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STRETTON 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY KINGSLEY 
 
 if 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY GEO. M. IIENTON 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WARD, LOCK AND BOWDEN, LIMITED 
 
 WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. 
 
 NEW YORK AND MELUOUKNE 
 1895 
 
 [AH r/^/tis reserz'cd] 
 

STRETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. ' 
 
 Does Nature sympathise with disaster? Of all poets' fancies, 
 that is the most foolish. Is " the wind to be howling in turret 
 and tree " whenever disaster, and sin, and terror are walking 
 abroad? We should have fine weather, I trow, were that the 
 case. 
 
 The crystal purity of a perfect evening at the end of April 
 was settling do^vn over the beautiful valley which lies between 
 Shrewsbury and Ludlow ; on the one hand, the Longmynd rolled 
 its great sheets of grouse-moor and scarps of rock up, fold beyond 
 fold ; while, on the other, the sharp peak of Caradoc took the 
 evening, and smiled upon his distant brother, the towering Plin- 
 limmon ; while Plinlimmon, in the West, with silver infant Severn 
 streaming down his bosom, watched the sinking sun after Caradoc 
 and Longmynd had lost it ; and when it sank, blazed out from his 
 summit a signal to his brother watchers, and, wrapping himself in 
 puq3le robes, slept in majestic peace. 
 
 Down below in the valley, among the meadows, the lanes, and 
 the fords, it was nearly as peaceful and quiet as it was aloft on 
 the mountain-tops ; and under the darkening shadows of the 
 rapidly leafing elms, you could hear, it was so still, the cows 
 grazing and the trout rising in the river. Day was yet alive in 
 some region aloft in the air, loftier than the summits of Plin- 
 limmon or Caradoc, for the democratic multitude of the stars 
 had not been able as yet to show themselves through the train of 
 glorious memories which the abdicated king had left behind him. 
 The curfew came booming up the valley sleepily, and ceased. It 
 was a land lapped in order and tradition ; good landlords, good 
 tenants, well-used labourers, if ever there were such in late years 
 in England. Surely a land of peace ! 
 
 2 1 
 
 844809 
 
2 STEETTON. 
 
 Who comes here, along the path, through the growing clover ? 
 , Who is this womaa who walks swiftly, bareheaded under the dew ? 
 Who is this btrtinge -looking woman, with an Indian shawl half- 
 fallen off her shoulders, \fith clenched fists, one of which she at 
 times 'beats on her Ijeautiful head ? Can it be Mrs. Evans, of 
 the Castle, or her ghost ? Or is it her in the flesh, and has she 
 gone mad ? 
 
 Such were the questions put to one another by a young pair of 
 lovers, who watched her from beneath a plantation where they 
 were innocently rambling. The young man said, " That is a 
 queer sight for a fellow courting," and the young woman said, 
 ''There was too much love-making there, I doubt." And the 
 young man said, "How about the banns next Sunday? " And 
 the young woman said, " Have your own way about it, and don't 
 plague me," which I suppose meant ''Yes." 
 
 We must follow this awful, swift- walking figure of poor Mrs. 
 Evans, and watch her. 
 
 She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, in exact age forty-one, 
 with that imperial dome -like head, and splendid carriage of that 
 same head, which the Merionethshire people say is a specialite of 
 the Merediths, though I have seen it elsewhere. If you had told 
 her that she had Celtic blood in her veins, she would probably 
 have denied it ; but she was certainly behaving in a most Celtic 
 manner now. Anything more un-Norman than her behaviour 
 now, cannot be conceived. The low, inarticulate moans — the 
 moans which mean so much more than speech — the wild, swift 
 walk, the gesticulation, the clenched fists, all told of Celtic excita- 
 bility; yet she was no Celt. It is only the old, stale story of 
 Hibernis ipsis Hibemiores. She was behaving like a Celt because 
 she had been brought up among them ; but there was a depth of 
 anger and fury in her heart which must have come from the con- 
 quering race. 
 
 As she neared her husband's Castle, she grew more calm, 
 adjusted her shawl, and put her hair straight ; fo? she feared 
 him, gentle as he was. He would have lain down so that she 
 should walk over him ; but he would have been angry with her 
 had he seen her in her late disorder. And she had never seen 
 his wrath but once, and that was towards his o^vn son ; and she 
 did not care to face it, for it was as deep and passionate as his 
 love. So she bound up her hair, left off clenching her fists, 
 pulled her shawl straight, and, stepping in by the flower-garden, 
 let herself in by the postern, and appeared before him, as he 
 stalked up and down the library. 
 
 "Is it over, darling of my heart? " he said. 
 
STRETTON. 3 
 
 '*lt is all over," she said, spreading her ten white fingers 
 before her. 
 
 '' And how is she ? " he asked. 
 
 *' She is dead ! " answered Mrs. Evans. 
 
 "Dead! dead! dead! " she was going on hysterically, when 
 he caught her in his arms and kissed her into quiescence. 
 
 " Be quiet," he said ; " there is trouble enough without more. 
 What have we done that God should afflict us like this ? Is the 
 chUd alive?" 
 
 "Yes; but it cannot live," replied Mrs. Evans. "It is a 
 weak thing : but God forgive us, there is no doubt about its 
 father." 
 
 In the house of Evans, the qualities of valour in war, of faith 
 to the death with friends, and of strict probity towards the women 
 of the estate, were always considered to be hereditary — more 
 especially the last quality. The servants in the family were 
 always taken from some family resident in the 11,000 acres which 
 made the estate. Such of them as were traditionally supposed 
 to require the quality of good looks, the ladies' -maids and the 
 pad-grooms, were always selected from three or four families 
 notorious for those qualities. Again, even in such a strong family 
 as the Evanses, nurses were often required, and were selected 
 always, if possible, from one of those three or four fau^ilies : so 
 that, in fact, most of the servants, male and female, were actual 
 foster-brothers of some one member of the house. The idea of 
 any m'ong was actually incredible ; but it had come, and there 
 was wild weeping over it. 
 
 The prettiest girl of all these good-looking families had been 
 the very last admitted into the Castle, as companion and lady's- 
 maid to that splendid beauty, Eleanor Evans. Admitted, do I 
 say ? She had been admitted when she was a wailing infant of 
 a week old, as foster-sister to the equally wailing Eleanor : for 
 Mrs. Evans had not been so lucky as usual, and had kept about 
 a little too long. Elsie grew up almost as much at Stretton as 
 she did at her own cottage, and had been as free of the Castle as 
 was her foster-sister Eleanor. 
 
 Perhaps, because she had had only one nurse while Eleanor 
 had two — who can say ? — she grew up very delicate and small, 
 though very beautiful. Eleanor (I was going to say Aunt Eleanor, 
 but must not as yet) grew up so physically strong that the wiser 
 old ladies, after looking at her through their spectacles, pronounced 
 that she was very splendid, but would get coarse. We shall see 
 about that hereafter. 
 
 It was on the eve of Waterloo that the gentle little maid was 
 
4 STRETTON. 
 
 fully accredited for the first time to her full powers of being 
 thoroughly bullied by Eleanor. "Now, you little fool, I have 
 got you, body and bones," said Eleanor, when they went upstairs 
 together, " and I'll make you wish you were dead in a week ; " 
 which made the little maid laugh, and yet cry ; upon which 
 Eleanor bent down over her and kissed her. '' What is the 
 matter with you, you little idiot 9 " she said. " You want bully- 
 ing, and you shall be bullied. Come up, and take my hair down." 
 And the little maid did as she told her." 
 
