, from some cause or other, had 
 come home from Willow Brook, and was waiting to be let in. A 
 dread crossed her of Hill's anger, and she felt inclined to order the 
 boy to go back again. 
 
 Opening the casement window, she called to him by name ; softly 
 at first, then louder. There was no answer. Mrs. Hill stretched 
 out her head as far as the narrow casement allowed, but neither 
 David nor any one else could she see ; nothing but the shadows 
 cast by the moonlight. Just then the old church clock struck out. 
 She counted the strokes and found it twelve. Midnight. It was 
 bitterly cold : she closed the window at last, concluding David had 
 gone off from fear of being punished. All she could hope was that 
 he would have the sense, that dangerously keen night, to run off to 
 the brick kilns, and get warm there. 
 
 But the terror lay upon her yet ; she was unable to tell why or 
 wherefore ; unless from the strangely appealing agony of the cry ; 
 still less could she shake it off. It seemed odd. Hill awoke with 
 the commotion, and found her trembling. 
 
 " What have ye got to be affrighted on ? " he asked roughly, 
 when she had told her tale. And Mrs. Hill was puzzled to say 
 what. 
 
 " You had been a-dreaming of him, that's what it was. You've 
 got nothing else in your mind, day nor night, but that there boy." 
 
 " It was not a dream; I am quite positive it was himself; I could 
 not mistake his voice," persisted Mrs. Hill. " He has come away 
 from the cottage, for sure. Perhaps that Luke Macintosh might 
 have got teasing him." 
 
 Knowing what Hill knew, that the boy was locked in, he might 
 safely have stood out that he could not have come away from it ; 
 but he said no more. Rolling himself round, he prepared to go to 
 sleep again, resentful at having been awakened. 
 
 Hill overslept himself in the morning, possibly through the inter- 
 rupted rest. When he went out it was broad daylight. David 
 Garth's being locked up half-an-hour more or less went for nothing 
 with Hill, and he stayed to load the truck with some of the re- 
 mainder of his goods. 
 
 " Send Davy home at once, James," called out the wife, as he 
 began to wheel it away. " I'll give him his breakfast, and let him 
 start off to the train." 
 
 For, with daylight, and the sight of the door-key, Mrs. Hill could 
 only reverse her opinion, and conclude unwillingly that it might 
 have been a dream. Hill showed her the key, teUing her that he 
 had locked the door " for safety." Therefore it appeared to be 
 impossible that David could have got out.
 
 3i6 JOHNNY LUULOW. 
 
 The tirst thing Hill saw when he and his truck approached the 
 cottage, was young Jim Batley, mounted on the roof and hammer- 
 ing away at the skylight with his freezing hands. Jim, a regular 
 sailor for climbing, had climbed a tree, and thence swung himself 
 on to the tiles. Hill treated him to some hard words, and ordered 
 him to come down and get a licking. Down came Jim, taking care 
 to dodge out of Hill's reach. 
 
 " I can't make David hear," said Jim. " I've got to go to Tim- 
 berdale, and I want him to go along with me." 
 
 " That's no reason why you should get atop of my roof," roared 
 Hill. "You look out for a sweet hiding, young Jim. The first 
 time I get hold on you, you shall have it kindly." 
 
 " He sleeps uncommon hard," said Jim. " One 'ud think the 
 cold had froze him. I've got to take a letter to my uncle's at 
 Timberdale : we shall find a jolly good hot breakfast when we get 
 there." 
 
 Hill condescended to abate his anger so far as to inform Jim 
 Batley that David could not go to Timberdale ; adding that he was 
 going off by train to see his grandmother at Worcester. Ordering 
 Jim to take himself away, he unlocked the door and entered the 
 cottage. 
 
 Jim Batley chose to stay. He was a tall, thin, obstinate fellow, 
 of eleven, and meant to wait and speak to David. Given to follow- 
 ing his own way whenever he could, in spite of his father and 
 mother, it occurred to him that perhaps David might be persuaded 
 to take Timberdale first and the train after. 
 
 He amused himself with the dead leaves while he waited. But 
 it seemed that David took a long time dressing. The truck stood 
 at the door; Jim stamped and whistled, and shied a few stones 
 at the topmost article, which was Mrs. Hill's potato saucepan. 
 Presently Hill came out and began to unload, beginning with the 
 saucepan. 
 
 " Where's Davy?" demanded Jim, from a safe distance. "Ain't 
 he ready yet ? " 
 
 " Now if you don't get off about your business I'll make you go," 
 was Hill's answer, keeping his back turned to the boy. " You 
 haven't got nothing to stop here for." 
 
 " I'm stopping to speak to Davy." 
 
 " Davy was away out o' here afore daylight and took the first 
 train to Worcester. He's a'most there by now." 
 
 Young boys are not clever reasoners ; but certain contradictory 
 odds and ends passed through Jim's disappointed mind. For one 
 thing, he had seen Hill unlock the door. 
 
 •' I don't think he's gone out vet. I see his boots." 
 
 "What boots?" asked Hill, putting a bandbox inside the door.
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 317 
 
 " Davy's. I see 'em through the skylight ; they stood near the 
 mattress." 
 
 " Them was a pair of my boots as I carried here last night. I 
 tell ye Davvy's gone: can't ye believe? He won't be home for 
 some days neither, for his grandmother's safe to keep him." 
 
 Jim Batley went off slowly on his way to Timberdale : there was 
 nothing to stay for, Davy being gone. Happening to turn round, 
 he caught Hill looking after him, and saw his face for the first 
 time. It had turned white as death. The contrast was very re- 
 markable, for it was usually of a deep red. 
 
 "Well, I never!" cried Jim, halting in surprise. " Mayhap the 
 cold have took him ! Serve him right." 
 
 When Hill had got all the things inside he locked himself in, 
 probably not to be disturbed while he arranged them. Mrs. Hill 
 had been waiting breakfast ever so long when she heard the truck 
 coming back. 
 
 " Whatever's become of David?" she began. "I expected him 
 home at once." 
 
 " David has started for Worcester," said Hill. 
 
 " Started for Worcester ? Without his breakfast ? " 
 
 " Now don't you worry yourself about petty things," returned 
 Hill, crustily. " You wanted him to go, and he's gone. He won't 
 starve ; let him alone for that." 
 
 The notion assumed by IMrs. Hill was, that her husband had 
 started the boy off from the cottage direct to the train. She felt 
 thoroughly vexed. 
 
 ''He had all his old clothes on, Hill. I would not have had him 
 go to W'orcester in that plight for any money. You might have let 
 the child come home for a bit of breakfast — and to dress himself. 
 There was not so much as a brush and comb at the place, to make 
 his hair tidy." 
 
 " There's no pleasing you," growled Hill. " Last night you were 
 a'most crying, cause Davvy couldn't be let go over to see your 
 mother \ and, now that he is gone, that don't please ye ! Women 
 be the very deuce for grumbling." 
 
 Mrs. Hill dropped the subject — there could be no remedy — and 
 gave her husband his breakfast in silence. Hill seemed to eat 
 nothing, and looked very pale ; at moments ghastly. 
 
 " Don't you feel well?" she asked. 
 
 "W^ell? — I'm well enough. What should ail me — barring the 
 cold? It's as sharp a frost as ever I was out in." 
 
 " Drink this," she said, pouring him out another cup of hot tea. 
 " It is cold; and I'm sorry we've got it so for our moving. What 
 time shall we get in to-dav. Hill?" 
 
 " Not at all."
 
 3i8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 '' Not at all ! " repeated the wife in surprise. 
 
 " No, not at all," was Hill's surly confirmation. " What with 
 you disabled, and Davvy o' no use, things is not as forrard as they 
 ought to be. I've got to be off to my work too, pretty quick, or the 
 Squire'll be about me. We shan't get in till to-morrow." 
 
 " But nearly all our things are in," she remonstrated. " There's 
 as good as nothing left here." 
 
 " I tell ye we don't go in afore to-morrow," said Hill, giving the 
 table a thump. " Can't ye be satisfied with that ? " 
 
 He went off to his work. Mrs. Hill, accepting the change as 
 inevitable, resigned herself, and borrowed a saucepan to cook the 
 potatoes for dinner. She might have spared herself the trouble ; 
 her husband did not come in for any. He bought a penny loaf 
 and some cheese, and made his dinner of it inside our home barn, 
 Molly giving him some beer. He had done it before when very 
 busy : but the work he was about that day was in no such hurry, 
 and he might have left it if he would. 
 
 " Who is to sleep in the house to-night ? " his wife asked him 
 when he got home to tea. 
 ' " I shall," said Hill. " I won't be beholden to nobody." 
 
 Mrs. Hill, remembering the experience of the past night, quaked 
 a little at finding she should have to sleep in the old place alone, 
 devoutly praying there might be no recurrence of the dream that 
 had thrown her into such mortal terror. She and Davy were just 
 alike — frightened at their own shadows in the dark. When Hill 
 was safe off, she hurried into bed, and kept her head under the 
 clothes. 
 
 Hill came back betimes in the morning; and they moved in at 
 once ; old Coney's groom, who happened to be out with the dog- 
 cart, offering to drive Mrs. Hill. Though her ankle was better and 
 the distance short, she could hardly have walked. Instead of find- 
 ing the house in order, as she expected, it was all sixes and sevens; 
 the things lying about all over it. 
 
 Towards evening, Hannah got me to call at Willow Brook and 
 say she'd go there in the morning for an hour or two, to help put 
 things in order — the mistress had said she might do so. The fact 
 was, Hannah was burning for a gossip, she and Hill's wife being 
 choice friends. It was almost dark ; the front room looked tolerably 
 straight, and Mrs. Hill sat by the fire, resting her foot and looking 
 out at the window, the shutters not yet closed. 
 
 " I'd be very thankful for her to come, Master Johnny," she said 
 eagerly, hardly letting me finish. " There's a great deal to do ; 
 and, besides that, it is so lonesome here. I never had such a 
 feeling in all my life ; and I have gone into strange homes before 
 this."
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 319 
 
 "It does seem lonesome, somehow. The fancy may go off in a 
 day or two." 
 
 " I don't know, sir : it's to be hoped it will. Master Johnny, as 
 true as that we are sitting here, when I got out of Mr. Coney's 
 dog-cart and put my foot over the threshold to enter, a fit of 
 trembling took me all over. There was no cause for it : I mean I 
 wag, not thinking of anything to give it me. Not a minute before, 
 I was laughing ; for the man had been telling me a joking story of 
 something that happened yesterday at his master's. A strange fear 
 seemed to come upon me all at once as I stepped over the threshold, 
 and I began to shake from head to foot. Hill stared at me, and at 
 last asked if it was the cold ; I told him truly that I did not know 
 what it was ; except that it seemed like some unaccountable attack, 
 for I was well wrapped up. He had some brandy in a bottle, and 
 made me drink a drop. The fit went off ; but I have had a queer 
 lonesome feeling on me ever since, as if the house was not one to 
 be alone in." 
 
 " And you have been alone, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Every bit of the time, save when Hill came in to his dinner. 
 I don't remember ever to have had such a feeling before in broad 
 daylight. It's just as if the house was haunted." 
 
 Not believing in haunted houses, I laughed. Mrs. Hill got up 
 to stir the fire. It blazed, and cast her shadow upon the opposite 
 wall. 
 
 "When dusk came on, I could hardly bear it. But for your 
 coming in. Master Johnny, I should have stood at the door in the 
 cold, and watched for Hill : things don't feel so lonely to one out of 
 doors as in." 
 
 So it seemed that I was in for a stay — any way, till Hill arrived. 
 After this, it would not have been very kind to leave her alone ; she 
 looked so weak and httle. 
 
 '• I've never liked the thought of moving here from the first," she 
 went on ; " and then there came the accident to my foot. Some 
 people think nothing at all of omens. Master Johnny, but I do 
 think of them. They come oftener than is thought for too ; only, 
 so few take notice of them. I wish Davy was back! I can't bear 
 to be in this house alone." 
 
 " David is at Worcester, I heard Hill say." 
 
 " He went yesterday morning, sir. I expected a lettei from him 
 to-day; and it is very curious that none have come. Davy knew 
 how anxious I was about mother ; and he never fails to write when 
 he's away from me. Somehow, all things are going crooked and 
 cross just now. I had a fright the night before last, Master Johnny, 
 and I am hardly quit of it yet." 
 
 " What was that.'" I asked her.
 
 330 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 She stared into the fire for a mhiute or two before she answered 
 me. There was no other light in the room ; I sat back against the 
 wall beside the window— the shutters were still open. 
 
 " You might not care to hear it, sir." 
 
 " I should if it's worth telling." 
 
 Turning from the fire, she looked straight at me while she told it 
 from beginning to end, exactly as I have written it above. The 
 tale would have been just the thing for Mrs, Todhetley : who went 
 in for marvels, 
 
 "Hill stood to it that it was a dream, Master Johnny; but the 
 more I think of it, the less I beheve it could have been one. If I 
 had only heard the call in my sleep, or in the moment of waking, 
 why of course it might have been a dream ; but when I heard it 
 the second time it was afte7- I awoke. I heard it as plain as I hear 
 my own voice now ; and plainer, too," 
 
 " But what else, except a dream, do you fancy it could have 
 been ? " 
 
 "Well, sir, that's what is puzzUng me. But for Hill's convincing 
 me Davy could not have got out of here after he had locked him 
 and Macintosh in for safety, I should have said it was the boy 
 himself, calling me from outside. It sounded in the room, close 
 to me : but the fright I was in might have deceived me. What's 
 that?" 
 
 A loud rapping at the window, I am not ashamed to say that 
 coming so unexpectedly it startled me. Mrs, Hill, with a shrill 
 scream, darted forward to catch hold of my arm, 
 
 " Let me go. Some one wants to be let in. I dare say it's Hill." 
 
 " Master Johnny, I beg your pardon," she said, going back, 
 " Hill ought to know better than to come frightening me at night 
 like this," 
 
 I opened the door, and Miss Timmens walked in : not Hill, The 
 knocking had not been intended to frighten any one, but as a 
 greeting to Mrs, Hill — Miss Timmens having seen her through the 
 glass, 
 
 " You know you always were one of the quaking ones, Nanny," 
 she said, scoffing at the alarm, " I have just got back from Wor- 
 cester, and thought you'd like to hear that mother's better." 
 
 " And it is well you are back. Miss Timmens," I put in. " The 
 school has been in rebellion. Strangers, going by, have taken it 
 for a bear garden." 
 
 " That Maria Lease is just good for nothing," said Miss Timmens, 
 wrathfully. " When she offered to take my place I knew she'd not 
 be of much use. Yes, sir ; it was the thought of the school that 
 brought me back so soon," 
 
 "And mother is reallv better I'" cried Mrs. Hill. "I am so
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 321 
 
 thankful. If she had died and I not able to get over to her, I 
 should never have forgiven myself. How is David.-"' 
 
 "Are you getting straight, Nancy.?" asked Miss Timmcns, 
 looking round the room, and not noticing the question about 
 David. 
 
 " Straight ! and only moved in this morning ! and me with this 
 ankle!" 
 
 Miss Timmens laughed. She was just as capable as her sister 
 was the contrary. 
 
 "About David?" added Mrs. Hill, "I was so vexed that he 
 went over in his old clothes ! It was Hill's fault. Have you 
 brought me a letter from him?" 
 
 "How could I bring you a letter from him?" returned Miss 
 Timmens. " A letter from where ? " 
 
 It was a minute or two before elucidation was arrived at, for both 
 were at cross-purposes. David Garth had not been at Worcester 
 at all, so far as Miss Timmens knew ; certainly not at his grand- 
 mother's. 
 
 To see Mrs. Hill sink back into her chair at this information, 
 and let her hands fall on her lap, and gaze helplessly from her 
 frightened eyes, was only to be expected. Miss Timmens kept 
 asking what it all meant, and where David was, but she could get 
 no answer. So I told her what Mother Hill had just told me 
 — about Hill's sending him off to Worcester. She stared hke 
 anything. 
 . " Why, where in the name of wonder can the boy have got to?" 
 
 " I see it all," spoke the mother then, in a whisper. " Davy did 
 find his way out of this house ; and it was his voice I heard, and 
 not a dream. I knew it. I knew it at the time." 
 
 These words would have sounded mysterious to any one given 
 to mystery. Miss Timmens was not. She was a long, thin 
 female, with a chronic redness on her nose and one cheek, and she 
 was as practical as could be. Demanding what Mrs. Hill meant by 
 "not a dream," she stood warming her boots at the fire while she 
 was enlightened. 
 
 "The boy is keeping away for fear of Hill tanning him," spoke 
 Miss Timmens, summing up the question. " Don't you think so, 
 Master Ludlow ? " 
 
 " I should, if I could see how he got out of the cottage, after 
 Hill had locked him in it." 
 
 " Luke Macintosh put him out at this window," said Miss Tim- 
 mens, decisively. " Hill couldn't lock that up. They'd open the 
 shutters, and Luke would pop him out : to get rid of the boy, no 
 doubt. Mr. Luke ought to be punished for it." 
 
 I did not contradict her. Of course it might have been so ; 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. -1
 
 322 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 but knowing Luke, I did not think he would care to be left in the 
 house alone. Unless — the thought flashed over me — unless Luke 
 sent away David that he might be off himself. Amidst a good 
 deal of uncertainty, this view seemed the most probable. 
 
 " Where is David ? " bemoaned Mrs. Hill ; " where is he ? And 
 with these bitter cold nights " 
 
 " Now don't you worry yourself, Nanny," interrupted strong- 
 minded Miss Timmens. " I'll see to David ; and bring him home, 
 too." 
 
 Hill's cough was heard outside. Miss Timmens — who had been 
 in a dead rage at the marriage, and consequently hated Hill like 
 poison — hastened to depart. We went away together, passing Hill 
 by the dried-up brook. He looked stealthily at us, and threw back 
 a surly good night to me. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know where I am to look for the boy first," 
 began Miss Timmens, as we went along. " Poor fellow ! he is 
 keeping away out of fear. It would not surprise me if Macintosh 
 is taking care of him. The man's not ill-natured." 
 
 " I don't understand why Hill should have told his mother 
 David was gone to Worcester, unless he did go." Neither did I. 
 
 " David never went to Worcester ; rely upon that, Master Lud- 
 low," was her answer. " He is well known at Shrub Hill Station, 
 and I could not have failed to hear of it, for one of the porters 
 lodges in mother's house ; besides, David would have come down to 
 us at once. Good night, sir. I dare say he will turn up before 
 to-morrow." 
 
 She went on towards the school-house, I the other way to Crabb 
 Cot. Mrs. Todhetley and the Squire were talking together by the 
 blazing fire, waiting until old Thomas announced dinner. 
 
 "Where have you been lingering this cold evening, Johnny.?" 
 began the Squire. " Don't you get trying the ponds, sir ; the ice 
 is not wafer thick yet." 
 
 Kneeling on the rug between them, holding my hands to the 
 warmth, I told where I had been, and what I had heard. Mrs. 
 Todhetley, who seemed to have been born with a sympathy for 
 children, went into lamentation over — it was what she said — that 
 poor little gentle lamb, David. 
 
 " Macintosh is about somewhere," spoke the Squire, ringing the 
 bell. " We will soon hear whether he knows what has become of 
 the boy." 
 
 Thomas was ordered to find Macintosh and send him in. He 
 came presently, shy and sheepish, as usual. Standing just inside 
 the door, he blinked his eyes and rubbed his hands one over the 
 other, like an idiot. It was only his way. 
 
 "Do you know where David Garth is?" began the Squire, who
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 323 
 
 thought himself a regular O.C. at cross-examining. Luke stared 
 and said No. The fact was, he had not heard that David was 
 missing. 
 
 "What time was it that you put him out of the window the 
 night before last ? " 
 
 Luke's eyes and mouth opened. He had no more idea what the 
 Squire meant than the man in the moon. 
 
 "Don't stand there as if you were a born simpleton, but 'answer 
 me," commanded the Squire. "When you and David Garth were 
 put into Hill's new cottage to take care of the things for the night, 
 how came you to let the boy out of it ? Why did you do it ? 
 Upon what plea ? " 
 
 " But I didn't do it, sir," said Luke. 
 
 " Now don't you stand there and say that to my face, Macintosh. 
 It won't answer ; for I know all about it. You put that poor 
 shivering boy out at the window that you might be off yourself; 
 that's about the English of it. Where did he go to ? " 
 
 " But I couldn't do it, sir," was Luke's answer to this. " I was 
 not in the place myself." 
 
 " You were not there yourself? " 
 
 " No, sir, I warn't. Knowing I should have to go off with the 
 waggon pretty early, I went down and telled Hill that I should 
 sleep at home." 
 
 "Do you mean to say you did not go into Hill's place at all?" 
 
 '• No, sir, I didn't. I conclude Hill slept there hisself. I know 
 nothing about it, for I don't happen to have come across Hill since. 
 I've kept out of his way." 
 
 This was a new turn to the affair. Luke quitted the room, and 
 a silence ensued. ]\Irs. Todhetley touched me on the shoulder. 
 
 " Johnny ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " I said, wondering at the startled look in her eyes. 
 
 " I hope Hill did not put that poor child into the house alone ! 
 If so, no wonder that he made his escape from it." 
 
 The matter could not rest. One talked, and another talked : 
 and before noon next day it was known all over the place that 
 David Garth had been put to sleep by himself in the empty cottage. •= 
 Miss Timmens attacked Hill with her strong tongue, and told him 
 it was enough to frighten the child to death. Hill was sullen. He 
 would answer nothing ; and all she could get out of him was, that 
 it was no business of hers. In vain she demanded his reasons for 
 saying the boy had gone to Worcester by the early train : whether 
 he sent him — whether he saw him off. Hill said David did go ; 
 and then took refuge in dogged silence.
 
 324 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 The schoolmistress was not one to be played with. Of a tena- 
 cious turn, she followed out things with a will. She called in the 
 police ; she harangued people outside her door ; she set the parish 
 in a ferment. But David could not be heard of, high or low. 
 Since the midnight hour, when that call of his awoke his mother, 
 and was again repeated, he seemed to have vanished. 
 
 There arose a rumour that Jim Batley could tell something. 
 Miss Timmens pounced upon him as he was going by the school- 
 house, conveyed him indoors, and ordered him to make a clean 
 breast of it. It was not much that Jim had to tell : but that 
 little seemed of importance to Miss Timmens, and he told it 
 readily. One thing Jim persisted in — that the boots he saw 
 through the skylight must have been David's boots. Hill had 
 called them his, he said, but they were not big enough — not men's 
 boots at all. Hill was looking "ghastly white," as if he had had 
 a fright, Jim added, when he told him David was gone off to 
 Worcester. 
 
 Perhaps it was in that moment that a fear of something worse 
 than had been yet suspected dawned upon Miss Timmens. Tying 
 on her bonnet, she came up to Crabb Cot, and asked to see the 
 Squire. 
 
 " It is getting more serious," she said, after old Thomas had 
 shown her in. " I think, sir. Hill should be forced to explain what 
 he knows. I have come here to ask you to insist upon it." 
 
 " The question is — what does he know .-' " rejoined the Squire. 
 
 " More than he has confessed," said Miss Timmens, in her 
 positive manner. " Jim Batley stands to it that those boots must, 
 from the size, have been David's boots. Now, Squire Todhetley, if 
 David's boots were there, where was David.'' That is what's lying 
 on my mind, sir." 
 
 " What did Jim Batley see besides the boots ? " asked the 
 Squire. 
 
 " Nothing in particular," she answered. " He said the cupboard 
 door stood open, and hid the best part of the room. David would 
 not be likely to run away and leave his boots behind him." 
 
 " Unless he was in too great a fright to stop to put them on." 
 
 " I don't think that, sir." 
 
 " What is it you wish to imply ? " asked the Squire, not seeing the 
 drift of the argument. 
 
 " I wish I knew myself," replied Miss Timmens, candidly. " I 
 am certain Hill has not told all he could tell : he has been deceitful 
 over it from the first, and he must be made to explain. Look here, 
 sir : when he got to Willow Cottage that morning, there's no doubt 
 he thought David was in it. Very well. He goes in to call him ; 
 stays a bit, and then comes out and tells young Jim that David has
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 325 
 
 gone to Worcester. How was he to know David had gone to 
 Worcester ?— who told him? The boy says, too, that Hill looked 
 ghastly, as if he had been frightened." 
 
 " David must have gone somewhere, or he would have been in 
 the room," argued the Squire. " He would not be likely to go back 
 after quitting it, and his mother heard him call to her in the middle 
 of the night." 
 
 " Just so, sir. But— if Hill did not find him, why should he come 
 out and assert that David had started for Worcester ? — Why not 
 have said David had escaped ? " 
 
 " I am sure I don't know." 
 
 " It's the boots that come over me," avowed Miss Timmens ; " I 
 can't come to the bottom of them. I mean to come to the bottom 
 of Hill, though, and make him disclose what he knows. You are 
 his master, sir, and perhaps he will tell you without trouble, if you 
 will please to be so good as question him. If he won't. 111 have 
 him brought up before the Bench." 
 
 Away went Miss Timmens, with a parting remark that the school 
 must be rampant by that time. The Squire sat thinking a bit, and 
 then put on his hat and great-coat, telling me I might come with 
 him and hear what Hill had to say. We expected to find Hill 
 in the ploughed field between his cottage and North Crabb. But 
 Hill was in his own garden ; we saw him as we went along. With- 
 out ceremony, the Squire opened the wooden gate, and stepped in. 
 Hill was raking the leaves together by the shed at the end of the 
 garden. 
 
 He threw down the rake when he saw us, as if startled, his red 
 face turning white. Coming forward, he began a confused excuse 
 for being at home at that hour of the day, saying there was so much 
 to do when getting into a fresh place ; and that he had not been 
 well for two days, " had had a sickness upon him." The Squire, 
 never hard with the men, told him he was welcome to be there, and 
 began talking about the garden. 
 
 " It is as rich a bit of land. Hill, as any in the parish,' and you 
 may turn it to good account if you are industrious. Does your wife 
 intend to keep chickens ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, I suppose she will. Town-bred women don't un- 
 derstand far about 'em, though. It may be a'most as much loss as 
 profit." 
 
 " Nonsense," said the Squire, in his quick way. " Loss ! when 
 you have every convenience about you ! This used to be the 
 fowl-house in Hopton's time," he added, rapping the side of the 
 shed with his stick. " Why ! you've been putting a padlock on it, 
 Hill!" 
 For the door was fastened with a padlock ; a new one, to judge
 
 326 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 by its look. Hill made no comment. He had taken up the rake 
 again and was raking vigorously at the dead leaves. I wondered 
 what he was shaking for. 
 
 " Have you any treasures here, that you should lock it up ? " 
 
 " Only the watering-can, sir, and a few o' my garden tools," 
 answered Hill. " There's a heap of loose characters about, and 
 nothing's safe from 'em." 
 
 Putting his back against the shed, the Squire suddenly called on 
 Hill to face him, and entered on the business he had come upon. 
 "Where was David Garth? Did he. Hill, know anything about 
 him ? " 
 
 Hill had looked pale before; I said so; but that was nothing to 
 the frightful whiteness that took him now. Ears, lips, neck ; all 
 turned the hue of the dead. The rake shook in his grasp ; his 
 teeth chattered. 
 
 " Come, Hill," said the Squire ; " I see you have something to 
 say." 
 
 But Hill protested he had nothing to say : except that the boy's 
 absence puzzled him. The Squire put some home questions upon 
 the points spoken of by Miss Timmens, showing Hill that we knew 
 all. He then told him he might take his choice ; answer, or go before 
 the magistrates. 
 
 Apparently Hill saw the futility of holding out longer. His 
 very aspect would have convicted him, as the Squire said : if he 
 had committed murder, he could not have looked more guilty. 
 Glancing shudderingly around on all sides, as though the air 
 had phantoms in it, he whispered his version of the morning's 
 work. 
 
 It was true that he had gone to the house expecting to find 
 David in it ; and it was true that when he entered he found him 
 flown. Not wishing to alarm the boy's mother, he told Jim Batley 
 that David had gone by early train to Worcester : he told the 
 mother so. As to the boots, Hill declared they were his own, not 
 David's ; and that Jim's eyes must have been deceived in the size. 
 And he vowed and declared he knew no more than this, or where 
 David could have got to. 
 
 " What do you think you deserve for locking the child in the 
 house by himself?" asked the Squire, sternly. 
 
 " Everything that'll come upon me through it," readily acknow- 
 ledged Hill. " I could cut my hands off now for having done it ; 
 but I never thought he'd be really frightened. It's just as if his 
 ghost had been haunting me ever since ; I see him a-following of 
 me everywhere." 
 
 " His ghost ! " exclaimed the Squire. " Do you suppose he is 
 dead ? "
 
 DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH. 327 
 
 " I don't know," said the man, passing his shaking hand across his 
 damp forehead. " I wish to Heaven I had let him go off to his grand- 
 motlier's that same blessed night ! " 
 
 " Then you wish me to understand. Hill, that you absolutely know 
 nothing of where the boy may be ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all, sir." 
 
 " Don't you think it might have been as well if you had told the 
 truth from the first ? " asked the Squire, rather sarcastically. 
 
 " Well, sir, one's mind gets confused at times, and I thought 
 of his mother. I could not be off seeing that if anything had 
 happened, it lay on my shoulders for having left him alone, in there." 
 
 Whether the Squire believed Hill could tell more, I don't know. 
 I did. As we went on to the school-house, the Pater kept silence. 
 Miss Timmens was frightfully disappointed at the result, and said 
 Hill was a shifty scoundrel. 
 
 " I cannot tell what to think," the Squire remarked to her. " His 
 manner is the strangest I ever saw ; it is just as though he had 
 something on his conscience. He said the boy's ghost seemed to 
 haunt him. Did you notice that, Johnny? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. A queer idea." 
 
 " He — he — never could have found David dead in the morning ? " 
 cried IMiss Timmens, in a low tone, herself turning a little pale. 
 "Dead of fright?" 
 
 "That could not be," said the Squire. " You forget that David 
 had made his escape before midnight, and was at his mother's, calling 
 to her." 
 
 " True, true," assented Miss Timmens. " Any way, I am certain 
 Hill is somehow or other deceiving us, and he is a born villain for 
 doing it." 
 
 But Hill, deceiving us though he had been, could not hold out. 
 In going back, we saw him leaning over the pahngs waiting for us. 
 But that the man is living yet, I should have said he was going to 
 die there and then, for he looked exactly like it. 
 
 It seemed that just after we left him, a policeman had made 
 his appearance. Not as a policeman, but as a friend ; for he 
 and Hill were cronies. He told Hill confidentially that there was 
 " going to be a row over that there lost boy ; that folks were saying 
 that he might have been murdered ; that unless Hill could tell 
 something satisfactory about him, he and others might be in custody 
 before the day was over." W^hether Hill found himself brought 
 to a point from which there was neither advance nor retreat, or 
 that he inevitably saw that concealment could no longer be 
 maintained, or that he was stricken to despair and felt helpless, I 
 know not. There he stood, his head over the palings, saying he 
 would tell all.
 
 328 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 It was a sad talc to listen to. Miss Timmens's last supposition was 
 right — Hill, upon going up to release David Garth, had found him 
 dead. And, so far as the man's experience of death went, he must 
 have been dead for six or seven hours. 
 
 " I'd like you to come and see him, sir," panted Hill. 
 
 Gingerly stepped the Squire in Hill's wake across the garden to 
 the shed. Unlocking the door, Hill stepped back for us to 
 enter. On a mattress on the ground was David, laid straight in 
 his every-day clothes, and covered with a blanket ; his pretty hair, 
 which his mother had so loved, carefully smoothed. Hill, — 
 rough, burly, cross-grained Hill, — burst into tears and sobbed like 
 a child. 
 
 " I'd give my life to undo it, and bring him back again. Squire ; I'd 
 give my life twice over. Master Johnny ; but I declare before Heaven, 
 I never thought to harm the boy. When I see him the next morning, 
 lying dead, I'd not have minded if the Lord had struck me dead too. 
 I've been a'most mad ever since." 
 
 " Johnny," said the Squire, in low tones, " go you to South Crabb, 
 and bring over Mr. Cole. Do not talk of this." 
 
 The surgeon was at home, and came back with me. I did not 
 quite understand why the Squire sent for him, seeing he could do no 
 good. 
 
 And the boots were David's, after all ; the only things he had 
 taken off. Hill had brought him to this shed the next night ; with 
 some vague idea of burying him in the ground under the leaves. 
 " But I couldn't do it," he avowed amid his sobs ; " I couldn't 
 do it." 
 
 There was an examination. Cole and another making it ; and they 
 gave evidence at the inquest. One of them (it was Cole) thought 
 the boy must have died from fright, the other from the cold ; and a 
 nice muff this last must have been. 
 
 " I did not from the first like that midnight call, or the apparently 
 causeless terror the poor mother awoke in," said Mrs. Todhetlcy, to 
 me. " The child's spirit must have cried out to her in his death- 
 agony. I have known a case like this before." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Johnny, You have net lived long enough to 
 gain experience of these things." 
 
 And I held it.
 
 XX. 
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 
 
 " Is it true that she's going to marry him, Miss Timmens?" 
 
 "True! /don't know," retorted Miss Timmens, in wrath. "It 
 won't be for lack of warning, if she does. I told her so last night ; 
 and she tossed her head in answer. She's a vain, heartless girl, 
 Hannah Baber, with no more prudence about her than a female 
 ostrich." 
 
 "There may be nothing in it, after all," said Hannah. " She is 
 generally ready to flirt, you know." 
 
 " Fhrt !" shrieked Miss Timmens in her shrillest tone. "She'd 
 flirt with a two-legged wheelbarrow if it had trousers on." 
 
 This colloquy was taking place at the private door of the school- 
 house. And you must understand that we have gone back a few 
 months, for at this time David Garth wars not dead. Hannah, who 
 had gone down from Crabb Cot on an errand, came upon Miss 
 Timmens standing there to look out. Of course she stayed to 
 gossip. 
 
 The object of Miss Timmens's wrath was her niece, Harriet Roe. 
 A vain, showy, handsome, free-natured girl, as you have heard, with 
 bright dark eyes and white teeth — who had helped to work the 
 mischief between Maria Lease and Daniel Ferrar which had led to 
 Ferrar's dreadful death. Humphrey Roe, Harriet's father, was half- 
 brother to Miss Timmens and Mrs. Hill ; he had settled in France, 
 and married a Frenchwoman. Miss Harriet chose to call herself 
 French, and politely said the English were not fit to tie that nation's 
 shoes. Perhaps that was why she had now taken up with a cousin, 
 Louis Roe. Not that Louis Roe was really French : he had been 
 born in France of English parents, and so was next door to it. A 
 fashionable-looking young man North Crabb considered him, for 
 he wore well-cut coats and a moustache. A moustache was a thing 
 to be stared at in simple country places then. It may have had 
 something to do with Miss Timmens's dislike to the young man. 
 Louis Roe was only a distant relative : a tenth cousin, or so ; of 
 whom Miss Timmens had heard before, but never seen. When he 
 appeared unexpectedly one January day at the school-house (it was
 
 330 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 the January after Daniel Ferrar's death), ostensibly to see Harriet, 
 whom he had known in France, Miss Timmens, between surprise 
 and the moustache, was less gracious than she might have been. 
 From that time to this — March — he had (as Miss Timmens put it) 
 haunted the place, though chiefly taking up his abode at Worcester. 
 Harriet had struck into a flirtation with him at once, after her 
 native fashion : and now it was reported that they were going to 
 be married. Miss Timmens could not find out that he was doing 
 anything for a living. He talked of his fine "affaires" over in 
 France: but when she questioned him of what nature the "affaires" 
 were, he either evaded her like an eel, or gave rambling answers 
 that she could make neither head nor tail of. The way in which 
 he and Harriet would jabber French in her presence, not a word 
 of which language could she comprehend, and the laughing that 
 went on at the same time, put Miss Timmens's back up worse than 
 anything, for she thought they were making game of her. She 
 could be tart when she pleased ; and when that happened, the red- 
 ness in the nose and cheek grew redder. Very tart indeed was she, 
 recounting these grievances to Hannah. 
 
 " My firm behef, Hannah Baber, is, that he wants to get hold of 
 Harriet for her two-hundred pounds. She has that much, you 
 know: it came to her from her mother. Roe would rather play 
 the gentleman than work. It is the money he's after, not Harriet." 
 
 " The money may put him into some good way of business, and 
 they may Hve comfortably together," suggested Hannah. 
 
 " Pigs may fly," returned Miss Timmens. " There's something 
 in that young man, Hannah Baber, that I could not trust. Oh, 
 but girls are wilful ! — and simple, at the best, where the men are 
 concerned ! They can't see an inch beyond their noses : no, and 
 they won't let others, who have sight, see for them. Look there ! " 
 
 Emerging into the spring sunshine from the withy walk, came 
 the gentleman in question; Harriet Roe in her gay ribbons at his 
 side. Miss Timmens gave her door a bang, regardless of good 
 manners, and Hannah pursued her way. 
 
 The road thus paved for it, North Crabb church was not taken 
 by surprise when it heard the marriage banns read out one Sunday 
 morning between Louis Roe, of the parish of St. Swithin, Worcester 
 (he was staying there at the time), and Henriette Adele Marie Roe. 
 Miss Timmens, who had not been taken into confidence, started 
 violently; Mademoiselle Henriette Adele Marie, sitting by her side, 
 held up her head and her blooming cheeks with unruffled equa- 
 nimity. It was said there was a scene when they got home : Miss 
 Timmens's sister (once Mrs. Garth, but then our bailiff's wife, 
 James Hifl) looking in at the school-house to assist at it. Neither 
 of them could make anything of Harriet.
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 331 
 
 "I'll tell you what it is, Aunt Susan and Aunt Nancy," said the 
 girl passionately, when her temper got roused : " my mind is made 
 up to viarry Louis; and if you don't drop this 'magging now and 
 for good; if you attempt to worry me any further, I'll go off to 
 Worcester, and stay with him till the day arrives. There ! how 
 would you like that ? I will, I declare. It would be thought 
 nothing at all of in my country, with the wedding so near." 
 
 This shut them up. Mrs. Hill, a meek, gentle little woman, who 
 had her sorrows, and habitually let Miss Timmens do all the talk- 
 ing when they were together, began to cry. Harriet ate her cold 
 dinner standing, and went off for an afternoon promenade with 
 Monsieur Louis. From that time, even Miss Timmens gave up all 
 thought of opposition, seeing that events must take their course. 
 Harriet's parents were dead ; she was over age, and her own mistress 
 in the eye of the law. 
 
 " Would you mind taking a turn with me in the withy walk, 
 Harriet Roe?" asked Maria Lease, as they were coming out of 
 church that same night. 
 
 Harriet was alone. Louis Roe had gone back to Worcester. 
 The request surprised her considerably. Since Daniel Ferrar's 
 death the past November, Maria had been very distant with her; 
 averting her head if they happened to meet. 
 
 "So you have come to your senses, have you, Maria Lease?" 
 was the half insolent, half good-natured answer. " I'll walk down 
 it with you if you like." 
 
 "Come to my senses in what Avay?" asked Maria, in low, sub- 
 dued, sad tones, as they went towards the withy walk. 
 
 " About— ji^w know what. You blamed vie for what happened. 
 As good as laid his death at my door." 
 
 " Did you ever hear me say so ? " 
 
 " Oh, I could see : your manner was enough. As if I either 
 helped it on — or could have prevented it ! We used to have just 
 a bit of talking and laughing together, he and I, but that was all." 
 
 That's all ! And the gold chain was still on Harriet's neck. 
 Maria suppressed a sigh. 
 
 " Whether I blamed you for it, Harriet Roe, or whether I blamed 
 myself, is of no moment now. The past can never be recalled or 
 redeemed in this world — its remembrance alone remains. I want 
 to do you a little service, Harriet. Nothing may come of it, but it 
 is my duty to speak." 
 
 Amidst the shadows of the withy beds, under the silent stars, 
 Maria spoke, dropping her voice to a whisper. In a sufficiently 
 curious but accidental manner, she had heard something said the 
 previous week about Louis Roe. A stranger, who had known him 
 in France, spoke very much in his disfavour. He said that any girl,
 
 333 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 if she cared for her future happiness and credit, would be mad to 
 unite herself to him. Maria had asked no particulars; they might 
 not have been given if she had ; but the impression of Louis Roe 
 left on her mind was not a good one. All this she quietly repeated 
 to Harriet. It was received in anything but a friendly spirit. 
 
 " Thank you for nothing, Maria Lease. Because you lost your 
 own husband— that was to have been — you think you'll try what 
 you can do to deprive me of mine. A slice of revenge, I suppose : 
 but it won't succeed." 
 
 " Harriet, you are mistaken," rejoined Maria; and Miss Harriet 
 thought she had never in her life heard so mournfully sad a tone 
 as the words were spoken in. " So much self-reproach fell upon 
 me that bitter evening when he was found dead : reproach that can 
 never be lifted from me while time shall last : that I do not think 
 I can ever again do an ill turn in this life, or give an unkind word. 
 The whole world does not seem to be as sinful in its wickedness as 
 I was in my harsh unkindness ; and there's no sort of expiation left 
 to me. If I pass my whole existence laying my hands under other 
 people's feet in humble hope to serve them, it cannot undo the 
 bitterness of my passion when I exposed him before Johnny Ludlow. 
 The exposure was more than he could bear ; and he — he put an end 
 to it. I suffer always, Harriet Roe; my days are one prolonged 
 burning agony of repentance. Repentance that brings no relief." 
 
 " My goodness! " cried Harriet, her breath almost scared away at 
 hearing this, careless-natured though she was. " I'll tell you what, 
 Maria : I should turn Roman Catholic in your place ; and let a 
 priest absolve me from the sin." 
 
 A priest absolve her from the sin ! The strange anguish on her 
 compressed lips was visible as Maria Lease turned her face upwards 
 in the starlight. ONE Most High and merciful Priest was ever 
 there, who could, and would, wash out her sin. But — what of 
 Daniel Ferrar, who had died in his ? 
 
 " If there is one person whom I would more especially seek in 
 kindness to serve, it is you, Harriet," she resumed, putting her hand 
 gently on Harriet's arm — and her fingers accidentally touched the 
 chain that Daniel Ferrar had hung round the girl's neck in his 
 perfidy. " Revenge ! — from me ! " 
 
 " The very idea of my giving up Louis is absurd," was Harriet's 
 rejoinder, as they came out of the withy walk. " Thank you all 
 the same, IMaria Lease; and there's my hand. I see now that you 
 meant kindly : but no one shall set me against my promised 
 husband." 
 
 Maria shook the hand in silence. 
 
 " Look here, Maria — don't go and tell your beautiful scandal to 
 sharp Susan Timmens. Not that I care whether you do or not,
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 333 
 
 except on the score of contention. She would strike up fresh 
 opposition, and it might come to scratching and fighting. My 
 temper has borne enough : one can't be a lamb always." 
 
 The wedding came off on Easter Tuesday. Harriet wore a bright 
 silk dress, the colour of lilac, with a wreath and veil. When the 
 latter ornaments came home. Miss Timmens nearly fainted. Decent 
 young women in their station of life were married in bonnets, she 
 represented: not in wreaths and veils. But Harriet Roe, reared to 
 French customs, said bonnets could never be admissible for a bride, 
 and she'd sooner go to church in a coal-scuttle. The Batley girls, 
 in trains and straw-hats, were bridesmaids. Miss Timmens wore 
 a new shawl and white gloves ; and poor little David Garth — who 
 was to die of fright before that same year came to an end — stood 
 with his hand locked in his mother's. 
 
 And so, in the self-same church where she had sat displaying 
 her graces before the ill-fated Daniel Ferrar, and by the same young 
 clergyman who had preached to her then, Harriet became the wife 
 of Louis Roe, and went away with him to London. 
 
 The next move in the chain of events was the death of David 
 Garth in Willow Cottage. It occurred in November, when Tod 
 and I were staying at home, and has been already told of. James 
 Hill escaped without punishment : it was said there was no law to 
 touch him. He protested through thick and thin that he meant no 
 harm to the boy ; to do him justice, it was not supposed he had : he 
 was finely repentant for it, and escaped with a reprimand. 
 
 Mrs. Hill refused to remain in the cottage. What with her innate 
 tendency to superstition, with the real facts of the case, and with 
 that strange belief — that David's spirit had appeared to her in the 
 moment of dying ; a belief firm and fixed as adamant — she passed 
 into a state of horror of the dwelling. Not another night could she 
 remain in it. The doctor himself. Cole, said she must not. Miss 
 Timmens took her in as a temporary thing; until the furniture 
 could be replaced in their former house, which was not let. Hill 
 made no objection to this. For that matter, he seemed afraid of 
 the new place himself, and was glad to get back to the old one. 
 All his native surliness had left him for the time : he was as a sub- 
 dued man whose tongue has departed on an excursion. You see, 
 he had feared the law might come down upon him. The coroner's 
 inquest had brought in a safe verdict : all Hill received was a 
 censure for having locked the boy in alone : but he could not yet 
 feel sure that the affair would not be taken up by the magistrates : 
 and the parish said in his hearing that his punishment ought to be 
 transportation at the very least. Altogether, it subdued him.
 
 334 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 So, as soon as David's funeral was over, and while his wife was 
 still with Miss Timmens, Hill began to move back his goods in a 
 sort of humble silence. Crowds collected to see the transport, much 
 to Hill's annoyance and discomfiture. The calamity had caused 
 intense excitement in the place ; and Miss Timmens, who had a 
 very long tongue, and hated Hill just as much as she had loved 
 David, kept up the ball. Hill's intention was to lock up Willow 
 Cottage until he could get Mr. Todhetley to release him from it. 
 At present he dared not ask : all of us at Crabb Cot, from the 
 Squire downwards, were bitterly against him for his wicked in- 
 humanity to poor David. 
 
 Curious to say — curious because of what was to happen out of 
 it — as Hill was loading the truck with the last remaining things, a 
 stranger came up to the cottage door. Just at the first moment, 
 Hill did not recognize him; he had shaved off his moustache and 
 whiskers, and grown a beard instead. And that alters people. 
 
 " How are you. Hill .'' What are you up to here ? " 
 ' It was Louis Roe — who had married Mademoiselle Henriette the 
 previous Easter. Where they had been since, or what they had 
 done, was a sort of mystery, for Harriet had written only one letter. 
 By that letter, it was gathered that they were flourishing in London : 
 but no address was given, and Miss Timmens had called her a 
 heartless jade, not to want to hear from her best relatives. 
 
 Hill answered that he was pretty well, and went on loading \ but 
 said nothing to the other question. Louis Roe — perceiving sundry 
 straggling spectators who stood peering, as if the loading of a hand- 
 barrow with goods were a raree-show— rather wondered at appear- 
 ances, and asked again. Hill shortly explained then that they had 
 moved into Willow Cottage ; but his wife found it didn't suit her, 
 and so they were moving back again to the old home. 
 
 He went off with the truck, before he had well answered, giving 
 no time for further colloquy. Louis Roe happened to come across 
 young Jim Batley amidst the tag-rag, and heard from him all that 
 had occurred. 
 
 " He must be a cruel devil, to leave a timid child all night in a 
 house alone ! " was Mr. Roe's indignant comment ; who, whatever 
 his shortcomings might be in the eyes of Miss Timmens, was not 
 thought to be hard-hearted. 
 
 " His mother, she sees his ghost," went on Jim Batley. " Least- 
 ways, heered it." 
 
 Mr. Roe took no notice of this additional communication. Per- 
 haps ghosts held a low place in his creed — and he appeared to have 
 plunged into a reverie. Starting out of it in a minute or two, he 
 ran after Hill, and began talking in a low, business tone. 
 
 Hill could not beheve his ears. Surely such luck had never
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 335 
 
 befallen a miserable man ! For here was Louis Roe offerinsr to 
 take Willow Cottage off his hands : to become his, Hill's, tenant for 
 a short time. The double rent ; this, and that for the old house he 
 was returning to ; had been weighing upon Hill's mind as heavily 
 as David weighed upon it. The man had saved plenty of money, 
 but he was of a close nature. Squire Todhetley was a generous 
 man; but Hill felt conscious that he had displeased him too much 
 to expect any favour at present. 
 
 " What d'ye want of the cottage ? " asked Hill, suppressing all 
 signs of satisfaction. " Be you and Harriet a-coming to live down 
 here ? '' 
 
 " We should like to stay here for a few weeks — say till the dead 
 of winter's over," rephed Roe. " London is a beastly dull place in 
 bad weather; the fogs don't agree with Harriet. I had thought of 
 taking two or three rooms at Birmingham : but I don't know but 
 she'll like this cottage best — if you will let me have it cheap." 
 
 It would be cheap enough. For Hill named the very moderate 
 rent he had agreed to pay the Squire. Only too glad was he, to 
 get that. Roe promised to pay him monthly. 
 
 North Crabb was electrified at the news. Mr. and ]\Irs. Roe 
 were coming to stay in the cottage where poor David Garth had 
 just died. No time was lost over it, either. On the following day 
 some hired furniture was put into it, and Harriet herself arrived. 
 
 She was looking very ill. And I'm sure if she had appeared with 
 a beard as well as her husband, her face could not have seemed 
 more changed. Not her face only, but her manners. Instead of 
 figuring off in silks and ribbons, finer than the stars, laughing with 
 every one she met, and throwing her handsome eyes about, she 
 wore only plain things, and went along noticing no one. Some 
 people called it " pride ; " Miss Timmens said it was disappoint- 
 ment. The first time Tod and I met her, she never lifted her eyes 
 at all. Tod would have stayed to speak ; but she just said, " Good 
 morning, gentlemen," and went on. 
 
 " I say, Johnny, there's some change there," was Tod's remark, 
 as he turned to look after her. 
 
 They had been in the place about a week — and Roe seemed to 
 keep indoors, or else was away, for no one ever saw him — when a 
 strange turn arose, that was destined to set the neighbourhood in 
 an uproar. I was running past the school-house one evening at 
 dusk, and saw Maria Lease sitting with Miss Timmens by fire-light. 
 Liking Maria very much — for I always did like her, and always 
 shall — I went bolt in to them. James Hill's wife was also there, in 
 her mourning gown with crape on it, sitting right back in the 
 chimney corner. She had gone back to Hill then, but made no 
 scruple of leaving him alone often : and Hill, who had had his
 
 336 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 lesson, put up with it. And you would never guess ; no, not though 
 you had tried from then till Midsummer ; what they were whisper- 
 ing about, as though scared out of their seven senses. 
 
 David Garth's ghost was haunting Willow Cottage. 
 
 Miss Timmens was telling the story ; the others listened with 
 open mouths. She began at the beginning again for my benefit. 
 
 " I was sitting by myself here about this time last evening, Master 
 Johnny, having dismissed the children, and almost too tired with 
 their worry to get my own tea, when Harriet Roe came gliding in 
 at the door, looking whiter than a sheet, and startling me beyond 
 everything. ' Aunt Susan,' says she in so indistinct a tone that I 
 should have boxed one of the girls had she attempted to use such, 
 ' would you take pity on me and let me stay here till to-morrow 
 morning ? Louis went away this afternoon, and I dare not stop 
 alone in the place all night.' 'What are you afraid of?' I asked, 
 not telling her at once that she might stay ; but down she sat, and 
 threw her mantle and bonnet off— taking French leave. I never 
 saw her in such a state before," continued Miss Timmens vehe- 
 mently ; " shivering and shaking as if she had an ague, and not a 
 particle of her impudence left in her. ' I think that place must be 
 damp with the willow brook, aunt,' says she ; ' it gives me a sensa- 
 tion of cold.' ' Now don't you talk nonsense about your willow 
 brooks, Harriet Roe,' says I. ' You are not shaking for willow 
 brooks, or for cold either, but from fright. What is it ? ' ' Well 
 then,' says she, plucking up a bit, ' I'm afraid of seeing the boy,' 
 'What boy?' says I — 'not David?' 'Yes; David,' she says, and 
 trembles worse than ever. ' He appeared to Aunt Nancy ; a sign 
 he is not at rest ; and he is as sure to be in the house as sure can 
 be. Dying in the way he did, and lying hid in the shed as he did, 
 what else is to be expected ? ' Well, Master Johnny, this all seemed 
 to me very odd — as I've just observed to Nancy," continued Miss 
 Timmens. "It struck me, sir, there was more behind. ' Harriet,' 
 says I, 'have you seen David Garth?' But at first no satisfactory 
 answer could I get from her, neither yes nor no. At last she said 
 she had not seen him, but knew she should if she stayed in the 
 house by herself at night, for that he came again, and was in it. 
 It struck me she was speaking falsely ; and that she had seen him; 
 or what she took for him." 
 
 " I know she has ; I feel convinced of it," spoke up poor Mrs. 
 Hill, tilting back her black bonnet — worn for David — to wipe the 
 tears from her eyes. " Master Ludlow, don't smile, sir — though 
 it's best perhaps for the young to disbelieve these solemn things. 
 As surely as that we are talking here, my dear boy's spirit came to me 
 in the moment of his death. I feared it might take to haunting the 
 cottage, sir; and that's one reason why I could not stay in it."
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 337 
 
 "Yes; Harriet has seen him," interposed Maria Lease in low, 
 firm tones. "Just as I saw Daniel Ferrar. Master Johnny, ji?/^ 
 know I saw himP 
 
 Well, truth to say, I thought she must have seen Daniel Ferrar. 
 Having assisted at the sight — or if not at the actual sight, at the 
 place and time and circumstance attending it — I did not see how 
 else it was to be explained away. 
 
 " Where's Harriet now ? " I asked. 
 
 " She stayed here last night, and went off by rail this morning 
 to her grandmother's at Worcester," replied Miss Timmens. 
 " Mother will be glad of her for a day or so, for she keeps her bed 
 still." 
 
 " Then who is in the cottage ? " 
 
 " Nobody, sir. It's locked up. Roe is expected back to-morrow." 
 
 Miss Timmens began to set her tea-things, and I left them. 
 Whom should I come upon in the road, but Tod — who had been 
 over to South Crabb. I told him all this ; and we took the broad, 
 path home through the fields, which led us past Willow Cottage. 
 The fun Tod made of what the women had been saying, was beyond 
 everything. A dreary dwelling, it looked ; cold, and deserted, and 
 solitary in the dusky night, on which the moon was rising. The back 
 looked towards Crabb Ravine and the three-cornered grove in which 
 Daniel Ferrar had taken his own life away ; and to the barn where 
 Maria had seen Ferrar after death. In front was the large field, 
 bleak and bare; and beyond, the scattered chimneys of North 
 Crabb. A lively dwelling altogether ! — let alone what had happened 
 in it to David Garth. I said so. 
 
 " Yes, it is a lively spot ! " acquiesced Tod. " Beautifully lively 
 in itself, without having the reputation of being haunted. Eugh ! 
 Let's get home to dinner, Johnny." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Coney and Tom came in after dinner. Old Coney 
 and the Squire smoked till tea-time. When tea was over we all 
 sat down to Pope Joan. Mr. Coney kept mistaking hearts for 
 diamonds, clubs for spades; he had not his spectacles, and I 
 offered to fetch them. Upon that, he set upon Tom for being lazy 
 and letting Johnny Ludlow do what it was his place to do. The 
 result was, that Tom Coney and I had a race which should reach 
 the farm first. The night was bright, the moon high. Coming 
 back with the spectacles, a man encountered us, tearing along as 
 fast as we were. And that was like mad. 
 
 •' Halloa ! " cried Tom. " W^hat's up." 
 
 Tom had cause to ask it. The man was Luke Macintosh : and 
 never in all my life had I seen a specimen of such terror. His face 
 was white, his breath came in gasps. Without saying with your 
 leave or by your leave, he caught hold of Tom Coney's arm. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — 1. 22
 
 338 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Master, as I be a living sinner, I ha' just seen Davy Garth." 
 
 '•'Seen David Garth? "echoed Tom, wondering whether Luke had 
 been drinking. 
 
 " I see him as plain as plain. He be at that end window o' the 
 Willow Cottage." 
 
 " Do you mean his ghost, or himself? " asked Tom, making game 
 of it. 
 
 " Why, his ghost, in course, sir. It's well known hisself be dead 
 and buried— worse luck ! Mercy on us !— I'd ha' lost a month's 
 wages rather nor see this." 
 
 Considering Luke Macintosh was so great a coward that he 
 would not go through the Ravine after nightfall, this was not much 
 from him. Neither had his conscience been quite easy since 
 David's death : as it may be said that he, through refusing at the 
 last moment to sleep in the house, had in a degree been the remote 
 cause of it. His account was this : Passing the Willow Cottage on 
 his way from North Crabb, he happened to look up at the end win- 
 dow, and saw David standing there all in white in the moonlight. 
 
 " I never see nothing plainer in all my born days, never," gasped 
 Luke. " His poor little face hadn't no more colour in it nor chalk. 
 Drat them ghosts and goblins, then ! What does they come and 
 show theirselves to decent folk for ? " 
 
 He was trembling just as Miss Timmens, some three hours before, 
 had described Harriet Roe to have trembled. An idea flashed into 
 my mind. 
 
 "Now, Luke, just you confess— who is it that has put this into 
 your head ? " I asked. But Luke only stared at me : he seemed 
 unable to understand. 
 
 '•' Some one has been teUing you this to-night at North Crabb ? " 
 
 " Telling me what. Master Ludlow ? " 
 
 " That David Garth is haunting the cottage. It is what people 
 are saying, Tom," I added to Coney. 
 
 " Then, Master Johnny, I never heered a blessed syllable on't," 
 he replied ; and so earnestly that it was not possible to doubt him. 
 " Nobody have said nothing to me. For the matter o' that, I didn't 
 stop to talk to a soul, but just put Molly's letter in the window slit 
 — which was what I went for — and turned back again. I wish the 
 woman had ha' been skinned afore she'd got me to go off to the 
 post for her to-night. Plague on me, to have took the way past the 
 cottage ! as if the road warn't good enough to ha' served me ! — and 
 a sight straighter ! " 
 
 " Were there lights in the cottage, Luke ? " asked Coney. " Did 
 you see the Roes about ? " 
 
 " There warn't no more sign o' light or life a-nigh the place, Mr. 
 Tom, no more nor if they'd all been dead and buried inside it."
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 339 
 
 " It is shut up, Tom," I said. " Roe and his wife are away." 
 
 " Lawk a mercy ! — not a living creature in it but the ghost ! " 
 quaked Luke. 
 
 As I have said, this was not much from Luke, taking what he was 
 into consideration ; but it was to be confirmed by others. One of 
 the Coneys' maid-servants came along, as we stood there, on her 
 way from North Crabb. A sensible, respectable woman, with no 
 nonsense about her in general ; but she looked almost as scared as 
 Luke now. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you have seen it, Dinah ? " cried Tom, 
 staring at her. 
 
 " Yes, I have, sir." 
 
 "What! seen David Garth?" 
 
 " Well, I suppose it was him. It was something at the window, 
 in white, that looked like him, Mr. Tom." 
 
 "Did you go on purpose to look for it, Dinah.?" asked Tom 
 ironically. 
 
 " The way I happened to go was this, sir. James Hill overtook 
 me coming out of North Crabb : he was going up to Willow Cottage 
 to speak to Roe ; and I thought I'd walk with him, instead of 
 taking the road. Not but what he's a beauty to walk with, ^le is, 
 after his cruelty to his wife's boy," broke off Dinah : "but company 
 is company on a solitary road at night. When we got to the 
 cottage, Hill knocked; I stayed a minute to say how-d'ye-do to 
 Mrs. Roe, for I've not seen her yet. Nobody answered the door; 
 the place looked all dark and empty. ' They must be out for the 
 evening, I should think,' says Hill : and with that he steps back 
 and looks up at the windows. ' Lord be good to us ! what's that ? ' 
 says he, when he had got round where he could see the end case- 
 ment. I went to him, and found him standing like a pump, just as 
 stiff and upright, his hands clutched hold of one another, and his 
 eyes staring up at the panes in mortal terror. ' What is it ? ' says 
 I. ' It's Davvy,' says he ; but the voice didn't sound like Hill's 
 voice, and it scared me a bit. ' Yes, it's him,' says Hill ; ' he have 
 got on the sheet as was wrapped round him to carry him to the 
 shed. I — I lodged him again that there window to make the turn- 
 ing ; the stairs was awk'ard,' went on Hill, as if he was speaking 
 again the grain, but couldn't help himself. — And sure enough, Mr. 
 Tom — sure enough, Master Ludlow, there was David." 
 
 " Nonsense, Dinah ! " cried Tom Coney. 
 
 " I saw him quite well, sir, in the white sheet," said Dinah. 
 "The moon was shining on the window a'most as bright as 
 day." 
 
 " It were brighter nor day," eagerly put in Luke Macintosh. 
 "You'll believe me now, Mr. Tom."
 
 340 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " I'd not believe it if I saw it," said Tom Coney. 
 "As we stood looking up, me laying hold of Hill's arm," resumed 
 Dinah, as if she had not told all her tale, "there came a loud 
 whistling and shouting behind. Which was young Jim Batley, 
 bringing sonie message from them sisters of his to Harriet Roe. 
 I bade him hush his noise, but he only danced and mocked at me ; 
 so then I told him the cottage was empty, except for David Garth. 
 That hushed him. He came stealing up, and stood by me, staring. 
 You should have seen his face change, Mr. Tom. 
 " Was he frightened ? " 
 
 " Frightened is hardly the word for it, sir. His teeth began to 
 chatter, as if he had a fit ; and down he went at last like a stone, 
 face first, howling fearful. We couldn't hardly get him up again to 
 come away, me and Hill. And as to the ghost, Mr. Tom, it was 
 still there." 
 
 " Well, it is a queer tale," acknowledged Tom Coney. 
 " We made for the road, all three of us then, and I turned on 
 here— and I didn't half like coming by the barn where Maria Lease 
 saw Daniel Ferrar," candidly added Dinah. "T'other two went 
 on their opposite way, Jim never letting go of Hill's coat-tails." 
 
 There was no more Pope Joan that night. We carried the story 
 indoors ; and I mentioned also what had been said to Miss Tim- 
 mens. The Squire and old Coney laughed. 
 
 With David Garth's ghost to be seen, it could not be supposed 
 that I, or Tod, or Tom Coney, should stay away from the sight. 
 When we reached the place, some twenty people had collected round 
 the house. Jim Batley had told the tale in North Crabb. 
 
 But curious watchers had seen nothing. Neither did we. For 
 the bright night had changed to darkness. A huge curtain of cloud 
 had come up from the south, covering the moon and the best part 
 of the sky, as a pall covers a coffin. If gazing could have brought 
 a ghost to the window, there would assuredly have been one. The 
 casement was at the end of the house ; serving to light the narrow 
 upstairs passage. A huge cherry-tree hid the casement in summer ; 
 very slightly its bare branches obscured it now. 
 
 A sound, as of some panting animal, came up beside me as I 
 leaned on the side palings. I turned ; and saw the bailiff. Some 
 terrible power of fascination had brought him back again, against 
 his will. 
 
 " So it is gone, Hill, you see." 
 
 " It's not gone, Mr. Johnny," was his answer. " For some of our 
 sights, it'll never go away again. You look well at the right-hand 
 side, sir, and see if you don't see some'at white there." 
 
 Peering steadily, I thought I did see something white — as of a 
 face above a white garment. But it might have been fancy"
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 341 
 
 "Us as saw Jiim couldn't mistake it for fancy," was Hill's re- 
 joinder. " There was three on us : me, and Dinah up at Coney's, 
 and that there imp of a Jim Batley." 
 
 " Some one saw it before j'ou did, Hill. At least he says so. 
 Luke Macintosh. He was scared out of his senses." 
 
 The effect of these words on Hill was such, that I quite believed 
 he was scared out of his. He clasped his hands in wild emotion, 
 and turned up his eyes to give thanks. 
 
 " It's ret'ibution a working its ends, ]\Ir. Ludlcw. See it first, did 
 he ! And I hope to my heart he'll see it afore his eyes evermore. 
 If that there Macintosh had not played a false and coward's game, 
 no harm 'ud ha' come to Davvy." 
 
 The crowd increased. The Squire and old Coney came up, and 
 told the whole assemblage that they were born idiots. Of course, 
 with nothing to be seen, it looked as though we all were that. In 
 the midst of it, making quietly for the back-door, as though he had 
 come home through Crabb Ravine from Timberdale, I espied Louis 
 Roe. Saying nothing to any one, I went round and told him. 
 
 "David Garth's ghost in the place!" he exclaimed. "Why, it 
 will frighten my wife to death. Of course there's nothing of the 
 sort ; but women are so foolishly timid." 
 
 I said his wife was not there. Roe took a key from his pocket, 
 unlocked the back-door, and went in. He was talking to me, and I 
 stepped over the threshold to the kitchen, into which the door 
 opened. He began feeling on the shelf for matches, and could not 
 find any. 
 
 " There's a box in the bedroom, I know," he said ; and went 
 stumbling upstairs. 
 
 Down he came, after a minute or so, with the matches, struck 
 one, and hghted a candle. Opening the front door, he showed him- 
 self, explained that he had just come home, and complained of the 
 commotion. 
 
 " There's no such thing in this lower world as ghosts," said Roe. 
 " Whoever pretends to see them must be either drunk or mad. As 
 to this house — well, some of you had better walk in and re-assure 
 yourselves. You are welcome." 
 
 Lie was taken at his word. A few came in, and went looking 
 about for the ghost, upstairs and down. Writing about it now, it 
 seems to have been the most ridiculous thing in the world. Nothine 
 was to be found. The narrow passage above, where David had 
 stood, was empty. " As if supernatural visitants waited while you 
 looked for them ! " cried the superstitious crowd outside. 
 
 It is easier to raise a disturbance of this kind than to allay it, 
 and the ghost-seers stayed on. The heavy cloud in the heavens 
 rolled away by-and-by ; and the moon came out, and shone on the
 
 342 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 casement again. But neither David Garth nor anything else was 
 then to be seen there. 
 
 The night's commotion passed away, but not the rumours. That 
 David Garth's spirit could not rest, but came back to trouble the 
 earth, especially that spot known as Willow Cottage, was accepted 
 as a fact. People would go steahng up there at night, three or four 
 of them arm-in-arm, and stand staring at the casement, and walk 
 round the cottage. Nothing more was to be seen — perhaps because 
 there was no moon to light up the window. Harriet Roe was at 
 home again with her husband ; but she did not go abroad much : 
 and her face seemed to wear a sort of uneasy terror. " The fear of 
 seeing him is wearing her heart out ; why does Roe stop in the 
 place .? " said North Crabb : and though Harriet had never been 
 much of a favourite, she had plenty of sympathy now. 
 
 It soon came to be known in a gradual sort of way that a visitor 
 was staying at Willow Cottage. A young woman fashionably 
 dressed, who was called Mrs. James ; and who was said to be the 
 wife of James Roe, Louis Roe's elder brother. Some people 
 declared that a man was also there : they had seen one. Harriet 
 denied it. An acquaintance of her husband's, a Mr. Duffy, had 
 been over to see them from Birmingham, she said, but he went 
 back again. She was not believed. 
 
 What with the ghost, and what with the mystery attaching to 
 its inhabitants, Willow Cottage was a great card just then. If you 
 ask me to explain what mystery there could be, I cannot do so : 
 all I know is, an idea that there was something of the kind, apart 
 from David, dawned upon many minds in North Crabb. Miss 
 Timmens spoke it openly. She did not like Harriet's looks, and 
 said that something or other was killing her. And Susan Timmens 
 considered it her duty to try and come to the bottom of it. 
 
 At all sorts of hours, seasonable and unseasonable, Miss Timmens 
 presented herself at Willow Cottage. Rarely alone. Sometimes 
 Mrs. Hill would be with her ; or it would be Maria Lease ; or one 
 of the Batley girls ; and once it was young Jim. Louis Roe grew 
 to feel annoyed at this ; he told Harriet he would not have con- 
 founded people coming there, prying ; and he closed the door 
 against them. So, the next time Miss Timmens went, she found 
 the door bolted in the most inhospitable manner. Harriet threw 
 open the parlour window to speak to her. 
 
 " Louis says he won't have any more visitors calling here just 
 now ; not even you, Aunt Susan." 
 
 "What does he say that for ?" snapped Miss Timmens. 
 
 " We came down here to be quiet : he has some accounts to go
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST. 343 
 
 over, and can't be disturbed at them. So perhaps you'll stay away, 
 Aunt Susan. I'll come to the school-house sometimes instead." 
 
 It was the dusk of the evenings but Miss Timmens could see the 
 fearful look of illness on Harriet's face. She was also trembling. 
 
 "Harriet, what's the matter with you?" she asked, in a kinder 
 tone. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 '■'■Nothing! Why, you look as ill as you can look. You are 
 trembling all over." 
 
 " It's true I don't feel very well this evening, aunt, but I think 
 it is nothing. I often feel as if I had a touch of ague." 
 
 Miss Timmens bent her face nearer ; it had a strange concern in 
 it. " Harriet, look here. There's some mystery about this place ; 
 won't you tell me what it is ? I — seem — to — be — afraid — for— ^^«," 
 she concluded, in a slow and scarcely audible whisper. 
 
 For answer, Miss Timmens found the v/indow slammed down 
 in her face. An impression arose — she hardly knew whence gathered, 
 or whether it had any foundation — that it was not Harriet who had' 
 slammed it, but some one concealed behind the curtain. 
 
 "Well I'm sure!" cried she. "It might have taken my nose 
 off." 
 
 " It was so cold, aunt ! " Harriet called out apologetically through 
 the glass. " Good night." 
 
 Miss Timmens walked off in dudgeon. Revolving matters along 
 the broad field-path, she liked their appearance less and less. 
 Harriet was looking as ill as possible ; and what meant that 
 trembling ? Was it caused by sickness of body, or terror of mind ? 
 Mrs. Hill, when consulted, summed it up comprehensively : " It is 
 David about the place : thafs killing her." 
 
 Harriet Roe did not make her appearance at the school-house, 
 and the next day but one Miss Timmens went up again. The door 
 was bolted. Miss Timmens knocked, but received no answer. 
 Not choosing to be treated in that way she made so much noise, 
 first at the door and then at the window, that the former was at 
 length unclosed by Mrs. James, in list shoes and a dressing-gown, 
 as if her toilette had been delayed that day. The chain was kept 
 up — a new chain that Miss Timmens had not seen before — and she 
 could not enter. 
 
 " I want to see Harriet, Mrs. James." 
 
 " Harriet's gone," replied Mrs. James. 
 
 " Gone ! Gone where ? " 
 
 " To London. She went off there yesterday morning." 
 
 Miss Timmens felt, as she would have said, struck into herself. 
 An idea flashed over her that the words had not a syllable of truth 
 in them.
 
 344 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " What did she go to London for ? " 
 
 Mrs. James glanced over her two shoulders, seemingly in terror 
 herself, and sunk her voice to a whisper. " She had grown afraid 
 of the place, this dark winter weather. Miss Timmens— it's as 
 true as you're there — nothing would persuade her out of the fancy 
 that she was always seeing David Garth. He used to stand in a 
 sheet at the end of the upstairs passage and look at her. Least- 
 ways, she said so." 
 
 This nearly did for Miss Timmens. It might be true ; and she 
 could not confute it. " Yyo you see him, Mrs. James?" 
 
 " Well, no ; I never have. Goodness knows, I don't want to." ' 
 
 " But Harriet was not well enough to take a long journey," con- 
 tended Miss Timmens. " She never could have undertaken one in 
 her state of health." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by ' state,' Miss Timmens. She 
 would shake a bit at times ; but we saw nothing else the matter 
 with her. Perhaps you would shake if you had an apparition in 
 the house. Any way, well or ill, she went off to London. Louis 
 took her as far as the station and saw her away." 
 
 "Will you give me her address? I should like to write to 
 her." 
 
 Mrs. James said she could not give the address, because she did 
 not know it. Nothing more was to be got out of her, and Miss 
 Timmens reluctantly departed. 
 
 " I should hope they've not murdered her — and are concealing 
 her in the house as Hill concealed David," was the comment she 
 gave vent to in her perplexity and wrath. 
 
 From that time, nothing could be heard of Harriet Roe. A 
 week went on ; nearly two weeks ; but she never was seen, and no 
 tidings came of her. So far as could be ascertained, she had not 
 gone away by train : neither station-master nor porter remembered 
 to have seen her. Miss Timmens grew as thin as a ghost herself : 
 the subject worried her night and day. That some ill had hap- 
 pened to Harriet; or been done to her, she did not doubt. Once 
 or twice she managed to see Roe ; once or twice she saw Mrs. 
 James : speaking to them at the door with the chain up. Roe said 
 he heard from his wife nearly every other day ; but he would not 
 show the letters, or give the address : a conclusive proof to the 
 mind of Miss Timmens that neither had any existence. What had 
 they done with Harriet? Miss Timmens could not have been in 
 much worse mental trouble had she herself made away with her. 
 
 One morning the postman delivered a letter at the school-house. 
 It bore the London post-mark, and purported to be from Harriet. 
 A few lines only — saying she was well and enjoying herself, and 
 should come back sometime — the ^yriting shaky and blotted, and
 
 DAVID GARTH'S GHOST, 345 
 
 bearing but a slight resemblance to hers. Miss Timmens dashed 
 it on the table. 
 
 " The fools, to think they can deceive me this way ! That's no 
 more Harriet's writing than it is mine." 
 
 But Miss Timmens's passion soon subsided into a grave, settled, 
 awful dread. For she saw that this had been written to delude her 
 into the belief that Harriet was in health and life — when she might 
 be in neither one nor the other. She brought the letter to Crabb 
 Cot. She took it round the parish. She went with it to the police- 
 station ; imparting her views of it to all freely. It was a sham ; a 
 blind ; a forgery : and where was she to look for poor lost Harriet 
 Roe? 
 
 That same evening the ghost appeared again. Miss Timmens 
 and others went up to the cottage, intending to demand an inter- 
 view with Roe ; and they found the house shut up, apparently 
 deserted. Reconnoitring the windows from all points, their dis- 
 mayed eyes rested on something at the end casement : a thin, 
 shadowy form, robed in white. Every one of them saw it ; but, 
 even as they looked, it seemed to vanish away. Yes, there was no 
 question that the house was haunted. Perhaps Harriet had died 
 from fright, as poor David died. 
 
 Things could not go on like this for ever. After another day or 
 two of discomfort, Mr. Todhetley, as a county magistrate, incited 
 by the feeling in the parish, issued a private mandate for Roe to 
 appear before him, that he might be questioned as to what had 
 become of his wife. It was not a warrant ; but a sort of friendly 
 invitation, that could offend no one. Jiff the policeman was en- 
 trusted with the delivery of the message, a verbal one, and I went 
 with him. 
 
 As if she had scented our errand for herself, and wanted to 
 make a third in it, who should meet us in the broad path, but 
 Miss Timmens. Willow Cottage might or might not be haunted, 
 but I am sure her legs were : they couldn't be still. 
 
 " What -SiXQ. yoii doing up here. Jiff?" she tartly asked. 
 
 Jiff told her. Squire Todhetley wanted Roe at Crabb Cot. 
 ' "It will be of no use. Jiff; the door's sure to be fast," groaned 
 Miss Timmens. " My opinion is that Roe has left the place for 
 good." 
 
 Miss Timmens was mistaken. The shutters were open, and the 
 house showed signs of life. Upon knocking at the door — Miss 
 Timmens took off her patten to do it with, and you might have 
 heard the echoes at North Crabb — it was flung wide by Mrs. James. 
 
 Mr. Roe ? No, Mr. Roe was not at home. Mrs. Roe was. 
 
 Mrs. Roe was ! " What, Harriet?" cried excited Miss Timmens. 
 
 YeSj Harriet. I{ we liked to walk in and see her, we could do so.
 
 346 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 By the kitchen fire, as being biggest and hottest, in a chair 
 stuffed about with blankets, sat Harriet Roe. Worn, white, 
 shadowy, she was evidently just getting over some desperate illness. 
 I stared ; the policeman softly whistled ; you might have knocked 
 Miss Timmens down with a feather. 
 
 " Good patience, child — why, where have you been hiding all this 
 while ? " cried she. "And what on earth has been the matter with 
 you?" 
 
 " I have been upstairs in my room, Aunt Susan, keeping my bed. 
 As to the illness, it turned out to be ague and low fever." 
 
 " Upstairs where ? " 
 
 " Here." 
 
 Jiff went out again ; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, 
 leaving Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together. 
 
 She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe 
 attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors ; for 
 James Roe, who had fallen into some difficulty in London, con- 
 nected with forged bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. 
 That's why people were kept out. It would not have done by any 
 means for Miss Timmens and her sharp eyes to go upstairs and 
 catch a glimpse of him ; so they concocted the tale that Harriet 
 was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis with him. 
 Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser degree : but 
 quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London for 
 a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb. 
 
 " Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last 
 evening I saw you here ? " questioned Miss Timmens. 
 
 " Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly 
 write that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to 
 you." 
 
 "And — did you really see David Garth .'' " 
 
 " No, I never saw him," said Harriet. " But, after all the reports 
 and talk, I was timid at being in the house alone — James and his 
 wife had not come then — and that's why I asked you to let me stay 
 at the school-house the night my husband was away." 
 
 " But it was told me that you did see him." 
 
 " I was always frightened for fear I should." 
 
 " It strikes me you have had other causes for fright as well, 
 Harriet," cried shrewd Miss Timmens. 
 
 " Well, you see — this business of James Roe's has put me about. 
 Every knock that came to the door seemed to me to be somebody 
 coming for Jmn. My husband says the ghost is all rubbish and 
 fancy. Aunt Susan." 
 
 " Rubbish and fancy, does he ? " 
 
 "He says that when he came in here with Johnny Ludlow, the
 
 DAVID "GARTH'S GHOST. 347 
 
 night there was that commotion, in going up for some matches, he 
 fell over something at the top of the stairs by the end casement, 
 and flung it behind the rafters. Next day he saw what it was. I 
 had tied a white cloth over a small dwarf mop to sweep the walls 
 with, and must have left it near the window. I remembered that 
 I did leave it there. It no doubt looked in the moonlight just like 
 a white face. And that's what was taken for David's ghcst." 
 
 Miss Timmens paused, considering matters : she might believe 
 just as much of this as she liked. 
 
 " It appeared again at the same place, Harriet, two or three days 
 ago." 
 
 " That was me, aunt. I saw you all looking up, and drew away 
 again for fear you should know me. Mrs. James was making my 
 bed, and I had crawled there." 
 
 There it ended. So far the mystery was over. The explanation 
 was confided to the public, who received it differently. Some 
 accepted the mop version ; others clung to the ghost. And Hill 
 never had a penny of his rent. Louis Roe was away ; and, as it 
 turned out, did not come back again. 
 
 Mrs. James wanted to leave also ; and Maria Lease took her 
 place as nurse. Tenderly she did it, too; and Harriet got well. 
 She was going off to join her husband as soon as she could travel : 
 it was said in France. No one knew ; unless it was Maria Lease. 
 She and Harriet had become confidential friends. 
 
 " Which is the worse fate — yours or mine ? " cried Harriet to 
 Maria, half mockingly, half woefully, the day she was packing her 
 trunk. " You have your lonely life, and your never-ending repent- 
 ance for what you call your harsh sin : I have my sickness and my 
 trouble — and I have enough of that, Maria." But Maria Lease only 
 shook her head in answer. 
 
 " Trouble and repentance are our best lot in this world, Harriet. 
 They come to fit us for heaven." 
 
 But North Crabb, though wiHingly admitting that Harriet Roe, 
 in marrying, had not entered on a bed of lilies, and might have 
 been happier had she kept single, would not, on the whole, be 
 shaken from its belief that the ghost still haunted the empty 
 cottage. Small parties made shivering pilgrimages up there on a 
 moonlight night, to watch for it, and sometimes declared that it 
 appeared. Fancy goes a long way in this world.
 
 XXI. 
 SEEING LIFE. 
 
 The Clement-Pells lived at Parrifer Hall, and were as grand as 
 all the rest of us put together. After that affair connected with 
 Cathy Reed, and the death of his son, Major Parrifer and his 
 family could not bear to stay in the place. They took a house 
 near London, and Parrifer Hall was advertised to be let. Mr. 
 Clement-Pell came forward, and took it for a term of years. 
 
 The Clement-Pells rolled in riches. His was one of those cases 
 of self-made men that have been so common of late years : where 
 an individual, from a humble position, rises by perceptible degrees, 
 until he towers above all, like a Jack sprung out of a box, and is 
 the wonder and envy of the world around. Mr. Clement- Pell was 
 said to have begun life in London as a lawyer. Later, circumstances 
 brought him down to a bustling town in our neighbourhood where 
 he became the manager of a small banking company ; and from 
 that time he did nothing but rise. " There is a tide in the affairs of 
 men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," says Shakes- 
 peare : and this was the tide in Mr. Clement-Pell's. The small 
 banking company became a great one. Its spare cash helped to 
 make railways, to work mines, and to do all kinds of profitable 
 things. The shareholders flourished ; Mr. Clement-Pell was more 
 regarded than a heathen deity. He established a branch at two or 
 three small places ; and, amongst them, one at Church Dykely. 
 After that, he took Parrifer Hall. The simple people around could 
 not vie with the grandeur of the Pells, and did not try to do so. 
 The Pells made much of me and Joseph Todhetley — perhaps 
 because there was a dearth of young fellows near — and often asked 
 us to the Hall. Mrs. Pell, a showy, handsome woman, turned up 
 her nose at all but the best families, and would not associate with 
 farmers, however much they might live like gentlefolk. She was 
 decisive in manner, haughty, and ruled the house and everything in 
 it, including her husband, with iron will. In a slight degree she 
 and her children put us in mind of the Parrifers : for they held their 
 heads in the clouds as the Parrifers had done, and the ostentation 
 they displayed was just the least bit vulgar. Mr. Pell was a good-
 
 SEEING LIFE. 349 
 
 looking, gentlemanlike man, with a pleasant, hearty, straightforward 
 manner that took with every one. He was neither fine nor stuck 
 up : but his wife and daughters were ; after the custom of a good 
 many who have shot up into greatness. 
 
 And now that's the introduction to the Clement-Pells. One 
 year they took a furnished house in London, and sent to invite me 
 and Tod up in the summer. It was not very long after we had 
 paid that visit to the Whitneys and Miss Deveen. The invitation 
 was cordially pressed ; but Squire Todhetley did not much like our 
 going. 
 
 " Look here, you boys," said he, as we were starting, for the 
 point was yielded, " I'd a great deal rather you were going to 
 stay at home. Don't you let the young Pells lead you into mis- 
 chief." 
 
 Tod resented the doubt. " We are not boys, sir." 
 
 " Well, I suppose you'd like to call yourselves young men," re- 
 turned the Pater ; " you in particular, Joe. But young men have 
 gone up to London before now, and come home with their fingers 
 burnt." 
 
 Tod laughed. 
 
 " They have. It is this, Joe : Johnny, listen to me. A young 
 fellow, just launched on the world, turns out very much according 
 to the companions he is thrown amongst and the associations he 
 meets with. I have a notion that the young Pells are wild ; fast, as 
 it is called now ; so take care of yourselves. And don't forget that 
 though their purses may be unlimited, yours are not." 
 
 Three footmen came rushing out when the cab stopped at the 
 house in Kensington, and the Pells made much of us. Mr. Pell 
 and the eldest son, James, were at the chief bank in the country ; 
 they rarely spared the time to come up ; but the rest were in 
 town. Mrs. Pell, the four girls, the two sons, and a new German 
 governess. The house was not as large as Parrifer Hall, and Tod 
 and I had a top room between us, with two beds in it. Fabian Pell 
 held a commission in the army. Augustus was reading for the bar 
 — he was never called at home anything but " Gusty." 
 
 We got there just before dinner, and dressed for it — finding dress 
 was expected. A worn-looking, fashionable man of thirty was in 
 the drawing-room when we went down, the Honourable Mr. 
 Crayton : and Fabian brought in two officers. Mrs. Pell wore blue, 
 with a string of pearls on her neck that were too big to be real : 
 the two girls were in white silk and white shoes. Altogether, 
 considering it was not a state occasion, but a friendly dinner, the 
 dresses looked too fine, more suited to a duke's table ; and I 
 wondered what Mrs. Todhetley would have said to them. 
 
 " Will you take Constance in to dinner, Mr. Todhetley ?
 
 3S0 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Tod took her. She was the second girl : the eldest, Martha Jane, 
 went in with one of the officers. The younger girls, Leonora and 
 Rose, dined in the middle of the day with the governess. Gusty 
 was not there, and Fabian and I went in together. 
 
 " Where is he ? " I asked of Fabian. 
 
 " Gusty ? Oh, knocking about somewhere. His getting home 
 to dinner's always a chance. He has chambers in town." 
 
 Why the idea should have come over me, I know not, unless it 
 was the tone Mrs. Pell spoke in, but it flashed across my mind that 
 she was looking at Tod as a possible husband for her daughter 
 Constance. He was not of an age to marry yet : but some women 
 like to plot and plan these things beforehand. I hated her for it : 
 I did not care that Tod should choose one of the PeHs. Gusty 
 made his appearance in the course of the evening ; and we fellows 
 went out with him. 
 
 The Squire was right : it was fast life at the Pells', and no 
 mistake. I don't believe there was a thing that cost money but 
 Fabian and Gusty Pell and Crayton went in for it. Crayton was 
 with them always. He seemed to be the leader : the Pells followed 
 him like sheep ; Tod went with them. I sometimes : but they 
 did not always ask me to go. Billiards and cards were the chief 
 amusements ; and there'd be theatres and singing-halls. The 
 names of some of the places would have made the Squire's hair 
 stand on end. One, a sort of private affair, that the Pells and 
 Crayton said it was a favour to gain admittance to, was called 
 " Paradise." Whether that was only the Pells' or Crayton's name 
 for it, we did not hear. And a paradise it was when you Avere 
 inside, if decorations and mirrors can make one. Men and women 
 in evening dress sang songs in a kind of orchestra ; to which you 
 might listen sitting and smoking or lounging about and talking : if 
 you preferred a rubber at whist or a hand at dcartd in another 
 room, there you had it. Never a thing was there, apparently, that 
 the Squire could reasonably have grumbled at, except the risk of 
 losing money at cards, and the sense of intoxicating pleasure. But 
 I don't think it was a good place to go to. The Pells called all this 
 " Seeing Life." 
 
 It would not have done Tod much harm — for he had his head 
 on his shoulders the right way — but for the gambling. It is a 
 strong word to use ; but the play grew into nothing less. Had the 
 Squire said to us. Take care you don't learn to gamble up in 
 London, Tod would have resented it as much as if he had been 
 warned not to go and hang himself, feeling certain that there was 
 no more chance of one than the other. But gambhng, like some 
 other things — drinking for instance — steals upon you by degrees, 
 too imperceptibly to alarm you. The Pells and Crayton and other
 
 SEEING LIFE. 351 
 
 fellows that they knew went in for cards and biUiards wholesale. 
 Tod was asked at first to take a quiet hand with them ; or just play 
 for the tables — and he thought no more of complying than if the 
 girls had pressed him to make one at the round game of Old Maid, 
 or to while away a wet afternoon at bagatelle. 
 
 There was no regularity in Mrs. Pell's household : there was no 
 more outward observance of religion than if we'd lived in Heathen- 
 dom. It was so different from Tod's last London visit, when he 
 was at the Whitneys'. There you had to be at the breakfast-table 
 to the moment — half-past eight ; and to be in at bedtime, unless 
 engaged out with friends. Sir John read a chapter of the Bible 
 morning and night, and then, pushing the spectacles lower on his 
 old red nose, he'd look over them at us and tell us simply to be good 
 boys and girls. Here you might come down at any hour, from nine 
 or ten, to eleven or twelve, and ring for fresh breakfast to be 
 supphed. As to staying out at night, that was quite ad libitum ; a 
 man-servant sat up till morning to open the door. 
 
 I was initiated less into the card-playing than Tod, and never 
 once was asked to make one at pool, probably because it was taken 
 for granted that I had less money to stake. Which was true. Tod 
 had not much, for the matter of that : and it never struck me to 
 think he was losing wholesale. 
 
 I got home one night at twelve, having been dining at Miss 
 Deveen's and going to a concert with her afterwards. Tod was not 
 in, and I sat up in our room, writing to Mr. Brandon, which I had 
 put off doing until I felt ashamed. Tod came in as I was folding 
 the letter. It was hot weather, and he stretched himself out at the 
 open window. 
 
 " Are you going to stop there all night. Tod ? " I asked by-and- 
 by. " It's one o'clock." 
 
 " I may as well stop here, for all the sleep I shall get in bed," 
 was his answer, as he brought his head in. " I'm in an awful mess, 
 Johnny." 
 
 " What kind of mess ? " 
 
 " Debt." 
 
 " Debt ! What for ? " 
 
 " Card-playing," answered Tod, shortly. " And betting at pool.", 
 
 " Why do you play ? " 
 
 " I'll be shot if I would ever have touched one of their cards, or 
 their billiard balls either, had I known what was to come of it. 
 Let me once get out of this hole, and neither Gusty Pell nor Cray ton 
 shall ever draw me in again. I'll promise them that." 
 
 " How much is it? " 
 
 " That I owe ? Twenty-five pounds." 
 
 *' Twenty-five — what ? " I cried, starting up.
 
 333 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Don't wake up the next room, Johnny. Twenty-five pounds. 
 And not a stiver in my pocket to go on with. I owe it to Crayton." 
 
 Sitting on the edge of his bed, he told me how the thing had 
 crept upon him. At first they only played for shillings; one night 
 Crayton suddenly changed the stakes to sovereigns. The other 
 fellows playing took it as a matter of course, and Tod did not like 
 
 to make a fuss, and get up 
 
 : "I should. Tod," I interrupted. 
 
 " I dare say you would," he retorted. " I didn't. But I honestly 
 told them that if I lost much, my purse would not stand it. Oh 
 that need not trouble you, they said. When w e rose, that night, 1 
 owed Crayton nineteen pounds. 
 . " They must be systematic gamblers ! " 
 
 " No, not that. Gentlemen who play high. Since then I have 
 played, hoping to redeem my losses — they tell me I shall be sure to 
 do it. But the redemption has not come yet, for it is twenty-five 
 pounds now." 
 
 " Tod," I said, after a pause, " it would about kill the Pater." 
 
 "It would awfully vex him. And that's what is doing the mis- 
 chief, you see, Johnny. I can't write home for the money without 
 telling him what I want it for ; he'd never give it me unless I said : 
 and I can't cut our visit short to the Pells and leave Crayton in 
 debt." 
 
 " But — whafs to be done. Tod ? " 
 
 " Nothing until I get some luck, and win enough back to pay 
 him." 
 
 " You may get deeper into the mire." 
 
 " Yes — there's that chance." 
 
 "It will never do to go on playing." 
 
 " Will you tell me what else I am to do ? I must continue to 
 play : or pay." 
 
 I couldn't tell him ; I didn't know. Fifty of the hardest pro- 
 blems in Euclid were nothing to this. Tod sat down in his shirt- 
 sleeves. 
 
 " Get one of the Pells to let you have the money, Tod. A loan 
 of twenty or thirty pounds can be nothing to them." 
 
 " It's no good, Johnny. Gusty is cleaned out. As to Fabian, he 
 never has any spare cash, what with one expensive habit and 
 another. Oh, I shall win it back again : perhaps to-morrow. Luck 
 must turn." 
 
 Tod said no more. But what particularly struck me was this : 
 that, to win money from a guest in that way, and he a young fellow 
 not of age, whose pocket-money they knew to be limited, was not 
 at all consistent with the idea of their being " gentlemen." 
 
 The next evening we were in a well-known billiard-room.
 