 " Set all the doors open," said Eleanor, " that I may walk to 
 the end of the corridor and back. A dog would not sleep to- 
 night. Oh, Charles ! brother of my heart, acquit thyself well ! 
 My father and mother are praying for the heir of the house, but 
 I — I, girl, cannot pray ! Why are you weeping, girl ? " 
 
 *' I was thinking of Master Charles and the battle, miss." 
 
 *' What is he to you ? How dare you cry while I am dry-eyed ! 
 Idiot ! Good Duke ! Good Duke ! Tarre ! He should wait behind 
 Soignies for Blucher ; but he knows. In front of Soignies there 
 are open downs. Child, why do you weep? Is it for your 
 brothers, who have followed mine ? I do not weep for iny 
 brother " 
 
 Yes, hut she did though. Broke down all in one instant, while 
 the words were yet in her mouth. But it was soon over. She 
 was soon after walking up and down the corridor, with her hair 
 down, speculating on the chances of the war. 
 
 Late at night she came to her father and mother's bedroom. 
 They had not gone to bed, but sat waiting for news, which could 
 not possibly come for a week. ''Mother," she said, "I can do 
 nothing with my poor little maid. She has got hysterical about 
 her two brothers at the war, and keeps accusing poor Charles, 
 who, I am sure, never tempted them." 
 
 " What? " said Mrs. Evans, sharply. 
 
 " Keeps on accusing Charles in the most senseless manner. I 
 am sure " 
 
 "Go and sit with your father," said Mrs. Evans. "Engage 
 his, attention ; keep him amused. I'll see to the girl." 
 
 She went and saw to the girl ; but took uncommonly good care 
 that no one else did. She was an hour with her. When she 
 came back to her husband's bedroom she found Eleanor sitting 
 up, with a map of Belgium before her, chatting comfortably, but 
 solemnly, about the movements of the amiies. 
 
 She had seen the girl, she said ; and the girl was hysterical 
 about her brothers, and accused Charles of leading them to the 
 war. The girl was weak in her health, and would be always 
 
STEETTON. - 6 
 
 weak. The girl had always been a fool, and apparently mtended 
 to remam one. The girl must have change of air and scene. She 
 had an aunt at Carlisle, who kept a stationer's shop. The girl 
 must go there for a time ; for there was trouble enough without 
 her tantrums. Charles, with his furious headlong way of doing 
 things, was almost certainly killed, &c., &c., with a sly, kind eye 
 on her husband and her daughter. 
 
 They both were on her in a moment, at such a supposition. 
 She, when she saw that she had led them on the wrong scent, 
 recovered her good temper, and allowed them to beat her pillar 
 to post, while they proved that the allies would carry everything 
 before them, and that nothing could happen to Charles (except 
 accidents of war, which are apt to be numerous). Yet, complacent 
 as she was, there were times when her hands caught together and 
 pulled one another, as though the right hand would have pulled 
 the fingers up by the roots. These were the times when she was 
 saying to herself, about her own darling son, " He had better die 
 there ! He had better die there ! ' ' 
 
 For the rest nothing was to be noted in this lady's behaviour 
 for the present, save that the new lady's-maid was sent to Carlisle, 
 that Mrs. Evans seemed to take the news of Waterloo rather 
 coolly, and that she received her son, now Captain Evans, with 
 extreme coolness on his return from Waterloo, covered with 
 wounds and glory. 
 
 She thought him guilty. Why should she say to him, *' Hon- 
 ourable conduct is of more avail than glory ? " He was chilled 
 and offended, for he felt himself innocent. 
 
 What was he like at this time ? For the present we must take 
 his sister Eleanor's account of him, who says that he was the very 
 image of his son, Roland, — which must be very satisfactory to 
 the reader. The ladies may like to know, however, by the same 
 authority, that if my friend, Eleanor, is right, and that Charles 
 Evans was like his son Roland, that he was also, by the same 
 authority, extremely like Antinous. 
 
 Antinous Charles had been brought up with this poor, pretty 
 little maid, Elsie, and he had fallen in love with her, and she with 
 him, which was against the rules of the house of Evans, for she 
 was foster-sister of Ids sister. They loved like others. In what 
 followed, Charles's own mother was against him, and gave him up 
 as a villain who had transgressed the immutable traditions of the 
 house. One of the girl's brothers was killed at Waterloo, one 
 came home with Charles, as his regimental servant. Charles gave 
 out that he was going to London ; but his silly servant came home 
 
6 STEETTON. 
 
 to Stretton and vaguely let out the fact that Captain Charles had 
 not been to London at all, but had been to Carlisle to see his 
 sister, Elsie. 
 
 Mr. Evans's fury was terrible. He wrote in a friendly way to 
 the colonel of Charles's regiment, begging him, as an old friend, 
 to recall Charles instantly, and save him from what he feared was 
 a very low intrigue. He sent old Mrs. Gray, the girl's mother, 
 off to Carlisle after her daughter at once, bearing such a letter as 
 made Charles avoid home in returning to Chatham at the per- 
 emptory summons of his commanding officer. 
 
 Let us say but little about it, as it is not among such painful 
 scenes as this that we shall have to walk together. Charles had 
 not been very long at Carlisle, but he had been too long it seemed. 
 The unhappy girl came home, and was confined in six months' 
 time. She died that night, but the child lingered on, and on. 
 
 Did Mrs. Evans wish that it should die ? Who can say ? Did 
 she wish the disgrace buried and ended ? Who can say ? I 
 think, however, that she slept none the worse after Mrs. Gray 
 came to her and told her that the child was dead. 
 
 It had been baptized, and so was buried and registered — the 
 illegitimate son of Elsie Gray ; the sexton patted down the turf, 
 and all the scandal was over and done. Old James Evans said 
 that Charles was now free for a new start, and had better go to 
 India on his roster, and had better not come home first. And so 
 a pale and rather wild-looking young captain paraded his company 
 on the main deck of the East India Company's ship. The Veda, 
 and sailed for India accordingly. 
 
 *' Taking things rather coolly," you say. Why, no ; but some- 
 what hotly : yet submitting. This young fellow of a captain had 
 violated every traditional rule of his house, and felt guilty. Yet 
 he was not without sources of information. He dared not face his 
 family in the state of things as they were ; and he dared not see 
 the woman he loved best in the world. He consoled himself and 
 her by passionate, wild, foolish letters, carefully transmitted, and 
 carefully and tenderly answered, not only to poor Elsie, but also to 
 his sister Eleanor, whom we shall see again. When unhappy affairs 
 of this kind take place, there are apt to be domestic scenes. I will 
 give you one. 
 
 At breakfast, one bright May morning, some two months before 
 the child so soon to die was bom, Eleanor had a letter, and was 
 reading it. Her mother looked at her father, and her father looked 
 at her mother, and at last her father. Squire James Evans, spoke : 
 
 '' My dear Eleanor, you have a letter from your brother Charles. 
 WiU you let me read it ? " 
 
STKETTON. 7 
 
 *-No, I won't," said Eleanor. 
 
 " Is that the way to speak to j'our father ? " said Mrs. Evans. 
 
 *' Yes," said Eleanor, " if he proposes to read letters which are 
 not directed to him. The letter is from Charles to me ; if he had 
 intended to let my father see it, he would have directed it to him. 
 He, on the other hand, has directed it to me, and I mean to keep 
 it to myself." 
 