 SEEING LIFE. 353 
 
 Fabian Pell, Cray ton, and Tod were at pool. It had been a levee 
 day, or something of that sort, and Fabian was in full regimentals. 
 Tod was losing, as usual. He was no match for those practised 
 players. 
 
 " I wish you would get me a glass of water, Johnny," he said. 
 
 So I got it. In turning back after taking the glass from his 
 hand, who should I see on the high bench against the wall, sitting 
 just where I had been sitting a minute before, but my guardian and 
 trustee, Mr. Brandon. Could it be he "i Old Brandon in London ! 
 and in a billiard-room. 
 
 "It is never you, sir ! Here ! " 
 
 " Yes, it is I, Johnny Ludlow," he said in his squeaky voice. " As 
 to being here, I suppose I have as much right to be here as you 
 have: perhaps rather more. I should like to ask what brings/*?;^ 
 here." 
 
 " I came in with those three," I said, pointing towards the board. 
 
 He screwed up his little eyes, and looked. " Who are they ? " he 
 asked. " Who's the fellow in scarlet ? " For he did not happen to 
 know these two younger Pells by sight. 
 
 " That's Fabian Pell, sir. The one standing with his hands in his 
 pockets, near Joseph Todhetley, is the Honourable Mr. Crayton." 
 
 "Who's the Honourable Mr. Crayton?" 
 
 " I think his father is the Earl of Lackland." 
 
 " Oh, ah ; one of Lackland's sons, is he ? There's six or eight 
 sons, of them, Johnny Ludlow, and not a silver coin amongst the lot. 
 Lackland never had much, but what little it was he lost at horse- 
 racing. The sons live by their wits, I've heard: lords' sons have 
 not much work in them. The Honourable Mr. Crayton, eh! Your 
 two friends had better take care of themselves." 
 
 The thought of how Tod had " taken care " of himself ilashed 
 into my mind. I wouldn't have old Brandon know it for the world. 
 
 " I posted a letter to you to-day, sir. I did not know you were 
 from home." 
 
 " What was it about ? " 
 
 " Nothing particular, sir. Only I had not written since we were 
 in London." 
 
 " How long are you going to stay here, Johnny Ludlow?" 
 About another week, I suppose." 
 
 " I mean here. In this disreputable room." 
 
 "Disreputable, sir!" 
 
 " Yes, Johnny Ludlow, disreputable. Disreputable for all young 
 men, especially for a very young one like you. I wonder what 
 your father would have said to it !" 
 
 "I, at least, sir, am doing no harm in it." 
 
 " Yes, you are, Johnny. You are suffering your eyes and mind 
 
 Johnny Ludlow.— I. 2o
 
 354 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to grow familiar with these things. So, their game is over, is 
 it ! " 
 
 I turned round. They had finished, and were leaving. In look- 
 ing for me, Tod saw Mr. Brandon. He came up to shake hands 
 with him, and told me they were going. 
 
 " Come in and see me to-morrow morning, Johnny Ludlow," said 
 Mr. Brandon, in a tone of command. " Eleven o'clock," 
 
 " Yes, sir. Where are you staying ? " 
 
 " The Tavistock ; Covent Garden." 
 
 "Johnny, what the mischief brings him here?" whispered Tod, 
 as we went downstairs. 
 
 '* I don't know. I thought it must be his ghost at first." 
 
 From the billiard-rooms we went on to Gusty's chambers, and 
 found him at home with some friends. He served out wine, with 
 cold brandy-and-water for Crayton — who despised anything less. 
 They sat down to cards — loo. Tod did not play. Complaining of a 
 racking headache, he sat apart in a corner. I stood in another, for 
 all the chairs were occupied. Altogether the party seemed to want 
 life, and broke up soon. 
 
 " Was it an excuse to avoid playing. Tod ? " I asked, as we 
 walked home. 
 
 " Was what an excuse ? " 
 
 " Your headache." 
 
 " If your head were beating as mine is, Johnny, you wouldn't call 
 it an excuse. You'll be a muff to the end of your days." 
 
 " Well, I thought it might be that." 
 
 " Did you ! If I made up my mind not to play, I should tell 
 it out straightforwardly : not put forth any shuffling ' excuse.' " 
 
 " Any way, a headache's better than losing your money .^' 
 
 " Don't bother." 
 
 I got to the Tavistock at five minutes past eleven, and found Mr. 
 Brandon reading the Times. He looked at me over the top of it, 
 as if he were surprised. 
 
 " So you have come, Mr. Johnny !" 
 
 " Yes, sir. I turned up the wrong street and missed my way : it 
 has made me a little late." 
 
 " Oh, that's the reason, is it," said Mr. Brandon. "I thought per- 
 haps a young man, who has been initiated into the ways of London 
 life, might no longer consider it necessary to attend to the requests 
 of his elders." 
 
 " But would you think that of me, sir ? " 
 
 Mr. Brandon put the newspaper on the table with a dash, and 
 burst out with as much feeling as his weak voice would allow him.
 
 SEEING LIFE. 355 
 
 "Johnny Ludlow, I'd rather have seen you come to sweep a 
 crossing in this vile town, than to frequent one of its public billiard- 
 rooms ! " 
 
 " But I don't frequent them, Mr. Brandon." 
 
 " How many times have you been in ? " 
 
 " Twice in the one where you saw me : once in another. Three 
 times in all." 
 
 " That's three times too much. Have you played ? " 
 
 " No, sir; there's never any room for me." 
 
 " Do you bet ? " 
 
 " Oh no." 
 
 " What do you go for, then ? " 
 
 " I 've only gone in with the others whei\. I have been out with 
 them." 
 
 "Pell's sons and the Honourable Mr. Crayton. Rather osten- 
 tatious of you, Johnny Ludlow, to hasten to tell me he was the 
 ' Honourable.'" 
 
 My face flushed. I had not said it in that light. 
 
 " One day at Pershore Fair, in a booth, the clown jumped on to 
 the boards and introduced himself," continued Mr. Brandon : 
 '"I'm the clown, ladies and gentlemen,' said he. That's the 
 Honourable Mr. Crayton, say you. — And so you have gone in with 
 Mr. Crayton and the Pells ! " 
 
 " And with Joseph Todhetley." 
 
 " Ay. And perhaps London will do him more harm than it 
 will you ; you're not much better than a boy yet, hardly up to 
 bad things. I wonder what possessed Joe's father to let you two 
 come up to stay with the Pells ! I should have been above it in 
 his place." 
 
 "Above it ? Why, Mr. Brandon, they live in ten times the style 
 we do." 
 
 " And spend twenty times as much over it. Who was thinking 
 about style or cost, Mr. Johnny ? Don't you mistake Richard for 
 Robert." 
 
 He gave a flick to the newspaper, and stared me full in the face. 
 1 did not venture to speak. 
 
 " Johnny Ludlow, I don't like your having been initiated into the 
 iniquities of fast life— as met with in billiard-rooms, and similar 
 places." 
 
 " I have got no harm from them, sir." 
 
 " Perhaps not. But you might have got it." 
 
 I supposed I might : and thought of Tod and his losings. 
 
 " You have good principles, Johnny Ludlow, and you've a bit of 
 sense in your head ; and you have been taught to know that this 
 World is not the end of things. Temptation is bad for the best,
 
 356 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 though. When I saw you in that place last night, looking on with 
 eager eyes at the balls, listening to the betting, I wished I had never 
 let your father make me your guardian." 
 
 " I did not know my eyes or ears were so eager, sir. I don't 
 think they were." 
 
 " Nonsense, boy : that goes as a matter of course. You have 
 heard of gambling hells ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well, a public billiard-room is not many degrees better. It is 
 crowded with adventurers who live by their wits. Your needy 
 * honourables,' who've not a sixpence of their own in their purses, 
 and your low-lived blackguards, who have sprung from the scum of 
 the population, are equally at home there. These men, the lord's 
 son and the blackguard, must each make a living : whether by turf- 
 betting, or dice, or cards, or pool — they must do it somehow. Is it 
 a nice thing, pray, for you honest young fellows to frequent places 
 where you must be their boon companions ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think it is." 
 
 " Good, Johnny. Don't you go into one again — and keep young 
 Todhetley out if you can. It is no place, I say, for an honest man 
 and a gentleman : you can't touch pitch and not be defiled ; neither 
 can a youngster frequent these billiard-rooms and the company he 
 meets in them, and come away unscathed. His name will get a 
 mark against it. That's not the worst : his soul may get a mark 
 upon it ; and never be able to throw it off again during life. You 
 turn mountebank, and dance at wakes, Johnny, rather than turn 
 public billiard player. There's many an honest mountebank, dancing 
 for the daily crust he puts into his mouth : I don't believe you'd find 
 one honest man amongst billiard sharpers." 
 
 He dropped the paper in his heat. I picked it up. 
 
 "And that's only one phase of their fast life, these billiard-rooms," 
 he continued. " There are other things : singing-halls, and cider 
 cellars — and all sorts of places. You steer clear of the lot, Johnny. 
 And warn Todhetley. He wants warning perhaps more than 
 you do." 
 
 "Tod has caught no harm, I think, except " 
 
 " Except what ? " asked he sharply, as I paused. 
 
 " Except that I suppose it costs him money, sir." 
 
 " Just so. A good thing too. If these seductions (as young fools 
 call them) could be had without money, the world would soon 
 be turned upside down. But as to harm, Johnny, once a young 
 fellow gets to feel at home in these places, I don't care how short 
 his experience may be, he loses his self-respect. He does; and it 
 takes time to get it back again. You and Joe had not been gone 
 five minutes last night, with your ' Honourable ' and the other fellow
 
 SEEING LIFE. 357 
 
 in scarlet, when there was a row in the room. Two men quarrelled 
 about a bet ; sides were taken by the spectators, and it came to 
 blows. I have heard some reprobate language in my day, Johnny 
 Ludlow, but I never heard such as I heard then. Had you been 
 there, I'd have taken you by the back of the neck and pitched you 
 out of the window, before your ears should have been tainted 
 with it." 
 
 " Did you go to the billiard-room, expecting to see me there, Mr. 
 Brandon ? " I asked. And the question put his temper up. 
 
 " Go to the billiard-roon, expecting to see you there, Johnny 
 Ludlow!" he retorted, his voice a small shrill pipe. "How dare 
 you ask it ? I'd as soon have expected to see the Bishop of London 
 there, as you. I can tell you what, young man : had I known you 
 were going to these places, I should pretty soon have stopped it. 
 Yes, sir : you are not out of my hands yet. If I could not stop you 
 personally, I'd stop every penny of your pocket-money." 
 
 " We couldn't think — I and Tod — what else you had gone for 
 sir," said I, in apology for having put the question. 
 
 " I don't suppose you could. I have a graceless relative, Johnny 
 Ludlow; a sister's son. He is going to the bad, fast, and she got 
 me to come up and see what he was after. I could not find him ; 
 I have not found him yet ; but I was told that he frequented those 
 rooms, and I went there on speculation. Now you know. He came 
 up to London nine months ago as pure-hearted a young fellow as 
 you are : bad companions laid hold of him, and are doing their best 
 to ruin him. I should not like to see you on the downward road, 
 Johnny ; and you shan't enter on it if I can put a spoke in the wheel. 
 Your father was my good friend." 
 
 " There is no fear for me, Mr. Brandon." 
 
 "Well, Johnny, I hope not. You be cautious, and come and 
 dine with me this evening. And now will you promise me one 
 thing : if you get into any trouble or difficulty at any time, whether 
 it's a money trouble, or what not, you come to me with it. Do you 
 hear.?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. I don't know any one I would rather take it to." 
 
 " I do not expect you to get into one willingly, mind. Thafs not 
 what I mean : but sometimes we fall into pits through other people. 
 If ever you do, though it were years to come, bring the trouble 
 to me." 
 
 And I promised, and went, according to the invitation, to dine 
 with him in the evening. He had found his nephew : a plain young 
 medical student, with a thin voice like himself. Mr. Brandon dined 
 off boiled scrag of mutton ; I and the nephew had soup and fish and 
 fowl and plum pudding. 
 
 After that evening I did not see anything more of old Brandon.
 
 358 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Upon calling at the Tavistock they said he had left for the rest of 
 the week, but would be back on the following Monday. 
 
 And it was on the following Monday that Tod's affairs came to a 
 climax. 
 
 We had had a regal entertainment. Fit for regal personages— 
 as it seemed to us simple country people, inexperienced in London 
 dinner giving. Mrs. Pell headed her table in green gauze, gold 
 beetles in her hair, and a feathered-fan dangling. Mr. Pell, who 
 had come to town for the party, faced her ; the two girls, the two 
 sons, and the guests were dispersed on either side. Eighteen of us 
 in all. Crayton was there as large as life, and of the other people I 
 did not know all the names. The dinner was given for some great 
 gun who had to do with railway companies. He kept it waiting 
 twenty minutes, and then loomed in with a glistening bald head, 
 and a yellow rose in his coat : his wife, a very little woman in pink, 
 on his arm. 
 
 " I saw your father yesterday," called out Pell down the table 
 to Tod. " He said he was glad to hear you were enjoying your- 
 selves." 
 
 "Ah— yes — thank you," replied Tod, in a hesitating sort of way. 
 I don't know what he was thinking of; but it flashed into my mind 
 that the Squire would have been anything but "glad," had he 
 known about the cards, and the billiards, and the twenty-five- 
 pound debt. 
 
 Dinner came to an end at last, and we found a few evening guests 
 in the drawing-room — mostly young ladies. Some of the dinner 
 people went away. The railway man sat whispering with Pell in a 
 corner : his wife nodded asleep, and woke up to talk by fits and 
 starts. The youngest girl, Rose, who was in the drawing-room with 
 Leonora and the governess, ran up to me. 
 
 " Please let me be your partner, Mr. Ludlow ! They are going to 
 dance a quadrille in the back drawing-room." 
 
 So I took her, and we had the quadrille. Then another, that I 
 danced with Constance. Tod was not to be seen anywhere. 
 " I wonder what has become of Todhetley ? " 
 " He has gone out with Gusty and Mr. Crayton, I think," answered 
 Constance. " It is too bad of them." 
 
 By one o'clock all the people had left ; the girls and Mrs. Pell 
 said good night and disappeared. In going up to bed, I met one of 
 the servants. 
 
 " Do you know what time Mr. Todhetley went out, Richard ? " 
 "Mr. Todhetley, sir? He has not gone out. He is in the
 
 SEEING LIFE. 359 
 
 smoking-room with Mr. Augustus and Mr. Crayton. I've just 
 taken up some soda-water." 
 
 I went on to the smoking-room : a small den, built out on the 
 leads of the second floor, that no one presumed to enter except 
 Gusty and Fabian. The cards lay on the table in a heap, and 
 the three round it were talking hotly. I could see there had 
 been a quarrel. Some stranger had come in, and was standing 
 with his back to the mantel-piece. They called him Temply ; 
 a friend of Crayton's. Temply was speaking as I opened the 
 door. 
 
 " It is clearly a case of obligation to go on ; of honour. No 
 good in trying to shirk it, Todhetley." 
 
 " I wall not go on," said Tod, as he tossed back his hair from his 
 hot brow with a desperate hand. " If you increase the stakes with- 
 out my consent, I have a right to refuse to continue playing. As to 
 honour; I know what that is as well as any one here." 
 
 They saw me then : and none of theni looked too well pleased. 
 Gusty asked mc what I wanted ; but he spoke quite civilly. 
 
 " I came to see after you all. Richard said you were here." 
 
 What they had been playing at, I don't know : whether whist, 
 ecarte, loo, or what. Tod, as usual, had been losing frightfully : I 
 could see that. Gusty was smoking; Crayton, cool as a cucumber, 
 drank hard at brandy-and-soda. If that man had swallowed a 
 barrel of cognac, he would never have shown it. Temply and 
 Crayton stared at me rudely. Perhaps they thought I minded it. 
 
 " I wouldn't play again to-night, were I you," I said aloud to 
 Tod. 
 
 " No, I won't ; there," he cried, giving the cards an angry push. 
 " I am sick of the things — and tired to death. Good night to 
 you all." 
 
 Crayton swiftly put his back against the door, barring Tod's 
 exit. " You cannot leave before the game's finished, Todhetley." 
 
 "We had not begun the game," rejoined Tod. " You stopped 
 it by trebling the stakes. I tell you, Crayton, I'll not play again 
 to-night." 
 
 " Then perhaps you'll pay me your losses." 
 
 " How much are they?" asked Tod, biting his lips. 
 
 " To-night ? — of in all, do you mean ? " 
 
 "Oh, let us have it all," was Tod's answer; and I saw that he 
 had great difficulty in suppressing his passion. All ot them, except 
 Crayton, seemed tolerably heated. " You know that I have not the 
 ready-money to pay you ; you've known that all along : but it's as 
 well to ascertain how we stand." 
 
 Crayton had been coolly turning over the leaves of a note-case, 
 adding up some figures there, below his breath.
 
 36o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Eighty-five before, and seven to-night makes just ninety-two. 
 Ninety-two pounds, Todhetley." 
 
 I sprang up from the chair in terror. It was as if some blast 
 had swept over me. " Ninety-two pounds ! Tod ! do you owe 
 thatV' 
 . " I suppose I do." 
 
 '■'■ Ninety-two poimds ! It cannot be. Why, it is close upon a 
 hundred ! " Crayton laughed at my consternation, and Temply 
 stared. 
 
 "If you'll go on playing, you may redeem some of it, Todhetley," 
 said Crayton. " Come, sit down." 
 
 " I will not touch another card to-night," said he, doggedly. " I 
 have said it: and I am not one to break my word: as Johnny 
 Ludlow here can testify to. I don't know that I shall play again 
 after to-night." 
 
 Crayton was offended. Cool though he was, I think -he was 
 somewhat the worse for what he had taken — perhaps they all were. 
 " Then you'll make arrangements for paying your debts," said he, 
 in scornful tones. 
 
 " Yes, I'll do that," answered Tod. And he got away. So did I, 
 after a minute or two : Gusty kept me, talking. 
 
 In passing upstairs, for we slept on the third floor, Mr. Pell came 
 suddenly out of a room on the left ; a candle in one hand and 
 some papers in the other, and a look on his face as of some great 
 trouble. 
 
 " What ! are you young men not in bed yet? " he exclaimed. " It 
 is late." 
 
 "We are going up now. Is anything the matter, sir?" I could 
 not help asking. 
 
 " The matter ? " he repeated. 
 " I thought you looked worried." 
 
 " I am worried with work," he said, laughing slightly. " While 
 others take their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. 
 Great wealth brings great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard 
 work as well. Good night, my lad." 
 
 Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It 
 was a terrible position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds 
 • — to put it in round numbers — for a debt of honour. No means of 
 his own, not daring to tell his father. I mounted on the iron rail 
 of my little bed opposite the window, and looked at him. 
 " Tod, what is to be done ? " 
 
 "For two pins I'd go and enlist in some African regiment," 
 growled he. " Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world 
 here, and my shame with me." 
 "Shame!"
 
 SEEING LIFE. 361 
 
 "Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can't pay is 
 bad enough ; but a debt of honour " 
 
 He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob — as if there 
 were no word strong enough to express the sense of shame. 
 
 " It will never do to tell the Pater." 
 
 "Tell him!^'' he exclaimed sharply. "Johnny, I'd cut off my 
 right hand — I'd fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring 
 such a blow on him." 
 
 "Well, and so I think would I." 
 
 " It would kill him as sure as we are here, Johnny. He would 
 look upon it that I have become a confirmed gambler, and I believe 
 the shock and grief would be such that he'd die of it. No : I have 
 not been so particularly dutiful a son, that I should bring that upon 
 him." 
 
 I balanced myself on the bed-rail. Tod paced the carpet slowly. 
 
 " No, never," he repeated, as if there had not been any pause. 
 " I would rather die myself." 
 
 " But what is to be done ? " 
 
 " Heaven knows ! I wish the Pells had been far enough before 
 they had invited us up." 
 
 " I wish you had never consented to play with the lot at all. Tod. 
 You might have stood out from the first." 
 
 "Ay. But one glides into these things unconsciously. Johnny, 
 I begin to think Crayton is just a gambler, playing to win, and 
 nothing better." 
 
 " Playing for his bread. That is, tor the things that constitute it. 
 His drink, and his smoke, and his lodgings, and his boots, and his 
 rings. Old Brandon said it. As to his dinners, he generally gets 
 them at friends' houses." 
 
 " Old Brandon said it, did he ? " 
 
 " Why, I told you so the same day. And you bade me shut up." 
 
 " Do you know what they want me to do, Johnny ? To sign a 
 post-obit bond for two hundred, or so, to be paid after my father's 
 death. It's true. Crayton will let me off then." 
 
 " And will you do it ? " I cried, feeling that my eyes blazed as I 
 leaped down. 
 
 "No, I won'' I: and I told them so to-night. That's what the 
 quarrel was about. ' Every young fellow does it whose father 
 lives too long and keeps him out of his property,' said that 
 Temply. 'Maybe so; I won't,' I answered. Neither will I. I'd 
 rather break stones on the road than speculate upon the good 
 Pater's death, or anticipate his money in that manner to hide my 
 sins." 
 
 " Gusty Pell ought to help you." 
 
 *' Gusty says he can't. Fabian, I believe, really can't ; he is iu
 
 362 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 difficulties of his own: and sometimes, Johnny, I fancy Gus is. 
 Crayton fleeces them both, unless I am mistaken. Yes, he's a 
 sharper; I see through him now. I want him to take my I O U 
 to pay him as soon as I can, and he knows I would do it, but he 
 won't do that. There's two o'clock." 
 
 It was of no use sitting up, and I began to undress. The 
 question reiterated itself again and again— what was to be done ? 
 I lay awake all night thinking, vainly wishing I was of age. 
 Fanciful thoughts crossed my mind : of appealing to rich old Pell, 
 and asking him to lend the money, not betraying Gusty and the 
 rest by saying what it was wanted for ; of carrying the story to 
 Miss Deveen, and asking her; and lastly, of going to old Brandon, 
 and getting him to help. I grew to think that I luould do this, 
 however much I disliked it, and try Brandon; that it lay in my 
 duty to do so. 
 
 Worn and haggard enough looked Tod the next morning. He 
 had sat up nearly all night. When breakfast was over, I started 
 for the Tavistock, whispering a word to Tod first. 
 
 "Avoid the lot to-day. Tod. I'll try and help you out of the 
 mess." 
 
 He burst out laughing in the midst of his perplexity. " You, 
 Johnny ! what next ? " 
 
 " Remember the fable of the lion and the mouse." 
 
 '■'• But you can never be the mouse in this, you mite of a boy ! 
 Thank you all the same, Johnny : you mean it well." 
 
 " Can I see Mr. Brandon ? " I asked at the hotel, of a strange 
 waiter. 
 
 " Mr. Brandon, sir ? He is not staying here." 
 
 "Not staying here ! " 
 
 " No, sir, he left some days ago." 
 
 " But I thought he was coming back again." 
 
 " So I believe he is, sir. But he has not come yet." 
 
 "Do you know where he is ? " 
 
 " At Brighton, sir." 
 
 It was about as complete a floorer as I ever wished to get. All 
 the way along, I had been planning which way to break it to him. 
 I turned from the door, whistling and thinking. Should I go after 
 him to Brighton ? I had the money, and the time, why should I 
 not do so? Heaven alone knew how much depended upon Tod's 
 being released from trouble ; Heaven alone knew what desperate 
 course he might take in his shame, if not released from it. 
 
 Dropping a note to Tod, saying I should be out for the day, and 
 getting a porter to take it up, I made the best of my way to the 
 nearest Brighton station, a-nd found a train just starting. Brighton 
 was a large place, and they could not tell me at the Tavistock what
 
 SEEING LIFE. 363 
 
 hotel Mr. Brandon was staying at ; except that one of the waiters 
 " thought " it might be the Old Ship. And that's where I first went, 
 on arrival. 
 
 No. No one of the name of Brandon was at the Old Ship. So 
 there I was, like an owl in a desert, wondering where to go next. 
 
 And how many hotels and inns I tried before I found him, it 
 would be impossible to remember now. One of the last was up 
 Kemp Town way — the Royal Crescent Hotel. 
 
 " Is Mr. Brandon staying here ? " 
 
 " Mr. Brandon of Warwickshire ? Yes, sir." 
 
 It was so very imexpected an answer after all the failures, that 
 I hardly believed my own ears. Mr. Brandon was not well, the 
 waiter added : suffering from cold and sore throat — but he sup- 
 posed I could see him. I answered that I must see him ; I had 
 come all the way from London on purpose. 
 
 Old Brandon was sitting in a long room, with a bow-window 
 looking out on the sea ; some broth at his elbow, and a yellow silk 
 handkerchief resting cornerwise on his head. 
 
 " Mr. Ludlow, sir," said the waiter. And he dropped the spoon 
 into the broth, and stared at me as if I were an escaped lunatic. 
 
 " Why ! — vou ! What on earth brings yoit here, Johnny Lud- 
 low?" 
 
 To tell him what, was the hardest task I'd ever had in my life. 
 And I did it badly. Sipping spoonfuls of broth and looking hard 
 at me whilst he listened, did not help the process. I don't know 
 how I got it out, or how confused was the way I told him that I 
 wanted a hundred pounds of my own money. 
 
 " A hundred pounds, eh ? " said he. " You are a nice gentleman, 
 Johnny Ludlow ! " 
 
 " I am very sorry, sir, to have to ask it. The need is very urgent, 
 or I should not do so." 
 
 " What's it for ? " questioned he. 
 
 " I — it is to pay a debt, sir," I answered, feeling my face flush 
 hot. 
 
 "Whose debt?" 
 
 By the way he looked at me, I could see that he knew as plainly 
 as though I had told him, that it was not my debt. And yet — 
 but for letting him think it was mine, he might turn a deaf ear 
 to me. Old Brandon finished up his broth, and put the basin 
 down. 
 
 " You are a clever fellow, Johnny Ludlow, but not quite clever 
 enough to deceive me. You'd no more get into such debt yourself, 
 than I should. I have a better opinion of you than that. Who has 
 sent you here ? " 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I came of my own free will. No one knows, even,
 
 36+ JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 that I have come. Mr. Brandon, I hope you will help me : it is 
 almost a matter of life or death." 
 
 " You are wasting words and time, Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 And I felt I was. Felt it hopelessly. 
 
 "There's an old saying, and a very good one, Johnny — Tell the 
 whole truth to your lawyer and doctor, I am neither a lawyer 
 nor a doctor : but I promise you this much, that unless you tell 
 me the truth of the matter, every word of it, and explain your 
 request fully and clearly, you may go marching back to London." 
 
 There was no help for it. I spoke a few words, and they were quite 
 enough. He seemed to grasp the situation as by magic, and turned 
 me, as may be said, inside out. In five minutes he knew by heart 
 as much of it as I did. 
 
 " So ! " said he, in his squeaky voice — ten times more squeaky 
 when he was vexed. " Good ! A nice nest you have got amongst. 
 Want him to give post-obit bonds, do they ! Which is Todhetley — 
 a knave or a fool ? " 
 
 " He has refused to give the bonds, I said, sir." 
 
 " Bonds, who's talking of bonds ? " he retorted. " For playing, 
 /mean. He must have been either a knave or a fool, to play till 
 he owed a hundred pounds when he knew he had not the means to 
 pay." 
 
 " But I have explained how it was, sir. He lost, and then played 
 on, hoping to redeem his losses. I think Crayton had him fast, and 
 would not let him escape." 
 
 "Ay. Got him, and kept him. That's your grand friend, the 
 Honourable, Johnny Ludlow. There : give me the newspaper." 
 
 " But you will let me have the money, sir ? " 
 
 " Not if I know it." 
 
 It was a woeful check. I set on and begged as if I had been 
 begging for life : saying I hardly knew what. That it might save 
 Tod from a downhill course — and spare grief to the poor old 
 Squire — and pain to me. Pain that would lie on my mind always, 
 knowing that I possessed the money, yet might not use it to save 
 him. 
 
 " It's of no use, Johnny. I have been a faithful guardian to you, 
 and done well by your property. Could your dead father look back 
 on this world and see the income you'll come into when you are of 
 age, he would know I speak the truth. You cannot suppose I should 
 waste any portion of it, I don't care how slight a one, in paying 
 young men's wicked gambling debts." 
 
 I prayed him still. I asked him to put himself in my place 
 and see if he would not feel as I felt. I said that I should never 
 — as I truly believed — have an opportunity of spending money that 
 would give me half the pleasure of this, or do half the good, Bq-
 
 SEEING LIFE. 365 
 
 sides, it was only a loan : Tod was sure to repay it when he could. 
 No : old Brandon was hard as flint. He got up" and rang the 
 bell. 
 
 " We'll drop it, Johnny. What will you take ? Have you had 
 anything since breakfast ? " 
 
 " No, sir. But I don't want anything." 
 
 " Bring up dinner for this young gentleman," he said, when the 
 waiter appeared. " Anything you have that's good. And be quick 
 about it, please." 
 
 They brought up a hastily prepared dinner : and very good it was. 
 But I could scarcely eat for sorrow. Old Brandon, nursing himself 
 at the opposite end of the table, the yellow handkerchief on his head, 
 looked at me all the while. 
 
 " Johnny Ludlow, do you know what I think — that you'd give 
 away your head if it were loose. It's a good thing you have me to 
 take care of you." 
 
 " No, sir, I should not. If you would let me have this hundred 
 pounds — it is really only ninety-two, though — I would repay it with 
 two hundred when I came of age." 
 
 " Like the simpleton you are." 
 
 " I think I would give half my money, Mr. Brandon, to serve Tod- 
 hetley in this strait. We are as brothers." 
 
 " No doubt you would : but you've not got it to give, Johnny. 
 You can let him fight his own battles." 
 
 "And I would if ^he were able to fight them: but he is not 
 able ; it's an exceptional case. I must go back to London, and try 
 there." 
 
 Old Brandon opened his eyes. " How ? " 
 
 " I think perhaps Miss Deveen would let me have the money. 
 She is rich and generous — and I will tell her the whole truth. 
 It is a turning-point in Todhetley's life, sir : help would save 
 him." 
 
 " How do you know but he'd return to the mire ? Let him have 
 this money, and he might go on gambling and lose another hundred. 
 Perhaps hundreds at the back of it." 
 
 " No, sir, that he never would. He may go deeper into the mire 
 if he does not get it. Enlist, or something." 
 
 "Are you going already, Johnny ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. I must catch the next train, and it's a good way to the 
 station." 
 
 " You can take a fly. Wait a few minutes." 
 
 He went into his bedroom, on the same floor. When he came back, 
 he held a piece of paper in his hand. 
 
 " There, Johnny. But it is my loan; not yours." 
 
 It was a cheque for a hundred pounds. He had listened, after
 
 366 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 all ! The surprise was so great that I am afraid rny eyes were 
 dim. 
 
 " The loan is mine, Johnny," he repeated. *' I am not going to 
 risk your money, and prove myself a false trustee. When Todhetley 
 can repay it, it will be to me, not to you. But now — understand : 
 unless he gives you a solemn promise never to play with that 
 ' Honourable ' again, or with either of the Pells, you will not use the 
 cheque, but return it to mc." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Brandon, there will be no difficulty. He only wants to 
 be quit of them." 
 
 " Get his promise, I say. If he gives it, present this cheque at 
 Robarts's in Lombard Street to-morrow, and they'll pay you the 
 money over the counter." 
 
 " It is made out to my order! " I said, looking at the cheque : 
 " not to Crayton ! " 
 
 " To Crayton ! " retorted Mr. Brandon. " I wouldn't let a cheque 
 of mine, uncrossed, faU into his hands. He might add an ought or 
 two to the figures. I drew it out for an even hundred, you see : the 
 odd money may be wanted. You'll have to sign your name at the 
 back : do it at the bank. And now, do you know why I have let 
 you have this ? " 
 
 I looked at him in doubt. 
 
 " Because you have obeyed the injunctions I gave you — to bring 
 any difficuhy you might have to me. I certainly never expected 
 it so soon, or that it would take this form. Don't you get tumbling 
 into another. Let people take care of themselves. There : put it 
 into your breast-pocket, and be oft"." 
 
 I don't know how I got back to town. There was no accident, 
 and we were not pitched into next week. If we had been, I'm not 
 sure that I should have minded it ; for that cheque in my pocket 
 seemed a panacea for all human ills. The Pells were at dinner 
 when I entered : and Tod was lying outside his bed, with one of his 
 torturing headaches. He did not often have them : which was a 
 good thing, for they were rattlers. Taking his hand from his head, 
 he glanced at me. 
 
 " Where have you been all day, Johnny ? " he asked, hardly able 
 to speak. " That was a short note of yours. 
 
 " I've been to Brighton." 
 
 Tod opened his eyes again with surprise. He did not believe \i. 
 
 " Why don't you say Bagdad, at once t Keep your counsel, if you 
 choose, lad. I'm too ill to get it out of you." 
 
 " But I don't want to keep it : and I have been to Brighton. Had 
 dinner there, too. Tod, old fehow, the mouse has done his work. 
 Here's a cheque for you for a hundred pounds." 
 
 He looked at it as I held it out to him, saw it was true, and then
 
 SEEING LIFE. 367 
 
 sprang off the bed. I had seen glad emotion in my life, even at that 
 early period of it, but hardly such as Tod's then. Never a word 
 spoke he. 
 
 " It is lent by Mr. Brandon to you, Tod. He bade me say it. I 
 could not get any of mine out of him. The only condition is — that, 
 before I cash it, you shall promise not to play again with Crayton 
 or the Pells." 
 
 " I'll promise it now. Glad to do it. Long live old Brandon ! 
 Johnny, my good brother, I'm too ill to thank you — -my temples seem 
 as if they were being split with a sledge-hammer — but you have 
 saved me." 
 
 I was at Robarts's when it opened in the morning. And signed 
 my name at the back of the cheque, and got the money. Fancy me 
 having a hundred pounds paid to me in notes and gold ! The Squire 
 would have thought the world was coming to an end.
 
 XXII. 
 OUR STRIKE. 
 
 It was September, and they were moving to Crabb Cot for a week 
 or two's shooting. The shooting was not bad about there, and the 
 Squire hked a turn with his gun yet. Being close on the Michaehiias 
 hoHdays, Tod and I were with them. 
 
 When the stay was going to be short, the carriages did not come 
 over from Dyke Manor. On arriving at South Crabb station, there 
 was a fly waiting. It would not take us all. Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, 
 the two children, and Hannah got into it, and some of the luggage 
 was put on the top. 
 
 "You two boys can walk," said the Pater. " It will stretch your 
 legs." 
 
 And a great deal rather walk, too, than be boxed up in a crawling 
 fly! 
 
 We took the way through Crabb Lane : the longest but merriest, 
 for it was always lively with noise and dirt. Reports had gone 
 abroad long before that Crabb Lane was " out on strike : " Tod and 
 I thought we would take a look at it in this new aspect. 
 
 There were some great works in the vicinity — I need not state 
 here their exact speciality — and the men employed at tliem chiefly 
 inhabited Crabb Lane. It was setting-up these works that caused 
 the crowded dwellings in Crabb Lane to be built— for where a 
 number of workmen congregate together, habitations must of 
 necessity follow. 
 
 You have heard of Crabb Lane before— in connection with what 
 I once told you about Harry Lease the pointsman. It was a dingy, 
 over-populated, bustling place, prosperous on the whole, its inhabi- 
 tants as a rule well-to-do. A strike was quite a new feature, bringing 
 to most of them a fresh experience in life. England had strikes in 
 those past days, but they were not common. 
 
 Crabb Lane during working hours had hitherto been given over 
 to the children, who danced in the gutters and cried and screamed 
 themselves hoarse. Women also would be out of doors, idling away 
 their time in gossip, or else calling across to each other from the 
 windows. But now, as I and Tod went down it, things looked
 
 OUR STRIKE. 369 
 
 different. Instead of women and children, men were there. Every 
 individual man, I believe, out of every house the lane contained ; 
 for there appeared to be shoals of them. They lounged idly against 
 the walls, or stood about in groups. Some with pipes, some with- 
 out ; some laughing and jeering, apparently in the highest spirits, 
 as if they had climbed the tree of fortune ; some silent and anxious- 
 looking. 
 
 " Well, Hoar, how are you ? " 
 
 It was Tod who spoke. The man he addressed, Jacob Hoar, was 
 one of the best of the workmen : a sober, steady, honest fellow, with 
 a big frame and a resolute face. He had the character of being 
 fierce in temper, sometimes savage with his fellow-men, if put out. 
 Alfred Hoar — made pointsman at the station in poor Harry Lease's 
 place — was his brother. 
 
 Hoar did not answer Tod at all. He was standing quite alone 
 near the door of his house, a strangely defiant look upon his pale 
 face, and his firm lips drawn in. Unless I was mistaken, some of 
 the men over the way were taking covert glances at him, as though 
 he were a kangaroo they had to keep aloof from. Hoar turned his 
 eyes slowly upon us, took off his round felt hat, and smoothed back 
 his dark hair. 
 
 " I be as well as matters '11 let me be, young Mr. Todhetley," he 
 then said. 
 
 " There's a strike going on, I hear," said Tod. " Has been for 
 some time." 
 
 " Yes, there's a strike a-going on," assented Hoar, speaking in a 
 deliberate, sullen manner, as a man resenting some special grievance. 
 " Has been for some time, as you say. And I don't know when the 
 strike '11 be a-going off." 
 
 " How is Eliza ? " I asked. 
 
 " Much as usual, Mr. Johnny. What should ail her ? " 
 
 Evidently there was no sociability to be got out of Jacob Hoar 
 that afternoon, and we left him. A few yards further, we passed 
 Ford's, the baker's. No end of heads were at the shop door, and 
 they seemed to be staring at Hoar. 
 
 " He must have been deahng out a little abuse to the public 
 generally. Tod," said I. 
 
 "Very likely," answered Tod. "He seems bursting with ^ome 
 rage or other." 
 
 " Nay, I don't think it's rage so niuch as vexation. Something 
 must have gone wrong." 
 
 "Well, perhaps so." 
 
 "Look here. Tod. If we had a home to keep up and a lot of 
 mouths to feed and weekly rent to pay, and a strike stopped the 
 supplies, we might be in a worse humour than Hoar is." 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. 24
 
 370 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Right, Johnny." And Tod went off at a strapping pace. 
 
 How it may be with other people, I don't know : but when I get 
 back to a place after an absence, I want to see every one, and am 
 apt to go dashing in at doors without warning. 
 
 " It won't take us a minute to look in on Miss Timmens, Tod," 
 I said, as we neared the school-house. " She'll tell us the news of 
 the whole parish." 
 
 " Take the minute, then, if you like," said Tod. " I am not going 
 to bother myself with Miss Timmens." 
 
 Neither perhaps should I, after that, for Tod swayed me still ; but 
 in passing the door it was opened wide by one of the httle scholars. 
 Miss Timmens sat in her chair, the lithe, thin cane, three yards 
 long, raised in her hand, its other end descending, gently enough 
 on the shoulders of a chattering girl. 
 
 " I don't keep it to beat 'em," Miss Timmens was wont to say of 
 her cane, "but just to tap 'em into attention when they are beyond 
 the reach of my hand." And, to give her her due, it was nothing 
 more. 
 
 " It's you, is it. Master Johnny ? I heard you were all expected." 
 
 "It's me, safe enough. How goes the world with you. Miss 
 Timmens ? " 
 
 " Cranky," was the short answer. " South Crabb's going out of 
 its senses, I think. The parson is trying to introduce fresh ways 
 and doings, in my school : new-fangled rubbish, Master Johnny, 
 that will bring more harm than good. I won't have it, and so he 
 and I are at daggers drawn. And there's a strike in the place ! " 
 
 I nodded. While she spoke, it had struck me, looking at the 
 room, that it was not so full as usual. 
 
 " It's the strike does that," she said, in a sort of triumph. " It's 
 the strike that works all the ill and every kind of evil " — and it was 
 quite evident the strike found no more favour with her than the 
 parson's fresh ways. 
 
 " But what has the strike to do with the children's absence from 
 school .'' " 
 
 " The strike has carried all the children's best things to the pawn- 
 shop, and they've nothing decent left to come abroad in. That is 
 one cause, Johnny Ludlow," she concluded, very tartly. 
 
 "Is there any other ? " 
 
 " Don't you think that sufficient ? I am not going to let them 
 appear before me in rags — and so Crabb Lane knows. But there 
 is another cause, sir. This strike has so altered the course of things 
 that the whole order of ordinary events is turned upside down. Even 
 if the young ones' frocks were home again, it would be ten to one 
 against their coming to school." 
 
 " I don't see the two little Hoars." And why I had been looking
 
 OUR STRIKE. 371 
 
 for those particular children I can't say, unless it was that Hoar 
 and his peculiar manner had been floating in my mind ever since 
 we passed him. 
 
 " 'Liza and Jessy — no, but they've been here till to-day," was the 
 reply, given after a long pause. "Are you going, Mr. Johnny? — I'll 
 just step outside with you." 
 
 She drew the door close behind her, keeping the handle in her 
 hand, and looked straight into my face. 
 
 " Jacob Hoar has gone and beat his boy almost to death this 
 morning — and flie strike's the cause of ///«/," she whispered, em- 
 phatically. 
 
 "Jacob Hoar has! — Why, how came he to do it?" — I exclaimed, 
 recalling more forcibly than ever the man's curious look, and the 
 curious looks of the other men holding aloof from him. " Which 
 of his boys is it ? " 
 
 "The second of them; httle Dick. Yes, he is black and blue all 
 over, they say ; next door to beat to death ; and his arm's broken. 
 And they have the strike to thank for it." 
 
 She repeated the concluding words more stingingly than before. 
 That Miss Tinimens was wroth with the strike, there could be no 
 mistake. I asked her why the strike was to be thanked for the 
 beating and the broken arm. 
 
 " Because the strike has brought misery ; and that is the source 
 of all the ill going on just now in Crabb Lane," was her reply. 
 " Wlien the men threw themselves out of work, of course they 
 threw themselves out of wages. Some funds have been furnished 
 to them, weekly I believe, from the Trades Union League*— or 
 whatever they call the thing — but it seems a mere nothing com- 
 pared with what they used to earn. Household goods, as well as 
 clothes, have been going to the pawn-shop , but they have now 
 pledged all they've got to pledge, and are, it is said, in sore straits : 
 mothers and fathers and children alike hungry. It is some time 
 now since they have had enough to eat. Fancy that, Mr. 
 Johnny ! " 
 
 " But why should Dicky be beaten for that ? " I persisted, trying 
 to keep her to the point— a rather difficult matter with Miss Timmens 
 at all times. 
 
 " It was in this way," she answered, dropping her voice to a lower 
 key, and giving a pull at the doo'r to make sure it had not opened. 
 " Dicky, poor fellow, is half starved ; he's not used to it, and feels 
 it keenly : resents it, I dare say. This morning, when out in the 
 lane, he saw a tray of halfpenny buns, hot from the oven, put on 
 old Ford's counter. The sight was too much for him, the tempta- 
 tion too great. Dicky Hoar is naturally honest ; has been, up to 
 now, at all events : but I suppose hunger was stronger than honesty
 
 372 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to-day. He crept iiito the shop on all fours, abstracted a bun with 
 his fingers, and was creeping out again, when Ford pounced upon 
 him, bun in hand. There was a fine outcry. Ford was harsh, roared 
 out for the policeman, and threatened him with jail, and in the midst 
 of the commotion Hoar came up. In his mortification at hearing 
 that a boy of his had been caught pilfering, he seized upon a thick 
 stick that a bystander happened to have, and laid it unmercifully 
 upon poor Dick." 
 
 " And broke his arm ? " 
 
 " And broke his arm. And covered him with weals beside. 
 He'll be all manner of colours to-morrow." 
 
 " What a brutal fellow Hoar must be ! " 
 
 "To beat him like that? — well, yes," assented Miss Timmens, in 
 accents that bore rather a dubious sound. " Passion must have 
 blinded him and urged him further than he intended. The man 
 has always been upright ; prided himself on being so, as one may 
 say; and there's no doubt that to find his child could be a thief 
 shook him cruelly. This strike is ruining the tempers of the men ; 
 it makes them feel at war with everything and everybody." 
 
 When I got home I found them in the thick of the news also, 
 for Cole the doctor was there telling it all. Mrs. Todhetley, sitting 
 on the sofa with her bonnet untied and her shawl unpinned, was 
 listening in a kind of horror. 
 
 " But surely the arm cannot be broken, Mr. Cole ! " she urged. 
 
 " Broken just above the wrist, ma'am. I ought to know, for I 
 set it. Wicked little rascal, to steal the bun ! As to Hoar, he is as 
 fierce as a tiger when really enraged." 
 
 " Well, it sounds very shocking." 
 
 " So it does," said Cole. " I think perhaps it may be productive 
 of one good — keep the boy from picking and stealing to the end of 
 his life." 
 
 " He was hungry, you say." 
 
 "Famished, ma'am. Most of the young ones in Crabb Lane 
 are so just now." 
 
 The Squire was walking up and down the room, his hands in 
 his pockets. He halted, and faced the Doctor. 
 
 " Look here. Cole — what has brought this state of things about ? 
 A strike I — and prolonged ! Why, I should as soon have expected 
 to hear the men had thrown up their work to become Merry 
 Andrews ! Who is in fault ? — the masters or the men ? " 
 
 Cole lifted his eyebrows. " The masters lay the blame on the 
 men, the men lay it on the masters." 
 
 " What is it the men are holding out for ? " 
 
 " To get more wages, and to do less work." 
 
 " Oh, come, that's a twofold demand," cried the Pater. " Modest
 
 OUR STRIKE. 373 
 
 folk generally ask for one favour at a time. Meanwhile things are 
 all at sixes-and-sevens, I suppose, in Crabb Lane ? " 
 
 " Ay," said the Doctor. " At worse than sixes-and-sevens, indoors 
 and out. There are empty cupboards and empty rooms within ; 
 and there's a good deal of what's bad without. It's the wives and 
 children that suffer, poor things." 
 
 "The men must be senseless to throw themselves out of work ! " 
 
 " The men only obey orders," cried Mr. Cole. " There's a spirit 
 of disaffection abroad ; certain people have constituted themselves 
 rulers, and they say to the men, ' You must do this,' and ' You 
 must not do that.' The men have yielded themselves up to be led, 
 and do do what they are told, right or wrong." 
 
 " I don't say they are wrong to try to get more wages if they 
 can ; it would be odd if we were to be debarred from bettering 
 ourselves," spoke the Squire. " But to throw up their work whilst 
 they are trying, there's the folly; there's where the shoe must 
 tighten. Let them keep on their work whilst they agitate." 
 
 " They'd tell you, I expect, that the masters would be less likely 
 to listen then than they are now." 
 
 "Well, they've no right, in common sense, to throw up their 
 wives' and children's living, if they do their own," concluded the 
 Squire. 
 
 Cole nodded. " There's some truth in that," he said as he got 
 up to leave. "Any way, things are more gloomy with us than 
 you'd believe, Squire." 
 
 You may remember that I told you, when speaking of the Court 
 and my early home, how, when I was a little child of four years 
 old, Hannah my nurse, and Ehza one of her fellow-servants, com- 
 mented freely in my hearing on my father's second marriage, and 
 shook me well because I was wise enough to understand them. Eliza 
 was then housemaid at the Court ; and soon after this she had left 
 it to marry Jacob Hoar. She was a nice sort of young woman 
 (in spite of the shaking), and I kept up a great acquaintance with 
 her, and was free, so to say, of Ler house in Crabb Lane, running 
 in and out of it at will, when we were at Crabb Cot. A tribe of 
 little Hoars arrived, one after another. Jacky, the eldest, over ten 
 now, had a place at the works, and earned two shillings a week. 
 " 'Twarn't much," said Hoar the father, " but 'twas bringing his 
 hand in." Dick, the second, he who had just had the beating, 
 was nine ; two girls came next, and there was a young boy of three. 
 
 Hoar earned capital wages— to judge by the comfortable way in 
 which they lived : I should think not less than forty shillings 
 a week. Of course they spent it all, every fraction ; as a rule,
 
 374 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 families of that class never put by for a rainy day. They might 
 have done it, I suppose . in those days provisions were nothing 
 like as dear as they are now; the cost of living altogether was 
 less. 
 
 Of course the Hoars had to suffer in common with the rest under 
 the strike. But I did not like to hear of empty cupboards in con- 
 nection with Eliza; no, nor of her boy's broken arm ; and in the 
 evening I went back to Crabb Lane to see her. They lived next 
 door but one to the house that had been Lease the pointsman's ; 
 but theirs was far better than that tumble-down hut. 
 
 Well, it was a change! The pretty parlour looked half dis- 
 mantled. Its ornaments and best things had gone, as Miss 
 Timmens expressed it, to adorn the pawnshop. The carpet also. 
 Against the wall, on a small mattress brought down for him, lay 
 Dicky and his bruises. Some of the children sat on the floor : Mrs. 
 Hoar was kneeling over Dicky and bathing his cheek, which was 
 big enough for two, for it had caught the stick kindly. 
 
 " Well, Eliza ! " 
 
 She got up, sank into a chair, flung her apron up to her face, and 
 burst into tears. I suppose it was at the sight of me. Not knowing 
 what to say to that, I pulled the little girls' ears and then sat down 
 on the floor by Dicky. He began to cry, 
 
 " Oh come, Dick, don't ; you'll soon be better. Face smarts, 
 does it ? " 
 
 " I never thought to meet you like this. Master Johnny," said 
 Eliza, getting up and speaking through her tears. " 'Twas hunger 
 made him do it, sir ; nothing else. The poor little things be so 
 famished at times it a'most takes the sense out of 'em." 
 
 "Yes, I am sure it was nothing else. Look up, Dick. Don't 
 cry like that." One would have thought the boy was going into 
 hysterics. 
 
 I had an apple in my pocket and gave it to him. He kept it 
 in his hand for some time, and then began to eat it ravenously, sob- 
 bing now and then. The left arm, the broken one, lay across him, 
 bound up in splints. 
 
 " I didn't mean to steal the bun," he whispered, looking up at 
 me through his tears. "I'd ha' give Mrs. Ford the first ha'penny 
 for it that I'd ever got. I was a-hungered, I was. We be always 
 a-hungered now." 
 
 " It is hard times with you, I am afraid, Eliza," I said, standing 
 by her. 
 
 Opening her mouth to answer, a sob caught her breath, and she 
 put her hand to her side, as if in pain. Her poor face, naturally 
 patient and meek, was worn, and had a bright hectic spot upon it. 
 Eliza used to be very pretty, and was young-looking still, with
 
 OUR STRIKE. 375 
 
 smooth brown hair, and mild grey eyes : she looked very haggard 
 now and less tidy. But, as to being tidy, how can folk be that, 
 when all their gowns worth a crown are hanging up at the pawn- 
 broker's ? 
 
 " It's dreadful times, Master Johnny. It's times that frighten 
 me. Worse than all, I can't see when it is to end, and what the 
 end is to be." 
 
 " Don't lose heart. The end will be that the men will go to work 
 again : I dare say soon." 
 
 " The Lord send it ! " she answered. " That's the best we can 
 luape for, sir ; and that '11 be hard enough. For we shall ha\e to 
 begin life again, as 'twere ; with debts all around us, and our house- 
 hold things and our clothes in pledge." 
 
 " You will get them out again then." 
 
 " Ay, but how long will it take to earn the money to do it ? This 
 strike, as I look upon it, has took at the rate of five years of pros- 
 perity out of our lives, IMaster Johnny." 
 
 " The league — or whatever it is— allows you all money to live, 
 does it not ? " 
 
 "We get some, sir. It's not a great deal. They tell us that 
 there's strikes a-going on in many parts just now; these strikes 
 have to be helped as well as the operatives here ; and so it makes 
 the allowance small. We have no means of knowing whether that's 
 true or not, us women, I mean ; but I dare say it is." 
 
 " And the allowance is not enough to keep you in food ? " 
 
 " Master Johnny, there's so many other things one wants, beside 
 bare food," she answered, with a sigh. " We must pay our rent, or 
 the landlord would turn us out : we must have a bit o' coal for 
 firing : we must have soap ; clothes must be washed, sir, and we 
 must be washed : we must have a candle these dark evenings ; shoes 
 must be mended : and there's other trifles, too, that I needn't go 
 into, as well as what Hoar takes for himself " 
 
 " But does he take much ? " I interrupted. 
 
 " No, sir, he don't : nothing to what some of 'em takes : he has 
 always been a good husband and father. The men, you see, sir, 
 must have a few halfpence in their pockets to pay for their smoke 
 and that, at their meetings in the evening. There's not much left 
 for food when all this comes to be taken out — and we are seven 
 mouths to fill." 
 
 No wonder they were hungry ! 
 
 " Some of the people you've known ought to help you, Eliza. 
 Mrs. Sterling at the old home might : or Mrs. Coney. Do 
 they?" 
 
 Eliza Hoar shook her head. " The gentlemen be all again us, 
 sir, and so the ladies dare not do anything. As to Mrs. Sterhng— '
 
 376 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 I don't know that she has so much as heard of the strike — all them 
 miles off." 
 
 " You mean the gentlemen are against the strike ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; dead agaiji it. They say strikes is the worst kind of 
 evil that can set in, both for us and for the country ; that it will 
 increase tlie poor-rates to a height to be afraid of, and in the end 
 drive the work away from the land. Sitting here with my poor 
 children around me at dusk to save candle, I get thinking some- 
 times that the gentlemen may not be far wrong, Master Johnny." 
 
 Seeing the poor quiet faces lifted to me, from which every bit of 
 spirit seemed to have gone, I wished I had my pockets full of buns 
 for them. But buns were not likely to be there ; and of money I 
 had none : buying one of the best editions of Shakespeare had just 
 cleared me out. 
 
 "Where's Hoar.''" I asked, in leaving. 
 
 A hot flush overspread her face. " He has not shown himself 
 here. Master Johnny, since what he did to ///w," was her resentful 
 answer, pointing to Dick. " Afraid to face me, he is." 
 
 " I'd not say too much to him, Eliza. It could not undo what's 
 done, and might only make matters worse, I dare say Hoar is just 
 as much vexed about it as you are." 
 
 " It's to be hoped he is ! Why did he go and set upon the child 
 in that cruel way.'' It's the men that goes in for the strike ; 'tisn't 
 us : and when the worry of it makes 'em so low they hardly know 
 where to turn, they must vent it upon us. Master Johnny, there are 
 minutes now when I could wish myself dead but for the children." 
 
 I went home with my head full of a scheme — getting Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley and perhaps the Coneys to do something for poor Eliza 
 Hoar. But I soon found I might as well have pleaded the cause of 
 the public hangman. 
 
 Who should come into our house that evening but old Coney 
 himself. As if the strike were burning a hole in his tongue, he 
 began upon it before he was well seated, and gave the Squire his 
 version of it : that is, his opinion. It did not differ in substance 
 from what had been hinted at by Eliza Hoar. Mr. Coney did not 
 speak yj?r the men or against them ; he did not speak for or against 
 the masters ; that question of conflicting interests he said he was 
 content to leave : but what he did urge, and very strongly, was, that 
 strikes in themselves must be productive of an incalculable amount 
 of harm ; they brought misery on the workmen, pecuniary em- 
 barrassment on the masters, and they most inevitably would, if 
 persisted in, eventually ruin the trade of the kingdom ; therefore 
 they should, by every possible means, be discouraged. The Squire, 
 in his hot fashion, took up these opinions for his own and enlarged 
 upon them.
 
 OUR STRIKE. 377 
 
 When old Coney was gone and we had our shippers on, I told 
 them of my visit to Eliza, and asked them to help her just a httle. 
 
 " Not by a crust of bread, Johnny," said the Squire, more firmly 
 and quietly than he usually spoke. " Once begin to assist the wives 
 and children, and the men would have so much the less need to 
 bring the present state of things to an end." 
 
 " I am so sorry for Eliza, sir." 
 
 " So am I, Johnny. But the proper person to be sorry for her is 
 her husband : her weal and woe can lie only with him." 
 
 "If we could help her ever so little ! " 
 
 The Squire looked at me for a full minute. "Attend to mc, 
 Johnny Ludlow. Once for all, NO ! The strike, as Coney says, 
 must be discouraged by every means in our power. Discouraged, 
 Johnny. Otherwise these strikes may come into fashion, and grow 
 to an extent of which no man can foresee the end. They will bring 
 the workmen to one of two things — starvation, or the workhouse. 
 That result seems to me inevitable." 
 
 " I'm sure it makes me feel very uncomfortable," said the Mater. 
 " One can hardly see where one's duty lies." 
 
 " Our poor-rates are getting higher every day ; what do you sup- 
 pose they'll come to if this is to go on ? " continued the Squire. 
 " I'd be glad for the men to get better pay if they are underpaid 
 now ; whether they are or not, I cannot tell ; but rely upon it, 
 striking is not the way to attain to it. It's a way that has ruined 
 many a hopeful workman, who otherwise would have gone on con- 
 tentedly to the end of his days ; ay, and has finally killed him. It 
 will ruin many another. \"arious interests are at stake in this; you 
 must perceive it for yourself, Johnny lad, if you have any brains ; 
 but none so great as that of the workmen themselves. With all 
 my heart I wish, for their own sakes, they had not taken this ex- 
 treme step." 
 
 " And if the poor children starve, sir ? " I ventured to say. 
 
 " Fiddlestick to starving ! They need not starve while there's a 
 workhouse to go to. And ivofi't ; that's more. CarCt you see how 
 all this acts, Mr. Johnny ? The men throw themselves out of work ; 
 and when matters come to an extremity the parish must feed the 
 children, and we, the rate-payers, must pay. A pleasant prospect ! 
 How many scores of children are there in Crabb Lane alone?" 
 
 " A few dozens, I should say, sir." 
 
 " And a few to that. No, Johnny ; let the men look to their 
 families' needs. For their own sakes ; I repeat it ; for their own 
 best interests, I'll have them left alone. They have entered on 
 this state of things of their own free will, and they must themselves 
 fight it out. — And now get you off to bed, boys." 
 
 " The Pater's right, Johnny," cried Tod, stepping into my room
 
 37S JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 as we went up, his candle flaring in the draught from the open stair- 
 case window ; " right as right can be on principle ; but it is hard 
 for the women and children " 
 
 " It is hard for themselves, too. Tod : only they have the unbend- 
 ing spirit of Britons, to hold out to the death and make no bones 
 over it." 
 
 " I wish you'd not interrupt a fellow," growled Tod. " Look 
 here ; I've got four-and-sixpence, every farthing I can count just 
 now. You take it and give it to Eliza. The Pater need know 
 nothing." 
 
 He emptied his trousers pocket of the silver, and went off with 
 his candle. I'm not sure but that he and I both enjoyed the state 
 of affairs as something new. Had any one told us a year ago that 
 our quiet neighbourhood could be disturbed by a public ferment 
 such as this, we should never have believed it. 
 
 The next morning I went over to South Crabb with the four-and- 
 sixpence. Perhaps it was not quite fair to give it, after what the 
 Squire had said — but there's many a worse thing than that done 
 daily in the world. Eliza caught her breath when I gave it to her, 
 and thanked me with her eyes as well as her lips. She had on a 
 frightfully old green gown — green once — shabby and darned and 
 patched, and no cap ; and she was on her knees wiping up some 
 spilt water on the floor. 
 
 " Mind, Eliza, you must not say a word to any one. I should 
 get into no end of a row." 
 
 "You were always generous, Master Johnny. Even when a 
 baby " 
 
 " Never mind that. It is not I who am generous now. The 
 silver was given me for you by some one else ; I am cleared out, 
 myself. Where's Dicky ? " 
 
 " He's upstairs in his bed, sir : too stiff to move. Mr. Cole, too, 
 said he might as well lie there to-day. Would you like to go up 
 and see him ? " 
 
 As I ran up the staircase, open from the room, a vision of her 
 wan face followed me — of the catching sob again — of the smooth 
 brown hair which she was pressing from her temples. We have 
 heard of a peck of troubles : she seemed to have a bushel of them. 
 
 Dicky was a sight, as far as variety of colours went. There was 
 no mistake about his stiffness. 
 
 " It won't last long, Dick; and then you'll be as well as ever." ' 
 
 Dick's grey eyes — they were just like his mother's — looked up at 
 mine. I thought he was going to cry. 
 
 " There. You will never take anything again, will you 1 " 
 
 Dick shook his head as emphatically as his starched condition 
 allowed. " Father says as he'd kill me the next time if I did."
 
 OUR STRIKE. 379 
 
 " When did he say that ? " 
 
 " This morning ; afore he went out." 
 
 Dicky's room had a lean-to roof, and was about the size of our 
 jam closet at Crabb Cot. Not an earthly article was in it but the 
 mattress he was lying on. 
 
 "Who sleeps here besides you, Dicky.?" 
 
 "Jacky and little Sam. 'Liza and Jessy sleeps by father and 
 mother." 
 
 " Well, good day, Dicky." 
 
 Whom should I come upon at the end of Crabb Lane, but the 
 Squire and Hoar. The Squire had his gun in his hand and was 
 talking his face red : Hoar leaned against the wooden palings that 
 skirted old Massock's garden, and looked as sullen as he had looked 
 yesterday. I thought the Pater had been blowing him up for beat- 
 ing the boy ; but it seemed that he was blowing him up for the 
 strike. Cole, the surgeon, hurrying along on his rounds, stopped 
 just as I did. 
 
 " Not your fault, Hoar ! " cried the Squire. " Of course I know 
 it's not your fault alone, but you are as bad as the rest. Come ; tell 
 me what good the strike has done for you." 
 
 "Not much as yet," readily acknowledged Hoar, in a tone of 
 incipient defiance. 
 
 " To me it seems nothing less than a crime to throw yourself out 
 of work. There's the work ready to your hands, spoiling for want 
 of being done — and yet you won't do it ! " 
 
 " I do but obey orders," said Hoar : who seemed to be miserable 
 enough, in spite of the incipient defiance. 
 
 " But is there any sense in it ? " reasoned the Squire. " If you 
 men could drop the work and still keep up your homes and^ their 
 bread-and-cheese, and their other comforts, I'd say nothing. But 
 look at your poor suffering wives and children. I should be 
 ashamed to be idle, when my idleness bore such consequences." 
 
 The man answered nothing. Cole put in his word. 
 
 " There are times when I feel / should like to run away from my 
 work, and go in for a few weeks' or months' idleness, Jacob Hoar; 
 and drink my two or three glasses of port wine after dinner of a 
 day, like a lord ; and be altogether independent of my station and 
 my patients, and of every other obligation under the sun. But I 
 can't. I know what it would do for mc — bring me to the parish." 
 
 "D'ye think we throw up the work for the sake o' being idle?" 
 returned Hoar. " D'ye suppose, sirs," — with a burst of a sigh — ■ 
 " that this state o' things is -3. pleasure to us ? We are doing it for 
 future benefit. We are told by them who act for us, and who must 
 know, that great benefit will come of it if we be only firm ; that our 
 rights be in our own hands if we only persevere long enough in
 
 38o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 standing out for 'cm. Us men has our rights, I suppose, as well as 
 other folks." 
 
 " Those who, as you term it, act for you, may be mistaken, 
 Hoar," said the Squire. " I'll leave that point : and go on to a 
 different question. Do you think that the future benefit (whatever 
 that may be : it's vague enough now) is worth the cost you are 
 paying for it?" 
 
 No reply. A look crossed Hoar's face that made me think he 
 sometimes asked the same question of himself 
 
 "It does appear to be a very senseless quarrel. Hoar," went on 
 the Squire. Cole had walked on. " One-sided too. There's an 
 old saying, ' Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face,' and your 
 strike seems just an illustration of it. You see, it is ox\\y you men 
 that suffer. The rulers you speak of don't suffer : while they are 
 laying down rules for you, they are flourishing on the meat and 
 corn of the land ; the masters, in one sense, do not suffer, for they 
 are not reduced to any extremity of any kind. But you, my poor 
 fellows, you bear the brunt of it all. Look at your homes, how 
 they are bared ; look at your hungry children. What but hunger 
 drove little Dick to crib that bun yesterday ? " 
 
 Hoar took off his hat and passed his hand over his brow and his 
 black hair. It seemed to be a favourite action of his when in any 
 worry of thought. 
 
 " It is just ruin, Jacob Hoar. If some great shock — say a 
 mountain of snow, or a thunderbolt — descended suddenly from the 
 skies and destroyed everything there was in your home, leaving 
 but the bare walls standing, what a dreadful calamity you would 
 think it. How bitterly you'd bemoan it ! — perhaps almost feel 
 inclined, if you only dared, to reproach Heaven for its cruelty ! 
 But you — you bring on this calamity yourself, of your own free and 
 deliberate will. You have dismantled your home with your own 
 fingers ; you have taken out your goods and sold or pledged them, 
 to buy food. I hear you have parted with all." 
 
 " A'most," assented Hoar readily ; as if it quite pleased him the 
 Squire should show up the case at its worst. 
 
 " Put it that you resume work to-morrow, you don't resume it 
 as a free man. You'll have a load of debt and embarrassment on 
 your shoulders. You will have your household goods to redeem — ■ 
 if they are then still redeemable : you will have your clothes and 
 shoes to buy, to replace present rags : while on your mind will lie 
 the weight of all this past time of trouble, cropping up every half- 
 hour like a nightmare. Now — is the future benefit you hint at 
 worth all this ? " 
 
 Hoar twitched a thorny spray off the hedge behind the pales, 
 and twirled it about between his teeth.
 
 OUR STRIKE. 381 
 
 "Any way," he said, the look of perplexity clearing somewhat 
 on his face, " I be but doing as my mates do ; and we are a-doing 
 for the best. So far as we are told and believe, it'll be all for the 
 best." 
 
 " Then do it," returned the Squire in a passion ; and went stamp- 
 ing away with his gun. 
 
 "Johnny, they are all pig-headed together," he presently said, as 
 we crossed the stile into the field of stubble whence the corn had 
 been reaped. " One can't help being sorry for them : they are 
 blinded by specious arguments that will turn out, I fear, to be all 
 moonshine. Hold my gun, lad. Where's that dog, now .? Here, 
 Dash, Dash, Dash ! " 
 
 Dash came running up ; and Tod with him. 
 
 In a fortnight's time, Crabb Cot was deserted again. Tod and 
 I returned to our studies, the Squire and the rest to Dyke Manor. 
 As the weeks went on, scraps of news would reach us about the 
 strike. There were meetings of the masters alone : meetings of 
 the men and what they called delegates ; meetings of masters and 
 men combined. It all came to nothing. The masters at length 
 offered to concede a little ; the men (inwardly wearied out, sick to 
 death of the untoward state of things) would have accepted the 
 slight concession and returned to work with willing feet ; but their 
 rulers — the delegates, or whatever they were — said no. And so the 
 idleness and the pinching distress continued : the men got more 
 morose, and the children more ragged. After that (things remain- 
 ing in a chronic state of misery, I suppose) we heard nothing. 
 
 "Another lot of faggots, Thomas ; and heap up the coal. This 
 is weather ! Goodness, man ! Don't put the coal on gingerly, as 
 if you were afraid of it. Molly's a fool." 
 
 We were in the cozy sitting-room again at Crabb Cot. The 
 Squire was right : it was weather : the coldest I have ever felt in 
 December. Old Thomas's hands were frozen with the drive from 
 the station. Molly, who had come on the day before, had put 
 about a handful of fire in the grate to greet us with. Naturally it 
 put the Squire's temper up. 
 
 " That there strike's a-going on still, sir," began Thomas, as he 
 waited to watch his wood blaze up. 
 
 " No ! " cried the Squire. For we had naturally supposed it to 
 be at an end. 
 
 " It is, though, sir. Ford the driver telled me, coming along, 
 that Crabb Lane was in a fine state for distress."
 
 382 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Oh dear ! I wish I knew whose fault it is ! " bewailed Mrs. 
 Todhetley. " What more did the driver say, Thomas ? " 
 
 " Well, ma'am, he said it must be the men's fault — because there 
 the work is, still a-waiting for 'em, and they won't do it." 
 
 " The condition the poor children must be in ! " 
 
 " Like hungry wolves," said old Thomas. " 'Twas what Ford 
 called 'em, and he ought to know : own brother to Ford the baker, 
 as lives in the very thick of the trouble ! " 
 
 Scarcely anything was talked of that evening but the strike. Its 
 long continuance half frightened some of us. Old Coney, coming 
 in to smoke his pipe with the Squire, pulled a face as long as his 
 arm at the poor-rate prospect: the Squire wondered how much 
 work would stay in the country. 
 
 It was said the weekly allowance made to the men was not so 
 much as it had been at first. It was also said that the Society, 
 making it, considered Crabb Lane in general had been particularly 
 improvident in spending the allowance, or it would not have been 
 reduced to its present distressed condition. Which was not to be 
 wondered at, in Mr. Coney's opinion: people used to very good 
 wages, he said, could not all at once pull up habits and look at 
 every farthing as a miser does. Crabb Lane was reproachfully 
 assured by the Society that other strikes had kept themselves quite 
 respectable, comparatively speaking, upon just the same allowance, 
 and had not parted with all their pots and pans. 
 
 That night I dreamt of the strike. It's as true as that I am 
 writing this. I dreamt I saw thousands and thousands of red- 
 faced men — not pale-faced ones — each tossing a loaf of bread up 
 and down. 
 
 " I suppose I may go over and see'Eliza," I said to Mrs. Todhet- 
 ley, after breakfast in the morning. 
 
 " There is no reason why you should not, Johnny, that I know 
 of," she answered, after a pause. " Excepting the cold." 
 
 As if I minded the cold ! " I hope the whole lot, she and the 
 young ones, won't look like skeletons, that's all. Tod, will you 
 come ? " 
 
 " Not if I know it, old fellow. I have no fancy for seeing 
 skeletons." 
 
 " Oh, that was all my nonsense." 
 
 " I know that. A pleasant journey to you." 
 
 The hoar frost had gathered on the trees, the ice hung fantastically 
 from their branches : it was altogether a beautiful sight. Groups 
 of Miss Timmens's girls, coming to school with frozen noses, were 
 making slides as they ran. As to Crabb Lane, it looked nearly 
 deserted : the cold kept the men indoors. Knocking at Hoar's 
 door with a noise like a fire-engine, I went in with a leap.
 
 OUR STRIKE, 383 
 
 The scene I came upon brought me up short. Just at first I did 
 not understand it. In the self-same corner by the fireplace where 
 Dicky's bed had been that first day, was a bed now, and Eliza lay 
 on it : and by her side, wedged against the wall, was what looked 
 like a bundle of green baize with a calico nightcap on. The 
 children — and really and truly they were not much better than 
 living skeletons — sat on the floor. 
 
 " What's to do here, you little mites ? Is mother ill ? " 
 
 Dicky, tending the fire (I could have put it into a cocoa-nut), 
 turned round to answer me. He had got quite well again, arm 
 and all. 
 
 " IMother's very ill," said he in a whisper. " That's the new 
 baby." 
 
 " The new what ? " 
 
 " The new baby," repeated Dick, pointing to the green bundle. 
 " It's two days old." 
 
 An old tin slop-pail, turned upside down, stood in the corner of 
 the hearth. I sat down on it to revolve the news and take in the 
 staggering aspect of things. 
 
 " What do you say, Dick ? A baby — two days old ? " 
 
 " Two days," returned Dick. " I'd show him to you but for fear 
 0' waking mother." 
 
 " He came here the night afore last, he did, while we was all 
 asleep upstairs," interposed the younger of the little girls, Jess3\ 
 " Mr. Cole brought him in his pocket : father said so." 
 
 " 'Twasn't the night afore last," corrected 'Liza. " 'Twas the 
 night afore that." 
 
 Poor, pale, pinched faces, with never a smile on any one of 
 them ! Nothing takes the spirit out of children like long-continued 
 famine. 
 
 Stepping across, I looked down at Mrs. Hoar. Her eyes were 
 half open as if she were in a state of stupor. I don't think she 
 knew me: I'm not sure she even saw me. The face was fearfully 
 thin and hollow, and white as death. 
 
 "Wouldn't mother be better upstairs, Dick?" 
 
 " She's here 'cause o' the fire," returned Dick, gently dropping 
 on a bit of coal the size of a marble. " There ain't no bed up 
 there, neither ; they've brought it down." 
 
 The " bed " looked like a sack of shavings. From my heart 
 I don't believe it was anything else. At that moment, the door 
 opened and a woman came in ; a aeighbour, I suppose ; her clothes 
 very thin. 
 
 " It's Mrs. Watts," said Dick. 
 
 Mrs. Watts curtsied. She looked as starved as they did. It 
 seemed she knew me.
 
 384 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " She be very bad. Mr. Ludlow, sir." 
 
 " She seems so. Is it — fever ?" 
 
 "Law, sir! It's more famine nor fever. If her strength can 
 last out — why, well and good ; she may rally. If it don't, she'll go, 
 sir." 
 
 " Ought she not to have things, Mrs. Watts ? Beef-tea and 
 wine, and all that." 
 
 Mrs. Watts stared a minute, and then her lips parted with a 
 sickly smile. " I don't know where she'd get 'em from, sir ! Beef- 
 tea and wine ! A drop o' plain tea is a'most more nor us poor can 
 manage to find now. The strike have lasted long, you see, sir. 
 Any way, she's too weak to take much of anything." 
 
 " If I — if I could bring some beef-tea — or some wine — would it 
 do her good ? " 
 
 " It might just be the saving of her life, Mr. Ludlow, sir." 
 
 I went galloping home through the snow. Mrs. Todhetley was 
 stoning raisins in the dining-room for the Christmas puddings. 
 Telling her the news in a heap, I sat down to get my breath. 
 
 " Ah, I was afraid so," she said quietly, and without surprise. 
 "I feared there might be another baby at the Hoars' by this 
 time." 
 
 " Another baby at the Hoars' ! " cried Tod, looking up from my 
 new Shakespeare that he was skimming. " How is it going to get 
 fed ? " 
 
 " I fear that's a problem none of us can solve, Joseph," said she. 
 
 " Well, folk must be daft, to go on collecting a heap more 
 mouths together, when there's nothing to feed them on," con- 
 cluded Tod, dropping his head into the book again. Mrs. Tod- 
 hetley was slowly wiping her fingers on the damp cloth, and look- 
 ing doubtful. 
 
 "Joseph, your papa's not in the way and I cannot speak to him 
 — do you think I might venture to send something to poor Eliza 
 under the circumstances ? " 
 
 " Send and risk it," said Tod, in his prompt manner. " 0/ course. 
 As to the Pater — at the worst, he'll only storm a bit. But I fancy 
 he would be the first to send help himself. He wouldn't let her 
 die for the want of it." 
 
 "Then I'll despatch Hannah at once." 
 
 Hoar was down by the bed when Hannah got there, holding a 
 drop of ale to his wife's lips. Mr. Cole was standing by with his 
 hat on. 
 
 "Ale/^' exclaimed Hannah to the surgeon. "May she take 
 that ? " 
 
 " Bless me, yes," said he, " and do her good." 
 
 Hannah followed him outside the door when he was leaving.
 
 OUR STRIKE. 385 
 
 "How will it go with her, sir?" she asked. "She looks dread- 
 fully ill." 
 
 " Well," returned the Doctor, " I think the night will about see 
 the end of it." 
 
 The words frightened Hannah. " Oh, my goodness ! " she cried. 
 " What's the matter with her that she should die ? " 
 
 " Famine and worry have been the matter with her. What she 
 will die of is exhaustion. She has had a sharpish turn just now, 
 you understand ; and has no stamina to bring her up again." 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Hannah came home again. 
 There was no change, she said, for the better or the worse. Eliza 
 still lay as much like one dead as living. 
 
 " It's quite a picter to see the poor little creatures sitting on the 
 bare floor and quiet as mice, never speaking but in a whisper," cried 
 Hannah, as she shook the snow from her petticoats on the mat. 
 " It's just as if they had an instinct of what is coming." 
 
 The Squire, far from being angry, wanted to send over half the 
 house. It was not Eliza's fault, he said, it was the strike's — and he 
 hoped with all his heart she'd get through it. Helping the men's 
 wives in ordinary was not to be thought of ; but when it came to 
 dying, that was a different matter. In the evening, between dinner 
 and tea, I offered to go over and see whether any progress had 
 been made. Being curious on the point themselves, they said yes. 
 
 The snow was coming down smartly. My great-coat and hat 
 were soon white enough for me to be taken for a ghost enjoying the 
 air at night. Knocking at the Hoars' door gently, it was opened 
 by Jacky. He asked me to go in. 
 
 To my surprise they were again alone — Eliza and the children. 
 Mrs. Watts had gone home to put her own flock to bed ; and Hoar 
 was out. 'Liza sat on the hearthstone, the sleeping bundle on her 
 lap. 
 
 "Father's a-went to fetch Mr. Cole," said Jacky. "Mother 
 began a talking queer — dreams, like — and it frightened him. He 
 told us to mind her till he run back with the Doctor." 
 
 Looking down, I thought she was delirious. Her eyes were 
 wide open and glistening • a scarlet spot shone on her cheeks. She 
 began talking to me. Or rather to the air : for I'm sure she knew 
 no one. 
 
 " A great bright place it is, up there ; all alight and shining. 
 Silvery, like the stars. Oh, it's beautiful ! The people be in white, 
 and no strikes can come in ! " 
 
 " She've been a-talking about the strikes all along," whispered 
 Jacky, who was kneeling on the mattress. " Mother ! Mother, 
 would ye like a drop o' the wine ? " 
 
 Whether the word mother aroused her, or the boy's voice — and 
 
 Johnny Ludlow, — I. -0
 
 386 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 she had ahvays loved Jacky with a great love— she seemed to 
 recognize him. He raised her head as handy as could be, and 
 held the tea-cup to her- lips. It was half full of wine ; she drank it 
 all by slow degrees, and revived to consciousness. 
 
 " Master Johnny ! " she said then in a faint tone. 
 
 I could not help the tears filling my eyes as I knelt down by her 
 in Jacky's place. She knew she was dying. I tried to say a word 
 or two. 
 
 • " It's the leaving the children, Master Johnny, to strikes and 
 things o' that kind, that's making it so hard for me to go. The 
 world's full o' trouble : look at what ours has been since the strike 
 set in ! I'd not so much mind that for them, though — for the 
 world here don't last over long, and perhaps it's a'most as good to 
 be miserable as easy in it — if I thought they'd all come to me in the 
 bright place afterwards. But — when one's clammed with famine 
 and what not, it's a sore temptation to do wrong. Lord, bring 
 them to me ! " she broke forth, suddenly clasping her hands. 
 " Lord Jesus, pray for them, and save them ! " 
 
 She was nothing but skin and bone. Her hands fell, and she 
 began plucking at the blanket. You inight have heard a pin drop 
 in the room. The frightened children hardly breathed. 
 
 " I shall see your dear mamma. Master Johnny. I was at her 
 death-bed ; 'twas me mostly waited on her in her sickness. If 
 ever a sainted lady went straight to heaven, 'twas her. When 
 I stood over her grave I little thought my own ending was to be 
 so soon. Strikes ! Nothing but strikes — and famine, and bad 
 tempers, and blows. Lord Jesus, wash us white from our sins, 
 and take us all to that better world ! No strikes there ; no strikes 
 there." 
 
 She was going off her head again. The door opened, and Hoar, 
 the Doctor, and Mrs. Watts all came in together. 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley went over through the snow in the morning. 
 Ehza Hoar had died in the night, and lay on the mattress, her 
 wasted face calm and peaceful. Hoar and the children had 
 migrated to the kitchen at the back, a draughty place hardly large 
 enough for the lot to turn round in. The eldest girl was trying to 
 feed the baby with a tea-spoon. 
 
 " What are you giving it, Eliza .'' " asked Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " Sugar and water, with a sup o' milk in't, please, ma'am." 
 
 " I hope you are contented, Jacob Hoar, now you have killed 
 your wife." 
 
 Very harsh words, those for Mrs. Todhetley to speak : and she
 
 OUR STRIKE. 3S7 
 
 hastened to soften them. But, as she said afterwards, the matter 
 altogether was a cruel folly and sin, making her heart burn with 
 shame. " That is, Hoar, with the strike ; for it is the strike that 
 has killed her." 
 
 Hoar, who had been sitting with his head in the chimney, 
 noticing no one, burst into a sudden flood of tears, and sobbed for 
 a minute or two. Mrs. Todhetley was giving the children a biscuit 
 apiece from her bag. 
 
 " I did it all for the best," said Hoar, presently. " 'Twasn't me 
 that originated the strike. I but joined in it with the rest of my 
 mates." 
 
 '^And their wives and families are in no better plight than 
 yours.'* 
 
 "Nobody can say I've not done my duty as a husband and a 
 father," cried Hoar. " I've not been a drunkard, nor a rioter, nor 
 a spendthrift. I've never beat her nor swore at her, as some of 
 'em does." 
 
 "Well, she is lying there j and the strike has brought her to it. 
 Is it so, or not ?" 
 
 Hoar did not answer : only caught his breath with a sound of 
 pain. 
 
 " It seems to me. Hoar, that the strikes cannot be the good things 
 you think for," she said, her voice now full of pity for the man. 
 " They don't bring luck with them ; on the contrary, they bring a 
 great deal of ill-luck. It is you workmen that suffer ; mostly in 
 your wives and children. I do not pretend to judge whether strikes 
 may be good from a political point of view , I am not clever ; but 
 they do tell very hardly upon your poor patient wives and little 
 ones." 
 
 " And don't you see as they tell upon us men, too ! " he retorted 
 with a sob that was half pitiful, half savage. " Ay, and worst of 
 all ; for if they should be mistaken steps stead of right ones, we've 
 got 'em on our conscience." 
 
 " But you go in for them, Hoar. You, individually : and this 
 last night's blow is the result. It certamly seems that there must 
 be a mistake somewhere." 
 
 This has not been much to tell of, but it is true; and, as strikes 
 are all the go just now, I thought I would write out for you a scrap 
 of one of ours. For my own part, I cannot see that strikes do much 
 good in the long run ; or at best, that they are worth the outlay.
 
 388 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 I do know, for I have heard and seen it, that through many a long 
 day the poor wives and children can only cry aloud to Heaven to 
 pity them and their privations. 
 
 In course of time the strike (it was the longest on record in our 
 parts, though we have had a few since then) came to an end. Upon 
 which, the men began life again with bare homes and sickly young 
 ones ; and a few vacant chairs.
 
 
 '"^-^ 
 
 XXIII. 
 BURSTING-UP. 
 
 There have been fiery August days in plenty ; but never a more 
 fiery one than this that I am going to tell of. It was Wednesday : 
 and we were sitting under the big tree on the lawn at Dyke Manor. 
 A tree it would have done you good only to look at on a blazing 
 day : a large weeping ash, with a cool and shady space within it, 
 large enough for a dozen chairs round, and a small table. 
 
 The chairs and the table were there now. On the latter stood 
 iced cider and some sparkling lemonade : uncommonly good, both, 
 on that thirsty day. Mr. Brandon, riding by on his cob, had called 
 in to see us ; and sat between me and Mrs. Todhetley. She was 
 knitting something in green shades of wool. The Squire had on a 
 straw hat ; Tod lay on the grass outside, in the shade of the laurels ; 
 Hugh and Lena stood at the bench near him, blowing bubbles and 
 chattering like magpies. 
 
 "Well, I don't know," said old Brandon, taking a draught of 
 the lemonade. " It often happens with me if I plan to go any- 
 where much beforehand, that when the time comes I am not well 
 enough for it." 
 
 Mr. Todhetley had been telling him that he thought he should 
 take the lot of us to the seaside for a week or two in September ; 
 and suggested that he should go with us. It had been a frightfully 
 hot summer, and everybody felt worn out. 
 
 " Where shall you go ? " questioned Mr. Brandon. 
 
 " Somewhere in Wales, I think," said the Squire. " It's easiest 
 of access from here. Aberystwith, perhaps." 
 
 " Not much of a sea at Aberystwith," cried Mr. Brandon, in his 
 squeaky voice. 
 
 •' Well, it's not quite a Gibraltar Rock, Brandon, but it does for 
 us. The last time we went to the seaside ; it is three years ago 
 
 " Four," mildly put in Mrs. Todhetley, looking up from her wools. 
 
 " Four, is it ! Well, it was Aberystwith we went to then ; and 
 we were very comfortably lodged. It was at a Mrs. Noon's, I 
 remember ; and who's coming now ? "
 
 390 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 A dash in at the gate was heard — a Httle staithng Mr. Brandon, 
 lest whatever it was should dash over his cob, tied to the gate-post 
 — and then came the smooth run of hght wheels on the gravel. 
 
 " Look out and see who it is, Johnny." 
 
 Putting the leaves aside, I saw a light, elegant, open carriage, 
 driven by a groom in livery ; a gentleman seated beside him in 
 dainty gloves. 
 
 " Why, that's the Clement-Pells' little carriage ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Todhetley, who had been looking for herself. 
 
 "And that's Mr. Clement-Pell in it," said I. 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Brandon. "I'll go then." But the Squire put 
 up his arm to detain him. 
 
 Tod did the honours. Went to receive him, and brought him to 
 us under the tree. The children stopped blowing bubbles to stare 
 at Mr. Clement-Pell as he crossed the lawn. It struck me that 
 just a shade of annoyance appeared in his face when he saw so 
 many of us there. Shaking hands, he sat down by Mr. Todhetley, 
 observing that it was some time since he had seen us. It was six 
 weeks, or so : for we had not happened to meet him since that visit 
 of mine and Tod's at his house in Kensington. All the family were 
 back again now at Parrifer Hall : and we were going to a grand 
 entertainment there on the following day, Thursday. An open-air 
 fete, the invitations had said. 
 
 " You have been very busy lately, Mr. Clement-Pell," observed 
 the Squire. " I've not been able to get to see you to thank you 
 for the kindness of your folk to my boys in town. Twice I called 
 at your chief Bank, but you were not visible." 
 
 " I have been unusually busy," was the answer. " Business gets 
 worse ; that is, more extensive ; every day. I have had to be about 
 a good deal besides ; so that with one thing and another, my time 
 has been more than fully occupied. I am very glad your young 
 men enjoyed themselves with us in London," he added in hearty 
 tones. 
 
 Mr. Brandon gave me such a look that for the life of me I could 
 not say a word in answer. The London visit, taking it altogether, 
 had not been one of enjoyment : but Clement-Pell had no suspicion 
 of the truth. 
 
 " Rather a rapid life, that London life," remarked Mr. Brandon 
 dryly. And I went hot all over, for fear he might be going to let 
 out things to the company. 
 
 " Rapid .^" repeated Mr. Clement-Pell. "Well, so it is; especially 
 for us business men." 
 
 Mr. Brandon coughed, but said no more. The Squire pressed 
 refreshment on Mr. Clement-Pell. He'd have nothing to say to 
 the ciAer — it would make him hotter, he thought— but took some
 
 BURSTING-UP. 391 
 
 of the lemonade. As he was putting the glass down Mrs. Todhetley 
 asked whether to-morrow's fete was to be as grand and large as 
 was reported. And the annoyance, seen before, most certainly 
 again crossed Clement-Pell's face at the question. 
 
 " I do not really know much about it," he answered. " These 
 affairs are my wife's, not mine." 
 
 " And perhaps you don't much care for them," put in the Squire, 
 who had noticed the expression. 
 
 " I should like them very much, if I had more time to spare for 
 them," said Mr. Clement- Pell, playing with his handsome chain 
 and seals. " We men of large undertakings must be content to 
 work ourselves, and to let our wives and daughters do the playing. 
 However, I hope I shall manage an hour or two for this one 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " What are to be the amusements ? " inquired Mrs. Todhetley. 
 
 " The question is, rather, what they are not to be," smiled Mr. 
 Clement-Pell. " I heard the girls talking about it with one another 
 last night. Dancing, music, archery, fortune-telling " 
 
 " Something, I suppose, of what may be called a fancy-fair," she 
 Interrupted. 
 
 "Just so. A fancy-fair without charge. At any rate, I make no 
 doubt it will be pleasant : and I sincerely hope to see you all at it. 
 Vou will come, I trust, Mr, Brandon. vThese things are not in your 
 usual way, I am aware, but " 
 
 " I have neither the health nor the inchnation for them," said 
 Mr. Brandon, quite shrilly, stopping him before he could finish. 
 
 " But I trust you will make an exception in favour of us to-morrow, 
 I was about to say. Mrs. Clement- Pell and the Miss Clement- 
 Pells will be so pleased to see you." 
 
 " Thank you," said old Brandon, in a tone only just short of 
 rudeness. " I must be going, Squire." 
 
 He got up as he spoke, shook hands with Mrs. Todhetley only, 
 nodded to the rest of us, and set off across the lawn. Children 
 liked him in spite of his voice and dry manner, and of course Hugh 
 and Lena, pipes and soap-suds and all, attended him to the gate. 
 
 As the brown cob went trotting off, and the Squire was coming- 
 back again — for he had gone too — Mr. Clement-Pell met him half- 
 way across the lawn , and then they both went indoors together. 
 
 " Clement-Pell must want something," said Mrs. Todhetley. 
 "Johnny, do you notice how very aged and worn he is? It never 
 struck me until to-day. He looks quite grey." 
 
 " Well, that's because he is getting so. I shall be grey some 
 time." 
 
 " But I don't mean that kind of greyness, Johnny ; grey hairs. 
 His/ace looks grey."
 
 392 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " It was the reflection of these green leaves, good mother." 
 
 " Well — perhaps it might be," she doubtfully agreed, looking 
 up. " What a grand fete it is to be, Johnny !" 
 
 " You'll have to put on your best bib-and-tucker, good mother. 
 That new dress you bought for the Sterlings' christening." 
 
 " I should if I went. But the fact is, Johnny, I and Mr. Tod- 
 hetley have made up our minds not to go, I fancy. We were 
 talking together about it this morning. However — we shall see 
 when to-morrow comes." 
 
 " I wouldn't be you, then. That will be too bad." 
 
 "These open-air fetes are not in our way, Johnny. Dancing, 
 and archery, and fortune-telling are not much in the way of us old 
 people. You young ones think them delightful — as we did once. 
 Hugh! Lena! what is all that noise about? You are not to take 
 her bowl, Hugh : keep to your own. Joseph, please part them." 
 
 Joe accomplished it by boxing the two. In the midst of the 
 ioise, Mr. Clement-Pell came out. He did not cross the lawn 
 cigain to Mrs. Todhetley ; just called out a good day in getting 
 into his carriage, and lifted his hat as he drove away. 
 
 " I say, father, what did he want with you ? " asked Tod, as the 
 Squire came sauntering back, the skirts of his light coat held 
 behind him. 
 
 " That's my business, Joe," said the Squire. " Mind your own." 
 
 Which was a checkmate for Tod. The truth was. Tod had been 
 uneasily wondering whether it might not be his business. That is, 
 whether Mr. Clement-Pell had obtained scent of that gambling of 
 his up in London and had come to enlighten the Squire. Tod 
 never felt safe upon the point : which, you see, was all owing to 
 his lively conscience. 
 
 " What a beautiful little carriage that is ! " said Mrs. Todhetley to 
 the Pater. " It puts me in mind of a shell." 
 
 " Ay ; must have cost a pretty penny, small as it is. PcU can 
 afford these fancy things, with his floating wealth." 
 
 In that city of seething crowds and wealth, London, where 
 gigantic operations are the rule instead of the exception, and large 
 fortunes are made daily, Mr. Clement-Pell would not have been 
 thought much of; but in our simple country place, with its quiet 
 experiences, Clement-Pell was a wonder. His riches were great. 
 His power of making money for himself and others seemed 
 elastic ; and he was bowed down to as a reigning potentate — a 
 king — an Olympian deity. 
 