 Mrs. Evans wept. 
 
 Squire Evans said, " This is well. My son has been a villain, 
 and my daughter backs him up." 
 
 " You do ill to call your son a villain, sir," replied Aunt Eleanor. 
 *' Call him fool and coward ; but you do ill, you two, to call him 
 villain." And so Aunt Eleanor, then, by the way, a very beauti- 
 ful young girl of eighteen, takes up her letter, and scornfully 
 sweeps out of the room, with her nose in the air. Fine times 
 indeed ! 
 
 Poor Elsie Gray was with her mother, as we said, and that 
 devoted woman had more than one trouble on her hands at a time. 
 It turned out now that young Robert G-ray, the soldier-servant of 
 Charles, had quietly, without leave of his commandant, without 
 the slightest means of supporting her, married a pretty girl two 
 parishes off, and now wrote coolly to his mother from Chatham to 
 announce the fact, and inform his mother that the young lady 
 would come to her for her confinement. 
 
 This child, as Mrs. Gray could tell, was bom at the same time, 
 or nearly, as the other. And the soldier's child lived, while the 
 child of his master died. Little Gray grew up, and grew strong. 
 And we shall have to see a great deal of him in many positions. 
 It was about three weeks after Mrs. Evans came wringing her 
 hands through the green lanes, lamenting the dishonour of her 
 husband's house and her own, that the other little child wailed 
 itself into silence, into peace, into death, and was heard of no 
 more. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Was Mrs. Evans sori-y ? Who can say ? Those Merediths and 
 Ap-Merediths, who call themselves Celtic, yet are as Norse as they 
 can look at you out of their two eyes, have a singularly un- Celtic 
 trick of concealing emotion. Eleanor could not say whether her 
 paother was sorry or glad, 
 
8 STEETTON. 
 
 It was not the custom, in families of that class, for the mother 
 to allude, even in the most distant way, to her daughters on any 
 points regarding marriage relations. Mrs. Evans broke through 
 this rule once, and when her daughter and she were alone, said, 
 very quietly, " That child of Gray's, the soldier, is growing strong 
 and hearty. You are old enough to understand that if things had 
 gone right, that child would have called you aunt. His father is 
 the brother of the woman whom you should have called sister, had 
 it not been for the incalculable villainy of Charles." 
 
 *' Mother, leave Charles alone. I will not have Charles 
 abused." 
 
 "A most maidenly, daughterly speech," said Mrs. Evans, 
 scornfully. 
 
 " Mother, I mean all duty ; but circumstances alter cases." 
 
 *' This is well," said Mrs. Evans. '' This is uncommoniy well. 
 There is some old cross of the Evans blood coming out here. 
 
 This is the Duchess of N 's blood, I doubt, which is now 
 
 defying her own flesh and blood." 
 
 ''Don't talk like that, mother." 
 
 '' I will not," replied Mrs. Evans ; *' but allow me to tell you 
 that if Lord Homerton had heard you utter such atrocious senti- 
 ments, he would at once cease his visits, and would not propose." 
 
 '' Oh, he has proposed," said Eleanor. " He proposed yester- 
 day." 
 
 " What did he say ? " said Mrs. Evans, eagerly. 
 
 " Well," said Eleanor, coolly, " he merely, as I believe men do 
 (and dreadful fools they look when they do it), asked me if he 
 might consider himself engaged to be married to me." 
 
 " And what did you say ? " asked Mrs. Evans. 
 
 *' I said that I was at a loss to conceive what he had seen in 
 my conduct which induced him to take such an unwarrantable 
 liberty." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Mrs Evans. " Then are you off with 
 him?" 
 
 **I never was on with him that I know of," said Eleanor. 
 "He is a good fellow, and I like him well ; but I don't see why 
 I should marry him. We shouldn't get on. He is not religious, 
 and does not care for his estate." 
 
 '' Your influence would have made him care for both his estate 
 and his religion," said Mrs. Evans. 
 
 '' Not a bit of it," repHed Eleanor. " George is a man, although 
 we never hit it off together." 
 
 ''Is it hopeless ? " said Mrs, Evans, " How did you dismiss 
 him?" 
 
STRETTON. 9 
 
 " Well, I kissed him, and as he went out of the room, I gave 
 him a pat on the hack, and I said, * Go on, George ; go off to 
 Greenwood. There is a girl there, worth fifty of me, who is 
 dying for you. You would never have made such a fool of your- 
 self ahout me, if it had not heen for our two families.' And then 
 he wanted to kiss me again, hut I would not stand that. And so 
 he rode off to Greenwood, and I think you will find that Laura 
 Mostyn will be announced as Lady Homerton next week." 
 
 "You will never be married at this rate," said Mrs. Evans, 
 biting her lip. 
 
 " Never mean to make such a fool of myself," replied Eleanor. 
 
 " A woman must many to get position and station," said Mrs. 
 Evans, looking keenly, and in a puzzled manner, on this radiant 
 young beauty of eighteen. 
 
 " I have both," said Eleanor. " I have the Pulverbatch Farm, 
 and that will bring me in £500 a year, and take up all my time. 
 I tell you that I don't choose to have any husband but one, and he 
 is my brother Charles. Let us drop this perfectly vain conversa- 
 tion, and tell me what you want done about this child." 
 
 Mrs. Evans was beaten by that inexorable, beautiful face. She 
 said, after a pause, " I wish you quietly to be godmother to it, and 
 when I am dead, to look to it. We have done evil enough to that 
 family as it is." 
 
 " Is it to be brought up as a gentleman? " she asked. 
 
 " Certainly not," said her mother ; " only respectably. I wish 
 you would imdertake it for me, for the sight of the child and of the 
 whole of that family is distasteful to me." 
 
 Eleanor said, "Yes," wondering. But when she said yes she 
 meant yes, and she did what was desired of her. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The sudden and very lamentable death of Squire James Evans in 
 the hunting-field threw a gloom, not in the mere newspaper accep- 
 tation of the term, but in reality, over that part of Shropshire, for 
 nearly a week. He was a most deservedly popular man, and what 
 they wrote on his tomb was every word of it true. He ivas a good 
 son, a good husband, a good father, a good landlord, a pious 
 churchman, a firm friend, and he died without one single enemy. 
 One little fact was omitted from his tombstone : he died without 
 
10 STEETTON. 
 
 being reconciled to his son, at least formally. There may have 
 been a reconciliation at heart, and those low, inarticulate moans, 
 as he lay dying in his groom's arms in the ditch, may have been 
 the attempted expression of it ; but the mouth was loose in death 
 before they were ever uttered. 
 
 Mrs. Evans was not long after him. She was aged and worried, 
 and she moped and brooded until she died. The old clergyman 
 who attended her at the last, left her at the very last with a dis- 
 satisfied and rather puzzled face. Eleanor she would not see for 
 the last four days. 
 