 Y'ou have heard of him before. He had come to a neighbouring 
 town some years back as manager of a small banking company, 
 having given up, it was understood, a good law practice in London 
 to undertake it. The small banking grew and grew under his
 
 BURSTING-Ur. 393 
 
 management. Some of its superfluous hoards were profitably 
 employed : to construct railroads ; to work mines ; to found colo- 
 nies. All sorts of paying concerns were said to have some of 
 Clement- Pell's money in them, and to bring him in cent, per cent. 
 It was believed that if all the wealth of the East India Com- 
 pany and the Bank of England to boot had been poured into the 
 hands of Clement-Pell, it could not have been more than he 
 would be able to use to profit, so great were the resources at his 
 command. People fought with one another to get their money 
 accepted by iSIr. Clement-Pell. No wonder. The funds gave them 
 a paltry three per cent, for it ; Mr. Clement-Pell doubled the 
 amount. So the funds lost the money, and Mr. Clement-Pell 
 gained it. He was worshipped as the greatest benefactor that had 
 ever honoured the country by settling down in it. 
 
 I t-hink his manner went for something. It was so pleasant. 
 The world itself might have loved Mr. Clement-Pell. Deputations 
 asked for his portrait to hang up in public buildings ; individuals 
 besought his photograph. Mrs. Clement-Pell was less liked : she 
 was extravagant and haughty. It was said she was of very high 
 family indeed, and she could not have looked down upon common 
 people with more scorn had she been born a duchess. I'm sure no 
 duchess ever gave herself the airs that Mrs. Clement- Pell did, or 
 wore such fine bonnets. 
 
 When ]Mr. Clement-Pell opened a little branch Bank at Church 
 Dykely (as he had already done at two or three other small places), 
 the parish at once ascended a few feet into the air. As Church 
 Dykely in its humility had never possessed a Bank before, it was 
 naturally something to be proud of. The Bank was a little house 
 near to Duff ham's, the doctor, with a door and one window; no 
 larger premises being obtainable. The natives collected round to 
 gaze, and marvel at the great doings destined to be enacted behind 
 that wire blind : and Mr. Clement- Pell was followed by a tail of 
 admiring rustics whenever he stepped abroad. 
 
 Church Dykely only had its branch in what might be called the 
 later years, dating from the beginning of the Clement-Pell dynasty, 
 and when he had made a far and wide reputation, and was in the 
 full tide of his prosperity. It was after its establishment that he 
 took Parrifer Hall. This little branch Bank was found to be a con- 
 venience to many people. It had a manager and a clerk; and 
 Mr. Clement-Pell would condescend to be at it occasionally, chiefly 
 on Mondays. He was popular with all classes : county gentlemen 
 and rich farmers asked him to dinner; the poor got from him 
 many a kind word and handshake. Mrs. Clement-Pell dined with 
 him at the gentlemen's tables, but she turned up her nose at the 
 farmers, and would not go near them. In short, take them for all
 
 394 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 in all, there was no fomily so grand in the county, or who made so 
 much noise as the Clement-Pells. Their income was something 
 enormous ; and of course they might launch out if they liked. It 
 had grown to be a saying amongst us, " As rich as the Clement- 
 Pells," 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley had said she supposed the entertainment would 
 be something like a fancy-fair. We had not had a great ex- 
 perience of fancy-fairs in our county ; but if they were all like this, 
 I shouldn't mind going to one twice a week. The sky was un- 
 clouded, the wind still, the leaves of the trees scarcely stirred. On 
 the lawn the sun blazed hot and brilliant : but the groves were cool 
 and shady. Since the place came into Tvlr. Clement-Pell's occu- 
 pancy, he had taken-in part of a field, and made the grounds 
 more extensive. At least, Mrs. Clement-Pell had done so, which 
 came to the same : spending money went for nothing with her. 
 And why should it, when they had so much? If you climbed to 
 the top of an artificial rockery you could see over the high hedge. 
 I did so : and took a look at the chimneys of George Reed's cot- 
 tage. You've not forgotten him; and his trouble with Major 
 Parrifer. But for that trouble, the Clement-Pells might never have 
 had the chance of occupying Parrifer Hall. 
 
 It was as good as fairy-land. Flags hung about; banners 
 waved ; statues had decked themselves in garlands. The lawns 
 and the walks were alive with company, the ladies sported gala 
 dresses all the colours of the rainbow. Dancing, shooting, flirting, 
 talking, walking, sitting; we were as gay as birds of paradise. 
 There was a tent for the band, and another for refreshments, and 
 no end of little marquees, dotted about, for anything. One was a 
 post-office ; where love-letters might be had for the asking. When 
 I look back on that day now through the mist of years, it stands 
 out as the gayest and sunniest left to memory. As to refresh- 
 ment—you may think of anything you like and know it was 
 there. There was no regular meal at all throughout the afternoon 
 and evening ; but you could begin eating and drinking when you 
 went in if you chose, and never leave off till you left. The refresh- 
 ment tent communicated with one of the doors of the house, 
 through which fresh supplies came as they were wanted. All was 
 cold. Besides this, there was a tea and coffee marquee, where the 
 kettles were kept always on the boil. No one could say the 
 Clement-Pells spared pains or expense to entertain their guests 
 right royally. 
 
 Tod and I strolled about, to take in the whole scene. _ The 
 Clement-Pell carriages (the big barouche and the small aiiair that
 
 BURSTING-UP. 395 
 
 Mrs. Todhetley had called a shell) came dashing up at intervals, 
 graciously despatched to bring relays of guests who did not keep 
 carriages of their own. INIrs. Clement-Pell stood on the lawn to 
 receive them; the ]\Iiss Clement-Pells with her. If I were able to 
 describe their attire I would do so ; it beat anything for gorgeous- 
 ness I had ever seen. Ghstening silk skirts under robes of beautiful 
 lace ; fans in their hands and gossamer veils in their hair. 
 
 " I say, Tod, here they come ! " 
 
 A sober carriage was driving slowly in. We knew it well : and 
 its steady old horses and servants too. It was Sir John Whitney's. 
 Rushing round a side path, we were up with it when it stopped. 
 Bill Whitney and his two sisters came tumbling out of it. 
 
 " It's going on to your house now, with the trunk," said Helen, to 
 us. " William has been most awfully tiresome : he would put his 
 every-day boots and coat in our box, instead of bringing a port- 
 manteau for himself." 
 
 "As if a fellow wanted a portmanteau for just one night!" ex- 
 claimed Bill. "What you girls can have in that big trunk, 
 amazes me. I should say you are bringing your bed and pillows 
 in it." 
 
 " It has only our dresses for to-morrow morning in it, and all 
 that," retorted Helen, who liked to keep Bill in order and to domi- 
 neer over him. " The idea of having to put in great clumsy boots 
 with them, and a rough coat smelling of smoke ! " 
 
 " This is to be left here, I think, INIiss Helen," said the footman, 
 displaying a small black leather bag. 
 
 "Why, yes; it contains our combs and brushes," returned Helen, 
 taking it and giving it to one of the Clement-Pell servants, together 
 with two cloaks for the evening. 
 
 Tod went up to the postilHon. " Look here, Pinner : the Squire 
 says you had better stop at the Manor to rest the horses. You will 
 find the groom there, I dare say." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Pinner. " They'll be a bit done up if we 
 goes straight off back." 
 
 The girls and Bill went up to the Clement-Pell group, and were 
 made much of. It was the first time they had visited the Pells, and 
 their coming was rcgyded as a special honour. Sir John and Lady 
 Whitney had declined : and it was arranged that Bill and his sisters 
 should sleep at our house, and the carriage come for them the next 
 day. 
 
 Escaping from the Pells, we all sat down on a bench. Helen 
 Whitney began whispering about the jVIiss Pells' dresses. 
 
 " I never saw such beauties," she exclaimed. " I wonder what 
 they cost ? " 
 
 " Millions, I should say," cried Bill.
 
 396 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " These are plain ugly old things beside them," grumbled 
 Helen. 
 
 She meant her own dress and Anna's. They wore white spotted 
 muslins, and blue ribbons. One of those gorgeous robes was worth 
 fifty times as much ; but I know which set of girls looked the most 
 lady-like. 
 
 " They are very beautiful," sighed Helen, with a spice of envy. 
 *' But too much for an affair like this." 
 
 "Not for them," said Bill stoutly. " The Clement-Pells could 
 afford robes of diamonds if they liked. I'm not sure but I shall go 
 in for one of the girls." 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense," reproved Helen. 
 
 We went into the fortune-telling tent. It was full of people, 
 screaming and laughing. A real gipsy with a swarthy skin and 
 black flowing locks was telling fortunes. Helen had hers told when 
 she could make a place, and was promised a lord for a husband, and 
 five-and-thirty grandchildren. At which the tent roared again, and 
 Helen laughed too. 
 
 " And now it is your turn, my pretty little maid," said the sibyl to 
 Anna Whitney. And Anna, always modest and gentle, turned as red 
 as a rose, and said she already knew as much of her own fortune 
 as she desired to know at present. 
 
 " What's in f/ii's hand ? " cried the gipsy, suddenly seizing upon 
 Tod's big one, and devouring its lines with her eyes. " Nay, 
 master ; don't draw it away, for there's matter here, and to spare. 
 You are not afraid, are you ? " 
 
 " Not of you, my gipsy queen," gallantly answered Tod, re- 
 signing his palm to her, " Pray let my fate be as good as you 
 can." 
 
 " It is a smooth hand," she went on, never lifting her gaze. " Very 
 smooth. You'll not have many of the cares and crosses of life. 
 Nevertheless, I see that you have been in some peril lately. And 
 I should say it was connected with money. Debt." 
 
 There were not many things could bring the colour to Joseph 
 Todhetley's face ; but it matched then the scarlet mantle the gipsy 
 wore slung over her right shoulder. You might have heard a pin 
 drop in the sudden hush. Anna's blue eyes were glancing shyly up 
 through their long lashes. 
 
 " Peril of debt, or — perhaps — of — steeple-chasing," continued 
 the sibyl with deliberation ; and at that the shouts of laughter broKc 
 out again through the tent, and Anna smiled. "Take you care of 
 yourself, sir ; for I perceive you will run into other perils before you 
 settle down. You have neither caution nor foresight." 
 
 " Thafs true enough, I believe," said Tod. " Any more?" 
 
 " No more. For you are just one of those imprudent mortals who
 
 BURSTING-UP. 397 
 
 will never heed a friendly warning. Were I you, I'd keep out of the 
 world till I grew older." 
 
 '• Thank you." said Tod, laughing as much as the rest of them : and 
 he drew away his hand. 
 
 " Johnny, that was a near shave," he whispered, putting his arm 
 within mine when we had pushed our way out. " Was it all guess^ 
 work ? Who the deuce is ihe woman ? " 
 
 " I know who / think she is. The Pells' English governess, Miss 
 Phebus." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " I do. She has got herself up in character and dyed her skin 
 and hair." 
 
 " Then, by George, if it is, she must have gathered an inkling of 
 that matter in London." 
 
 " I don't see how." 
 
 " Nor I. Johnny, some of these days I shall be bursting out 
 with it to the Pater, and so get the weight off my mind." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder. She says you have no caution." 
 
 " It's not pleasant, I can tell you, youngster, to live in dread that 
 somebody else will bring it out to him. I'll go in for this next dance, 
 I think. Where's Anna ? " 
 
 Anna did not say no. She would never say no to anything he 
 asked her, if I possessed the gift of divination. They joined the 
 dancers ; Bill and Helen went to the archery. 
 
 "And how diVQ you enjoying it, pray, Johnny Ludlow? " 
 
 The voice nearly shot me off the arm of the bench. For it was 
 j\Ir. Brandon's. I don't think there was any living man I should have 
 been so surprised at seeing at the fete as he. 
 
 " Why ! is it you, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is, Johnny. You need not stare as if you thought mc an 
 intruder. I was invited." 
 
 "Yes, of course, sir. But I — I fancied you never came to such 
 parties." 
 
 " Never was at one like this — unless I went to it in my sleep," he 
 said, standing with me before the bench, and casting his eyes around. 
 " I came to-day to look after you." 
 
 " After me, sir ! " 
 
 " Yes, after you. And perhaps a little bit after your friend, 
 Todhetley. Mr. Pell informed us the entertainments would include 
 fortune-telling : I didn't know but there might be a roulette-table 
 as well. Or cards, or dice, or billiards." 
 
 " Oh no, sir ; there's nothing of that sort." 
 
 " It's not the fault of the young Pells, I expect, then. That 
 choice companion of yours, called Gusty, and the other one in 
 scarlet."
 
 398 JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 " Neither of them is here, Mr. Brandon. Gusty has gone to the 
 Highlands for grouse-shooting; and 'Fabian sent word he couldn^ 
 get leave to come down. I have not seen the eldest son yet, but I 
 suppose he is somewhere about." 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Brandon — and whenever he spoke of the Pells his 
 voice was thinner than ever, and most decidedly took a mocking 
 sound — " gone grouse-shooting, is Gusty ! And the other can't get 
 leave. A lieutenant, is he not ? " 
 
 " Yes, a lieutenant. His sister Constance has just told us she does 
 not believe it is true that he could not get leave. She thinks he 
 never asked for it, because he wanted to stay in London." 
 
 "Ah. It's fine to be the Pells, Johnny. One son off to shoot 
 grouse ; another living his fast London life ; the rest holding grand 
 doings down here that could hardly be matched by the first noble- 
 man amongst us. Very fine. Wonder what they spend a year — 
 taking it in the aggregate ? " 
 
 " Have you been here long, sir? " 
 
 " Half-an-hour, or so — I've been looking about me, Johnny, and 
 listening to the champagne corks popping off. Squire here ? " 
 
 " No. He and Mrs. Todhetley did not come," 
 
 " Sensible people. Where's young Joe ? " 
 
 " He is with the Whitneys. Dancing with Anna, I think." 
 
 "And he had better keep to that," said Mr. Brandon, with a little 
 nod. " He'll get no harm there." 
 
 We sat down, side by side. Taking a side-glance at him, I saw 
 his eyes fixed on Mrs. and the Miss Clement-Pells, who were now 
 mixing with the company. He did not know much about ladies' 
 dress, but theirs seemed to strike him. 
 
 " Showy, Johnny, is it not ? " 
 
 " It looks very bright in the sun, sir." ^ 
 
 " No doubt. So do spangles." 
 
 " It's real, sir, that lace. Helen Whitney says so." 
 
 " A great deal too real. So is the rest of it. Hark at the music 
 and the corks and the laughter ! Look at the people, and the 
 folly ! " 
 
 " Don't you like the fete, sir ?" 
 
 " Johnny, I hate it with my whole heart." 
 
 I was silent. Mr. Brandon was always more queer than other 
 people. 
 
 "Is it in keepifig with the Pells, this upstart grandeur and 
 profusion ? Come, Johnny Ludlow, you've some sense in your 
 head : answer me. They have both risen from nothing, Johnny. 
 When he began fife, Pell's ambition was to rise to a competency ; 
 an el dorado of three or four hundred a year : and that only 
 when he had worked for it. I have seen her take in the milk for
 
 BURSTING-UP. 
 
 399 
 
 their tea from the milkman at the door ; when they kept one 
 servant to do everything. Pell rose by degrees and grew rich ; so 
 much the more credit due to his perseverance and his business 
 talents " 
 
 "And would you not have them spend their riches, ]\Ir. 
 Brandon ? " 
 
 " Spend their riches ! — of course I would, in a proper way. 
 Don't you interrupt your elders, Johnny Ludlow. Where would be 
 the use of a man's getting money unless he spent some of it. But 
 not in this way ; not in the lavish and absurd and sinful profusion 
 that they have indulged in of late years. Is it seemly, or right, or 
 decent, the way they live in ? The sons apeing the manners and 
 company of their betters, of young fellows who are born to the 
 peerage and their thousands a year? The mother holding her 
 head in the air as if she wore an iron collar : flie daughters with 
 their carriages and their harps and their German governesses, and 
 their costly furbelows that are a scandal on common sense ? The 
 world has run mad after these Pells of late years : but I know this 
 much — I have been ashamed only to look on at the Pells' unseemly 
 folly." 
 
 At that moment Martha Jane Pell— in the toilette that Bill 
 Whitney said must have cost " millions " — went looming by, flirting 
 with Captain Connaught. Mr. Brandon looked after them with his 
 little eyes. 
 
 " They are too fine for their station, Johnny. They were not born 
 to this kind of thing ; were not reared to it ; have only plunged 
 into it of recent years, and it does not sit well upon them. One 
 can only think of upstarts all the time. The Pells might have 
 lived as gentlepeople ; ay, and married their children to gentlemen 
 and gentlewomen had they pleased : but, to launch out in this 
 unseemly way, has been a just humiliation to themselves, and has 
 rendered them a poor, pitiful laughing-stock in the eyes of all right- 
 minded people. It's nothing less than a burlesque on all the pro- 
 prieties of life. And it may be that we have not seen the end of it, 
 Johnny." 
 
 "Well, sir, they can hardly be grander than " 
 
 " Say more assuming, lad." 
 
 " I suppose I meant that, Mr. Brandon. Perhaps you think 
 they'll be for taking the Marquis's place, Ragley, next, if it should 
 come into the market. Or Eastnor Castle: or " 
 
 " I did not mean exactly in that way, Johnny," he interrupted 
 again, a queer look on his thin Hps as he got up. 
 
 " Are you going into the eating tent, sir .'' " 
 
 " I am going away. Now that I have seen that you and Joe 
 Todhetlcy are tolerably safe from gaming tables and the like, there's
 
 400 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 nothing further to keep me here. I feel a sort of responsibility in 
 regard to you two, seeing that that unpleasant secret lies with me, 
 and not with Joe's father." 
 
 " It is early to go, sir. The fun has hardly begun." 
 
 " None too early for me. I am a magistrate; looked up to, in a 
 manner, in the neighbourhood, insignificant though I am. It is not 
 I who will countenance this upstart foolery by my presence longer 
 than I can help, Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 Mr. Brandon disappeared. The hours went on to twilight and 
 then to dark. Once during the evening I caught sight of Mr. 
 Clement-Pell : and what occurred as I did so was like a bit of 
 romance. People crowded the side paths under the light of the 
 Chinese lanterns. For lanterns were hanging on the trees and 
 shrubs, and the whole scene was one of enchantment out of the 
 Arabian Nights. One of the remote walks was not lighted ; per- 
 haps it had been forgotten. I had missed Bill Whitney and was at 
 the end of the grounds hunting for him, when I saw, through the 
 trees, a solitary figure pacing this dark walk with his arms folded. 
 It was not very likely to be Bill: but there was no harm in going 
 to see. 
 
 It turned out to be Mr. Clement-Pell. But before I got out of 
 the trees into the walk— for it was the nearest way back to the lights 
 and the company — some one pushed through the trees on the opposite 
 side of the path, and stood in front of him. The moon shone as 
 much as an August moon ever does shin2 ; and I saw Clement- Pell 
 start as if he had been told his house was on fire. 
 
 " I thought this might be a hkely place to find you," said the 
 stranger in a savage whisper. " You have kept out of my wa\- for 
 two days at the Bank — too busy to see me, eh i^ — so, hearing what 
 was going on here, I took the train and came over." 
 
 " I'm sure I am — happy to see you, Mr. Johnson," cried Clement- 
 Pell in a voice that seemed to tremble a little; and unless the moon- 
 light was in fault, he had turned as pale as a ghost. " Would have 
 sent you an invitation had I known you were down." 
 
 " I dare say you would ! I did not come to attend festivals, Pell, 
 but to settle business-matters." 
 
 " You must be aware I cannot attend to business to-night," in- 
 terrupted Clement-Pell. " Neither do I ever enter upon it at my 
 own residence. I will see you to-morrow morning at eleven at the 
 Bank." 
 
 " Honour bright ? Or is it a false plea, put forth to shuffle out of 
 me now ? " 
 
 " I will see you to-morrow morning at the Bank at eleven o'clock," 
 repeated Clement-Pell, emphatically. " We are very busy just 
 now, and I must be there the first thing. And now, Mr. Johnson,
 
 BURSTIXG-UP. 401 
 
 If you -.vill go into the refreshment tent, and make yourself at 
 home " 
 
 '• No refreshments for me, thank you : I must hasten away to 
 catch the train. But first of all, I will ask you a question : and 
 answer it you must, whether it is your habit of entering on business 
 at home, or whether it is not. Is it true that " 
 
 I did not want to hear more secrets, and went crashing through 
 the trees. I should have gone before, but for not liking they should 
 know any one w^as there. They turned round. 
 
 " Oh, is it you, Mr. Ludlow?"' cried Pell, putting out his hand as 
 I passed them. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I am looking for young Whitney. Have you seen 
 him ? " 
 
 " I think I saw him at the door of one of the tents, just now. 
 You'll find him amongst the company, I dare say. The Squire and 
 Mrs. Todhetley have not come, I hear." 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Ah well — give my very kind regards to them, and say I am 
 sorry. I hope you are taking care of yourself— in the way of 
 refreshments." 
 
 The stranger and I had stood facing each other. He was a very 
 peculiar-looking man with a wide stare ; black hair, white whiskers, 
 and very short legs. I thought it anything but good manners of him 
 to come over, as he had confessed to have done, to disturb Clement- 
 Pell at such a time. 
 
 At nine o'clock Giles arrived with the pony-carriage for the young 
 ladies and two of us ; the other and Giles were to walk. But we 
 didn't see the fun of leaving so early. Giles said he could not wait 
 long: he must be back to get old Jacobson's gig ready, who was 
 spending the evening at the Manor. The Jacobsons, being farmers, 
 though they were wealthy, and lived in good old style, had been 
 passed over when Mrs. Clement-Pell's invitations went out. So Tod 
 sent Giles and the carriage back again, with a message that we all 
 preferred walking, and should follow shortly. 
 
 Follow, we did; but not shortly. It was past eleven when we 
 got away. The dancing had been good, and no one was at hand 
 to say we must leave. Helen and Anna Whitney came out with 
 their cloaks on. What with the dancing and the sultriness of the 
 weather, the night was about as hot as an oven. We were almost 
 the last to leave: but did not mean to say so at home. It was a 
 splendid night, though ; very clear, the moon larger than usual. We 
 went on in no particular order; the five of us turning out of the 
 Parrifer gates together. 
 
 " Oh," screamed Helen, when we were some yards down the road, 
 " Where's the bag ? Anna, have you brought the bag ? " 
 
 Johnny I.ucllow. — I. 26
 
 402 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " No," replied Anna. " You told me you would bring it." 
 <«\Vell — I meant to do so, William, you must run back for 
 
 it." 
 
 " Oh, bother the bag," said Bill. " You girls can't want the bag 
 to-night, I'll come over for it in the morning." 
 
 " Not want it!— Why, our combs and brushes and thin shoes are 
 in it," retorted Helen. " It is on a chair in that little room off the 
 hall. Come, William, go for it." 
 
 " I'll go, Helen," I said. " Walk quietly on, and I shall catch 
 you up." 
 
 The grounds looked quite deserted : the Chinese lanterns had 
 burned themselves out, and the doors appeared closed. One of the 
 side windows was open and gay with light ; I thought it would be 
 less trouble to enter that way, and leaped up the balcony steps to 
 the empty room. Empty, as I took it to be. 
 
 Well, it was a sort of shock. The table had a desk and a heap 
 of papers on it, and on it all lay a man's head. The face was hidden 
 in his hands, but he lifted it as I went in. 
 
 It was Clement- Pell, But 1 declare that at the first moment I 
 did not know him. If ever you saw a face more haggard than other 
 faces, it was his. He sat bolt upright in his chair then, and stared 
 at me as one in awful fear, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir. I did not know any one was here." 
 " Oh, it is you," he said, and broke out into a smile— which some- 
 how made the face look even more worn and weary than before. " I 
 thought you had all left." 
 
 "So we have, sir. But Miss Whitney forgot her bag, and I 
 have run back for it. She left it in the small room in the 
 hall." 
 
 " Oh ay, all right," he said. " You can go and get it, and run 
 out this way again if you like, I dare say the hall-door is closed," 
 
 " Good night, sir," I said, coming back with the bag. " We have 
 had a most delightful day, Mr. Clement-Pell, and I'm sure we ought 
 to thank you for it." 
 
 " I am glad it has been pleasant. Good night." 
 The trees were pretty thick on this side the house. In passing a 
 grove a few paces from the window^, I saw something that was 
 neither trunks nor leaves; but Mr. Johnson's face with its black 
 hair and white whiskers. He was hiding in the trees, his face 
 peeping out to look at the room and at Clement-Pell. 
 
 It made me feel queer. It made me think of treachery. Though 
 what treachery, or where, I hardly knew. Not a trace was to be 
 seen of the face now : he drew it in ; no doubt to let me pass. 
 Ought I to warn Mr. Pell that he was being watched? I had dis- 
 tinctly heard the man say he was going away directly : why had he
 
 BURSTING-UP. 403 
 
 stayed ? Yes, it would be right and kind. Walking a bit further, I 
 quietly turned back. 
 
 Clement-Pell had a pen in his hand this time, and was poring 
 over what seemed to be a big account-book, or ledger. He looked 
 surprised again, but spoke quietly. 
 
 " Still left something behind you, Mr. Ludlow ? " 
 
 " No, sir, not this time," I said, speaking below my breath, " I 
 thought 1 would come back and tell you, Mr. Pell, that some one 
 outside IS watching this room. If " 
 
 I broke off in sheer astonishment. He started up from his chair 
 and came creeping to where I stood, to hide himself as it seemed 
 from the watcher, his haggard cheeks white as death. But he put 
 a good face on it to me. 
 
 '• I could not hear you," he whispered. " What did you say ? 
 Some one watching ? " 
 
 " It is the same man I saw you talking to in the dark walk to- 
 night, with the black hair and white whiskers. Perhaps he means 
 no harm, sir ; he is hiding in the trees, and just peeping out to look 
 in here." 
 
 " You are sure it is that same man ? " he asked with a relieved 
 air. 
 
 '' Quite sure." 
 
 " Then it is all right. Mr. Johnson is an eccentric friend of 
 mine. Rather — in fact, rather given to take at times more than is 
 good for him. I suppose he has been going in for champagne. I — 
 I thought it might be some bad character." 
 
 It might be "all right," as Mr. Pell said: I fancied, by the 
 relieved tone, that it luas so : but I felt quite sure that he had cause 
 to fear, if not Mr. Johnson, some one else. At that moment there 
 arose a slight rustle of leaves outside, and he stood, holding his 
 breath to listen, his finger raised. The smell of the shrubs was 
 borne freely on the night air. 
 
 "It is only the wind : there must be a little breeze getting up," 
 said Mr. Clement-Pell. " Thank you ; and good night. Oh, by 
 the way, don't talk of this, Mr. Ludlow. If Johnson fias been 
 exceeding, he would not like to hear of it again." 
 
 " No fear, sir. Once more, good night." 
 
 Before I had well leaped the steps of the balcony, the window, a 
 very heavy one, was closed with a bang, and the shutters being 
 put to. Glancing back, I saw the white face of Clement-Pell 
 through the closing shutters, and then heard the bolts shot. What 
 could he be afraid of? Perhaps Johnson turned mad when he 
 drank. Some men do. 
 
 " Have you been making that bag, Johnny ? " they called out 
 when I caught them up.
 
 404 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I'm sure it was on the chair," said Helen. 
 
 " Oh, I found it at once. I stayed talking with Mr. Pell. I Say, 
 has the night grown damp ? — or is it my fancy .'' " 
 
 " What does it matter ? " returned Bill Whitney. " I wish I was 
 in a bath, for my part, if it was only cold water." 
 
 The Squire stood at the end of the garden when we reached home, 
 with old Jacobson, whose gig was waiting. After reproaching us 
 with our sins, first for sending the carriage back empty, then for 
 being so late, the Squire came round and asked all about the party. 
 Old Jacobson drew in his lips as he listened. 
 
 " It's fine to be the Clement-Pells ! " cried he. " Why, a Duke- 
 Royal could not give a grander party than that. Real lace for 
 gowns, had they! No wonder Madame Pell turns her nose up at 
 farmers ! " 
 
 " Did Clement-Pell send me any particular message?" asked the 
 Pater. 
 
 " He sent his kind regards," I said. "And he was sorry you and 
 Mrs. Todhetley did not go." 
 
 "It was a charming party," cried Helen W^hitney. "Papa and 
 mamma put it to us, when the invitation came — would we go, or 
 would we not go. They don't much care for the Clement-Pells. 
 I am glad we did go : I would not have missed it for the world. 
 But there's something about the Clement-Pells that tells you they 
 are not gentlepeople." 
 
 " Oh, that's the show and the finery," said Bill. 
 
 " No, I think it lies more in their tones and their manner of 
 speaking," said Helen. 
 
 "Johnny, are you ^ui/f sure Clemcnt-Pell sent me no message, 
 except kind regards, and that ? " 
 
 " Quite sure, sir." 
 
 " Well, it's very odd." 
 
 " What is very odd, sir ? " 
 
 " Never you mind, Johnny." 
 
 This was after breakfast on the Saturday morning. The Squire 
 was opening a letter that the post had brought, and looked up to 
 ask me. Not that the letter had anything to do with Clement- 
 Pell, for it only enclosed a bill for some ironmongery bought at 
 Evesham. 
 
 On the Friday the Whitneys had gone home, and Tod with 
 them. So I was alone : with nothing to do but to wish him back 
 again.
 
 BURSTING-UP. 405 
 
 " I am going to Alcester, Jonnny," said the Pater, in the course 
 of the morning. " You can come with mc if you hke." 
 
 " Then will you please bring me back some money ? " cried Mrs. 
 Todhetley, " You will pass the Bank, I suppose." 
 
 " It's where I am going," returned the Pater : and I thought his 
 voice had rather a grumbling tone m it. 
 
 We took the pony-carriage , and he let me drive. It was as hot 
 as ever; and the Squire wondered when the autumn cool would be 
 coming in. Old Brandon happened to be at his gate as we went 
 by, and the Pater told me to pull up. 
 
 " Going in to Alcester ? " cried Mr. Brandon. 
 
 "Just as far as the Bank," said the Pater, " So I hear you went 
 to the Clement-Pells' after all, Brandon." 
 
 " I looked in to see what it was like," said old Brandon, giving 
 me a moment's hard stare ; as much as to recall to my mind what 
 had really taken him there. 
 
 " It was a dashing affair, I hear." 
 
 " Rather too much so for me," cried Mr. Brandon drily. "Where's 
 your son, sir .-* " 
 
 " Oh, he's gone home with the Whitneys' young folk. How hot it 
 is to-day ! " 
 
 "Ay. Too hot to stand in it long. Drive on, Johnny." 
 
 The Squire went in to the Bank alone, leaving me with the 
 carriage. He banked with the Old Bank at Worcester ; but it was 
 a convenience to have some little money nearer in case of need, and 
 he had recently opened a small account at Alcester. Upon which 
 Clement-Pell had said he might as well have opened it with him, 
 at his Church Dykely branch. But the Squire explained that he 
 had as good as promised the Alcester people, years ago, that if he 
 did open an account nearer than Worcester it should be with them. 
 He came out, looking rather glum, stuffing some notes into his 
 pocket-book, 
 
 " Turn the pony round, Johnny," said he. " We'll go back. It's 
 too hot to stay out to-day." 
 
 " Yes, sir. Is anything the matter ? " 
 
 " Anything the matter ! No, Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " I thought you looked put out, sir." 
 
 "There's nothing the matter. Only I think men of business 
 should not be troubled with short memories. Take care of that 
 waggon. What's the fellow galloping his horses at that rate for ? 
 Now, Johnny, I say, take care. Or else, give me the reins." 
 
 I nearly laughed. At home they never seemed to think I could 
 do anything. If they did let me drive, it was always Now take 
 care of this, Johnny; or. Take care of that. And yet I was a 
 more careful driver than Tod: though I might not have had so
 
 4o6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 much strength as he to pull up a four-in-hand team had it run 
 away. 
 
 " Go round through Church Dykely, Johnny, and stop at Pell's 
 Bank," said the Squire, as I was turning off on the direct road 
 home. 
 
 I turned the pony's head accordingly. It took us about a mile 
 out of our way. The pavement was so narrow and the Bank room 
 so small, that I heard all that passed when the Squire went in. 
 
 " Is Mr. Clement-Pell here ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no, sir," replied the manager. " He is always at the 
 chief Bank on Saturday. Did you want him?" 
 
 " Not particularly. Tell him I think he must have forgotten to 
 send to me." 
 
 " I'll tell him, sir. He may look in here to-night on his return. 
 If you wish to see him yourself, he will be here all day on Monday." 
 
 The Squire came out and got in again. Cutting round the sharp 
 corner by Perkins the butcher's, I nearly ran into Mrs. and the 
 Miss Clement-Pells, who were crossing the dusty road in a line like 
 geese, the one behind the other ; their muslins sweeping the high- 
 way like brooms, and their complexions sheltered under point lace 
 parasols. 
 
 " There you go again, Johnny ! Pull up, sir." 
 
 I pulled up : and the heads came from under the parasols, and 
 grouped round to speak to us. They had quite recovered Thurs- 
 day's fatigue, Mrs. Clement- Pell graciously said, in answer to the 
 Squire's inquiries ; and she hoped all her young friends had done 
 the same, Mr. Todhetley's young friends in particular. 
 
 " They felt no fatigue," cried the Pater, " Why, ma'am, they'd 
 keep anything of that sort up for a week and a day, and not feel it. 
 How's Mr. Clement-Pell?" 
 
 " He is as well as he allows himself to be," she answered. " I tell 
 him he is wearing himself out with work. His business is of vast 
 magnitude, Mr. Todhetley. Good day," 
 
 " So it is," acquiesced the Pater as we drove on, partly to himself, 
 partly to me. " Of vast magnitude. For my part, I'd rather do 
 less, although it involved less returns. One can forgive a man, like 
 him, forgetting trifles. And, Johnny, I shouldn't wonder but his 
 enormous riches render him careless of small obligations." 
 
 Part of which was unintelligible to me. 
 
 Sunday passed. We nodded to the Miss Clement-Pells at church 
 (their bonnets making the pew look like a flower-garden) ; but did 
 not see Mr. Clement-Pell or his wife. Monday passed; bringing 
 a note from Tod, to say Lady Whitney and Bill would not let him 
 leave yet. Tuesday morning came in. I happened to be seated 
 under the hedge in the kitchen-garden, mending a fishing-rod, when
 
 BURSTING-UP. 407 
 
 a horse dashed up to the back gate. Looking through, I saw it ■ 
 was the butcher boy, Sam Rimmer. Molly, who was in one of her 
 stinging tempers that morning, came out. 
 
 " We don't want nothing," said she tartly. " So you might have 
 spared yourself the pains of coming." 
 
 " Don't want nothing ! " returned the boy. " Why's that ? " 
 
 " Why's that ! " she retorted. " It's like your imperence to ask. 
 Do families want joints every day ; specially such weather as this ? 
 I a-going to cook fowls for dinner, and we've the cold round o' 
 beef for the kitchen. Now you know why, Sam Rimmer." 
 
 Sam Rimmer sat looking at her as if in a quandary, gently rubbing 
 his hair, which shone again in the sun. 
 
 " Well, it's a pity but you wanted some," said he, slowly. " We've 
 gone and been and pervided a shop full o' meat to-day, and it'll be 
 a dead loss on the master. The Clement-Pells don't want none, 
 you see : and they took a'most as much as all the rest 0' the gentle- 
 folks put together. There's summat up there." 
 
 " Summat up where .''" snapped Molly. 
 
 "Afthe Clement-Pells'. The talk is, that they've busted-up, and 
 be all gone off in consekence." 
 
 "Why, what d'ye mean?" cried IMolly. "Gone off where? 
 Busted-up from what ? " 
 
 But, before Perkins's boy could answer, the Pater, walking about 
 the path in his straw hat and light thin summer coat, came on the 
 scene. He had caught the words. 
 
 "What's that you are saying about the Clement-Pells, Sam 
 Rimmer ? " 
 
 Sam Rimmer touched his hair, and explained. Upon going to 
 Parrifer Hall for orders, he had found it all sixes-and-sevens ; some 
 of the servants gone, the rest going. They told him their master 
 had bursted-up, and was gone away since Sunday morning; and 
 the family since Monday morning. And his master, Perkins, would 
 have all the meat left on his hands that he had killed on purpose 
 for the Clement- Pells. 
 
 You should have seen the Squire's amazed face. At first he did 
 not know how to take the words, and stared at Sam Rimmer with- 
 out speaking. 
 
 "All the Banks has went and busted-up too," said Sam. "They 
 be a-saying, sir, as how there won't be nothing for nobody." 
 
 The Squire understood now. He turned tail and rushed into 
 the house. And rushed against Mr. Brandon, who was coming 
 in. 
 
 "Well, have you heard the news?" asked Mr. Brandon in hie 
 thinnest voice. 
 
 "I can't believe it j I don't believe it," raved the Squire.
 
 4o8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Clemcnt-Pcll would never be such a swindler. He owes mc two 
 hundred pounds." 
 
 Mr. Brandon opened his httle eyes. " Owes it j>ou /" 
 
 " That day, last week, when he came driving in, in his smart 
 cockle-shell carriage— when you were here, you know, Brandon. 
 He got a cheque for two hundred pounds from me. A parcel of 
 money that ought to have come over from the chief Bank had not 
 arrived, he said, and the Church Dykely branch might be run 
 close; would I let him have a cheque for two or three hundred 
 pounds on the Bank at Alcester. I told him I did not believe I 
 had anything like two hundred pounds lying at Alcester : but I 
 drew a cheque out for that amount, and wrote a note telling the 
 people there to cash it, and I would make it right." 
 
 "And Pell drove straight off to Alcester then and there, and 
 cashed the cheque ? " said Mr. Brandon in his cynical way. 
 
 "He did. He had told me I should receive the money on the 
 following day. It did not come, or on the Friday either; and on 
 'Saturday I went to Alcester, thinking he might have paid it in 
 there." 
 
 " Which of course he had not," returned old Brandon. " Well, 
 you must have been foolish, to be so taken-in." 
 
 " Taken-in ! " roared the Squire, in a passion. " Why, if he had 
 asked me for two thousand pounds he might have had it — a man 
 with the riches of Clement-Pell." 
 
 " Well, he wouldn't have got any from mc. One who launched 
 out as he did, and let his family launch out, 1 should never put 
 much trust in. Any way, the riches are nowhere ; and it is said 
 Pell is nowhere too." 
 
 It was all true. As Sam Rimmcr put it, Clement-Poll and his 
 Banks had bursted-up.
 
 XXIV. 
 GETTING x^WAY. 
 
 You have heard of the avalanches that fall without warning and 
 crush luckless dwellers in the Swiss mountains ; and of malstroms 
 that suddenly swallow up vessels sailing jauntily along on a calm 
 sea; and of railway trains, filled with happy passengers, that one 
 minute are running smoothly and safely along, and the next arc 
 nowhere : but nothing of this sort ever created the consternation 
 that attended the bursting-up of the Clement-Pells. 
 
 It was Saturday night. — For we have to trace back a day or two. 
 — Seated in the same room where I had seen him when I went 
 back for Helen Whitney's bag, was Clement-Pell. That the man 
 had come to his last gasp, he knew better than any one else in the 
 world could have told him. How he had braved it out, and fought 
 against the stream, and still kept off the explosion since the night 
 but one before — Thursday — when Mr. Johnson had intruded him- 
 self <lnto the grounds and then stealthily watched him from the 
 trees, and he knew all was over, it might have puzzled him to tell. 
 How he had fought against all for months, ay, and years, turned 
 him sicl: only to recall. It had been a fierce, continuous, secret 
 battle; and it had nearly worn him out, and turned his face and 
 his hair grey before their time. 
 
 On the day following this fete-night, Friday, Clement-Pell took 
 the train and was at his chief Bank early. He held his interview 
 with Mr. Johnson ; he saw other people ; and his manner was free 
 and open as usual. On this next day. Saturday, he had been denied 
 to nearly all callers at the Bank: he was too busy to be interrupted, 
 he told his clerks : and his son James boldly made appointments 
 with them in his name for the Monday. After dark on Saturday 
 evening, by the last train, he i-eached home, Parrifer Hall. And 
 there he was, in that room of his ; the door and shutters bolted 
 and barred upon him, alternately pacing it in what looked like 
 tribulation, and bending over account-books by the light of two 
 wax candles. 
 
 Leaning his forehead on his hand, he sat there, and thought it 
 out. He strove to look the situation fully in the face ; v.'hat it was,
 
 4IO JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 and what it would be. Ruin, and worse than ruin. Clement-Pell 
 had possessed good principles once : so to say, he possessed them 
 still. But he had allowed circumstances to get the better of him 
 and of them. He had come from his distant home (supposed to 
 have been London) as the manager of an insignificant and humble 
 little Bank : that was years ago. It was only a venture : but a certain 
 slice of luck, that need not be recorded here, favoured him, and he 
 got on beyond his best expectations. He might have made an 
 excellent hving, nay, a good fortune, and kept his family as gentle- 
 people, had he been prudent. But the luck, coming suddenly, turned 
 his head, you see. Since then, I, Johnny Ludlow, who am no longer 
 the inexperienced boy of that past time, have known it turn the 
 heads of others. He launched out into ventures, his family launched 
 into expense. The ventures paid ; the undue expense did not pay. 
 When matters came to be summed up by a raging public, it was 
 said that it was this expense which had swamped the Pells. That 
 alone, I suppose, it could not have been : but it must have gone 
 some way towards it. 
 
 It lay on his mind heavily that Saturday night. Looking back, 
 he got wondering how much more, in round figures, his family had 
 cost him than they ought to have cost. There had been his wife's 
 different expenses. Her houses, and her staff of servants, her 
 carriages and horses, her dresses and jewels, and all the rest that 
 it would take too long to tell of; and the costly bringing-up of his 
 daughters ; and the frightful outlay of his two younger sons. 
 Fabian and Gusty Pell ought to have had ten thousand a year 
 apiece, to have justified it. James had his expenses too, but in a 
 quieter way. Clement-Pell ran his nervous fingers through his 
 damp hair, as he thought of this, and in his bitter mind told 
 himself that his family had ruined him. Unlimited spending — 
 show — the shooting up above their station ! He gave a curse to it 
 now. He had not checked it when he might have done so ; and it 
 (or they) got the upper hand, and then he could not. Nothing is so 
 difficult as to put down such expenses as these when they have 
 become a habit. 
 
 And so the years had soon come that he found need for supplies. 
 Unlimited as his millions were supposed to be by a confiding public, 
 Clement-Pell in secret wanted money more than most people. His 
 operations were gigantic, but then they required gigantic resources 
 to keep them going. Money was necessary — or the smash must 
 have come two or three years earlier. But sufficient money was 
 not then conveniently attainable by Clement-Pell : and so — he 
 created some. He believed when all his returns from these gigantic 
 operations should flow in, that he could redeem the act ; could 
 replace the money, and no one ever be the wiser. But (it is the
 
 GETTING AWAY. 411 
 
 old story; one that has been enacted before and since), he found 
 somehow that he could not replace it. Like Tod and that gambling 
 affair when we were in London, in trying to redeem himself, he only 
 got further into the mire. Tod, in playing on to cover his losses, 
 doubled them ; Clement- Pell's fresh ventures in the stream of specu- 
 lation only sent him into deeper water. Of late, Clement-Pell had 
 been walking as on a red-hot ploughshare. It burnt and scorched 
 him everlastingly, and he could not get out of it. But the end had 
 come. The thunder-cloud so long hovering in the air was on the 
 very point of bursting, and he was not able to meet it. He must 
 get away : he could not face it. 
 
 Get away for good, as he hoped, never to be tracked by friends 
 or foes. What his future life was to be he did not attempt to con- 
 sider . he only knew that he would give all he ever had been worth 
 to be able to live on, no matter how quietly, with his fellow-men 
 around him. The little moderate home that he and his wife had 
 once looked to as the haven of their desires, would have been a 
 harbour of safety and pride to him now. 
 
 Say what you will, men do not like to be shown up as black sheep 
 in the eyes of their fellows ; especially if they have hitherto stood 
 out as conspicuously white leaders of the flock. The contrast is 
 so great, the fall so startling. The public gives them all sorts of 
 hard names ; as it did in the case of Clement-Pell. A desperately 
 hardened man he must be, said the world, with a brazen conscience ; 
 unprincipled as — well, yes, as Satan. But we may be very sure of 
 one thing — that upon none does the disgrace tell so keenly, the 
 ruin so heavily, the sense of shame so cruelly, as on these men 
 themselves. Put it, if you will, that they make a purse and carry it 
 off to set up a new home in some foreign land — they carry their 
 sense of humiliation with them also ; and their sun of happiness in 
 this life has set. Men have tried this before now, and died of it. 
 
 That was the best that lay prospectively before Clement-Pell : 
 what the worst might be, he did not dare dwell upon. Certain ugly 
 possibilities danced before his mental vision, like so many whirling 
 ballet girls. " If I can only get av/ay 1 " he muttered ; " if I can 
 only get away ! " 
 
 He tried to confine his whole attention to the ledgers before him, 
 and he put on his spectacles again. Mental trouble and mental 
 work will dim the sight as well as whiten the hair and line the face, 
 and Clement-Pell could not see as he had seen a year before. He 
 altered figures ; he introduced entries ; he tore out whole leaves, 
 and made a bonfire of them in the grate — carefully removing from 
 the grate first of all its paper ornament. One book he burnt whole- 
 sale, even to the covers ; and the covers made a frightful smell and 
 daunted him.
 