 Well, she died. And it took nearly six months to communicate 
 to Squire Charles his most sudden and unexpected succession. 
 He came home at the end of a year, and found Eleanor, his sister, 
 in possession, keeping all things square for him : receiving rents, 
 bullying attorneys, walking up and down among the fanns, in a 
 dress which was considered remarkable even in those times, and 
 attending to the wants of the tenants. She had practically given 
 one of the family livings away, quite illegally, though the young 
 cur^ite to whom she gave it took possession as a matter of course. 
 On the other hand, she had been rather tight with the tenants on 
 the subject of repairs ; and, it is reported, used the word *' humbug," 
 just then coming into fashion, on more than one occasion. They 
 tell an idle tale, those Shropshire folks. They say that she and the 
 steward were standing together on the terrace, when Squire Charles 
 rode up, on his return from India ; that the steward said, " Thank 
 Heaven, he has come at last ! " And that Aunt Eleanor said, '' I 
 quite agree. Now you and he take the estates in hand, for I am 
 sick of it ; and a nice mess you will make of it together, you 
 two." 
 
 They did nothing of the kind, however. The property did 
 rather better under the more liberal rule of Squire Charles than 
 under the near and close rule of his sister, Eleanor. Women are 
 apt to be veiy near and mean in business. They will give as few 
 men will yive, but they will haggle about sixpence, while they are 
 irritating a ggod tenant. Was not the Antiquary, as near a man 
 as another, upbraided by his usually submissive womankind for 
 '' raising the price of fish on them " ? 
 
 Eleanor the beautiful whiffed away from her brother's establish- 
 ment at once, leaving him^to manage his somewhat irritated 
 tenants, and retired to her own faim at Pulverbatch. She marched 
 off with her young child Gray. 
 
 The scandal about Charles Evans and Elsie Gray was known to 
 very few persons, and was now almost forgotten even by those few : 
 scarcely half a dozen all told. As for the county, they had never 
 
STRETTON. 11 
 
 heard of it, and even if they had, would have taken small note of 
 it, for there were plenty of scandals of the same kind in any one 
 of their families. If it had got wind, the more ill-natured of them 
 would have been pleased at such a fiasco occurring in such a saint- 
 like family as the Evanses. But then it never did get wind, and 
 Charles Evans was welcomed to his ancestral halls by the county 
 generally, with lute, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and aU manner 
 of musical instruments. He lied a little, I doubt, at the very first 
 reception, for on being inquired of by the county, where was his 
 sister Eleanor, he replied that she was not well, and having been 
 overpowered by his sudden return, had gone home to her farm at 
 Pulverbatch : whereas, the truth was that she was perfectly well, 
 and had told him the day before that she was not in sufficient 
 temper to meet all these idiots, and walked oft' to Pulverbatch, 
 promising to come back to him as soon as he had got rid of 
 his fools. 
 
 Yet they had had a pleasant meeting these two : worth giving 
 perhaps. He took her in his arms, and she wound her fingers in 
 his hair. And he said — 
 
 *' Love all the same, sister ? " 
 
 And she said : '' Not all the same, but more." 
 
 *' Has anybody been? " said the brother. 
 
 *'I should like to see them," said the sister. **My dear, I 
 must marry you. No other arrangement is possible. Get rid of 
 these fools, and find yourself a good wife, and I will come back 
 and marry the pair of you." 
 
 '' But who is to marry you ? " said the brother. 
 
 " You," said the sister. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It was a long time before Squire Charles married, but at last, when 
 he was five-and-thirty, he married a Miss Meredith, a very distant 
 connection to him by birth, who, as Eleanor said, had been kept 
 by her parents for him, till, like a brown Beurre pear, she was 
 running a chance of being mildewed. Eleanor came to the 
 wedding and signalised herself by utterly routing and defeating a 
 certain Squire Overley, a most estimable man, of great wealth even 
 in Shropshire, who was seeking her hand in marriage. She was 
 
12 STEETTON. 
 
 very civil to liim, but refused to speak of anything except medical 
 science and the management of nursing sisterhoods. She beat 
 that estimable young man, and saw that she had done so. 
 "Heigh ho!" she said, as she got into bed. "One more 
 goose choked, and another fool married. I'll be back with my 
 pigs to-morrow. Overley is a good fellow though, and I'll find 
 him a good wife. I wonder if Charley will let me have that sixty 
 acres that Pilgrim wants to give up. If he don't I must give up 
 my pigs ; for buy meal, I won't." And so the great Shropshire 
 beauty went to her bed and slept the sleep of the just. 
 
 Charles's marriage was one of the most happy ones which ever 
 took place, either in Novel-land or Earth-land. Within a year 
 Roland, whom I hope you will get to like, was bom ; and Eleanor 
 was asked to be godmother. She, dating from Pulverbatch, replied 
 that she hated boys, because they were always wanting their ears 
 boxed. She would undertake this part of a godmother's business 
 with the greatest pleasure, but as a conscientious woman she 
 could not, in this case. She had invested, for her, heavily in old 
 Berkshire pigs, which took up the main of her time, and as a boy's 
 ears always required to be boxed on the spot to produce the proper 
 effect, she doubted that she could not be always on the spot to box 
 them, so she declined, and bred pigs, not even coming to the 
 christening. 
 
 The next year was born Edward, whom I also hope that you will 
 like. Once more Eleanor was asked to be godmother ; once more 
 she refused, but she came to the great christening party, as she 
 did not to the first one. No one, not even her own brother, knew if 
 she was coming or not. A splendid present of plate for the child 
 had arrived from her, but she put in no appearance until just 
 before the second lesson. Then she swept in, splendidly dressed 
 in grey silk, and sat down among the poor folks by the organ. 
 
 Old Major Venables said, afterwards, " That woman made a 
 sensation ; but don't you think she meant to do it ? I tell you 
 that those Evanses mean what they say, and do what they mean, 
 and the deuce can't prevent them. What the deuce Eleanor 
 means, I can't say. But she'll do it." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 It soon became evident what she meant to do. Although she pro- 
 tested against any religious responsibility towards Edward, she 
 
STEETTON. 13 
 
 nevertheless undertook any amount of physical responsibility. She 
 even determined to assist at his education, to attend as far as she 
 could to his diet, and to define and develop his character, which 
 latter part of her programme she accomplished by allowing him to 
 do exactly as he pleased, and giving him everything he asked for. 
 Mr. Evans told her that she would spoil the child. *' I want to 
 spoil him," she said. ''He wants spoiling. I intend to gain an 
 influence over him by that means, and use it for good. Our young 
 one is a very sensitive and affectionate young one, and must be 
 treated accordingly." 
 
 Meanwhile she had fairly done her duty, and her mother's be- 
 hests towards young Allan Gray, the soldier's son. She had 
 quietly and unostentatiously got him well educated at Ludlow, and 
 at his o^vn request had apprenticed him to a jeweller's in Shrews- 
 bury. She nearly considered herself quit of him ; and his distant 
 connection with the family was scarcely known by any one except 
 herself, and almost forgotten even by her. 
 
 Among the tastes early developed by Master Edward, under his 
 aunt's direction, was a liking for jewellery, for bright and glitter- 
 ing things. One of the greatest pleasures of his life, for some 
 little time, was riding into Shrewsbury to shop with his aunt. 
 Aunt Eleanor had given him a watch and chain, and on this chain 
 he had the fancy to hang brelogues ; fish, lizards, crosses, lockets, 
 which you will. And this shop, where young Gray — Aunt Elea- 
 nor's other jnoiegc — was located, supplied things of this kind, of 
 Palais Koyal manufacture, cheap, soon dimmed in rust, soon cast 
 aside. Young Evans soon got over this fancy of his for glittering 
 things, though he always retained his passion for gaudry ; yet his 
 continual going into this shop, to get these twopenny Palais Royal 
 trifles, led to a result with which we have to do. It led to an 
 acquaintance between him and the youth. Gray, who was deputed 
 to sell them to him. And the youth Gray was as fond of glittering 
 and gaudy things as was Childe Evans. And so the youth and 
 the young boy, setting their heads together, " Ye'U no hinder 
 them," as the Scotch say, from getting uncommonly fond of one 
 another. Roland always disliked him, as far as his gentle nature 
 could allow him to dislike any one. But at any time, when Roland 
 denounced young Gray as a sententious young Methodist, Edward 
 would plead so well with his deer-like eyes, that he would cause 
 Roland's objurgations to die away into silence. 
 
 Roland and Edward, when old enough, were sent to a school, 
 which I will call Gloucester, to avoid personality, reserving always 
 for myself, in case of action for damages, the right of fixing my 
 own dates. 
 
14 STRETTON. 
 
 Our young jeweller's master moved from Shrewsbury to GloU' 
 cester a short time before Roland and Edward went into school 
 there together ; and so Edward and Allan Gray were once more 
 brought together. The acquaintance between Gray and Childe 
 Evans got cemented there, not much to Roland's pleasure. Edward 
 bought no jewellery now, but got himself taken to strange places 
 of worship by this imperial-looking young jeweller's apprentice, 
 who could look at the splendid Roland as though he were an Oliver 
 (forgive me). Roland did not like it, any more than the Doctor. 
 The Doctor said that Roland should speak to Edward on the sub- 
 ject. Roland, though only fourteen to his brother's thirteen, 
 declined. 
 
 ''It would bring a cloud between Eddy and myself," said the 
 boy, " and I intend that there shall be no cloud between Eddy and 
 me till we die." 
 
 Of course, with a fool of fourteen like this, there was nothing 
 to be done. The Doctor pitched into Eddy. " It is not unknown 
 to me, sir, that you have been in the company of an apprentice 
 of this town, not only to a Dissenting place of worship, but also 
 to the Papist chapel. It is the greatest scandal which has occurred 
 at this school since its foundation. I shall write to your father." 
 *' I wouldn't do that, sir," said poor little Eddy; '*we were 
 only looking about for ourselves. And we don't like either the 
 one thing or the other." 
 
 *' You like ! " said the Doctor. '* Yoil like ! Here, I'll sort 
 
 your nonsense pretty quick. "What was last week's memoriter ? " 
 
 " Non ebur neque aurem," began the poor boy, " Mea renidet 
 
 in " 
 
 " Write it out twenty times, sir, and keep school," said the 
 Doctor. " We will have a finish and an end of all this." 
 
 Roland did his brother's task for him, and was furious against 
 the Doctor. But as Roland's fury against the Doctor will have to 
 keep six years, by which time it had become changed to love and 
 reverence, I will say little about it. Merely mentioning the fact 
 that there was a third member of the Evans family, a pretty little 
 girl, I will leave the Evans family — for what will be to you a few 
 minutes — and describe another Shropshire family. 
 
STRETTON. 16 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Old Mordaunt, of Mordaunt Hall, used to say that his wife 
 always had twins. When this statement was examined, you 
 found that Mrs. Mordaunt had but two children — Johnny imme- 
 diately after her marriage, and Jemmy twelve months afterwards, 
 yet when 
 
 ' The petrified spectator asked, in undisguised alarm, 
 
 which was Johnny and which was Jemmy, the problem used to be 
 solved by saying that Johnny was the fatter. But, then, neither 
 of them lias fat. 
 
 One — the elder — was broader, and less symmetrical than the 
 younger one, James, more commonly called Jimmit. During the 
 holidays, part of which young Edward Evans spent with his Aunt 
 Eleanor, these two youths were frequent guests at her house. 
 She pronounced them to be entirely similar, and utterly devoid of 
 character. In which opinion she was not wholly right. 
 
 The Evanses and the Mordaunts both went to Gloucester to- 
 gether, and, as neighbours, saw a great deal of one another. Both 
 families also had a little girl, younger than either of the brothers, 
 with whom, at present, we have nothing to do — they were in the 
 school-room still ; and I have been turned out of the school-room 
 by the governess at lesson-time too often to try and enter it again. 
 By the by, are governesses so dreadfully bullied and ill-treated as 
 it is the custom to represent ? For my part, ever since I was six 
 years' old until now, I have been almost as afraid of them as I am 
 of a schoolmaster, and have been used to see them have pretty 
 much their own way ; but there are families, and families, no 
 doubt. . . 
 
 I must quit speculation to give a letter, which was written at | 
 the time w^ien these four lads were at ages ranging from seventeen 
 to nineteen, and were all going up to matriculate at St. Paul's 
 College — at either university you like. It came from the head- 
 master of Gloucester Grammer School, himself a man from Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and was addressed to the senior tutor at St. \ 
 Paul's — his old friend and contemporary. — 
 
 *' Deak George, — You have asked me more than once to send 
 you a boy or two, and I have always hesitated because I have 
 always disliked your college, its ways, and its works. Now, how- 
 ever, that P E and have married oflf alto.^ether 
 
16 STKETTON. 
 
 on college livings, and have undertaken cures of souls (their creed 
 seeming to be that gentlemen's sons have no souls, or, like the 
 French marquis, will be saved by rent-roll) ; now that you are first 
 in command practically, I send you, my dear George, not one boy, 
 but a batch of four. And, take them all in all, they are the finest 
 batch of boys I have ever turned out. 
 
 " Let us speak plainly to one another, for we have never fairly 
 done so. The reason of our clinging so strenuously to university 
 work was the disappointment about Miss Evans. Well, we have 
 never spoken of it before. I only ask you to stick to it a little 
 longer, if it is only to see this batch of boys through. 
 
 "I don't know whether I am justified in sending them to you. 
 You know, my dear George, that your college has been under the 
 management of your old master and the three men who have re- 
 tired to the cure of agricultural labourers' souls ; very fast, very 
 disreputable, and most extravagantly expensive. Nothing seems 
 to have done well but the boat, which, having less than a mile to 
 row, has, by developing a blind, furious ferocity, kept the head of 
 the river. And in the schools you have only had a few first-class 
 men, all of your training, with second, third, and fourth blanks. 
 
 ''You say that you will mend all, and raise your tone. Of 
 course you will. If I don't die, like Arnold, over this teaching, I 
 will send you any number of boys in two years, when your in- 
 fluence has begun to work, and when the influence of the three 
 pastors so lately sent out from high table and common room to 
 catch agricultural sheep by the leg with their crook (Heaven save 
 the mark !) has died out. But at present I am dubious. However, 
 I have done it. Mind you the issue, as you will have to appear 
 before God. 
 
 " Now, I must tell you about these fellows, and must go through 
 them. In the aggregate, they are an extremely queer lot. They are 
 extremely rude and boisterous, as my boys generally are, though 
 perfect gentlemen if you put them on -their mettle. They are 
 absolutely innocent of the ways of the world, and will, no doubt, 
 get thoroughly laughed out of all that by your young dandies, 
 whom I, as a Cambridge man, most entirely detest. To proceed 
 about the aggregate of them, they are all very strong and very 
 rich. The total of their present income is considerably more than 
 you and I shall have the spending of when we have worked our- 
 selves to the gates of death, and they have taken to boat-racing — 
 a thing I hate and detest from the bottom of my soul, as being 
 one of the most stupid and most bnitalising of all our sports. I 
 know, however, that you do not think so. If there was any 
 chance of their losing all their property together, we might make 
 
STEETTON. 17 
 
 something of them. As it isy you must back up my efforts to 
 make something of them. Nothing stands in their way but their 
 wealth. 
 