 412 JOHNNY LUDLOW, 
 
 Money was wanted here, there, everywhere. Snatching a piece 
 of paper he idly dotted down the large sums occurring to him at the 
 moment ; and quite laughed as he glanced at the total. These 
 were only business liabilities. At his elbow lay a pile of bills : 
 domestic and family debts. House rent, taxes, horses, carriages, 
 servants' wages, bills for food, bills for attire : all running back a 
 long while ; for no one had pressed Clement-Pell. The outlay for 
 the fete might well have been profuse, since none of it was ever paid 
 for. Beside the bills lay letters from Fabian and Gusty — wanting 
 money as usual. To all these he scarcely gave a thought ; they 
 were as nothing. Even though he were made bankrupt upon them, 
 they were still as nothing : for they would not brand his brow with 
 the word felon. And he knew that there were other claims, of 
 which no record appeared here, that might not be so easily wiped 
 out. 
 
 Just for a moment, he lost himself in a happy reverie of what 
 might have been had he himself been wise and prudent. It was 
 Gusty 's pressing letter that induced the reflection. He saw him- 
 self a prosperous man of moderate expenses and moderate desires, 
 living at his ease in his own proper station, instead of apeing the 
 great world above him. His daughters reared to be good and 
 thoughtful women, his sons to be steady and diligent whatever their 
 calling, whether business or profession. And what were they? 
 " Curse the money and the pride that deluded me and my wife 
 to blindness ! " broke with a groan from the lips of Clement-Pell. 
 
 A sharp knocking at the door made him start. He looked about 
 to see if there were anything to throw over his tell-tale table, and 
 had a great mind to take off his coat and fling it there. Catching 
 up the ornamental paper of the grate to replace it if he could, the 
 knocking came again, and with it his wife's voice, asking what that 
 smell of burning was. He let her in, and bolted the door again. 
 
 How far Mrs. Clement-Pell had been acquainted with his position, 
 never came out to the world. That she must have known some- 
 thing of it was thought to be certain ; and perhaps the additional 
 launching out lately — the sojourn at Kensington, the fete, and all 
 the rest of it— had only been entered upon to disarm suspicion. 
 Shut up together in that room, they no doubt planned together the 
 getting-away. That Mrs. Clement-Pell fought against their leaving 
 home and grandeur, to become fugitives, flying in secret like so 
 many scapegoats, would be only natural : we should all so fight ; 
 but he must have shown her that there was no help for it. When 
 she quitted the room again, she looked like one over whom twenty 
 years had passed— as Miss Phebus told us later. And the whole 
 of that night, Mrs. Clement-Pell never went to bed ; but was in 
 her room gathering things together barefooted, lest she shouW hv
 
 GETTING AWAY. 413 
 
 heard. Jewels — dresses— valuables ! It must have been an awful 
 night ; deciding which of her possessions she should take, and 
 which leave for ever. 
 
 At six in the morning, Sunday, Mr. Clement-Pell's bell rang, and 
 the groom was summoned. He was bade get the small open carriage 
 ready to drive his master to the railway station to catch an early 
 train. Being Sunday, early trains were not common. Mr. Clement- 
 Pell had received news the previous night, as was intimated, of an 
 uncle's illness. At that early hour, and Sunday besides, Clement- 
 Pell must have thought he was safe from meeting people : but, as 
 it happened (things do happen unexpectedly in this world), in bowl- 
 ing out from his own gates, he nearly bowled over Duffham. The 
 Doctor, coming home from a distant patient, to whom he had been 
 called in the night, was jogging along on his useful old horse. 
 
 " Well ! " said he to the banker. " You are off early." 
 
 " Drive on, don't stop," whispered Clement-Pell to the groom. 
 " I had news last night of the dangerous illness of my poor old 
 uncle, and am going to see him," he called out to Duffham as they 
 passed. " We shall have it piping hot again to-day. Doctor ! " 
 
 The groom told of this encounter afterwards — as did Duffham 
 too, for that matter. And neither of them had any more suspicion 
 that Clement-Pell was playing a part than a baby could have had. 
 In the course of the morning the groom drove in again, having 
 safely conveyed his master to a distant station. The family went 
 to church as usual, chaperoned by Miss Phebus. Mrs. Clement- 
 Pell stayed at home, saying she had a headache : and no doubt 
 cjuietly completed her preparations. 
 
 About six o'clock at night a telegram was delivered. The uncle 
 was dying : Mrs. Clement-Pell must come as soon as possible, to 
 be in time to see him : as to bringing the children she must do as 
 she pleased about that. In Mrs. Pell's agitation and dismay she 
 read the telegram aloud to the governess and the servant who 
 brought it to her. Then was confusion ! Mrs. Pell seemed to have 
 lost her head. Take the children? — Of course she should take 
 them ; — and, oh, when was the earliest time they could start ? 
 
 The earliest time by rail was the following morning. And part 
 of the night was again passed in preparation — openly, this time. 
 Mrs. Clement-Pell said they should probably stay away some days, 
 perhaps a week or two, and must take things accordingly. The 
 boxes were all brought into her room, that she might superintend ; 
 the poor old uncle was so very particular as to dress, she said, and 
 she trusted he might yet recover. On the Monday morning, she 
 and her daughters departed in the large carriage, at the same early 
 hour that her husband had gone, and for the same remote station. 
 After all, not so much luggage went ; only a box a-piece. In
 
 414 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 stepping into her carriage, she told the servants that it would be 
 an excellent opportunity to clean the paint of the sitting-rooms and 
 of the first-floor while she was away : the previous week she had 
 remarked to them that it wanted doing. 
 
 The day went on ; the household no doubt enjoying their free- 
 dom and letting the paint alone. No suspicion was aroused 
 amongst them until late in the afternoon, when a curious rumour 
 was brought over of some confusion at the chief Bank — that it had 
 stopped and its master had flown. At first the governess and 
 servants laughed at this : but confirmation soon came thick and 
 three-fold. Clement-Pell had burst-up. 
 
 And why the expression " bursting-up " should have been uni- 
 versally applied to the calamity by all people, high and low, I know 
 no more than you ; but it was so. Perhaps in men's minds there 
 existed some assimilation between a bubble, that shines brightly 
 for its brief existence before bursting, like the worthless froth it is, 
 and the brilliant but foundationless career of Mr. Clement-Pell. 
 
 The calamity at first was too great to be believed in. It drove 
 people mad only to fancy it might be true : and one or two, alas ! 
 subsequently went mad in reality. For the bursting-up of Mr. 
 Clement-Pell's huge undertakings caused the bursting-up of many 
 private ones, and of households with them. Means of living went : 
 homes were desolated. 
 
 It would be easier to tell you of those who had not trusted money 
 in the hands of Clement-Pell, than of those who had. Some had 
 given him their all. Led away by the fascinating prospect of large 
 interest, they forgot future safety in the dazzling but delusive light 
 of immediate good. I should like it to be distinctly understood that 
 I, Johnny Ludlow, am writing of a matter which took place years 
 ago ; and not of any recent event, or events, that may have since 
 occurred to shake public equanimity in our own local world. 
 
 Disbelief in the misfortune was natural. Clement-Pell had stood 
 on a lofty pedestal, unapproachable by common individuals. We 
 put greater trust in him — in his unbounded weakh, his good faith, 
 his stability — than we could have put in any other man on the face 
 of the globe. We should almost as soon have expected the skies to 
 fall as Clement-Pell. The interests of so many were involved and 
 the ruin would be so universal, that the terrified natives could only 
 take refuge in disbelief : and Squire Todhetley was amongst them. 
 
 The news was brought to Dyke IManor on the Tuesday morning, 
 as you have heard, by the butcher boy, Sam Rimmer; and was 
 confirmed by Mr. Brandon. When the first momentary shock had 
 been digested by the Squire, he arrived at the conclusion that it
 
 GETTING AWAY. 415 
 
 must be false. But that Sam had trotted off, he might have heard 
 the length of the Pater's tongue. Sam being gone, he turned his 
 indignation on Mr. Brandon. 
 
 " One would have thought you had sense to know better, 
 Brandon," said he, raging about the breakfast-room with the skirts 
 of his light morning coat held out behind him. " Giving ear to a 
 cock-and-bull story that can't be true ! Take care Pell does not 
 get to hear it. He'd sue you for defamation." 
 
 " He'd be welcome," nodded old Brandon, in his thin voice, as he 
 stood, whip in hand, against the window. 
 
 " The grand fete of last Thursday," gasped j\Irs. Todhetley— who 
 had been puzzling her brains over Sam Rimmer's master's book, 
 the writing in which could never be deciphered. " Surely the 
 Clement-Pells would not have given that fete had things been going 
 wrong with them." 
 
 " And poured iced champagne, unlimited, down folk's throats ; 
 and strutted about in point-lace and diamonds," added old Brandon. 
 " Madam, I'd believe it all the more for that." 
 
 As he spoke, the remembrance of the scene I had witnessed in 
 the grounds, and Clement-Pell's curious fear later when I told him 
 of the same man watching him, flashed over me, bringing a convic- 
 tion that the report was true. 
 
 " I heard it at the chief Bank yesterday," began Mr. Brandon. 
 " Having some business to transact in the town, I went over by 
 train in the afternoon, and chanced to meet Wilcox in High Street. 
 He is a red-faced man in general " 
 
 "Oh, I know Wilcox," impatiently interrupted the Squire. 
 " Face as red as the sun in a fog. What has that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Well, it was as pale yesterday as the moon on a frosty night," 
 went on old Brandon. " I asked if he had an attack of bile — being 
 subject to it myself — and he said No, it was an attack of fright. 
 And then he told me there was a report in town that something was 
 wrong with Pell's affairs, and that he had run away. Wilcox will 
 lose every penny of his savings." 
 
 " All talk ; all talk," said the Pater in his obstinacy. 
 
 "And for a man to come to Wilcox's age, which must be five- 
 and-fifty, it is no light blow to lose a life's savings," calmly went on 
 old Brandon. " I went to the Bank, and found it besieged by an 
 excited and angry crowd fighting to get in, the door locked, and 
 the porter vainly trying to put up the shutters. That was enough 
 to show me what the matter was, and I left Wilcox to it." 
 
 The Squire stared in ^lerplexity, rubbing up his scanty hair the 
 wrong way while his senses came to him. 
 
 "It is all true," said Mr. Brandon, nodding to him. "Church 
 Dykely is in an uproar this morning already."
 
 4i6 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " I'll go and see for myself," said the Squire, stripping off his 
 nankeen coat in haste so great that he tore one sleeve nearly out. 
 " I'll go and see ; this is not credible. Clement-Pell would never 
 have swindled me out of two hundred pounds only a day or two 
 before he knew he was going all to smash." 
 
 " The most likely time for him to do it," persisted Mr. Brandon. 
 " People, as a rule, only do these things when they are desperate." 
 
 But the Squire did not stay to listen. Settling himself into his 
 other coat, he went driving on across the fields as though he were 
 walking for a wager. Mr Brandon mounted his cob, and put up 
 his umbrella against the sun. 
 
 " Never embark any money with these beguiling people that 
 promise you undue interest, Johnny Ludlow," said Mr. Brandon, as 
 I kept by his side, and opened the gates for him. " Where would 
 you have been now, young man — or, worse, where should I have 
 been— had I, the trustee of your property, consented to risk it with 
 Pell.? He asked me to do it." ^ 
 
 " Clement-Pell did, sir ? When ? ' 
 
 "A year or two ago. I gave him an answer, Johnny; and I 
 fancy he has not altogether liked me since. ' I could not think of 
 placing even a shilling of Johnny Ludlow's where I did not know 
 it to be safe,' I said to him. ' It will be safe with me,' says. Pell, 
 sharply. ' Possibly so, Mr. Pell,' I answered ; ' but you see there's 
 only your word as guarantee, and that is not enough for an honest 
 trustee.' That shut him up." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you have doubted Clement-Pell's stability, 
 Brandon?" demanded the Squire, who was near enough to hear 
 this. 
 
 " I don't know about doubting," was the answer. " I have 
 thought it as likely to come to a smash as not. That the chances 
 for it were rather better than half." 
 
 This sent the Squire on again. He had no umbrella ; and his 
 straw hat glistened in the heat. 
 
 Church Dykely was in a commotion. Folk were rushing up to 
 the little branch Bank black in the face, as if their collars throttled 
 them ; for the news was spreading like fire in dry turf. The Squire 
 went bolting in through every obstruction, and seized upon the 
 iiager. 
 
 Do you mean to tell me that it's true, Robertson?" he fiercely 
 cried. — " That things have gone to smash ? " 
 
 " I am afraid it is, sir," said Robertsor , who looked more dead 
 than alive. " I am unable to understand it. It has fallen upon me 
 with as much surprise as it has on others." 
 
 "Now, don't you go and tell falsehoods, Robertson," roared the 
 Squire, as if he meant to shake the man. " Surprise upon you,
 
 GETTING AWAY. 41^ 
 
 indeed ! Why, have you not been here — at the head and tail of 
 everything ? " 
 
 "But I did not know how affairs were going. Indeed, sir, I tell 
 you truth." 
 
 "Tell a jackass not to bray!" foamed the Squire. "Have you 
 been short of funds here lately, or have you not ? Come, answer 
 me that."' 
 
 " It is true. We have been short. But Mr. Clement-Pell e.xcused 
 it to me by saying that a temporary lock-up ran the Banks short, 
 especially the small branch Banks. I declare, before Heaven, that 
 I implicitly believed him," added Robertson, " and never suspected 
 there could be any graver cause." 
 
 " Then you are either a fool or a knave." 
 
 " Not a knave, Squire Todhetley. A fool I suppose I have 
 been." 
 
 " I want my two hundred pounds," returned the Squire. " And, 
 Robertson, I mean to have it." 
 
 But Robertson had known nothing of the loan ; was surprised to 
 hear of it now. As to repayment, that was out of his power. He 
 had not two hundred pence left in the place, let alone pounds. 
 
 "It is a case of swindle," said the Squire, "It's not one of 
 ordinary debt." 
 
 " I can't help it," returned Robertson. " If it were to save Mr. 
 Clement-Pell from hanging, I could not give a stiver of it. There's 
 my own salary, sir, since Midsummer ; that, I suppose, I shall lose : 
 and I can't afford it, and I don't know what will become of me and 
 my poor little children," 
 
 At this, the Squire's voice and anger dropped, and he shook 
 hands with Robertson, But, as a rule, every one began by brow- 
 beating the manager. The noise was deafening. 
 
 How had Pell got off? By which route : road or rail,'' By dav 
 or night ? It was a regular hubbub of questions. Mr. Brandon sat 
 on his cob all the while, patiently bhnking his eyes at the people. 
 
 Palmerby of Rock Cottage came up ; his old hands trembling, 
 his face as white as the new paint on Duffham's windows, "It 
 can't be true ! " he was cr>-ing, " It can't be true '. " 
 
 " Had you money in his hands. Palmerby ? " 
 
 " Every shilling I possess in the world." 
 
 Mr, Brandon opened his lips to blow him up for foohshness : but 
 something in the poor old face stopped him, Palmerby elbowed 
 his way into the Bank. Duffham came out of his house, a gallipot 
 of ointment in his hand. 
 
 " Well, this is a pretty go ! " 
 
 The Squire took him by. the buttonhole. " Where's the villainous 
 swindler off to, Duffham ? " 
 
 Johnn)' Luillow — I. 2t
 
 4i8 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " I should like to know," answered the surgeon. " I'd be pretty 
 scon on his trail and ask him to refund my money." 
 
 " But surely he has none of yours ? " 
 
 " Pretty nigh half the savings of my years." 
 
 " Mercy be good to us ! " cried the Pater. " He got two hundred 
 pounds out of me last week. What's to become of us all ? " 
 
 " It's not so much a question of what is to become of us^of you 
 and me, Squire," said Duffham, philosophically, " as of those who 
 had invested with him their all. We can bear the loss : you can 
 afford it without much hurt ; I must work a few years longer, 
 Heaven permitting me, than I had thought to work. That's the 
 worst of us. But what will those others do ? What will be the 
 worst for them ? " 
 
 Mr. Brandon nodded approvingly from his saddle. 
 
 " Coming home last night from Duck Lane — by the way, there's 
 another infant at John Mitchel's, because he had not enough before 
 — the blacksmith accosted me, saying Clement- Pell was reported to 
 be in a mess and to have run off. The thing sounded so prepos- 
 terous that I thought at first Dobbs must have been drinking ; and 
 told him that I happened to know Clement- Pell was only off to a 
 relative's death-bed. For on Sunday morning, you see " 
 
 A crush and rush stopped Duff ham's narrative, and nearly 
 knocked us all down. Ball the milkman had come bumping 
 amongst us in a frantic state, his milk-cans swinging from his 
 shoulders against my legs. 
 
 " I say. Ball, take care of my trousers. Milk stains, you know." 
 
 " Master Ludlow, sir, I be a'most mad, I think. Folks is saying 
 as Mr. Clement-Pell and his banks have busted-up." 
 
 " Well ? You have not lost anything, I suppose .'' " 
 
 " Not lost ! " panted poor Ball. " I've lost all I've got. 'Twere 
 a hundred pound, Mr. Johnny, scraped together hard enou', as 
 goodness knows. Mr. Clement-Pell were a-talking to me one day, 
 and he says, says he. Ah, says he, it's difficult to get much interest 
 now ; money's plentiful. I give eight per cent., says he ; most 
 persons gets but three. Would ye take mine, sir, says I ; my 
 hundred pound ? If you like, he says. And I took it to him, 
 gentlemen, thinking what luck I was in, and how safe it were. 
 My hundred pound ! " — letting the cans down with a clatter. " My 
 hundred pound that I'd toiled so hard for ! Gentlefolk, wherever 
 be all the money a-gone .'' " 
 
 Well, it was a painful scene. One we were glad to get out of. 
 The Squire, outrageously angry at the way he had been done out 
 of his money, insisted on going to Parrifer Hall. Mr. Brandon 
 rode his cob ; Duffham stepped into his surgery to get his hat. 
 
 One might have fancied a sale was going on. The doors were
 
 GETTING AWAY. 419 
 
 open : boxes belonging to some of the servants were lying by 
 the side-entrance, ready to be carted away; people (creditors 
 and curiosity-mongers) stood about. Sam Rimmer's master, the 
 butcher, came out of the house as we went in, swearing. Perkins 
 had not been paid for a twelvemonth, and said it would be his ruin. 
 Miss Phebus was in the hall, and seemed to have been having it 
 out with him. She was a light-haired, bony lady of thirty-five, or 
 so, and had made a rare good gipsy that day in the tent. Her 
 eyes were peculiar : green in some lights, yellow in others : a 
 frightfully hard look they had in them this morning. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Todhetley, I am so glad to see you ! " she said. " It 
 is a cruel turn that the Clement-Pells have served me ? leaving 
 me here without- warning, to bear the brunt of all this ! Have you 
 come in the interests of the family ? " 
 
 " I've come after my own interests, ma'am," returned the Pater. 
 " To find out, if I can, where Clement-Pell has gone to : and to see 
 if I can get back any of the money I have been done out of." 
 
 " Why, it seems every one must be a creditor ! " she exclaimed 
 in surprise, on hearing this. 
 
 " I know I am one," was his answer. 
 
 " To serve me such a trick, — to behave to me with this dupli- 
 city : it is infamous," went on Miss Phebus, after she had related 
 to us the chief events of the Sunday, as connected with the story 
 of the dying uncle and the telegram. " If I get the chance, I will ' 
 have the law against them, Mr. Todhetley." 
 
 " It is what a few more of us mean to do, ma'am," he answered. 
 
 " They owe me forty pounds. Yes, Mr. Duffham, it is forty 
 pounds : and I cannot afford to lose it. Mrs. Pell has put me off 
 from time to time : and I supposed it to be all right ; I suspected 
 nothing. They have not treated me well lately, either. Leaving 
 me here to take care of the house while they were enjoying them- 
 selves up in Kensington ! I had a great mind to give warning then. 
 The German governess got offended while they were in town, and 
 left. Some friend of Fabian Pell's was rude to her." 
 
 A little man looked into the room just then ; noting down the 
 furniture with his eye. " None of these here articles must be 
 moved, you understand, mum," he said to Miss Phebus. 
 
 " Don't talk to me," she answered wrathfuUy. " I am going out 
 of the house as soon as I can put my things together." And the 
 man went away. 
 
 " If I had only suspected ! " she resumed to us, her angry tone 
 full of pain ; " and I think I might have done so, had I exercised 
 my wits. My room is next to Mrs. Pell's ; but it's not much larger 
 than a closet, and has no fireplace in it : she only gave it me because 
 it was not good enough for any one else. Saturday night was very
 
 420 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 hot — as you must remember — and I could not sleep. The window 
 was open, but the room felt like an oven. After tossing about for 
 I don't know how long, I got up and opened the door, thinking it 
 might admit a breath of air. At that moment I heard sounds 
 below — the quiet shutting of a door, and advancing footsteps. 
 Wondering who could be up so late, I peeped out and saw I\Irs. 
 Pell. She came up softly, a candle in her hand, and her face quite 
 curious and altered — aged and pale and haggard. She must be 
 afraid of the ghosts, I thought to myself, as she turned off into 
 her chamber — for we had been telling ghost-stories that night up 
 to bed-time. After that, I did not get to sleep ; not, as it seemed, 
 for hours ; and all the time I heard drawers being opened and 
 shut in her bed and dressing-room. She must even then have been 
 preparing for flight." 
 
 " And the dying uncle was invented for the occasion, I presume," 
 remarked Mr. Duffham. 
 
 "All I know is, I never heard of an uncle before," she tartly 
 answered. " I asked Mrs. Clement-Pell on Sunday night where 
 the uncle lived, and how long a journey they had to go ; she an- 
 swered shortly that he was at his country house, and bade me not 
 tease her. Mr. Duffham, can my own boxes be stopped ? " 
 
 " I should think no one would attempt to do it," he answered. 
 " But I'd get them out as soon as I could, were I you, ]\liss Phebus." 
 
 " What a wreck it will be ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " You have used the right word, ma'am," put in Mr. Brandon, 
 w^ho had left his horse outside. " And not only here. Wrecks 
 they will be ; and many of them." 
 
 We stood looking at one another ruefully. The Pater had come 
 to hunt up his two hundred pounds ; but there did not seem much 
 chance of his doing it. " Look here," said he suddenly to the 
 governess, " where was that telegram sent from ? " 
 
 " We have not been able to discover. It was only seen by Mrs. 
 PcU. After she had read it aloud, she crushed it up in her hand, 
 as if in frightful distress, and called out about the poor dear old 
 uncle. She took care it should not be seen : we may be very sure 
 of that." 
 
 " But who sent the telegram ? " 
 
 "• I don't know," said Miss Phebus viciously. " Her husband, no 
 doubt. Neither was the luggage that they took with them labelled : 
 we have remembered the fact since." 
 
 " I think we might track them by that luggage," observed the 
 Paler. " Five big boxes." 
 
 " If you do track them by it I'll eat the luggage wholesale," 
 cried wise old Brandon. " Clement-Pell's not a fool, or his wife 
 cither. They'll go off just in the opposite direction that they ap-
 
 GETTING AWAY. 421 
 
 peared to go— and their boxes in another. As to Pell, he was 
 probably unknown at the distant station the groom drove him to." 
 
 There was no end to be served in staying longer at the house, 
 and we quitted it, leaving poor Miss Phebus to her temper. I had 
 never much liked her j but I could not help feeling for her that 
 unlucky morning. 
 
 "What's to be done now?" gloomily cried the Squire, while old 
 Brandon was mounting. " It's like being in a wood that you can't 
 get out of. If Clement-Pell had played an honest part with me : 
 if he had come and said, ' Mr. Todhetley, I am in sore need of a 
 little help,' and told me a bit about things : I don't say that I would 
 have refused him the money. But to dupe me out of it in the 
 specious way he did was nothing short of swindling ; and I will 
 bring him to book for it if I can." 
 
 That day was only the beginning of sorrow. There have been 
 such cases since : perhaps worse ; where a sort of wholesale ruin 
 has fallen upon a neighbourhood : but none, to me, have equalled 
 that. It was the first calamity of the kind in my experience ; and 
 in all things, whether of joy or sorrow, our earliest impressions are 
 the most vivid. It is the first step that costs, the French tell us : 
 and that is true of all things. 
 
 The ruin turned out to be wider even than was feared ; the dis- 
 tress greater. Some had only lost part of their superfluous cash. 
 It was mortifying ; but it did not further affect their prosperity, or 
 take from them the means of livelihood ; no luxuries need be given 
 up, or any servants dispensed with. Others had invested so much 
 that it Avould throw them back years, perhaps cripple them for 
 life. Pitiable enough, that, but not the worst. It was as nothing 
 to those who had lost their all. 
 
 People made it their business to find out more about Mr. and 
 I^Irs. Clement-Pell than had been known before. Both were of 
 quite obscure origin, it turned out, and he had 7iot been a lawyer in 
 London, but only a lawyer's clerk. So much the more credit to 
 him for getting on to be something better. If he had only had the 
 sense to let well alone ! But she ? — well, all I mean to say here, 
 is this : the farmers she had turned up her nose at were far, far 
 better born and bred, even the smallest of them, than she was. 
 Let that go : other women have been just as foolishly upstart as 
 Mrs. Clement-Pell. One fact came out that I think rz/^^thepubhc 
 worse than any other : that his Christian name was Clement and 
 his surname Pell. He had united the two when growing into a 
 great man, and put a "J." before the Clement, which had no right 
 there. Mr. Brandon had known it all along — at least he chanced
 
 432 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 to know that in early life his name was simply Clement Pell. The 
 Squire, when he heard of this, went into a storm of reproach at old 
 Brandon, because he had not told it. 
 
 " Nay, why should I have sought to do the man an injury ? " 
 remonstrated Mr, Brandon. " It was no business of mine, that I 
 should interfere. We must live and let live. Squire, if we care to 
 go through the world peaceably." 
 
 The days went on, swelling the list of creditors who came forward 
 to declare themselves. The wonder was, that so many had been 
 taken in. But you see, people had not made it their business to 
 proclaim that their money lay with Clement-Pell. Gentlefolk who 
 lived on their fortunes ; professional men of all classes, including 
 the clergy ; commercial men of high and low degree ; small trades- 
 people; widows with slender incomes, and spinsters with less. If 
 Clement-Pell had taken the money of these people, not intentionally 
 to swindle them, as the Squire put it in regard to his own, but only 
 knowing there was a chance that it would not be safe, he must have 
 been a hard and cruel man. I think the cries of the defrauded of 
 that unhappy time must have gone direct to heaven. 
 
 He was not spared. Could hard words injure an absentee, 
 Clement-Pell must have come in for all sorts of harm. His ears 
 burned, I should fancy— if there's any truth in the saying that ears 
 burn when distant friends give pepper. The queerest fact was, 
 that no money seemed to be left. Of the miUions that Clement- 
 Pell had been worth, or had had to play with, nothing remained. 
 It was inconceivable. What had become of the stores ? The 
 hoards of gold ; the chests, popularly supposed to be filled with it ; 
 the bank-notes; the floating capital— where was it all.' No oae 
 could tell. People gazed at each other with dismayed faces as 
 they asked it. Bit by bit, the awful embarrassment in which he 
 had been plunged for years came to light. The fictitious capital 
 he had created had consumed itself: and the good money of the 
 public had gone with it. Of course he had made himself secure 
 and carried off loads, said the maddened creditors. But they might 
 have been mistaken there. 
 
 For a week or two confusion reigned. Accountants set to work 
 in a fog ; official assignees strove to come to the bottom of the 
 muddy waters. There existed some of what people called securities ; 
 but they were so hemmed in by claims that the only result would 
 be that there would not be anything for any one. Clement-Pell 
 had done well to escape, or the unhappy victims had certainly 
 tarred and feathered him. All that time he was being searched 
 for, and not a clue could be obtained to him. Stranger perhaps to 
 say, there was no clue to his wife and daughters either. The five 
 boxes had disappeared. It was ascertained that certain boxes.
 
 GETTING AWAY. 423 
 
 answering to the description, had been sent to London on the Monday 
 from a populous station by a quick train, and were claimed at the 
 London terminus by a gentleman who did not bear any resemblance 
 to Clement-Pell. I'm sure the excitement of the affair was some- 
 thing before unknown to the Squire, as he raged up hill and down 
 dale in the August weather, and it must have been as good as a 
 course of Turkish baths to him. 
 
 Ah me ! it is all very well to write of it in a light strain at this 
 distance of time ; but God alone knows how many hearts were 
 broken by it. 
 
 One of the worst cases was poor Jacob Palmerby's. He had saved 
 money that brought him in about a hundred a year in his old age. 
 Clement- Pell got hold of the money, doubled the interest, and 
 Palmerby thought that a golden era had set in. For several years 
 now he had enjoyed it. His wife was dead; his only son, who had 
 been a sizar at Cambridge, was a curate in London. With the 
 bursting up of Clement-Pell, Jacob Palmerby's means failed ; he 
 had literally not a sixpence left in the world. The blow seemed to 
 have struck him stupid. He mostly sat in silence, his head down ; 
 his clothes neglected. 
 
 " Come, Palmerby, you must cheer up, you know," said the Squire 
 to him one evening that we looked in at Rock Cottage, and found 
 Mr. Brandon there. 
 
 " Me cheer up," he returned, lifting his face for a moment — and 
 in the last fortnight it had grown ten years older. " What am I to 
 cheer up for ? There's nothing left. / can go into the workhouse — 
 but there's poor Michael." 
 
 " Michael ? " 
 
 '■ My son, the parson. The capital that ought to have been his 
 after me, and brought him in his hundred a year, as it did me 
 before I drew it from the funds, is gone. Gone. It is of him I 
 think. He has been a good son always. I hope he won't take to 
 cursing me." 
 
 " Parsons don't curse, you know, and Michael will be a good 
 son still," said Mr. Brandon, shrilly. " Don't you fret, Palmerby. 
 Fretting does no good." 
 
 " It 'ud wear out a donkey — as I tell him," put in the old woman- 
 servant, Nanny, who had brought in his supper of bread-and- 
 milk. 
 
 He did not lift his head ; just swayed it once from side to side by 
 way of general response. 
 
 " It's the way he goes on all day, masters," whispered Nanny 
 when we went out. " His heart's a-breaking — and I wish it was 
 that knave of a Pell's instead. All these purty flowers to be left," 
 pointing to the clusters of roses and geraniums and honeysuckles
 
 424 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 within the gate, " and the chairs and tables to be sold, and the very 
 beds to be took from under us ! " 
 
 " Nay, nay, Nanny, it may turn out better than that," spoke the 
 Squire. 
 
 '' Why, how can it turn out better, sirs ? " she asked. " Pell 
 didn't pay the dividends this two times past : and the master, 
 beheving as all his excuses was gospel, never thought of pressing 
 for it. If we be in debt to the landlord and others, is it our fault ? 
 But the sticks and stones must be sold to pay, and the place be given 
 up. There be the work'us for me ; I know that, and it don't much 
 matter ; but it'll be a crying shame if the poor master have to move 
 into it." 
 
 So it would be. And there were others in a similar plight to his ; 
 nothing else but the workhouse before them. 
 
 " He won't never live to go — that's one consolation," was Nanny's 
 last comment as she held the gate open. " Good evening to ye, sirs ; 
 good evening. Master Johnny." 
 
 What with talking to Dobbs the blacksmith, and staying with 
 Duftliam to drink what he called a dish of tea, it was almost dark 
 when I set out home; the Squire and Mr. Brandon having gone off 
 without me. I was vaulting over the stile the near way across the 
 lields, expecting to catch it for staying, when a man shot into my 
 path from behind the hedge. 
 
 " Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 Well, I did feel surprised. It was Gusty Pell! 
 
 '• Halloa! " said I. " I thought you were in Scotland." 
 
 " I was there," he answered. And then, while we looked at one 
 another, he began to tell me the reason of his coming away. Why 
 it is that all kinds of people seem to put confidence in me and trust 
 me with matters they'd never speak of to others, I have never found 
 out. Had it been Tod, for instance. Gusty Pell would never have 
 shown himself out of the hedge to talk to him. 
 
 Gusty, shooting the grouse on the moors, had found his purse 
 emptied of its last coin. He wrote to his father for more money : 
 wrote and wrote ; but none arrived : neither money nor letter. 
 Being particularly in want of supplies, he borrowed a sovereign or 
 two from his friends, and came off direct to see the reason why. 
 Arrived within a few miles of home he heard very ugly rumours ; 
 stories that startled him. So he waited and came on by night, 
 thinking it more prudent not to show himself. 
 
 " Tell me all about it, Johnny Ludlow, for the love of goodness ! " 
 he cried, his voice a little hoarse with agitation, his hand grasping 
 my arm like a vice. " I have been taking a look at the place outside " 
 — pointing up the road towards Parrifer Hall — "but it seems to be 
 empty."
 
 GETTING AWAY. 425 
 
 It was empty, except for a man who had charge of the things until 
 the sale could take place. Softening the narrative a little, and not 
 calling everything by the name the public called it, I gave the facts 
 to Gusty. 
 
 He drew a deep breath at the end, like a hundred sighs in one. 
 Then I asked him how it was he had not heard these things — had 
 not been written to. 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " I have been moving about Scotland : 
 perhaps a letter of theirs may have miscarried ; and I suppose my 
 Liter letters did not reach them. The last letter I had was from 
 Constance, giving me an account of some grand fete here that had 
 taken place the previous day." 
 
 '■ Yes. I was at it with Todhetley and the Whitneys. The — the 
 crisis came three or four days after that." 
 
 " Johnny, where's my father } " he asked, after a pause, his voice 
 sunk to a whisper. 
 
 "' It is not known where he is." 
 
 " Is it true that he is being — looked for .'' " 
 
 " I am afraid it is." 
 
 " And, if they find him — what then ? Why don't you speak ? " he 
 added impatiently. 
 
 '•' I don't know what. Some people say it will only be a bad case 
 of bankruptcy." 
 
 " Any way, it is a complete smash." 
 
 " Yes, it's that." 
 
 ''Will it, do you think, be ruin, Johnny.^ Ruin utter and un- 
 mitigated ? " 
 
 " It is that already — to many persons round about." 
 
 " But I mean to my own people," said he, impatiently. 
 
 " Well, I should fear it would be." 
 
 Gusty took off his hat to wipe his brow. He looked white in the 
 starlight. 
 
 " What will become of me ? I must fly too," he muttered, as if to 
 the stars. "And what of Fabian? — he cannot remain in his regi- 
 ment. Johnny Ludlow, this blow is like death to me." 
 
 And it struck me that of the two calamities. Gusty Pell, non- 
 religious though he was, would rather have met death. I felt 
 dreadfully sorry for him. 
 
 " Where's James ? " he suddenly asked. " Is he gone too ? " 
 
 "James disappeared on the Sunday, it is said. It would hardly 
 have been safe for him to remain : the popular feeling is very 
 bitter." 
 
 " Well, I must make myself scarce again also," he said, after a 
 pause. " Could you lend me a pound or so, Johnny, if you've got 
 it about you? "
 
 426 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 I told him I wished I had ; he should have been heartily welcome 
 to it. Pulling out my pockets, I counted it all up — two shillings and 
 fivepence. Gusty turned from it with disdain. 
 
 " Well, good evening, Johnny. Thank you for your good wishes 
 — and for telling me what you have. I don't know to whom else 
 I could have applied : and I am glad to have chanced to meet 
 you." 
 
 He gave another deep sigh, shook my hand, got over the stile, 
 and crept away, keeping close to the hedge, as if he intended to 
 make for Alcester. I stood and watched him until he was lost in 
 the shadows. 
 
 And so the Pells, one and all, went into exile in some unknown 
 region, and the poor duped people stayed to face their ruin at home. 
 It was an awful time, and that's the truth.
 
 XXV. 
 
 OVER THE WATER. 
 
 We had what they called the " dead-hghts " put in the ladies' cabin 
 at Gravesend : that will show what the weather was expected to be 
 in the open sea. In the saloon, things were pitching about before 
 we reached Margate. Rounding the point off Broadstairs, the 
 steamer caught it strong and sharp. 
 
 " Never heed a bit of pitching : we've the wind all for us, and 
 shall make a short passage," said the captain in hearty tones, by 
 way of consolation to the passengers generally. "A bit o' breeze 
 at sea is rather pleasant." 
 
 Pleasant it might be to him, Captain Tune, taking in a good 
 dinner, as much at ease as if he had been sitting in his dining-room 
 ashore. Not so pleasant, though, for some of us, his passengers. 
 
 Ramsgate and other landmarks passed, and away in the open 
 sea it was just a gale. That, and nothing less. Some one said so 
 to the man at the wheel : a tall, middle-aged, bronzed-faced fellow 
 in shirt sleeves and open blue waistcoat. 
 
 " Bless y're ignorance ! This a gale ! Why, 'taint half a one. 
 It'll be a downright fair passage, this 'un will, shorter nor ord'nary." 
 
 " What do you call a gale — if this is not one ? " 
 
 " I ain't allowed to talk : you may see it writ up." 
 
 " Writ up," it was. " Passengers are requested not to talk to the 
 man at the wheel." But if he had been allowed to talk, and talked 
 till now, he would never have convinced some of the unhappy 
 creatures around, that the state of wind then blowing was not a 
 gale. 
 
 It whistled in the sails, it roared over the paddle-wheels, it seemed 
 to play at pitch-and-toss with the sea. The waves rose with moun- 
 tain force, and then broke like mad : the steamer rolled and lurched, 
 and righted herself ; and then lurched and rolled again. Captain 
 Tune stood on the bridge, apparently enjoying it, the gold band on 
 his cap glistening in the sun. We got his name from the boat 
 bills ; and a jolly, courteous, attentive captain he seemed to be. 
 But for the pitching and tossing and general discomfort, it would
 
 42S JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 have been called beautiful weather. The air was bright ; the sun 
 as hot as it is in July, although September was all but out. 
 
 "Johnny, Johnny Ludlow." 
 
 The voice — Mr. Brandon's — was too faint to be squeaky. He 
 sat amidships on a camp stool, his back against the cabin wall — or 
 whatever the boarding was — wrapped in a plaid. A yellow hand- 
 kerchief was tied over his head, partly to keep his cap on, partly to 
 protect his ears. The handkerchief h'd most of his face, except 
 his little nose ; which looked pinched and about as yellow as the 
 silk. 
 
 '• Did you call me, sir ? " 
 
 " I wish you'd see if you can get to my tail pocket, Johnny. I've 
 been trying this ten minutes, and do nothing but find my hands 
 hopelessly entangled in the plaid. There's a tin box of lozenges 
 there." 
 
 " Do you feel ill, sir ? " I asked, as I found the box, and gave it to 
 him. 
 
 " Never was ill at sea in my life, Johnny, in the way you mean. 
 But the motion always gives me the most frightful headache 
 imaginable. How are you ? " 
 
 The less said about how I was, the better. All I hoped was he 
 wouldn't keep me talking. 
 
 ''Where's the Squire?" he asked. 
 
 I pointed to a distant heap on the deck, from which groans came 
 forth occasionally : and just managed to speak in answer. 
 
 " He seems uncommonly ill, sir." 
 
 " Well, he would come, you know, Johnny. Tell him he ought 
 to take " 
 
 What he ought to take was lost in the rush of a wave which 
 came dashing over us. 
 
 After all, I suppose it was a quick and good, though rough pas- 
 sage, for Boulogne-sur-Mer was sighted before we thought for. As 
 the stiller I kept the better I was, there was nothing to do but to 
 sit motionless and stare at it. 
 
 You'll never guess what was taking us across the Channel. Old 
 Brandon called it from the first a wild-goose chase ; but, go, the 
 Squire would. He was after that gentleman who had played ha\-oc 
 with many people's hearts and money, who had, so to say, scattered 
 ruin wholesale — Mr. Clement-Pell. 
 
 Not a trace had the public been able to obtain as to the direction 
 ot the Pells' flight ; not a clue to the spot in which they might be 
 hiding themselves. The weeks had gone on since their departure : 
 August passed into September, September was passing : and for 
 all that could be discovered of them, they might as well never have 
 existed, The conimitteo for windir.g up the miseral)le affairs raged
 
 OVER THE WATER. 429 
 
 and fumed and pitied, and wished they could just put their hands 
 on the man who had wrought the evil ; Squire Todhetley raged and 
 fumed also on his own score; but none of them were any the nearer 
 finding Pell. In my whole life I had never seen the Squire so 
 much put out. It was not altogether the loss of the two hundred 
 pounds he had been (as he persisted in calling it) swindled out of ; 
 it was the distress he had to witness daily around him. I do think 
 nothing would have given him more satisfaction than to join a mob 
 in administering lynch law to Clement-Pell, and to tar and feather 
 him first. Before this happened, the Squire had talked of going to 
 the seaside : but he would not listen to a word on the subject now : 
 only to speak of it put him out of temper. Tod was away. He 
 received an invitation to stay with some people in Gloucestershire, 
 who had good game preserves ; and was off the next day. And 
 things were in this lively state at home: the Squire grumbling, 
 Mrs. Todhetley driving about with one or other of the children in 
 the mild donkey-cart, and I fit to eat my head off with having 
 nothing to do : when some news arrived of the probable sojourning 
 place of the Clement-Pells. 
 
 The news was not much. And perhaps hardly to be relied on. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sterling at the Court had been over to Paris for a 
 fortnight : taking the baby with them. I must say that Mrs. 
 Sterling was always having babies — if any one cares for the infor- 
 mation. Before one could walk another was sure to arrive. And 
 not only the baby had been to Paris, but the baby's nursemaid, 
 Charlotte. Old Brandon, remarking upon it, said he'd rather 
 travel with half a score of mischievous growing boys than one 
 baby : and they were about the greatest calamity he could 
 think of. 
 
 Well, in coming home, the Sterling party had, to make the short 
 crossing, put themselves on board the Folkestone boat at Boulogne, 
 and the nursemaid was sitting on deck with the baby on her lap, 
 when, just as the steamer was moving" away, she saw, or thought 
 she saw, Constance Pell, standing on the shore a little apart from 
 the people gathered there to watch the boat off. Mrs. Sterling told 
 the nurse she must be mistaken : but Charlotte held to it that she 
 was not. As chance had it. Squire Todhetley was at the Court 
 with old Sterling when they got home; and he heard this. It put 
 him into a commotion. He questioned Charlotte closely, but she 
 never wavered in her statement. 
 
 " I am positive it was Miss Constance Pell, sir," she repeated, 
 " She had on a thick blue veil, and one of them new-fashioned 
 large round capes. Just as I happened to be looking at her — not 
 thinking it was anybody I knew — a gust of wind took the veil 
 right up above her bonnet, and I saw it was ]\Iiss Constance Pell,
 
 430 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 She pulled at the veil with both her hands, in a scuffle like, to get 
 it down again." 
 
 " Then I'll go off to Boulogne," said the Squire, with stern reso- 
 lution. And back he came to Dyke Manor full of it. 
 
 " It will be a wild-goose chase," observed Mr. Brandon, who had 
 called in. " If Pell has taken himself no further away than 
 Boulogne — that is, allowing he has got out of England at all— he 
 is a greater fool than I took him for." 
 
 "Wild-goose chase or not, I shall go," said the Pater, hotly. 
 " And I shall take Johnny : he'll be useful as an interpreter." 
 
 " I will go with you," came the unexpected rejoinder of Mr. 
 Brandon. " I want a bit of a change." 
 
 And so we went up to London to take the steamer there. And 
 here we were, all three of us, ploughing the waves en route for 
 Boulogne, on the wild-goose chase after Clement-Pell. 
 
 Just as the passengers had come to the conclusion that they 
 must die of it, the steamer shot into Boulogne harbour. She was 
 tolerably long swinging round ; then was made fast, and we began 
 to land. Mr. Brandon took off his yellow turban and shook his 
 cap out. 
 
 "Johnny, I'd never have come if I had known it was going to 
 be like this," moaned the poor Squire — and every trace of red had 
 gone out of his face. " No, not even to catch Clement-Pell. What 
 on earth is that crowd for ? " 
 
 It looked about five hundred people ; they were pushing and 
 crushing each other, fighting for places to see us land and go 
 through the custom-house. No need to tell of this : not a reader 
 of you, but you must know it well. 
 
 The first thing, patent to my senses amidst the general con- 
 fusion, was hearing my name shouted out by the Squire in the 
 custom-house. 
 
 " Johnny Ludlow ! " 
 
 He was standing before 'two Frenchmen in queer hats, who sat 
 behind a table or counter, asking him questions and preparing to 
 write down the answers : what his name was, and what his age, 
 and where he was born, just as though he were a footman in want 
 of a place. Not a word could he understand, and looked round 
 for me helplessly. As to my French— well, I knew it pretty well, 
 and talked often with our French master at Dr. Frost's : but you 
 must not think I was as fluent in it as though I'd been a born 
 Frenchman. It was rather the other way. 
 
 We put up at the Hotel des Bains. A good hotel— as is well 
 known — but nothing to look at from the street. Mr. Brandon had 
 been in Boulogne before, and always used it. The table (fhote 
 restored the Squire's colour and spirits together : and by the time
 
 OVER THE WATER. 431 
 
 dinner was over, he felt ready to encounter the sea again. As to 
 Mr. Brandon, he made his meal of some watery broth, two sHces of 
 melon, and a bowlful of pounded sugar. 
 
 The great question was — to discover whether the Clement-Pells 
 were in the town; and, if so, to find them out. ]\Ir. Brandon's 
 opinion never varied — that Charlotte had been mistaken and they 
 were not in the place at all. Allowing, for argument's sake, that 
 they were there, he said, they would no doubt be living partly in 
 concealment ; and it might not answer for us to go inquiring about 
 them openly, lest they got to hear of it, and took measures to secure 
 themselves. There was sense in that. 
 
 The next day we went strolling up to the post-office in the Rue 
 des Vieillards, the wind blowing us round the corners sharply ; 
 and there inquired for the address of the Clement-Pells. The 
 people were not very civil ; stared as if they'd never been asked for 
 an address before; and shortly affirmed that no such name was 
 known there. 
 
 '•' Why, of course not," said old Brandon quietly, as we strolled 
 down again. " They wouldn't be in the town under their own name 
 —if they are here at all." 
 
 And there would lie the difficulty. 
 