 " Now, I will begin with them individually, and I begin with 
 Roland Evans. Do you retain your old Platonic love for perfect 
 physical beauty, perfect innocence, and high intelligence, and am- 
 bition ? If so, you had better not see too much of my Aristides, 
 Antinous Evans. The lad wonders why I laugh when I look at 
 him. I laugh with sheer honest pleasure at his beauty. He is 
 like the others, a boy of many prayers, but of few fears. If he 
 could get his influence felt in your deboshed old college, he would 
 do as much as you, old friend. But he is so gentle, and so young, 
 that I fear he will not do much for you at once. 
 
 " I pass to the elder Mordaunt. The elder Mordaunt is a 
 wonderfully strong, bull-headed lad, whose course at school has 
 been perfectly blameless, fulfilling every possible duty, but declin- 
 ing to show any specialite except wonderful Latin prose. There 
 is something under the thick hide of him somewhere, for I have 
 seen it looking at me from behind that dark-brown eye of his a 
 hundred times. Can you fetch it out ? I have not been able. I 
 have often been inclined to throw the book at the head of this 
 young man, in return for his quiet contemplative stare ; but I 
 have never done so. I flogged him once, because Sir Jasper 
 Meredith (a cripple) let off" a musical box in chapel, and I thought 
 it was the elder Mordaunt. It was arranged between the Mor- 
 daunts and Meredith that the elder Mordaunt was to take the 
 thrashing, because little Sir Jasper was not fit to take it. Sir 
 Jasper Meredith came crying to me afterwards, and told the whole 
 business. I never had occasion to flog the elder Mordaunt again. 
 Be careful of this fellow, George. I don't understand him. You 
 may. 
 
 " I come now to the younger Mordaunt. And now I find that 
 I have to tell a little story. Young Mordaunt was an unimpres- 
 sionable lad, quite unnoticed by me, and nearly so by the lower 
 masters, under whose hands he was passing, who only made their 
 reports on him to me for extreme violence and fury. I have 
 often had to flog this boy — you say what a nice employment for 
 an educated gentleman — cela va sans dire ; and on one occasion 
 I held him ready for expulsion. It was the most terrible case of 
 bullying which had ever happened : four fifth-form boys, just 
 ready for the sixth, had set on a sixth-form boy, just about to 
 leave us for the army, and beaten him with single- sticks to that 
 extent that he had to be taken to the hospital, as it appeared, 
 with his own consent, for he made no complaint. The younger 
 
 3 
 
18 STEETTON. 
 
 Mordaunt was one of the beaters, one of the attacking party, and 
 I was going to expel them all, until the elder Mordaunt, backed 
 by my brother, the master of the lower third, explained the 
 circumstances, upon which I -did a somewhat different thing. I 
 held my tongue, and gave the beaten boy a chance for a new 
 life. 
 
 " The elder Mordaunt and the elder Evans, Roland, lately 
 grandfathers of the school, have always respected and honoured 
 one another. But between the young Mordaunt and the elder 
 Evans there was for a long time a great dislike. I have it from 
 a former monitor, now Balliol scholar, that they actually fought 
 on three occasions. Of course they were no match ; the older 
 Evans easily beat the younger Mordaunt, while the elder 
 Mordaunt, although an affectionate brother, positively declined 
 to give his younger brother even the use of his knee during these 
 encounters. 
 
 " The reason of the reconciliation between these two was odd. 
 The cause of these encounters was the persistent bullying of the 
 younger Evans, who was the fag of the younger Mordaunt. I 
 have always forbidden bathing before the tenth of May, and have 
 seldom been disobeyed. On one occasion, however, the younger 
 Mordaunt disobeyed me, and before the winter's water was run off, 
 determined to bathe in the weir, and having told his intention to 
 a few, started, taking his fag, little Eddie Evans, to mind his 
 clothes. 
 
 '' It came to the ears of Roland Evans and old Mordaunt, who 
 followed quickly with some other six-form boys, and were happily 
 in time. You, as an Oxford man, know what lashers are : you 
 know the Gaisford and Phillimore monument, set up to warn 
 boys, if they could be warned, of the deadly suck under the 
 apron. 
 
 "Well, the younger Mordaunt stripped and headed into the 
 furious boil. He was in difficulties directly. Instead of being 
 carried down into the shallow below, he was taken under, and 
 disappeared. He rose again, and with infinite courage and cool- 
 ness, swam into the slack water, and tried to hold on by the 
 Camp's heading. But it was slippery, and he was carried again 
 into the race, and turned over and over. 
 
 "When old Evans and old Mordaunt came, angrily, on the 
 scene, all they saw was young Evans tearing the last of his 
 clothes off. He knew his brother's voice, and he cried out, ' Shut 
 down the paddles ; he has come up again.* And then, forgetting 
 cruelties which he had suffered, and insults which he had wept 
 over in secret, he cast his innocent little body into the foaming 
 
STEETTON. 19 
 
 dangerous lasher, and had his bitter enemy round the waist in 
 one moment, trying to keep his head above the drowning rush of 
 the water. Of course, Roland was in after them in a few 
 seconds. 
 
 '* Cool old Mordaunt, who should be a general, I think, had, 
 while rapidly undressing, let down the paddles. The pool was 
 still now, too terribly still, they tell me. The two elder lads, 
 swimming high and looking for their brothers, saw neither, until 
 the handsome little head of Eddy Evans rose from the water, and 
 said, ' I had him here, this instant, and he will be carried back 
 by the wash.' Roland Evans, a splendid shoulder- swimmer, was 
 with his brother in a moment, and saw young Mordaunt drowning 
 on the gravel beneath him, spreading out his fine limbs, like^a 
 Christopher's cross, with each of his ten fingers spread out, taking 
 leave of the world. Never seen it ? Better not ; it is ugly ; I 
 have seen it several times, and don't like it. Well, the two 
 Evanses had him out on the shallow before his brother, a slow 
 breast- swimmer, could come up, and saved him. That is all my 
 story. 
 
 " But it has changed this younger Mordaunt' s life in someway. 
 The great temptation • of our English boys is brutality and 
 violence, and this bathing accident has tamed him. The boy 
 prayed more, as I gained from his brother, and desired that 
 thanks should be given in chapel for his preservation, coupled 
 (fancy that ! to me) with the condition that the names of the two 
 Evanses should be mentioned with his. I refused to do so : 
 ^ Heaven knows why ! Whereupon the boy turned on me, and, face 
 to face, refused to have any thanks given at all. He said he 
 would give his own thanks. 
 
 '*He is entirely tamed, if you can keep him en rapport with 
 these two Evanses. He will follow them anywhere, and do just 
 as they tell him, whether that be right or wrong. I never liked 
 him, and I still think him boyish in many ways, though 
 innocent almost to childishness in the way you wot of. He has 
 brains, more brains than his brother. But he is a disagreeable 
 boy. He has a nasty way of sitting straight up and frowning, and 
 there is a petulant preciseness about him which I cannot iDear. 
 Try being civil and kind to him — I have never been. You have 
 more power in that way as a Don than I have as a schoolmaster. 
 