 That wind, that the man at the wheel had scofied at when called 
 a gale, had been at any rate the beginning of one. It grew higher 
 and higher, chopping round to the south-west, and for three days 
 we had it kindly. On the second day not a boat could get out or 
 in ; and there were no bathing-machines to be had. The sea was 
 surging, full of tumult — but it was a grand sight to see. The waves 
 dashed over the pier, ducking the three or four venturesome spirits 
 who went there. I was one of them — and received a good blowing 
 up from Mr. Brandon for my pains. 
 
 The gale passed. The weather set in again calm and lovely; 
 but we seemed to be no nearer hearing anything of the Clement- 
 Pells. So far as that went, the time was being wasted: but I 
 don't think any of us cared much about that. We kept our eyes 
 open, looking out for them, and asked questions in a quiet way : 
 at the e'lablissemeni, where the dancing went on ; at the libraries ; 
 and of the pew women at the churches. No ; no success : and 
 time went on to the second week in October. On account of the 
 remarkably fine weather, the season and amusements were pro- 
 tracted. 
 
 One Friday morning I was sitting on the pier in the sunshine, 
 listening to a couple of musicians, who appeared there every day. 
 He had a violin ; she played a guitar, and sang " Figaro." An old 
 gentleman by me said he had heard her sing the same song for 
 nearly a score of years past. The town kept very full, for the
 
 452 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 weather was more like summer than autumn. There were moments, 
 and this was one of them, that I wished more than ever Tod was 
 over. 
 
 Strolhng back off the pier and along the port, picking my way 
 amidst the ropes of the fishing-boats, stretched across my path, I 
 met face to face — Constance Pell. The thick blue veil, just as 
 Charlotte had described it, was drawn over her bonnet : but some- 
 thing in her form struck me, and I saw her features through the 
 \eil. She saw me too, and turned her head sharply towards the 
 liarbour. 
 
 I went on without notice, making believe not to have seen her. 
 dancing round presently, I saw her cross the road and begin to 
 come back on the other side by the houses. Knowing that the only 
 chance was to trace her home, and not to let her see I was doing it, 
 1 stopped before one of the boats, and began talking to a fisherman, 
 never turning my head towards her at all. She passed quickly, on 
 to the long street, once glancing back at me. When she was fairly 
 on her way, I went at the top of my speed to the port entrance 
 of the hotel ; ran straight through the yard and up to my room, 
 which faced the street. There she was, walking onwards, and 
 very quickly. Close by the chemist's shop at the opposite corner, 
 she turned to look back ; no doubt looking after me, and no 
 doubt gratified that I was nowhere to be seen. Then she went on 
 again. 
 
 Neither the Squire nor Mr. Brandon was in the hotel, that I 
 could find ; so I had to take the matter in hand myself, and do the 
 best I could. Letting her get well ahead, I followed cautiously. 
 She turned up the grande Rue, and I turned also, keeping her in 
 view. The streets were tolerably full, and though she looked back 
 several times, I am sure she did not see me. 
 
 Up the hill of the Grande Rue, past the Vice-Consulate, under 
 the gateway of the Upper Town, through the Upper Town itself, 
 and out by another gateway. I thought she was never going to 
 stop. Away further yet, to the neighbourhood of a little place 
 called Maqudtra — but I am not sure that I spell the word pro- 
 perly. There she turned into a small house that had a garden 
 before it. 
 
 They call me a muff at home, as you have heard often : and 
 there's no doubt I have shown myself a muff more than once in 
 my life. I was one then. What I ought to have done was, to 
 have gone back the instant I had seen her enter; what I really 
 did was, to linger about behind the hedge, and try to get a glimpse 
 through it. It skirted the garden : a long, narrow garden, running 
 down from the side of the house. 
 
 It was only a minute or two in all. And I was really turning
 
 OVER THE WATER. 433 
 
 back when a maid-scr\ant in a kind of short brown bedgown (so 
 Hannah called the things at home), black petticoat, grey stockings 
 and wooden sabots, came out at the gate, carrying a flat basket 
 made of black and white straw. 
 
 " Does Monsieur Pell live there ? " I asked, waiting until she had 
 come up. 
 
 '• Monsieur Qui f^ said the girl. 
 
 " Pell. Or Clement-Pell." 
 
 " There is no gentlemans at all lives there," returned she, chang- 
 ing her language to very decent English. " Only one Madame and 
 her young meesses." 
 
 I seemed to take in the truth in a minute : they were there, but 
 he was not. " I think they must be the friends I am in search of," 
 was my remark. " What is the name ? " 
 
 " Brune." 
 
 " Brune ? — Oh, Brown. A lady and four young ladies ? " 
 
 " Ves, that's it. Bon jour, monsieur." 
 
 She hurried onwards, the sabots clattering. I turned leisurely to 
 take another look at the hedge and the little gate in it, and saw 
 a blue veil fluttering inwards. Constance Pell, deeper than I, had 
 been gazing after me. 
 
 Where had the Squire and old Brandon got to ? Getting back 
 to the hotel, I could not find either of them. Mr. Brandon might 
 be taking a warm sea-bath, the waiters thought, and the Squire 
 a cold one. I went about to every likely place, and went in vain. 
 The dinner-bell was ringing when they got in — tired to death ; 
 having been for some prolonged ramble over beyond Capecure. 
 I told them in their rooms while they were washing their hands 
 — but as to stirring in it before dinner, both were too exhausted 
 for it. 
 
 " I said I thought they must be here, Brandon," cried the Squire, 
 in triumph. 
 
 '' He is not here now, according to Johnny," squeaked old 
 Brandon. 
 
 After dinner more time was lost. First of all, in discussing what 
 they should do ; next, in whether it should be done that night. 
 You see, it was not Mrs. Pell they wanted, but her husband. As 
 it was then dark, it was thought best to leave it until morning. 
 
 We went up in state about half-past ten ; taking a coach, and 
 passing en route the busy market scene. The coach seemed to 
 have no springs : Mr. Brandon complained that it shook him to 
 pieces. This was Saturday, you know. The Squire meant to be 
 distantly polite to Mrs. and the Miss Pells, but to insist upon 
 having the address given him of Mr. Pell. " We'll not take the 
 coach quite up to the door," said he, "or we may not get in." In- 
 
 lohniy Ludlow. — I. 28
 
 434 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 deed, the getting in seemed to be a matter of doubt : old Brandon's 
 opinion was that they'd keep every window and door barred, rather 
 than admit us. 
 
 So the coach set us down outside the furthermost barrier of the 
 Upper Town, and we walked on to the gate, went up the path, and 
 knocked at the door. 
 
 As soon as the servant opened it — she had the same brown bed- 
 gown on, the same grey stockings, and wooden sabots — the Squire 
 dexterously shpped past her into the passage to make sure of a 
 footing. She offered no opposition : drew back, in fact, to make 
 room. 
 
 " I must come in ; I have business here," said he, almost as if in 
 apology. 
 
 "The Messieurs are free to enter," was her answer; "but they 
 come to a house empty." 
 
 " I want to speak to Madame Brown," returned the Squire, in a 
 determined tone. 
 
 " Madame Brown and the Mees Browns are depart," she said. 
 " They depart at daylight this morning, by the first convoi." 
 
 We were in the front parlour then : a small room, barely fur- 
 nished. The Squire flew into one of his tempers : he thought the 
 servant was playing with him. Old Brandon sat down against the 
 wall, and nodded his head. He saw how it was— they had really 
 gone. 
 
 But the Squire stormed a little, and would not believe it. The 
 girl, catching one word in ten, for he talked very fast, wondered at 
 his anger. 
 
 The young gentlemans was at the place yesterday, she said, 
 glancing at me : it was a malheur but they had come up before the 
 morning, if they wanted so much to see Madame. 
 
 " She has not gone : I know better," roared the Squire. " Look 
 here, young woman — what's your name, though ? " 
 
 " Mathilde," said she, standing quite at ease, her hands turned 
 on her hips and her elbows out. 
 
 " Well, then, I warn you that it's of no use your trying to deceive 
 me. I shall go into every room of this house till I find Madame 
 Brown— and if you attempt to stop me, I'll bring the police up here. 
 Tell her that in French, Johnny." 
 
 " I hear," said Mathilde, who had a very deliberate way of speak- 
 ing. " I comprehend. The Messieurs go into the rooms if they 
 like, but I go with, to see they Jiot carry off any of the articles. This 
 is the salon." 
 
 Waiting for no further permission, he was out of the salon like 
 a shot. Mr. Brandon stayed nodding against the wall; he had 
 Bot the slightest reverence foi the Squire's diplomacy at any time.
 
 OVER THE WATER. 435 
 
 The girl slipped off her sabots and put her feet into some green 
 worsted slippers that stood in the narrow passage. My belief 
 was she thought we wanted to look over the house with a view to 
 taking it. 
 
 " It was small, but great enough for a salle a manger," she said, 
 showing the room behind — a little place that had literally nothing 
 in it but an oval dining-table, some matting, and six common chairs 
 against the walls. Upstairs were four bedrooms, bare also. As to 
 the fear of our carrying off any of the articles, we might have found 
 a difficulty in doing so. Except beds, chairs, drawers, and wash- 
 hand-stands, there was nothing to carry. Mrs. Brown and the Miss 
 Browns were not there : and the rooms were in as much order as if 
 they had not been occupied for a month. Mathilde had been at 
 them all the morning. The Squire's face was a picture when he 
 went down ; he began to realize the fact that he was once more left 
 in the lurch. 
 
 "It is much health up here, and the house fine," said the girl, 
 leaving her shoes in the passage side by side with the sabots, and 
 walking into the salon in her stockings, without ceremony ; " and if 
 the Messieurs thought to let it, and would desire to have a good 
 servant with it, 1 would be happy to serve them, me. I sleep in the 
 house, or at home, as my patrons please ; and I very good to make 
 the kitchen; and I " 
 
 " So you have not found them," interrupted old Brandon, sar- 
 castically. 
 
 The Squire gave a groan. He was put out, and no mistake. 
 Mathilde, in answer to questions, readily told all she knew. 
 
 About six weeks ago, she thought it was — but no, it must be 
 seven, now she remembered — Madame Brown and the four Mees 
 Browns took this house of the proprietaire, one Monsieur Bourgeois, 
 marchand d'epicerie, and engaged her as servant, recommended 
 to Madame by M. Bourgeois. Madame and the young ladies had 
 lived very quietly, giving but little trouble ; entrusted her to do 
 all the commissions at the butcher's and elsewhere, and never 
 questioned her fidelity in the matter of the sous received in 
 change at market. The previous day when she got home with 
 some pork and sausages, which she was going after when the 
 young gentlemans spoke to her — nodding to me — Madame was all 
 Ijouleversee ; first because Mees Constance had been down to the 
 town, which Madame did not like her to do ; next because of a 
 letter 
 
 At this point the Squire interrupted. Did she mean to imply that 
 the ladies never went out ? 
 
 No, never, continued ^Mathilde. Madame found herself not 
 strong to walk out, and it was not proper for the young demoiseUcs
 
 436 JOHXXY LUDLOW. 
 
 to go walk without her — as the Messieurs would doubtless under- 
 stand. But Mees Constance had ennui with that, and three or four 
 times she had walked out without Madame's knowing. Yesterday, 
 par exemple, Madame was storming at her when she (Mathilde) 
 came home with the meat, and the young ladies her sisters stormed 
 at her 
 
 " There ; enough of that," snapped the Squire. " What took them 
 away ? " 
 
 That was the letter, resumed the girl in her deliberate manner. 
 It was the other thing, that letter was, that had contributed to 
 Madame's bouleversement. The letter had been delivered by hand, 
 she supposed, while she was gone to the pork-shop ; it told Madame 
 the triste news of the illness of a dear relative; and Madame had 
 to leave at once, in consequence. There was confusion. Madame 
 and the young ladies packing, and she (Mathilde), when her dinner 
 had been cooked and eaten, running quick for the proprietaire, 
 who came back with her. Madame paid him up to the end of 
 the next week, when the month would be finished and — that 
 was all. 
 
 Old Brandon took up the word. " Mr. Brown ? — He was not 
 here at all, was he ? " 
 
 " Not at all," replied Mathilde. " Madame's fancy figured to her 
 he might be coming one of these soon days : if so, I refer him to 
 M. Bourgeois." 
 
 " Refer him for what ? " 
 
 " Nay, I not ask, monsieur. For the information, I conclude, of 
 where Madame go and why she go. Madame talk to the proprietaire 
 with the salon door shut." 
 
 So that was all we got. Mathilde readily gave AL Bourgeois's 
 address, and we went away. She had been civil through it all, and 
 the Squire shpped a franc into her hand. From the profusion of 
 thanks he received in return, it might have been a louis d'or. 
 
 Monsieur Bourgeois's shop was in the Upper Town, not far from 
 the convent of the Dames Ursulines. He said — ^speaking from be- 
 hind his counter while weighing out some coffee — that Madame 
 Brown had entrusted him with a sealed letter to Monsieur Brown 
 in case he arrived. It contained, Madame had remarked to him, 
 only a line or two to explain where they had gone, as he would 
 naturally be disappointed at not finding them ; and she had con- 
 fided the trust to him that he would only deliver it into M. Brown's 
 own hand. He did not know where Madame had gone. As M. 
 Bourgeois did not speak a word of English, or the Squire a word of 
 French, it's hard to say when they would have arrived at an expla- 
 nation, left to themselves. 
 
 " Now look here," said Mr. Brandon, in his dry, but uncommonly
 
 OVER THE WATER. 437 
 
 clear-sighted way, as we went home, " Clement-PelTs expected here. 
 We must keep a sharp watch on the boats." 
 
 The Squire did not see it. " As if he'd remain in England all 
 this time, Brandon ! " 
 
 " We don't know where he has stayed. I have thought all along 
 he was as likely to be in England as elsewhere : there's no place a 
 man's safer in, well concealed. The very fact of his wife and 
 daughters remaining in this frontier town would be nearly enough 
 to prove that he was still in England." 
 
 "Then why on earth did he stay there?" retorted the .Squire. 
 '■ Why has he not got away before ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Might fear there was danger perhaps in making 
 the attempt. He has lain perdu in some quiet corner; and now 
 that he thinks the matter has partly blown over and the scent is 
 less keen, he means to come over. That's what his wife has waited 
 for." 
 
 The Squire seemed to grasp the whole at once. '' I wonder when 
 he will be here r " 
 
 '• Within a day or two, you may be sure, or not at all," said 
 Mr. Brandon, with a nod. " She'll write to stop his coming, if she 
 knows where to write to. The sight of Johnny Ludlow has 
 startled her. You were a great muff to let yourself be seen, young 
 Johnny." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I know I was." 
 
 "Live and learn, live and learn," said he, bringing out his tin 
 box. " One cannot put old heads upon young shoulders." 
 
 Sunday morning. After breakfast I and Mr. Brandon were 
 standing under the porte-cocht^re, looking about us. At the bank- 
 ing house opposite ; at a man going into the chemist's shop with 
 his hand tied up ; at the marchand-de-coco with his gay attire and 
 jingling bells and noisy tra-la-la-la : at anything, in short, there 
 might be to see, and so while away the half-hour before church- 
 time. The Squire had gone strolling out, saying he should be back 
 in time for service. People were passing down towards the port, 
 little groups of them in twos and threes ; apart from the maid- 
 servants in their white caps, who were coming back from mass. 
 One of the hotel waiters stood near us, his white napkin in his hand. 
 He suddenly remarked, with the easy affability of the French of his 
 class (which, so far as I know, and I have seen more of France 
 since then, never degenerates into disrespect), that some of these 
 people might be expecting friends by the excursion boat, and were 
 goincT down to see it come in.
 
 438 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " What excursion boat ? " asked Mr. Brandon of the waiter, quicker 
 than he generally spoke. 
 
 " One from Ramsgate," the man replied. " It was to leave the 
 other side very early, so as to get to Boulogne by ten o'clock ; and 
 to depart again at six in the afternoon." Mr. Brandon looked at 
 the speaker; and then at me. Putting his hand on my shoulder, 
 he drew me towards the port ; charging the waiter to be sure and 
 tell Mr. Todhetley when he returned, that we had gone to see the 
 Ramsgate boat come in. It was past ten then. 
 
 " If Clenient-Pcll comes at all it will be by this excursion boat, 
 Johnny," said he impressively, as we hurried on. 
 
 " Why do you think so, Mr. Brandon ? " 
 
 " Well, I do think so. The people who make excursion trips are 
 not those likely to know him, or of whom he would be afraid. He 
 will conceal himself on it amongst the crowd. It is Sunday also — 
 another reason. What flag is that up on the signal-post by the pier 
 house, Johnny? Your eyes are younger than mine." 
 
 " It is the red one, sir," 
 
 " For a steamer in sight. She is not in yet then. It must be for 
 her. It's hardly likely there would be another one coming in this 
 morning." 
 
 " There she is ! " I exclaimed. For at that moment I caught 
 sight in the distance of a steamer riding on close up to the harbour 
 mouth, pitching a little in her course. 
 
 "Run you on, Johnny," said Mr. Brandon, in excitement. " I'll 
 come as quickly as I can, but my legs are not as fleet as yours. 
 Get a place close to the cords, and look out sharply." 
 
 It was a bright day, somewhat colder than it had been, and the 
 wind high enough to make it tolerably rough for any but good 
 sailors— as the sparkles of white foam on the blue sea betrayed. 
 I secured a good place behind the cord, close to the landing-stage : 
 a regular crowd had collected, early though it was, Sunday being an 
 idle day with some ot the French. The boat came in, was being 
 moored fast below us, and was crowded with pale faces. 
 
 Up came the passengers, mounting the almost perpendicular 
 gangway : assisted by the boatmen, below ; and l)y two appariteurs, 
 in their cocked hats and Sunday clothes, above. It was nearly low 
 water : another quarter-of-an-hour and they'd have missed their 
 tide : pleasant, that would have been, for the excursionists. As 
 only one could ascend the ladder at once, I had the opportunity of 
 seeing them all. 
 
 Scores came : my sight was growing half-confused : and there 
 had been no one resembling Clement-Pell. Some of them looked 
 fearfully ill still, and had not put up the ears of their caps or turned 
 down their coat collars ; so that to get a good view of these faces
 
 OVER THE WATER. 439 
 
 was not possible — and Clement-Pell might have already landed, for 
 all I could be sure of to the contrary. Cloaks were common in those 
 days, and travelling caps had long ears to them. 
 
 It was quite a stroke of fortune. A lady with a little boy behind 
 her came up the ladder, and the man standing next to me — he was 
 vary tall and big — went at once into a state of excitement. " C'est 
 toi ! c'est toi, ma soeur ! " he called out. She turned at the voice, 
 and a batch of kissing ensued. A stout dame pushed forward 
 frantically to share the kissing : but a douanier angrily marched 
 off the passenger towards the custom-house. She retorted on him 
 not to be so difficile, turned round and said she must wait for her 
 other little one. Altogether there was no end of chatter and com- 
 motion. I was eclipsed and pushed back into the shade. 
 
 The other child was appearing over the top of the ladder then ; 
 a mite of a girl, her face held close to the face of the gentleman 
 carrying her. I supposed he was the husband. He wore a cloak, 
 his cap was drawn well over his eyebrows, and very little could be 
 seen of him but his hands and his nose. Was he the husband ? 
 The mother, thanking him volubly in broken English for his polite- 
 ness in carrying up her little girl, would have taken her from him; 
 but he motioned as if he would carry her to the custom-house, and 
 stepped onward, looking neither to the left nor right. At that 
 moment my tall neighbour and the stout dame raised a loud greeting 
 to the child, clapping their hands and blowing kisses : the man put 
 out his long arm and pulled at the sleeve of the young one's pelisse. 
 It caused the gentleman to halt and look round. Enough to make 
 him. 
 
 Why — where had I seen the eyes ? They were close to mine, and 
 seemed quite familiar. Then remembrance flashed over me. They 
 were Clement-Pell's. 
 
 It is almost the only thing about a man or woman that cannot 
 be disguised — the expression of the eyes. Once you are famihar 
 with any one's eye, and have learned its expression by heart ; the 
 soul that looks out of it ; you cannot be mistaken in the eye, 
 though you meet it in a desert, and its owner be disguised as a 
 cannibal. 
 
 But for the eyes, I should never have known him, got up, as he 
 was, with false red hair. He went straight on instantly, not sus- 
 pecting I was there, for the two had hidden me. The little child's 
 face was pressed close to Mr. Pell's as he went on ; a feeling came 
 over me that he was carrying it, the better to conceal himself. As 
 he went into the custom-house, I pushed backwards out of the 
 crowd ; saw Mr. Brandon, and whispered to him. He nodded 
 quietly ; as much as to say he thought Pell would come. 
 
 " Johnny, we must follow him : but we must not let him sec us on
 
 440 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 any account. I dare say he is going all the way up to Maquetra— 
 or whatever you call the place." 
 
 Making our way round to the door by which the passengers were 
 let out, we mixed with the mob and waited. The custom-house was 
 not particular with Sunday excursionists, and they came swarming 
 out by dozens. When Pell appeared, I jogged Mr. Brandon's 
 elbow. 
 
 The touters, proclaiming the merits of their respective hotels, and 
 thrusting their cards in Pell's face, seemed to startle him, for he 
 shrank back. Comprehending the next moment, he said, No, no, 
 passed on to the carriages, and stepped into one that was closed. 
 The driver was a couple of minutes at least, taking his orders : 
 perhaps there was some bother, the one jabbering French, the 
 other English. But the coach drove off at last. 
 
 " Now then, Johnny, for that other closed coach. We shall have 
 to do without church this morning. Mind you make the coachman 
 understand what he is to do," 
 
 " Suivez cette voiture qui vient de partir ; mais pas trop pres." 
 The man gave back a hearty " Oui, monsieur," as if he understood 
 the case. 
 
 It was a slow journey. The first coach did not hurry itself, and 
 took by-ways to its destination. It turned into the Rue de la 
 Coupe, opposite our hotel, went through the Rue de I'Hopital, and 
 thence to regions unknown. All I knew was, we went up a hill 
 worse than that of the Grande Rue, and arrived circuitously at 
 Maqudtra. Mr. Brandon had stretched his head out as we passed 
 the hotel, but could not see the Squire. 
 
 " It's his aftair, you know, Johnny. Not mine." 
 
 Clement Pell got out at his gate, and went in. We followed 
 cautiously, and found the house-door on the latch, Mathilde having 
 probably forgotten to close it after admitting Mr. Pell. They stood 
 in the salon : Mathilde in a handsome light chintz gown and white 
 stockings and shoes, for she had been to nine-o'clock mass ; he with 
 a strangely perplexed, blank expression on his face as he listened 
 to her explanation. 
 
 " Yes, iiionsieur, it is sure they are depart ; it is but the morning 
 of yesterday. The proprietaire, he have the letter for you that 
 Madame confide to him. He— Tiens, voici encore ces Messieurs 1 " 
 
 Surprise at our appearance must have caused her change of 
 language. Clement-Pell gave one look at us and turned his face 
 to the window, hoping to escape unrecognized. Mr. Brandon 
 ordered me to the English church in the Upper Town, saying I 
 should not be very late for that, and told Mathilde he did not want 
 her. 
 
 " I shall make the little promenade and meet my bon-ami,"
 
 OVER THE WATER. 441 
 
 observed Mathildc, independently, as I proceeded to do as I was 
 bid. And what took place between the two we left can only be 
 related at second hand. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Pell, will you spare me your attention ?" began Mr. 
 Brandon. 
 
 Clement- Pell turned, and took off his cloak and cap, seeing that 
 it would be worse than useless to attempt to keep up the farce. 
 With the red wig on his head and the red hair on his face, no 
 unobservant man would then have recognized him for the great 
 cx-financier. 
 
 Mr. Brandon was cold, uncompromising, but civil; Clement-Pell 
 at first subdued and humble. Taking courage after a bit, he became 
 slightly restive, somewhat inclined to be insolent. 
 
 " It is a piece of assurance for you to come here at all, sir ; 
 tracking me over my very threshold, as if you were a detective 
 officer. What is the meaning of it ? I don't owe you money." 
 
 " I have told you the meaning," replied Mr. Brandon — feeling 
 tliat his voice had never been more squeaky, but showing no sign 
 of wrath. " The affair is not mine at all, but Squire Todhetley's, 
 I was down on the port when you landed — went to look for you, 
 in fact; the Squire did not happen to be in the way, so I followed 
 you up in his place." 
 
 •' With what object ? " 
 
 " Why, dear me, IVIr. Pell, you are not deaf. I mentioned the 
 object ; the Squire wants his two hundred pounds refunded. A 
 very clever trick, your getting it from him ! " 
 
 Clement-Pell drew in his lips; his face had no more colour in it 
 than chalk. He sat with his back to the wall, his hands restlessly 
 playing with his steel watch-chain. What had come of the thick 
 gold one he used to wear ? Mr. Brandon had a chair near the table, 
 and faced him. 
 
 " Perhaps you would like me to refund to you all my creditors' 
 money wholesale, as well as Mr. Todhetley's?" retorted Clement- 
 Pell, mockingly. 
 
 •' I have nothing to do with them, Mr. Pell. Neither, I imagine, 
 does Mr. Todhetley intend to make their business his. Let each 
 man mind his own course, and stand or fall by it. If you choose 
 to assure me )0U don't owe a fraction to any one else in the world, 
 I shall not tell you that you do. I am speaking now for my friend, 
 Squire Todhetley : I would a great deal rather he were here to deal 
 with you himself; but action has accidentally been forced upon 
 me." 
 
 " I know that I owe a good deal of money ; or, rather, that a good 
 many people have lost money through me," returned Clement- Pell, 
 after a pause. " It's my misfortune; not my fault."
 
 442 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Mr. Brandon gave a dry cough. " As to its not being your fault, 
 Mr. Pell, the less said about that the better. It was in your power 
 to pull up in time, I conclude, when you first saw things were going 
 wrong." 
 
 Clement- Pell lifted his hand to his forehead, as if he felt a pain 
 there. " You don't know ; you don't know," he said irritably, — a 
 great deal of impatience in his tone. 
 
 "No, I'm thankful that I (^(?;/'/," said Mr. Brandon, taking out 
 his tin box, and coolly eating a lozenge. " I am very subject to 
 heartburn, Mr. Pell. If ever you get it try magnesia lozenges. 
 An upset, such as this affair of yours has been, would drive a man 
 of my nerves into a lunatic asylum." 
 
 " It may do the same by me before I have done with it," returned 
 Clement Pell. And Mr. Brandon thought he meant what he said. 
 
 " Any way, it is rumoured that some of those who are ruined will 
 be there before long, Mr. Pell. You might, perhaps, feel a qualm 
 of conscience if you saw the misery it has entailed." 
 
 "And do you think I don't feel it ? " returned Mr. Pell, catching 
 his breath. " You are mistaken, if you suppose I do not." 
 
 "' About Squire Todhetley's two hundred pounds, sir ? " resumed 
 old Brandon, swallowing the last of the lozenge. " Is it convenient 
 to you to give it me ? " 
 
 " No, it is not," was the decided answer. And he seemed to be 
 turning restive again. 
 
 " But I will thank you to do so, Mr. Pell." 
 
 " I cannot do so." 
 
 " And not to make excuses over it. They will only waste time." 
 
 " I have not got the money ; I cannot give it." 
 
 Upon that they set on again, hammer and tongs. Mr. Brandon 
 insisting upon the money ; Pell vowing that he had it not, and could 
 not and would not give so much as a ten-pound note of it. Old 
 Brandon never lost his temper, never raised his voice . but he said 
 a thing or two that must have stung Pell's pride. At the end of 
 twenty minutes, he was no nearer the money than before. Pell's 
 patience gave signs of wearing out : I\Ir. Brandon could have gone 
 quietly on till bed-time. 
 
 " You must be aware that this is not a simple debt, Mr. Pell. It 
 is — in fact — something worse. For your own sake, it may be well 
 to refund it." 
 
 " Once more I say I cannot." 
 
 " Am I to understand that is as much as to say you will not ? " 
 
 " If you like to take it so. It is most painful to me, Mr. Bran- 
 don, to have to meet you in this spirit, but you force it on me. The 
 case is this : I am not able to refund the debt to Squire Todhetley, 
 and he has no power to enforce his claim to it." ■
 
 OVER THE WATER. 443 
 
 " I don't know that." 
 
 " I do though. It is best to be plain, as we have come to this, 
 Mr. Brandon ; and then perhaps you will bring the interview to an 
 end, and leave me in peace. You have no power over me in this 
 country; none whatever. Before you can obtain that, there are 
 certain forms and ceremonies to be gone through in a legal court ; 
 you must make over the " 
 
 " Squire Todhetley's is not a case of debt,'" interrupted old Bran- 
 don. " If it were, he would have no right in honour to come here 
 and seek payment over the heads of the other creditors." 
 
 " It is a case of debt, and nothing else. As debt only could you 
 touch me upon it here — and not then until you have proved it and 
 got judgment upon it in England. Say, if you will, that I have 
 committed murder or forged bank-notes — you could not touch me 
 here unless the French government gave me up at the demand of 
 the English government. Get all the police in the town to this 
 room if you will, Mr. Brandon, and they would only laugh at you. 
 They have no power over me. I have committed no offence against 
 this country." 
 
 " Look here," said old Brandon, nodding his head. " I know a 
 bit about French law ; perhaps as much as you : knew it years ago. 
 What you say is true enough ; an Englishman, whether debtor or 
 criminal, in his own land, cannot be touched here, unless certain 
 forms and ceremonies, as you express it, are first gone through. 
 But you have rendered yourself amenable to French law on another 
 point, Clement-Pell ; I could consign you to the police this moment, 
 if I chose, and they would have to take you." 
 
 Clement-Pell quite laughed at what he thought the useless boast. 
 But he might have known old Brandon better. "What is my 
 crime, sir?" 
 
 " You have come here and are' staying here under a false name 
 — Brown. That is a crime in the eyes of the French law ; and one 
 that the police, if they get to know of it, are obliged to take cog- 
 nizance of." 
 
 '" No ! " ex-claimed Clement- Pell, his face changing a little. 
 
 " Yes,^^ said Mr. Brandon. " Were I to give you up for it to-day, 
 they would put you on board the first boat leaving for your own 
 country. Once on the opposite shore, you may judge whether 
 Squire Todhetley would let you escape again."' 
 
 It was all true. Mr. Pell saw that it was so. His fingers ner- 
 vously trembled ; his pale face wore a piteous aspect. 
 
 " You need not be afraid of me ; I am not likely to do it," said 
 Mr. Brandon : " I do not think the Squire would. But you see now 
 what lies within his power. Therefore I would recommend you to 
 come to terms with him.""
 
 444 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Clement-Pell rubbed his brow with his handkerchief. He was 
 driven into a corner. 
 
 " I have told you truth, Mr. Brandon, in saying that I am not 
 able to repay the two hundred pounds. I am not. Will he take 
 half of it ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell. I have no authority for saying that he will." 
 
 " Then I suppose he must come up here. As it has come to this, 
 I had better see him. If he will accept one hundred pounds, and 
 undertake not to molest me further, I will hand it over to him. It 
 will leave me almost without means : but you have got me in a hole. 
 Stay a moment — a thought strikes me. Are there any more of 
 my creditors in the town at your back, Mr. Brandon ? '' 
 
 " Not that I am aware of. I have seen none." 
 
 " On your honour ? " 
 
 Mr. Brandon opened his little eyes, and took a stare at Pell. " My 
 word is the same as mv honour, sir. Always has been and always 
 will be." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. A man, driven to my position, naturally 
 fears an enemy at every corner. And — if my enemies were to find 
 me out here, they might be too much for me." 
 
 "Of course they would be," assented Mr. Brandon, by way of 
 comfort. 
 
 "Will you go for Squire Todhetley ? What is done, must be 
 done to-day, for I shall be away by the first train in the morning." 
 
 Shrewd old Brandon considered the matter before speaking. " By 
 the time I get back here with the Squire you may have already 
 taken your departure, Mr. Pell." 
 
 " No, on my honour. How should I be able to do it? No train 
 leaves the town before six to-night : the water is low in the harbour 
 and no boat could get out. As it has come to this, I will see Squire 
 Todhetley : and the sooner the better." 
 
 " I will trust you," said Mr. Brandon. 
 
 " Time was when I was deemed more worthy of trust : perhaps 
 was more worthy of it," — and tears involuntarily rose to his eyes. 
 " Mr. Brandon, believe me — no man has suffered by this as I have 
 suffered. Do you think I did it for pleasure? — or to afford myself 
 wicked gratification ! No. I would have forfeited nearly all my 
 remaining life to prevent the smash. My affairs got into their 
 awful state by degrees; and I had not the power to retrieve them. 
 God alone knows what the penalty has been to me — and what it will 
 be to my life's end." 
 
 " Ay. I can picture it pretty tolerably, Mr. Pell." 
 
 " No one can picture it," he returned, with emotion. " Look at 
 my ruined family — the position of my sons and daughters. Not one 
 of them can hold up their heads in the world again without the
 
 OVER THE WATER. 445 
 
 consciousness that they may be pointed at as the children of Clement- 
 Pell the swindler. What is to be their future ? — how are they to 
 get along ? You must have heard many a word of abuse applied 
 to me lately, Mr. Brandon: but there are few men on this earth 
 more in need of compassion than 1 — if misery and suffering can 
 bring the need. When morning breaks, I wish the day was done ; 
 when night comes, I toss and turn and wonder how I shall li\e 
 through it." 
 
 " I am sorry for you," said Mr. Brandon, moved to pity, for he 
 saw how the man needed it. " Were I you, I would go back home 
 and face my debts. Face the trouble, and in time you may be able 
 to live it down." 
 
 Clement-Pell shook his head hopelessly. Had it been debt alone, 
 he might never have come away. 
 
 The sequel to all this had yet to come. Perhaps some of you 
 may guess it. I\Ir. Brandon pounced upon the Squire as he was 
 coming out of church in the Rue du Temple, and took him back in 
 another coach. Arrived at the house, they found the door fast. 
 Mathilde appeared presently, arm-in-arm with her sweetheart — a 
 young man in white boots with ear-rings in his ears. '• Was M. 
 Brown of depart," she repeated, in answer to the Squire's impulsive 
 (|uestion : but no, certainly he was not. And she gave them the 
 following information. 
 
 When she returned after midday, she found M. Brown all im- 
 patience, waiting for her to show him the way to the house of Mon- 
 sieur Bourgeois, that he might claim Madame's letter. When they 
 reached the shop, it had only the fille de boutique in it. Monsieur 
 the patron was out making a promenade, the fille de boutique said 
 he might be home possibly for the shutting up at two o'clock. 
 
 Upon that, M. Brown decided to make a little promenade him- 
 self until two o'clock; and Mathilde, she made a further promenade 
 on her own account : and had now come up, before two, to get the 
 door open. Such was her explanation. If the gentlemans would 
 be at the pains of sitting down in the salon, without doubt M. 
 Brown would not long retard. 
 
 They sat down. The clock struck two. They sat on, and the 
 clock struck three. Not until then did any thought arise that 
 Clement-Pell might not keep faith with them. Mathilde's freely 
 expressed opinion was that M. Brown, being strange to the town, 
 had lost himself. She ran to the grocer's shop again, and found it 
 shut up : evidently no one was there. 
 
 Four o'clock, five o'clock ; and no Mr. Brown. They gave him 
 up then ; it seemed quite certain that he had given them the slip.
 
 446 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Starving with hunger, exploding with anger, the Squire took his 
 wrathful way back to the hotel : Mr. Brandon was calm and sucked 
 his magnesia lozenges. Clement- Pell was a rogue to the last. 
 
 There came to Mr. Brandon the following morning, through the 
 Boulogne post-office, a note ; on which he had to pay five sous. It 
 was from Clement- Pell, written in pencil. He said that when he 
 made the agreement with Mr. Brandon never a thought crossed 
 him of not keeping faith : but that while he was waiting about for 
 the return of the grocer who held his wife's letter, he saw an 
 Englishman come off the ramparts — a creditor who knew him well 
 and would be sure to deliver him up, were it in his power, if he 
 caught sight of him. It struck him, Clement- Pell, with a panic ; 
 he considered that he had only one course left open to him — and 
 that was to get away from the place at once and in the quietest 
 manner he was able. There was a message to Mr. Todhetley to 
 the effect that he would send him the hundred pounds later if he 
 could. Throughout the whole letter ran a vein of despairing sad- 
 ness, according with what he had said to Mr. Brandon j and the 
 Squire's heart was touched. 
 
 "After all, Brandon, the fellow is to be pitied. It's a frightful 
 position : enough to make a man lose heart for good and all. I'm 
 not sure that I should have taken the hundred pounds from him." 
 
 " That's more than probable," returned old Brandon, drily. " It 
 remains a question, though, in my mind, whether he did see the 
 creditor and did ' take a panic ; ' or whether both are not invented 
 to cover his precipitate departure with the hundred pounds." 
 
 How he got away from the town we never knew. The proba- 
 bility was, that he had walked to the first station after Boulogne 
 on the Paris railroad, and there taken the evening train. And 
 whether he had presented himself again at Monsieur Bourgeois's 
 shop, that excellent tradesman, who did not return home until ten 
 on Sunday night, was unable to say. Any way, M. Bourgeois held 
 the letter yet in safety. So the chances are, that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Pell .are still dodging about the earth in search of each other, after 
 the fashion of the Wandering Jew. 
 
 And that's a true account of our visit to Boulogne after Clement- 
 Pell. Mr. Brandon calls it to this hour a wild-goose chase : cer- 
 tainly it turned out a fruitless one. But we had a good passage 
 back again, the sea as calm as a mill-pond.
 
 XXVI. 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 
 
 It has often been in my mind to tell of John Whitney's death. 
 You %\ill say it is too sad and serious for a paper. But it is well 
 to have serious thoughts brought before us at certain seasons. 
 This is one of them : seeing that it's the beginning of a new year, 
 and that every year takes us nearer to another life whether we arc 
 old or whether we are young. * 
 
 Some of them thought his illness might never have come on but 
 for an accident that happened. It is quite a mistake. The accident 
 had nothing to do with the later illness. Sir John and Lady 
 Whitney could tell you so as well as I. John was always one of 
 those sensitive, thoughtful, religious boys that somehow don't seem 
 so fit for earth as heaven. 
 
 " Now mind, you boys," cried Sir John to us at breakfast. 
 "There's just a thin coating of ice on the lake and ponds, but it 
 won't bear. Don't any of you venture on it." 
 
 " We Avill not, sir," replied John, who was the most obedient son 
 living. 
 
 There's not much to be done in the way of out-door sports when 
 snow lies on the ground. Crowding round the children's play-room 
 window later, all the lot of us, we looked out on a white landscape. 
 Snow lodged on the* trees, hid the grass in the fields, covered the 
 hiUs in the distance. 
 
 " It's an awful sell," cried Bill Whitney and Tod nearly in a 
 breath. " No hunting, no shooting, and no nothing. The ponds 
 won't bear ; snowballing's common. One might as well lie in bed." 
 
 " And what sort of a ' sell ' do you suppose it is for the poor men 
 who are thrown out of work?" asked Sir John, who had come in, 
 reading a newspaper, and was airing his back at the fire. " Their 
 work and wages are stopped, and they can't earn bread for their 
 children. You boys are dreadfully to be pitied, you are ! " 
 
 He tilted his steel spectacles up on his good old red nose, and 
 nodded to us. Harry, the pert one of the family, answered. 
 
 * Written for the January nuinber of The Argosy, 1872.
 
 448 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 '• Well, p:ipa, and it is a settler for us boys to have our fun spoiled. 
 As to the working-men — oh, they are used to it." 
 
 Sir John stared at him for a full minute. " If I thought you said 
 that from your heart, Mr. Harry, I'd order you from my presence. 
 No son of mine shall get into the habit of making unfeeling speeches, 
 even in jest." 
 
 Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry's words had really vexed 
 him. John broke the silence. 
 
 " Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place," he said, in his 
 ciuiet voice, that somehow always had a tone of thoughtfulness in 
 it, even when at play with the rest of us at old Frost's, " I shall 
 make a point of paying my labourers' wages in full this wintry 
 time, just the same as though they worked. It is not their fault 
 that they are idle." 
 
 Sir John started at hi)n now. '' What d'ye mean by ' if you live,' 
 
 lad?" 
 
 John considered. The words had slipped from him without any 
 special thought at all. People use such tigurcs of speech. It was 
 odd though, when we came to remember it a long while afterwards, 
 that he should have said it just that one day. 
 
 " I recollect a frost that lasted fourteen weeks, boys," said Sir 
 John. "That was in 1814. They held a fair on the Thames, we 
 heard, and roasted an ox whole on it. Get a frost to last all that 
 time, and you'd soon tire of paying wages for nothing, John." 
 
 " But, father, what else could I do — or ought I to do ? I could 
 not let them starve— or break up their poor homes by going into 
 the workhouse. I should fear that some time, in return, God might 
 break up mine." 
 
 Sir John smiled. John was so very earnest always when he took 
 up a serious matter. Letting the question drop, Sir John lowered 
 his spectacles, and went out with his newspaper. Presently we 
 saw him going round to the farm-yard in his great-coat and beaver 
 gaiters. John sat down near the fire and took up a book he was 
 fond of—" Sintram." 
 
 This was Old Christmas Day. Tod and I had come over to 
 Whitney Hall for a week, and two days of it were already gone. 
 We liked being there, and the time seemed to fly. Tod and Bill 
 still stood staring and grumbling at the snow, wishing the frost 
 would get worse, or go. Harry went out whistling ; Helen sat 
 down with a yawn. 
 
 " Anna, there's a skein of blue silk in that workbag behind you. 
 Get it out and hold it for me to wind." 
 
 Anna, who was more like John in disposition than any ot them, 
 always good and gentle, got the silk ; and they began to wind it. 
 In the midst of it. Harrv burst in with a terrific shout, dressed up
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 449 
 
 as a bear, and trying to upset every one. In the confusion Anna 
 dropped the silk on the carpet, and Helen boxed her ears. 
 
 John looked up from his book. "You should not do that, 
 Helen." 
 
 " What does she drop the silk for, then — careless thing ! " retorted 
 Helen, who was quick in temper. " Once soil that light shade of 
 blue, and it can't be used. You mind yourself John." 
 
 John looked at them both. At Helen, taking up the silk from 
 the floor ; at Anna, who was struggling to keep down her tears 
 under the infliction, because Tod was present. She wouldn't have 
 minded me. John said no more. He had a very nice face without 
 much colour in it ; dark hair, and large grey-blue eyes that seemed 
 to be always looking out for something they did not see. He was 
 sixteen then, upright and slender. All the world liked John 
 Whitney. 
 
 Later on in the day we were running races in the broad walk, 
 that was so shady in summer. The whole of us. The high laurel 
 hedges on either side had kept the snow from drifting, and it hardly 
 lay there at all. We gave the girls a third of the run, and they 
 generally beat us. After an hour of this, tired and hot, we gave in, 
 and dispersed different ways. John and I went towards the lake 
 to see whether the ice was getting thicker, talking of school and 
 school interests as we went along. Old Frost's grounds were in 
 view, which naturally put us in mind of the past : and especially of 
 the great event of the half year— the sad fate of Archie Hearn. 
 
 " Poor little Hearn ! " he exclaimed. " I did feel his death, and 
 no mistake. That is, I felt for his mother. I think, Johnny, if I 
 could have had the chance offered me, I would have died myself to 
 let him Hve." 
 
 " That's easier said than done— if it came to the offer, Whitney." 
 
 " Well, yes it is. She had no one but him, you see. And to 
 think of her coming into the school that time and saying she for- 
 gave the fellow— whoever it was. I've often wondered whether 
 Barrington had cause to feel it." 
 
 " She is just like her face, Whitney— good. I've hardly ever seen 
 a face I like as much as Mrs. Hearn's." 
 
 John Whitney laughed a little. They all did at my likes and dis- 
 
 likes of faces. " I was reading a book the other day, Johnny 
 
 See that poor httle robin! " he broke off. " It looks starved, and 
 it must have its nest somewhere. I have some biscuit in my 
 pocket." 
 
 It came into my head, as he dived into his pocket and scattered 
 the crumbs, that he had brought the supply out for these stray birds. 
 But if I write for ever I could not make you understand the thought- 
 fulness of John Whitney. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. — I. ^^
 
 450 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Hark, Johnny ! What's that ? » 
 
 Cries, screams, sobs. We were near the end of the walk then and 
 rushed out, Anna met us in a dreadful state of agitation. Charley 
 was in the lake ! Whitney caught the truth before I did, and was 
 off like a shot. 
 
 The nurse, Willis, was dancing frantically about at the water's 
 edge; the children roared. Willis said Master Charles had shpped 
 on to the ice " surrepstitiously " when her back was turned, and had 
 gone souse in. John Whitney had already plunged in after his 
 little brother; his coat, jacket, and waistcoat were lying on the 
 bank. William Whitney and Tod, hearing the noise, came rush- 
 ing up. 
 
 " Mamma sent me to tell nurse they had been out long enough, 
 and were to come in," sobbed Anna, shaking hke a leaf. " While 
 I was giving her the message, Charley fell in. Oh, what will be 
 done ? " 
 
 That was just like Anna. Helen would have been cool as a 
 cucumber. Done ? Why, John had already saved him. The 
 ice, not much thicker than a shilling, and breaking whenever 
 touched, hardly impeded him at all. Bill and Tod knelt down and 
 lent hands, and they were landed like a couple of drowned rats, 
 Charley howling with all his might. John, always thoughtfiri, 
 wrapped his great-coat round the lad, and the other two went off 
 with him to the house. 
 
 John caught a cold. Not very much of one. He was hot, you 
 see, when he plunged in ; and he had only his jacket to put on over 
 his wet clothes to walk home in. Not much of a cold, I say ; but 
 he never seemed to be quite the same after that day : and when all 
 was over they would date his illness back from it. Old Featherstone 
 physicked him ; and the days passed on. 
 
 " I can't think why John should be so feverish," Lady Whit- 
 ney would remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks 
 scarlet, and he did not eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state 
 of things ; so one day Sir John took him into Worcester to Mr. 
 Carden. 
 
 Mr, Carden did not seem to think much of it — as we heard over 
 at Dyke Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any 
 other vital part. He changed the medicine that Featherstone had 
 been giving, and said he saw no present reason why John should 
 not go back to school. Sir John, standing by in his old spectacles, 
 listening and looking, caught up the words " at present " and asked 
 Mr. Carden whether he had any particular meaning in saying it. 
 But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant blue eyes 
 straight into Sir John's, he assured him that he did not anticipate 
 mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped, that, once
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 451 
 
 J ohn was back with his studies and his companions, he would recover 
 tone and be as well as ever. 
 
 And Mr. Garden's physic did good; for when Whitney came 
 back after the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney 
 gave five hundred directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was 
 to eat and drink, Hall being had in to assist at the conference. 
 The rest of us rather wished for fevers ourselves, if they entailed 
 beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly between meals. He did his 
 lessons ; and he came out in the playground, though he did not 
 often join in play, especially rough play : and he went for walks 
 with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he was allowed 
 liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and weaker : 
 and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Garden came over to 
 Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not dis- 
 cover any : but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It 
 was left to John to decide whether he would go back to school after 
 Easter, or not : and he said he should like to go. And so the weeks 
 went on again. 
 
 We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, 
 I suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as 
 though he were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard 
 to solve. Any quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: 
 he'd come up with his gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to 
 part the disputants, and did not rest until he had made peace. 
 Wolfe Barrington, with one of his sneers, said Whitney's nerves 
 were out of joint. Once or twice we saw him reading a pocket- 
 Bible. It's quite true. And there was something in his calm 
 face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have 
 ridiculed. 
 
 " I say, Whitney, have you heard ? " I asked. " The Doctor 
 means to have the playground enlarged for next half. Part of the 
 field is to be taken in." 
 
 " Does he ? " returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of 
 May, and a half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. 
 I stayed with Whitney, because he'd be dull alone. We were lean- 
 ing over the playground gate. 
 
 " Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, 
 Whitney, you did not come in to them." 
 
 " I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny." 
 
 " I am glad it's going to be done, though. Are not you ? " 
 
 " It won't make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be 
 here." 
 
 " Not here ! " 
 
 " I don't think so." 
 
 His chin rested on his hands above the gate. His eyes were
 
 452 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 gazing out straight before him ; looking — as I said before — for 
 something they did not see. 
 
 " Do you think you shall be too ill to come next half, Whitney ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 " Are you feeling worse ? " I asked after a minute or two, taken 
 up with staring at the sky. 
 
 " That's what they are always asking me indoors ? " he re- 
 marked. " It's just this, Johnny ; I don't feel worse from day to 
 day ; I could not say any one morning that I feel a shade worse 
 than I did the previous one : but when I look back a few weeks or 
 months ; say, for example, to the beginning of the half, or at Easter, 
 and remember how very well I was then, compared with what I am 
 now, I know that I must be a great deal worse. I could not do n<yw 
 what I did then. Why ! I quite believe I might have gone in for 
 Hare-and-Hounds then, if I had chosen. Fancy my trying it 
 now ! " 
 
 " But you don't have any pain." 
 
 "None. I'm only weak and tired; always feeling to want to lie 
 down and rest. Every bit of strength and energy has gone out of 
 me, Johnny." 
 
 " You'll get well," I said hastily. 
 
 *' I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 " Don't you want to .'' " It was his cool answer made mc 
 ask it. 
 
 " Why, of course I do. 
 
 " Well then ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you, Johnny Ludlow ; there is a feeling within me, and 
 I can't say why it's there or whence it comes, that's always saying 
 to me I shall noi get well. At least, whenever I think about it. It 
 seems just as though it were telling me that instead of getting well 
 it will be — be just the opposite." 
 
 " What a dreadful thing to have, Whitney ! It must be like a 
 fellow going about with a skeleton ! " 
 
 " Not at all dreadful. It never frightens me, or worries me. Just 
 as the rest of you look forward naturally to coming back here, and 
 living out your lives to be men, and all that, so I seem no^ to look 
 to it. The feeling has nothing bad at all about it. If it had, I dare 
 say it would not be there." 
 
 I stood on the small gate and took a swing. It pained me to hear 
 him say this. 
 
 " I suppose you mean, Whitney, that you may be going to 
 die ? " 
 
 " That's about it, Johnny. I don't know it ; I may get well, 
 after all." 
 
 " But you don't think you will ? "
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 453 
 
 " No, I don't. Little Hearn first ; I next. Another ought to 
 follow, to make the third." 
 
 " You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney ! " 
 
 " Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed." 
 
 " Most of us would be daunted, at any rate." 
 
 " Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, 
 I am getting to think a great deal ; to have a sort of insight that 1 
 never had before ; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things 
 are ordered." 
 
 If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, 
 I could not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. 
 It was more in Mrs. Frost's line than in ours. It laid hold on me 
 at once ; and from that moment, I believed that John Whitney would 
 die. 
 
 " Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about fail- 
 ing strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don't you tell 
 them at home, and go there and be nursed ? " 
 
 " I don't want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I'm 
 better as I am : here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them 
 — time enough for that. And what is there to tell ? They see 
 for themselves I am not as strong as I was : there's nothing else 
 to tell." 
 
 " There's this feeling that you say lies upon you." 
 
 " What, and alarm them for nothing ? I dare say. There ivould 
 be a hullabaloo. I should be rattled home in the old family coach, 
 and Garden would be sent for, post haste, Hastings also, and — ^well, 
 you are a muff, Johnny. I've told you this because I like you, and 
 because I thought you would understand me ; which is more than 
 the other fellows would. Mind you keep counsel." 
 
 " Well, you ought to be at home." 
 
 " r am l3etter here, while I am as I am. The holidays will be 
 upon us soon. I expect I shall not come back afterwards." 
 
 Now, if you ask me till next week, I could not give a better 
 account of the earlier part of John Whitney's illness than this. 
 He was ill ; and yet no one could find out why he should be ill, or 
 what was the matter with him. Just about this time, Featherstone 
 took up the notion that it was " liver," and dosed him for it. For 
 one thing, he said Whitney must ride out daily, good hard riding. 
 So a horse would be brought over from the Hall by the old groom, 
 and they would go out together. During the Whitsun week, when 
 Sir John was away from Parliament, he came also and rode with 
 him. But no matter whether they went slow or fast, \\'hitney 
 would come back ready to die from the exertion. Upon that, 
 Featherstone changed his opinion, and said riding must be 
 given up.
 
 454 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 By the time the Midsummer holidays came, any one might see 
 the change in Whitney. It struck Mrs. Frost particularly when 
 he went in to say good-bye to her. 
 
 " For the last time, I think," he said in a low tone, but with a 
 smiling countenance, as she stood holding his hand. 
 
 Mrs. Frost knew what he meant, and her face, always so pale, 
 and delicate, went red. 
 
 " I trust not," she answered. " But— God knows what is 
 
 best." 
 
 " Oh yes, and we do not. Farewell, dear Mrs. Frost. Thank 
 you truly for all your care and kindness." 
 
 The tears stood in her eyes. She was to be the next one to go 
 from us, after John Whitney. 
 
 Wolfe Barrington stood at the door as he passed. " Good luck 
 to you, Whitney," said he, carelessly. " I'd throw all those nerves 
 of yours over, if I were you, before I came back again." 
 
 Whitney turned back and held out his hand. "Thank you, 
 Barrington," he replied in his kind, truthful voice ; " you wish me 
 well, I know. Good luck to you, in all ways ; and I mean it with 
 my whole heart. As to nerves, I do not think I possess any, 
 though some of you have been pleased to joke about it." 
 
 They shook hands, these two, little thinking that, in one sense, 
 the life of both would soon be blighted. In a short time, only a 
 few weeks, Wolfe was to be brought nearer to immediate death 
 than even John Whitney. 
 
 Not until he was at home and had settled down among them, 
 did his people notice the great change in him. Lady Whitney, 
 flurried and anxious, sent for Sir John from London. Mr. Garden 
 was summoned, and old Featherstone met him often in con- 
 sultation. Dr. Hastings came once or twice, but he was an invalid 
 himself then ; and Mr. Garden, as every one knew, was equal to 
 anything. Still — it was a positive fact — there was no palpable 
 disease to grapple with in John, only weakness and wasting away. 
 No cough, no damaged lungs. " If only it were gout or dropsy, 
 one would know what to do," grumbled Featherstone ; but Mr. 
 Garden kept his own counsel. They decided that John should go 
 to the seaside for change. 
 
 " As if it could do me any good ! " he remonstrated. " Change 
 won't make any difference to me. And I'd a great deal rather stay 
 quietly at home." 
 
 "Why do you say it will not do you good?" cried Lady Whitney, 
 who happened to hear him. 
 
 " Because, mother, I feel nearly sure that it will not." 
 " Oh dear ! " cried she, flurried out of her senses, " John's going 
 to turn rebellious now,"
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 455 
 
 " No, I am not," said John, smiling at her. " I mean to go 
 without any rebellion at all." 
 
 " There's my best lad," said she fondly. " Change of scene is all 
 pleasure, John. It's not like going through a course of pills and 
 powders." 
 
 Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks 
 they all came back again. John had to be assisted out of the 
 carriage, from fatigue. There could be no mistake now. 
 
 After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so 
 imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and 
 some days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not 
 give up hope of him: no one does in such cases. John was cheer- 
 ful, and often merry. 
 
 " It can't be consumption," Sir John would say. " We've no- 
 thing of the kind in our family ; neither on his mother's side nor on 
 mine. A younger sister of hers died of a sort of decline : but what 
 can that have to do with John ? " 
 
 Why, clearly nothing. As every one agreed. 
 
 In one of Mr. Garden's visits, Sir John tackled him as he was 
 going away, asking what it was. The two were shut up together 
 talking for a quarter-of-an-hour, Mr. Garden's horses — he generally 
 came over in his carriage — growing rampant the while. Sir John 
 did not seem much wiser when the sitting was over. He only 
 shuffled his spectacles about on his old red nose — as he used to 
 do when perplexed. Talking of noses : you never saw two so 
 much alike as his and the Squire's, particularly when they went 
 into a temper. 
 
 Not very long after they v/ere back from the seaside, and 
 directly after school met, the accident occurred to Barrington. 
 You have heard of it before : and it has nothing to do with the 
 present paper. John Whitney took it to heart. 
 
 " He is not fit to die," Bill heard him say. " He is not fit to 
 die." 
 
 One morning John walked over to see him, resting on stiles and 
 gates between whiles. It was not very far ; but he was good for 
 very little now. Barrington was lying flat on his bed, Mrs. Hearn 
 waiting on him. Wolfe was not tamed then. 
 
 " It's going to be a race between us, I suppose, Whitney," said 
 he. " You look like a shadow." 
 
 "A race?" replied Whitney, not taking him. 
 
 "In that black- plumed slow coach that carries dead men to 
 their graves, and leaves them there. A race which of us two will 
 have the honour of starting first. What a nice prospect ! I always 
 hated clayey soil. Fancy lying in it for ever and a day ! " 
 
 '' Fancy, rather, being borne on angels' wings, and living with
 
 456 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 God in heaven for ever and ever ! " cried Whitney earnestly. " Oh 
 Barrington, fancy thatP 
 
 " You'd do for a parson," retorted Barrington. 
 
 The interview was not satisfactory : Whitney so solemnly 
 earnest, Wolfe so mockingly sarcastic : but they parted good friends. 
 It was the last time they ever saw each other in life. 
 
 And thus a few more weeks went on. 
 
 Now old Frost had one most barbarous custom. And that was, 
 letting the boys take the few days of Michaelmas holiday, or not, 
 as the parents pleased. Naturally, very few did please. I and 
 Tod used to go home : but that was no rule for the rest. We did 
 not go home this year. A day or two before the time. Sir John 
 Whitney rode over to Dyke Manor. 
 
 " You had better let the two boys come to us for Michaelmas," 
 he said to the vSquire. "John wants to see them, and they'll 
 cheer us up. It's anything but a lively house, I can tell you, 
 Todhetley, with the poor lad lying as he is." 
 
 " I can't see why he should not get well," said the Squire. 
 
 " I'm sure I can't. Garden ought to be able to bring him 
 round." 
 
 " So he ought," assented the Squire. " It would be quite a feather 
 in his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you 
 may be troubled with 'em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care 
 to be." 
 
 And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home. 
 
 John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. 
 Sometimes he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa 
 in the other. Then he would walk about on some one's arm ; or sit 
 in the easy-chair at the west window, the setting sun full on his 
 wasted face. Barrington had called him a shadow : you should 
 have seen him now. John had talked to Barrington of angels : 
 he was just like an angel in the house himself. And — will you 
 believe it? — they had not given up hope of his getting well again. 
 I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain truth, 
 and have done with it : but to tell more professional truth than 
 they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way 
 to do. 
 
 And still — the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. 
 In the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the sub- 
 dued countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the 
 serious spirit that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is 
 good to be in such a house as this : for the lessons learnt may 
 take fast hold of the heart. It was good to hear John Whitney
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 457 
 
 talk : and I never quite made out whether he was telling of dreams 
 or realities. 
 
 Tod was out of his element : as much so as a fish is out of water. 
 He had plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well 
 at any sacrifice to himself : but he could not do with the hushed 
 house, in which all things seemed to give way to that shadow of 
 the coming presence. Tod, in his way, was religious enough ; more 
 so than some fellows are ; but dying beds he did not understand, 
 and would a great deal rather have been shooting partridges than 
 be near one. He and Bill Whitney — who was just as uncomfort- 
 able as Tod — used to get oft" anywhere whenever they could. They 
 did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things ; 
 flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis's thimble, and the 
 finest nuts off the trees ; but they did not care to sit long with him. 
 
 John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. 
 He sat in his easy-chair at the window — as he liked to do at this 
 hour when the evening was drawing on. The intensely serene 
 look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I 
 had never seen surpassed in boy or man. 
 
 " How quiet the house is, Johnny!" he said, touching my hand. 
 " Where are they all ? " 
 
 " Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barring- 
 ton. And the boys— but I think you know it — have gone with Sir 
 John to Evesham. You wouldn't call the house quiet, John, if you 
 could hear the row going on in the nursery." 
 
 He smiled a little. " Charley's a dreadful Turk : none of us 
 elder ones were ever half as bad. Where's the mother?" 
 
 " Half-an-hour ago she was shut up with some visitors in the 
 drawing-room. It's those Miss Clutterbucks, John: they always 
 stay long enough to hold a county meeting." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Frost worse — that the girls have gone to ask after 
 her?" he resumed. 
 
 " I think so. Harry said Dr. Frost shook his head about her, 
 when they saw him this morning." 
 
 " She'll never be strong," remarked John. " And perhaps the 
 bother of the school is too much for her." 
 
 " Hall takes a good deal of that, you know." 
 
 " But Hall cannot take the responsibility ; the true care of the 
 school. That must lie on Mrs. Frost." 
 
 What a beautiful sky it was ! The sun was nearing the horizon ; 
 small clouds, gold and red and purple, lay in the west, line above 
 line. John Whitney sat gazing in silence. There was nothing he 
 liked so much as looking at these beautiful sunsets. 
 
 " Go and play for me, will you, Johnny ? " 
 
 The piano was at the far end of the room in the shade. My
 
 458 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 playing is really nothing. It was nothing to speak of then, it is 
 nothing to speak of now : but it is soft and soothing ; and some 
 people like it. John could play a Httle himself, but it was too much 
 exertion for him now. They had tried to teach Bill, He was kept 
 hammering at it for half a year, and then the music master told Sir 
 John that he'd rather teach a post. So Bill was released. 
 
 " The same thing that you played the evening before last, Johnny, 
 Play that." 
 
 " But I can't. It was only some rubbish out of my own head, 
 made up as I went along." 
 
 " Make up some more then, old fellow." 
 
 I had hardly sat down, when Lady Whitney came in, stirred 
 the fire — if they kept up much, he felt the room too warm — and 
 took one of the elbow-chairs in front of it, 
 
 " Go on, my dear," she said. " It is very pleasant to hear you." 
 
 But it was not so pleasant to play before her — not that, as I 
 believed, her ears could distinguish the difference between an Irish 
 Jig and the Dead March in Saul — and I soon left off. The playing 
 or the fire had sent Lady Whitney into a doze. I crossed the room 
 and sat down by John. 
 
 He was still looking at the sunset, which had not much changed. 
 The hues were deeper, and streaks of gold shot upwards in the 
 sky. Toward the north there was a broad horizon of green, fading 
 into gold, and pale blue. Never was anything more beautiful, 
 John's eyes fixed on it, 
 
 "If it iB so beautiful here, Johnny, what will it be theref'' he 
 breathed, scarcely above a whisper. " It makes one long to go," 
 
 Sometimes, when he said these things, I hardly knew how to 
 answer, and would let his words die off into silence. 
 
 " The picture of heaven is getting realized in my mind, Johnny 
 — though I know how poor an idea of it it must needs be. A wide, 
 illimitable space ; the great white throne, and the saints in their 
 white robes falhng down before it, and the harpists singing to their 
 harps." 
 
 " You must think of it often." 
 
 " Very often. The other night in bed^ when I was between sleep 
 and waking, I seemed to see the end — to go through it. I suppose 
 it was one part thought, and three parts dream. I was dead, 
 Johnny : I had already my white robe on, and angels were carrying 
 me up to heaven. The crystal river was flowing along, beautiful 
 flowers on its banks, and the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the 
 healing of the nations. I seemed to see it all, Johnny. Such 
 flowers ! such hues ; brighter than any jewels ever seen. These 
 colours are lovely " — pointing to the sky — " but they are tame 
 compared with those I saw. Myriads of happy people were flitting
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 459 
 
 about in white, redeemed as I was ; the atmosphere shone with a 
 soft light, the most dehcious music floated in it. Oh, Johnny, think 
 of this world with its troubles and disappointments and pains ; and 
 then think of that other one ! " 
 
 The sunset was fading. The pale colours of the north were 
 blending together like the changing hues of the opal. 
 
 " There are two things I have more than loved here," he went on. 
 " Colours and music. Not the clashing of many instruments, or 
 the mere mechanical playing, however classically correct, of one 
 who has acquired his art by hard labour : but the soft, sweet, 
 dreamy touch that stirs the heart. Such as yours, Johnny. Stop, 
 old fellow. I know what you would say. That your playing is no 
 playing at all, compared with that of a skilled hand ; that the 
 generality of people would wonder what there is in it : but for 
 myself, I could listen to you from night till morning." 
 
 It was very foolish of him to say this ; but I liked to hear it. 
 
 " It is the sort of music, as I have always fancied, that we shall 
 hear in heaven. It was the sort I seemed to hear the other night 
 in my dream; soft, low, full of melody. That sort^ you know, 
 Johnny ; not the same. That was this earth's sweetest music 
 etherealized." 
 
 Hearing him talk like this, the idea struck me that it might be 
 better for us all generally if we turned our thoughts more on heaven 
 and on the life we may find there. It would not make us do_ our 
 duty any the less earnestly in this world. 
 
 " Then take colours," he went on. " No one knows the intense 
 delight I have felt in them. On high days and holidays, my 
 mother wears that big diamond ring of hers— you know it well, 
 Johnny. Often and often have I stolen it from her finger, to let 
 the light flash upon it, and lost myself for half-an-hour — ay, and 
 more— gazing entranced on its changing hues. I love to see the 
 rays in the drops of the chandeliers ; I love to watch the ever- 
 varying shades on a wide expanse of sea. Now these two things 
 that I have so enjoyed here, bright colours and music, we have the 
 promise of finding in heaven." 
 
 " Ay. The Bible tells us so." 
 
 " And I saw the harpers hai ping with their harps,'' he repeated to 
 himself— and then fell into silence. " Johnny, look at the opal in 
 the sky now." 
 
 It was very soft and beautiful. 
 
 " And there's the evening star." 
 
 I turned my head. Yes, there it was, and it trembled in the sky 
 like a point of liquid silver. 
 
 " Sometimes I think I shall see the Holy City before I die," he 
 continued. " See its picture as in a mirror— the New Jerusalem,
 
 46o JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 Oh, Johnny, I should have to shade my eyes. Not a beautiful 
 colour or shade but will be there ; and her light like unto a jasper 
 stone, clear as crystal. When I was a little boy— four, perhaps— 
 papa brought me home a kaleidoscope from London. It was really 
 a good one, and its bits of glass were unusually brilliant. Johnny, 
 if I lived to be an old man, I could never describe the intense joy 
 those colours gave me — any more than I can describe the joy I 
 seemed to feel the other night in that dream of heaven," 
 
 He was saying all this in a tender tone of reverence that thrilled 
 through one. 
 
 " I remember another thing about colours. The year that papa 
 was pricked for High Sheriff, mamma went over with him to Wor- 
 cester for the March Assize-time, and she took me. I was seven, 
 I think. On the Sunday morning we went with the crowd to 
 service in the cathedral. It was all very grand and imposing to 
 my young mind. The crashing organ, the long procession of 
 white-robed clergy and college boys, the two majestic beings in 
 scarlet gowns, their trains held up by gentlemen, and the wigs that 
 frightened me ! I had been told I was going to college to see the 
 judge. In my astonished mind I don't think I knew which was 
 judge and which was organ. Papa was in attendance on the 
 judges ; the only one who seemed to be in plain clothes in the 
 procession. An impression remained on me that he had a white 
 wand in his hand; but I suppose I was wrong. Attending papn, 
 walked his black-robed chaplain who was to preach ; looking like 
 a crow amongst gay-plumaged birds. And, lining the way all 
 along the body of the cathedral from the north entrance to the 
 gates of the choir, were papa's livery men with their glittering 
 javelins. You've seen it all, Johnny, and know what the show is to 
 a child such as I was. But now, will you believe that it was all as 
 nothing to me, compared with the sight of the many-coloured, 
 beautiful east window? * I sat in full view of it. We had gone in 
 rather late, and so were only part of the throng. Mamma with mc 
 in her hand — I remember I wore purple velvet, Johnny — was step- 
 ping into the choir after the judges and clergy had taken their 
 places, when one of the black-gowned beadsmen would have rudely 
 shut the gates upon her. Upon that, a verger pushed out his silver 
 mace to stop him, ' Hist,' says he, ' it's the High Sheriff's lady— 
 my Lady Whitney ; ' and the beadsman bowed and let us pass. 
 We were put into the pew under the sub-dean's stall. It was 
 Winnington- Ingram, I think, who was sub-dean then, but I am 
 not sure. Whoever it was did not sit in the sub-dean's stall, but 
 in the next to it, for he had given that up, as was customary, to 
 one of the judges. With the great wig flowing down right upon 
 * The old East window : not the new one.
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 461 
 
 my head, as it seemed, and the sub-dean's trencher sticking over 
 the cushion close to it, I was in a state of bewilderment ; and they 
 were some way through the Litany — the cathedral service at Wor- 
 cester began with the Litany then, you remember, as they had 
 early morning prayers — before I ventured to look up at all. As 
 I did so, the colours of the distant east window flashed upon my 
 dazzled sight. Not dazzled with the light, Johnny, though it was 
 a sunny day, but with the charm of the colours. What it was to 
 me in that moment I could never describe. That window has been 
 abused enough by people who call themselves connoisseurs in art ; 
 but I know that to me it seemed as the very incarnation of celestial 
 beauty. What with the organ, and the chanting, and the show 
 that had gone before, and now this sight to illuminate it, I seemed 
 to be in Paradise. I sat entranced ; unable to take my fascinated 
 eyes from the window : the pew faces it, you know ; and were I to 
 live for ever, I can never forget that day, or what it was to me. 
 This will show you what colours have been to me here, Johnny. 
 What, then, will they be to me in heaven?" 
 
 " How well you remember things !" 
 
 " I always did — things that make an impression on me," he an- 
 swered. " A quiet, thoughtful child does so. You were thoughtful 
 yourself." 
 
 True. Or I don't suppose I could have written these papers. 
 The light in the sky faded out as we sat in silence. John recurred 
 to his dream. 
 
 " I thought I saw the Saviour," he whispered. " I did indeed. 
 Over the crystal river, and beyond the white figures and the harps, 
 was a great light. There stood in it One different from the rest. 
 He had a grand, noble countenance, exquisite in sweetness, and it 
 was turned upon me with a loving smile of welcome. Johnny, I 
 know it was Jesus. Oh, it will be good to be there ! " 
 
 No doubt of it. Very good for him. 
 
 " The strange thing was, that I felt no fear. None. Just as 
 securely as I seemed to lie in the arms of the angels, so did I 
 seem secure in the happiness awaiting me. A great many of us 
 fear death, Johnny ; I see now that all fear will cease with this 
 world, to those who die in Christ." 
 
 A sudden burst of subdued sobbing broke the stillness of the 
 room and startled us beyond everything. Lady Whitney had 
 wakened up and was listening. 
 
 " Oh, John, my darling boy, don't talk so ! " she said, coming 
 forward and laying her cheek upon his shoulder. " We can't spare 
 you ; we can't indeed." 
 
 His eyes were full of tears : so were mine. He took his mother's 
 hand and stroked it.
 
 462 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " But it must be, mother dear ? " he gently whispered. " God will 
 temper the loss to you all.'' 
 
 " Any of them but you, John ! You were ever my best and 
 dearest son." 
 
 " It's all for the best, mother : it must be. The others are not 
 ready to go." 
 
 "And don't you care to leave us?" she said, breaking down again. 
 
 " I did care ; very much ; but lately I seem to have looked only 
 to the time when we shall meet again. Mother, I do not think now 
 I would live if the chance were offered me." 
 
 " Well, it's the first time I ever heard of young people wanting 
 to die ! " cried Lady Whitney. 
 
 " Mother, I think we must be very close on death before we want 
 it," he gently answered. "Don't you see the mercy? — that when 
 this world is passing from us, we are led insensibly to long for the 
 ne.xt ? ■' 
 
 She sat down in the chair that I had got up from, and drew it 
 closer to him. A more simple-minded woman than Lady Whitney 
 never lived. She sobbed gently. He kept her hand between his. 
 
 " It will be a great blow to me ; I know that ; and to your father. 
 He feels it now more than he shows, John. You have been so good 
 and obedient, you see; never naughty and giving us trouble hke 
 the rest." 
 
 There was another silence. His quiet voice broke it. 
 
 "Mother, dear, the thought has crossed me lately, that it must 
 be good to have one whom we love very much, taken on to heaven. 
 It must make it seem more hke our final home; it must, I think, 
 make us more desirous of getting there. 'John's gone on to it,' you 
 and papa will be thinking ; ' we shall see him again when the end 
 comes.' And it will cause you to look for the end, instead of turn- 
 ing away from it, as too many do. Don't grieve, mother ! Had it 
 been God's will, I should have hved. But it was not ; and He is 
 taking me to a better home. A little sooner, a httle later ; it can- 
 not make much difference which, if we are only ready for it when it 
 comes." 
 
 The distant church bells, which always rang on a Friday night, 
 broke upon the air. John asked to have the window opened. I 
 threw it up, and we sat listening. The remembrance of that hour 
 is upon me now, just as vividly as he remembered the moment when 
 he first saw the old east window in the cathedral. The melody of 
 the bells ; the sweet scent of the mignonette in the garden ; the 
 fading sky : I close my eyes and realize it all. 
 
 The girls returned, bringing word that Mrs. Frost was very ill, 
 but not much more so than usual. Directly afterwards we heard 
 Sir John come home.
 
 AT WHITNEY HALL. 463 
 
 "They are afraid Barrington's worse," observed Helen; "and 
 of course it is worrying Mrs. Frost. Mr. Garden has not been there 
 to-day either, though he was expected ; they hope he will be over 
 the first thing in the morning." 
 
 In they trooped, Sir John and the boys ; all eagerly talking of 
 the pleasant afternoon they had had, and what they had seen and 
 done at Evesham. But the room, as they said later, seemed to 
 have a strange hush upon it, and John's face an altered look : and 
 the eager voices died away again. 
 
 John was the one to read the chapter that night. He asked to 
 do so ; and chose the twenty-first of Revelation. His voice was 
 low, but quite distinct and clear. Without pausing at the end, he 
 went on to the next chapter, which concludes the Bible. 
 
 " Only think what it will be, Johnny ! " he said to me later, follow- 
 ing up our previous conversation. " All manner of precious stones ! 
 all sorts of glorious colours ! Better even " (with a smile) " than the 
 great east window." 
 
 I don't know whether it surprised me, or not, to find the house 
 in commotion when I woke the next morning, and to hear that 
 John Whitney was dying. A remarkable change had certainly 
 taken place in him. He lay in bed ; not insensible, but almost 
 speechless. 
 
 Breakfast was scarcely over when Mr. Garden's carriage drove in. 
 He had been with Barrington, having started from Worcester at 
 day-dawn. John knew him, and took his hand and smiled. 
 
 "What's to be done for him?" questioned Sir John, pointing to 
 his son. 
 
 Mr. Garden gave one meaning look at Sir John, and that was all. 
 Nothing more of any kind could be done for John Whitney. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Garden ; good-bye," said John, as the surgeon 
 was leaving. " You have been very kind." 
 
 " Good-bye, my boy." 
 
 " It is so sudden ; so soon, you know, Garden," cried poor Sir 
 John, as they walked downstairs together. " You ought to have 
 warned me that it was coming." 
 
 " I did not know it would be quite so soon as this," was Mr. 
 Garden's answer — and I heard him say it. 
 
 John had visitors that day, and saw them. Some of the fellows 
 from Frost's, who came over when they heard how it was ; Dr. 
 Frost himself; and the clergyman. At dusk, when he had been 
 lying quietly for some time, except for the restlessness that often 
 ushers in death, he opened his eyes and began speaking in a whisper. 
 Lady Whitney, thinking he wanted something, bent down her ear. 
 But he was only repeating a verse from the Bible. 
 
 " And there shall be no night there : and they need no candle,
 
 464 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them hght : and 
 they shall reign for ever and ever." 
 
 Bill, who had his head on the bolster on the other side, broke 
 into a hushed sob. It did not disturb the dying. They were John's 
 last words. 
 
 Quite a crowd went to his funeral. It took place on the following 
 Thursday. Dr. Frost and Mr. Garden (and it's not so often he 
 wasted his time going to a funeral ! ) and Featherstone and the 
 Squire amongst them. Poor Sir John sobbed over the grave, and 
 did not mind who saw and heard him, while they cast the earth on 
 the coffin. 
 
 " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain 
 hope of the Resurrection to eternal lifeP 
 
 That the solemn promise was applicable to John Whitney, and 
 that he had most assuredly entered on that glorious life, I knew 
 as well then as I know now. The corruptible had put on incorrup- 
 tion, the mortal immortality. 
 
 Not much of a story, you will say. But I might have told a 
 worse. And I hope, seeing we must all go out at the same gate, 
 that we shall be as ready for it as he was. 
 
 Johnny Ludlow. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 THE NEW ISSUE OF 
 
 Mrs. henry WOOD'S NOVELS 
 
 is now being published in uniform Volumes, crown 8vo,, 
 bound in cloth, price 2s, each, at monthly intervals. 
 
 Each Volume can be obtained separately at any Book- 
 seller's, or the names of Subscribers to the entire Series 
 will be registered for the delivery of a Volume each 
 Month. The "Johnny Ludlow" Papers are included in 
 this Series. 
 
 1. 
 
 EAST LYNNE. 
 
 FOUR HUNDREDTH THOUSAND. 
 
 "'East Lynne' is so full of incident, so exciting in every page, and so 
 admirably written, that one hardly knows how to go to bed without reading 
 to the very last page." — The Observer. 
 
 " A work of remarkable power which displays a force of description and 3 
 dramatic completeness we have seldom seen surpassed. The interest of the 
 narrative intensifies itself to the deepest pathos. The closing scene is in the 
 highest degree tragic, and the whole management of the story exhibits un- 
 questionable genius and originality." — The Daily News. 
 
 '•'East Lynne' has been translated into the Hindustani and Parsee 
 languages, and the success of it has been very great." — Daniel Bandmann's 
 Journal. 
 
 2. 
 
 THE CHANNINGS. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 " 'The Channings' will probably be read over and over again, and it can 
 never be read too often." — The Athen^um. 
 
 \Coittinued on next page.
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S mYI.L^— continued. 
 
 MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES. 
 
 0N£ HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 "The boldness, originality, and social scrutiny displayed in this work 
 remind the reader of Adam Bede. It would be difficult to place beside the 
 death of Edgar Halliburton anything in fiction comparable with its profound 
 pathos and simplicity. It is long since the novel-reading world has had 
 reason so thoroughly to congratulate itself upon the appearance of a new work 
 as in the instance of ' Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles.' It is a fine work; a great 
 and artistic picture."— The Morning Post. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT. 
 
 SE VENTY-SE VENTH THO USA ND. 
 
 " ' The Shadow of Ashlydyat ' is very clever, and keeps up the constant 
 interest of the reader. It has a slight supernatural tinge, which gives the 
 romantic touch to the story which Sir Walter Scott so often used with even 
 greater effect ; but it is not explained away at the end as Sir Walter Scott's 
 supernatural touches generally, and inartistically, were," — The Spectator. 
 
 " The genius of Mrs. Henry Wood shines as brightly as ever. There is a 
 scene or two between Maria Godolphin and her little girl just before she dies, 
 which absolutely melt the heart. The death-bed scene hkewise is exquisiteljf 
 pathetic."— The Court Journal. 
 
 5. 
 
 LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 SE VENTY-SE VENTH THO USAND. 
 
 ' The story is admirably told." — The Spectator. 
 
 \_Coitti)iued on next page.
 
 3 
 
 MES. HENRY WOOD'S mYI^L^— continued 
 
 VERNER'S PRIDE. 
 
 SIXTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 "'Vemer's Pride' is a first-rate novel in its breadth of outline and 
 brilliancy of description. Its exciting events, its spirited scenes, and its vivid 
 details, all contribute to its triumph. The interest this work awakens, and 
 the admiration it excites in the minds of its readers, must infallibly tend to the 
 renown of the writer, while they herald the welcome reception of the work 
 wherever skill in construction of no ordinary kind, or a ready appreciation of 
 character, which few possess, can arouse attention or win regard." — The Sun. 
 
 Roland' yorke. 
 
 ONE HUNDREDTH THOUSAND. 
 "In all respects worthy of the hand that wrote 'The Channings ' and 
 'East Lynne.' There is no lack of excitement to wile the reader on, and 
 from the first to the last a well-planned story is sustained with admirable spirit 
 and in a masterly style." — The Daily News. 
 
 JOHNNY \UDL0W. 
 
 FIFTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 "We regard these stories as almost perfect of their kind." — Spectator. 
 
 " Fresh, lively, vigorous, and full of clever dialogue, they will meet with a 
 ready welcome. The Author is masterly in the skill with which she manages 
 her successive dramas." — Standard. 
 
 "It is an agreeable change to come upon a book like Johnny Ludlow." — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 " Vigour of description and a strong grasp of character." — Athen^UM. 
 
 " The Author has given proof of a rarer dramatic instinct than we had 
 suspected among our living writers of fiction." — Nonconformist. 
 
 "Tales full of interest." — Vanity P'air. 
 
 " Fresh, clear, simple, strong in purpose and in execution, these stories 
 have won admiration as true works of inventive art. Without a single excep- 
 tion they maintain a powerful hold on the mind of the reader, and keep his 
 sympathies in a continued state of healthy excitement." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 \Continued on next page.
 
 4 
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S mYEL^— continued. 
 
 9. 
 
 MILDRED ARKELL 
 
 FIFTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 " Mrs. Henry Wood certainly possesses in a wholly exceptional degree the 
 power of uniting the most startling incident of supernatural influence with a 
 certain probability and naturalness which compels the most critical and 
 sceptical reader, having once begun, to go on reading. . . . He finds himself 
 conciliated by some bit of quiet picture, some accent of poetic tenderness, 
 some sweet domestic touch telling of a heart exercised in the rarer experiences ; 
 and as he proceeds he wonders more and more at the manner in which the 
 mystery, the criminality, the plotting, and the murdering reconciles itself with 
 a quiet sense of the justice of things ; and a great moral lesson is, after all, 
 found to lie in the heart of all the turmoil and exciting scene-shifting. It is 
 this which has earned for Mrs. Wood so high a place among popular novelists, 
 and secured her admittance to homes from which the sensational novelists 
 so-called are excluded."— The Nonconformist. 
 
 10. 
 
 SAINT MARTIN'S EVE. 
 
 FORTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " A good novel." — The Spectator. 
 
 " Mrs. Wood has spared no pains to accumulate the materials (or a 
 curiously thrilling story."— The Saturday Review. 
 
 11. 
 
 TREVLYN HOLD. 
 
 FORTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 *• We cannot read a page of this work without discovering a graphic force 
 of delineation which it would not be easy to surpass." — The Daily News, 
 
 [Continued on next page.
 
 5 
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S mYEL^—cou^mued. 
 
 12. 
 
 GEORGE CANTERBURY'S WILL. 
 
 FIFTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 "The name of Mrs. Henry Wood has been familiar to novel-readers foi 
 many years, and her fame widens and strengthens with the increase in the 
 number of her books." — The Morning Post. 
 
 13. 
 
 THE RED COURT FARM. 
 
 FORTY-FOURTH THOUSAND. 
 
 "When we say that a plot displays Mrs. Wood's well-known skill in con- 
 struction, our readers will quite understand that their attention will be 
 enchained by it from the first page to the last." — The Weekly Dispatch, 
 
 14. 
 
 WITHIN THE MAZE, 
 
 SIXTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " The decided novelty and ingenuity of the plot of * Within the Maze ' renders 
 it, in our eyes, one of Mrs. Henry Wood's best novels. It is excellently de- 
 veloped, and the interest hardly flags for a moment." — The Graphic 
 
 [Continued on next fiage.
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S mYEL^—con^mued. 
 
 15. 
 
 ELSTER'S FOLLY. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " Mrs. Wood fulfils all the requisites of a good novelist : she interests 
 people in her books, makes them anxious about the characters, and furnishes 
 an intricate and carefully woven plot."— The Morning Post. 
 
 16. 
 
 LADY ADELAIDE. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " One of Mrs. Henry Wood's best novels."— The Star. 
 
 " Mme. Henry Wood est fort celebre en Angleterre, et ses romans — tris 
 moraux et tres bien ecrits — sont dans toutes les mains et revivent dans toutes les 
 memoires. Z<r serment de lady Adelaide donneront ^ nos lecteurs une idee tris suffi- 
 saute du talent si eleve de mistress Henry Wood."— L'Instruction Publique. 
 
 17. 
 
 OSWALD CRAY. 
 
 THIRTY-SEVENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " Mrs. Wood has certainly an art of novel-writing which no rival possesses 
 in the same degree and kind. It is not, we fancy, a common experience for 
 any one to leave one of these novels unfinished." — The Spectator. 
 
 {Continued on next page.
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S NOVELS— continued. 7 
 
 18. 
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 TWENTY- THIRD THO USA ND. 
 
 " The author has given proof of a rarer dramatic instinct than we had sus- 
 pected among our living writers of fiction. It is not possible by means of 
 extracts to convey any adequate sense of the humour, the pathos, the dramatic 
 power and graphic description of this book." — The Nonconformist. 
 
 " Mrs. Henry Wood has made a welcome addition to the list of the works 
 of contemporary fiction." — Athen.^um (second notice). 
 
 " These most exquisite studies." — Nonconformist {second notice), 
 
 " These tales are delightful from their unaffected and sometimes pathetic 
 simplicity." — Standard {second notice). 
 
 " To write a short story really well is the most difficult part of the art of 
 fiction ; and ' Johnny Ludlow ' has succeeded in it in such a manner that his 
 — or rather her — art looks like nature, and is hardly less surprising for its 
 excellence than for the fertility of invention on which it is founded." —Globe. 
 
 " Freshness of tone, briskness of movement, vigour, reality, humour, pathos. 
 It is safe to affirm that there is not a single story which will not be read with 
 pleasure by both sexes, of all ages." — Illustrated London News. 
 
 19. 
 
 ANNE HEREFORD. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND, 
 "Mrs. Wood's story, 'Anne Hereford,' is a favourable specimen of her 
 manner ; the incidents are well planned, and the narrative is easy and 
 vigorous." — The Illustrated London News. 
 
 20. 
 
 DENE HOLLOW. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 " Novel-readers wishing to be entertained, and deeply interested in character 
 and incident, will find their curiosity wholesomely gratified by the graphic 
 pages of * Dene Hollow,' an excellent novel, without the drawbacks of weari- 
 some digressions and monotonous platitudes so common in the chapters of 
 modem fiction." — The Morning Post. 
 
 [^Continued on next page.
 
 8 MRS. HENRY WOODS NOVELS— continued. 
 
 21. 
 
 EDINA. 
 
 TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 '• The whole situation of the book is clever, and the plot is well managed." 
 —Academy. 
 " Edina's character is beautifully drawn." — The Literary World. 
 
 22. 
 
 A LIFE'S SECRET. 
 
 THIRTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND. 
 
 •' Now that the rights of capital and labour are being fully inquired into, 
 Mrs. Wood's story of a ' A Life's Secret ' is particularly opportune and in- 
 teresting. It is based upon a plot that awakens curiosity and keeps it alive 
 throughout. The hero and heroine are marked with individuality, the love- 
 passages are finely drawn, and the story developed with judgment." — The 
 Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 "If Mrs. Wood's book does not tend to eradicate the cowardice, folly, and 
 slavish submission to lazy agitators among the working men, all we can say 
 is that it ought to do so, for it is at once well written, effective, and truthful." 
 — The Illustrated Times. 
 
 23. 
 
 COURT NETHERLEIGH. 
 
 TWENTY-SIXTH THOUSAND. 
 
 " We always open one of Mrs. Wood's novels with pleasure, because we are 
 sure of being amused and interested." — The Times. 
 
 " Lisez-le; I'emotion que vous sentirez peu \ peu monter \ votre coeur est 
 saine et fortifiante. Lisez-le ; c'est un livre honnete sorti d'une plume honnete 
 et vous pourrez le laisser trainer sur la table." — Le Signal {Paris), 
 
 24. 
 
 LADY GRACE. 
 
 SIXTEENTH THOUSAND. 
 " Lady Grace worthily continues a series of novels thoroughly English in 
 feeling and sentiment, and which fairly illustrate many phases of our national 
 life." — Morning Post. 
 
 [Continued on next page.
 
 MRS. HENRY WOOD'S NOVELS— continued. 9 
 
 25. 
 
 BESSY RANE. 
 
 THIRTIETH THOUSAND. 
 *' The power to draw minutely and carefully each character with character- 
 istiq individuality in word and action is Mrs. Wood's especial gift. This 
 endows her pages with a vitality which carries the reader to the end, and 
 leaves him with the feeling that the veil which in real life separates man from 
 man has been raised, and that he has for once seen and known certain people 
 as intimately as if he had been their guardian angel. This is a great fasci- 
 nation." — The AtheNj5;um. 
 
 26. 
 
 PARKWATER. 
 
 TWENTIETH THOUSAND. 
 "Mrs. Wood's pleasant style and vivid imagination were never more 
 pleasantly manifested." — John Bull. 
 
 27 
 
 THE UNHOLY WISH, Etc. 
 
 *' The characters and situations of which the author made her books are, 
 indeed, beyond criticism ; their interest has been proved by the experience of 
 generations." — Pall-Mall Gazette. 
 
 28. 
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 CI)e C]^trU Series!. 
 
 " The peculiar and unfailing charm of Mrs. Wood's style has rarely been 
 more apparent than in this succession of chronicles, partly of rustic life, some 
 relating to the fortimes of persons in a higher class, but all remarkable for an 
 easy simplicity of tone, true to nature." — Morning Post. 
 
 29. 
 
 THE MASTER OF GREYLANDS. 
 
 THIRTIETH THOUSAND. 
 •• A book by Mrs. Wood is sure to be a good one, and no one who opens 
 ' The Master of Greylands ' in anticipation of an intellectual treat will be 
 disappointed. The keen analysis of character, and the admirable management 
 of the plot, alike attest the clever novelist." — ^John Bull. 
 
 [Contitmed on next page.
 
 lo MRS. HENRY WOOBS NOVELS— continued. 
 
 30. 
 
 ORVILLE COLLEGE. 
 
 THIRTY-THIRD THOUSAND. 
 " Mrs. Wood's stories bear the impress of her versatile talent and well-knowH 
 skill in turning to account the commonplaces of daily life as well as the popular 
 superstitions of the multitude." — The Literary World. 
 
 POMEROY ABBEY. 
 
 THIRTIETH THOUSAND; 
 " All the Pomeroys are very cleverly individualised, and the way in which 
 the mystery is worked up, including its one horribly tragic incident, is really 
 beyond all praise."— The Morning Post. 
 
 32 
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 " Fresh, clear, simple, strong in purpose and in execution, these stories have 
 won admiration as true works of inventive art. . Without a single exception 
 they maintain a powerful hold upon the mind of the reader, and keep his 
 sympathies in a continued state of healthy excitement." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 33. 
 
 ADAM GRAINGER, Etc. 
 
 " Mrs. Wood fulfils all the requisites of a good novelist ; she interests people 
 in her books, makes them anxious about the characters, and furnishes an 
 intricate and carefully-woven plot." — Morning Post. 
 
 34. 
 
 JOHNNY LUDLOW. 
 
 dfiftf) Series. 
 " Freshness of tone, briskness of movement, vigour, reality, humour, pathos. 
 It is safe to affirm that there is not a single story which will not be read with 
 pleasure by both sexes, of all ages." — Illustrated London News. , 
 
 LONDON : 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, New Burlington Street. 
 
 And to be obtained at all Booksellers' in Town attd Country.
 
 uc 
 
 ', SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY fAClUTY 
 
 AA 000 624 740 7 
 
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