 " Now I come to my last boy, young Evans. I won't say any- 
 thing at all about this boy : I leave him to you. If you can stand 
 his pretty ways, I can't. 
 
 " These boys will be a terrible plague to you. They make so 
 ^uch noise : don't stop them in that if you can help it. My best 
 
20 STEETTON. 
 
 boys are noisy and outspoken. Coming from me, you need not 
 doubt their scholarship : keep it up. They are, to conclude, an 
 innocent lot of lads, dreadfully rich, and have taken up, I fear, 
 with this most abominable boat-racing, which, however, is not so 
 bad as steeple-chasing. 
 
 " Now good-bye. I have sent you a team fit for Balliol in 
 scholarship, for Christchurch in breeding, and, I very much fear, 
 for Brazenose in boating. Why Providence should have placed 
 so many of our public schools near great rivers, where the stock 
 gets steadily brutalised by that insane amusement, I cannot con- 
 ceive. Old religious foundations, you say, always near rivers, 
 then highways, and in the neighbourhood of fish for fast days. 
 Fiddle-de-dee ! It all arises from the perversation (misrepresenta- 
 tion) of the edicts of the first original council, in the year 1, when 
 it was agreed that everything was to be where it was wanted. 
 The only dissentient, you well remember, was the devil, who 
 moved, as an amendment, that there should be full liberty of 
 conscience, that every one should say the first thing which came 
 into his head, and everybody was to do as he pleased. The great 
 first council rejected, if you remember, this amendment with 
 scorn ; but we are acting on it now. Let us take the benefit of 
 the new opinions. Come over and talk Swivellerism to me, and 
 I will back myself to talk as much balderdash as you. But don't 
 talk any of it to my boys. I insult you, my dear George, by the 
 supposition. 
 
 " P.S. — A tall, handsome -looking young booby, from Eton, 
 comes with them from Shropshire. His father, calling here with 
 the fathers of the other boys, asked me to say a good word to you 
 on his behalf. I would if I could, but I don't know anything at 
 all about him, except that he is to be married to Miss Evans, by 
 a family arrangement, before he is capable of knowing his own 
 mind. He has been brought up with the Evanses and the 
 Mordaunts, and therefore cannot be very bad. But you know my 
 opinion of Eton, and indeed of all public schools, except my own." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Furnished with this important epistle, the Dean of St. Paul's 
 (college) felt a natural curiosity to see the young men who had 
 attracted so much of the attention of undoubtedly the very best 
 
STKETTON. ^1 
 
 schoolmaster of the day, since the dies infamtus when Arnold's 
 old pupil came down to breakfast with fresh questions, and heard 
 that the master had called for his master, and that he had arisen 
 and followed him speedily. 
 
 The Dean was a dry man, and a man of humour. St. Paul's 
 was, in those times, a queer, wild place ; it was partly " manned " 
 by county gentlemen's and county parsons' sons, from the 
 counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Shropshire, and partly from 
 two grammar schools in Lancashire and the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire. The two sets of lads never spoke to one another. 
 The former set were always perfect gentlemen in their manners, 
 though not always in their morals : the latter were mainly gentle- 
 men in their morals, but never in their manners. It was vinegar 
 upon nitre with them, and the dry, shrewd, caustic Dean looked 
 with great anticipation of amusement for the curious ''team" 
 which the headmaster of Gloucester had sent him up. 
 
 He had undertaken the Latin prose lecture of that somewhat 
 scholarless college, and had repeatedly said that it would bring 
 him to an untimely grave, but after a fellow- commoner translating 
 "The Art of Mingling in Society" in English of Addison, into 
 Latin of his own, the Dean had dropped the Latin prose lecture, 
 and had taken to the Greek. *' You are safer in Greek," he said. 
 " I am not good in Greek, and so I may live the longer. But I 
 couldn't stand the Latin any more." 
 
 So it was in the Greek prose lecture that the Dean expected 
 his young friends, with great curiosity. They were the first who 
 came, very early, and they came sidling and whispering into the 
 room one after another, and sat down in a row, each one saying 
 as he went by, '' Good morning, sir," while the Dean stood and 
 looked at them. Can one not see him now, with his broad 
 shoulders, and his keen eyes looking out from under his wig ? 
 
 They sat down in the chair ojDposite to him, and he had a good 
 look at them. The first who came in was Roland Evans, evidently 
 leader among them, a splendid upstanding young fellow, with short 
 curling hair, who carried his head like a stag. " A fine face and 
 a good head," thought the Dean. " I wonder what is inside it ? " 
 Next to him came his brother — a small, slight, bright-looking lad, 
 rather too pretty to please the Dean's taste, but pleasant to see, 
 with a wistful look in his clear brown eyes, which the Dean did 
 not disapprove of. Next came the elder of the two Mordaunts, 
 gigantic, somewhat stolid in appearance, looking as the Dean 
 thought with FalstafF, " land and beeves." Then came the 
 younger Mordaunt, gigantic also, and rather cross-looking, but 
 with a good square head ; as he passed on, he gave one look at 
 
22 STRETTOK. 
 
 the Dean, and let him know unmistakably that he considered him 
 in the light of his natural enemy. Last of all came the " booby " 
 who was to marry Miss Evans, and when the Dean looked on him, 
 he thought at once : *' The rest are a puzzling lot, but there is no 
 doubt about you ; you carry your turnpike-ticket in your hat ; you 
 are a good fellow, and so I think is that Roland Evans." 
 
 But he was puzzlingly amused by them on one account : four 
 out of the five seemed strangely cast in the same mould. Here 
 were two pairs of brothers, and a fifth young man, and they were 
 all cast in the same mould, with the exception of the younger 
 Evans, who seemed poetical. Had this batch of lads come under 
 his notice with any other recommendation than that of the shrewd 
 Doctor, he would have set them down for four young louts of the 
 landholding persuasion from the western counties, and have 
 thought no more about them ; but his friend had sent them to 
 him as four of his picked boys, and Balliol would have opened 
 her gates to them ; yet there they sat in a row before him, silent 
 and apparently stupid, occasionally sneaking their eyes up at his, 
 as though to see what he was like, but dropping them again 
 directly. '* Is there character here? " the Dean asked himself. 
 '^ K. should know ; he said they were boisterous and troublesome. 
 They are quiet enough now." 
 
 The odd contrast between the apparently stupid insouciance of 
 the Englishman at one time, and his violent fury at another, 
 seemed to be hardly known to the Dean as yet : he got an 
 illustration of it. 
 
 The other men, to the number of some thirty, dropped in, and 
 the lecture proceeded. Anything more saint-like than the 
 behaviour of the Shropshire five was never seen. The lecture 
 consisted in turning "Spectator" into Greek prose, and after 
 half an hour, every one being ready, the Dean called on Roland 
 Evans, who stood up, and on being told that he might sit down, 
 was very much confused. He read out his few sentences of Greek 
 prose, and the Dean leant back in his chair. 
 
 " That is really splendid, Mr. Evans. I could not write such 
 Greek myself. Read it again, please, and listen to it, you others." 
 Roland did so. 
 
 "Do you all write Greek like this at Gloucester? This is 
 refreshing. Good Heavens ! when I think of the trash my ears 
 are dinned with. Here, Mr. Mordaunt the elder, read your piece 
 next : let me see if it runs in families, or is common to the school." 
 
 Old Mordaunt — sitting, as we used to say at school, one place 
 below young Evans — did so, and his piece was very good. 
 
 " Now, young Mr. Evans, read yours." 
 
STRETTON. 23 
 
 It appeared that these youths were under the impression that 
 they could take places. They had come in and sat down in their 
 old Gloucester class form. Young Eddy Evans had in his piece 
 a passage of Addison's or Steele's in which occur the words, 
 ''pray do not deceive yourself on this matter." Young Evans 
 gave it "/ij; irXavaaBrj.'' Whereupon both the Mordaunts rose 
 to their feet, and cried with one voice, " I challenge." 
 
 Before the astonished Dean could say one word, the two 
 brothers were at it tooth and nail. 
 
 *'I challenged first," said old Mordaunt. 
 
 ** You did nothing of the kind," said the younger. " You read 
 the fourth chapter of Acts, and see what happened to Ananias and 
 Sapphira." 
 
 "That's a pretty thing to say to your own brother," said old 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 " Not a worse thing than trying to cut your own brother out of 
 a place. Why do you challenge ? " said the younger brother. 
 
 " Because it's Greek Testament, and wrong in person," said 
 the elder, scornfully. 
 
 *' Testament Greek is good enough — better than you could 
 write. I challenge on other grounds. Ask him, sir, what letter 
 he puts before the sigma." 
 
 The younger Evans, confused and directed by his evil genius, 
 said hurriedly, " Epsilon," The younger Mordaunt at once sank 
 back in his chair with the air of a man who had done a happy 
 thing, and, addressing the Dean, said — 
 
 " This, sir, is a specimen of the scholarship of the Doctor's 
 house-boys. If a commons-house boy had made such a mess, he 
 would have been cobbed by the school." 
 
 At which dreadful words wrath and fury were depicted on the 
 faces of the two Evanses, and of Maynard, who was engaged to 
 their sister. Young Evans rose, perfectly calm, and, addressing 
 the Dean as "Dominus," said that as the rules of English society 
 prevented one boy from personally asking any explanation from 
 any other boy in class, and indeed, in any place but the play- 
 ground, whether he, the Dominus, would be so good as to demand, 
 in his character as Dominus, of Mordaunt minor, when he was 
 caned last, and what it was for. Whereupon Maynard, who had 
 taken no part as yet, cried out, " Go it, young Evans ! " 
 
 " It was your brother who pressed the spring and set it going," 
 said old Mordaunt. 
 
 " It was nothing of the kind ; and no one knows it better than 
 yourself," said Roland Evans. " I never touched it; what did 
 he want with it at chapel ? " 
 
24 STEETTON. 
 
 " I suppose he could take his musical snuff-box into chapel," 
 said old Mordaunt, now, after the preliminary skirmish, in close 
 alliance with his brother. " I suppose he had as good a right to 
 bring his musical box in as you had to bring in your Buttmann's 
 Lexilogus." 
 
 " Well, you need not turn up old things like that," said Eoland 
 Evans. 
 
 *' Then you leave my brother alone, and I'll leave you alone. 
 As for you, young Evans, you ought to have the Lexilogus banged 
 about your stupid young head, and you would have had three 
 months ago." 
 
 The Dean had by this time partly recovered from the stupor 
 into which he had been plunged by this unexpected and violent 
 storm. He found breath enough to say, '' Gentlemen, I must 
 really request, and of necessity insist, that this unseemly objur- 
 gation ceases at once." After a few growls and sniffs the lecture 
 proceeded. The Gloucester boys' Greek was all nearly first-class, 
 and then the Dean waded away into a slough of miserable stuff, 
 which was famished to him three times a week by the other men 
 of his college. 
 
 A deaf fellow- commoner was blundering along through his 
 piece, and the Dean thought that everything was going right, 
 when the younger Mordaunt, who had been frowning and bristling 
 for some time, finding his recollected wrongs too great to be kept 
 in any longer, suddenly broke into articulate speech. To the 
 unutterable terror and confusion of the whole lecture, he said, in 
 a loud voice : 
 
 ''Those two Evanses double-banked young Perkins in the 
 play- ground one Saturday afternoon, when the fellows were 
 bathing, and took his money from him. And they took nineteen- 
 pence -halfpenny, and all he ever got back was a shilling and a 
 sixpence, and the shilling was bad." 
 
 ''It was the same shilling we took from him," cried Roland, 
 " and your fellows have double-banked ours a hundred times." 
 
 " What became of the three halfpence then? " said old Mordaunt. 
 
 " They spent it in Banbury tarts," said young Mordaunt. 
 
 " There were no coppers at all," said j'oung Evans. " And 
 you can't get one Banbury tart under twopence. Now then, what 
 do you think of that ? " 
 
 The Dean again recovered himself. 
 
 " In the whole course of my experience I never saw anything 
 like this," he said. "I insist on perfect silence. You five 
 men will remain after lecture. I insist on silence. Mr. Jones, 
 go on." 
 
STEETTON. 26 
 
 **Now we shall all get lines, and liberty stopped," said young 
 Mordaunt, aloud, " and it was that young Evans began it." 
 
 ** It was not," said young Evans, emphatically. 
 
 *' Will you hold your tongue, sir," said the Dean, in a voice 
 which they knew they must listen to. And so the lecture went on 
 and was finished. When it was done, the five remained, and 
 young Mordaunt whispered to old Evans, " He won't flog the lot." 
 
 The Dean began on them : *' Gentlemen, your Greek is 
 excellent, but your conduct has not been good. My friend 
 warned me that you were boisterous. I have no great objection 
 to juvenile spirits — in fact, I like them ; but I must most em- 
 phatically insist that you will not quarrel in my lecture. You no 
 longer take rank as schoolboys : we give young men of your age 
 brevet rank as men. I must request that this does not happen 
 again." 
 
 Old Mordaunt shoved young Mordaunt, who shoved young 
 Evans, who shoved Maynard, who shoved Roland Evans, by 
 which he understood that he was to be spokesman. His speech 
 was so odd, so very simple, so very provincial, so full of the 
 argot of a provincial school, that the Dean scarcely understood it. 
 He said : 
 
 *' Sir, we are very sorry to have offended you ; for myself, I 
 have always been dead against barneying in class, for the mere 
 purpose of spinning out the pensum. I have also tried most con- 
 sistently to make friends between doctor's boys and common-house 
 boys, principally, I will allow, for the sake of the boats. But 
 these jealousies do exist, sir, even among friends, as we are : I 
 am sure all true friends. But these jealousies have existed for a 
 long time, and are not likely to cease. I will take it on myself 
 to say, sir, that they shall be stopped in class, and not carried 
 into play-ground, and that we would rather, having begun so 
 unluckily, be punished by task instead of by stoppage of liberty." 
 
 The Dean impatiently paced the room, and scratched his wig. 
 " What the deuce," he said to himself, ''am I to do with such 
 boys as these ? An Eton or Harrow boy would know more of 
 things at fourteen. Why does K. keep his boys back like this ? 
 they are as innocent as children. I never saw such a thing in 
 my life ; they fancy they are to be punished. Hang it all, let 
 me see how green they are. Mr. Evans, how old are you ? " >/ 
 
 "Nineteen, sir." A 
 
 "You have behaved very badly. Suppose I was to cane one 
 of you." 
 
 "We understood, sir," said Roland, "that we could not be 
 caned after we came here. If, however, you decide on that 
 
26 STEETTON. 
 
 course, the only one you could cane would be my brother. No 
 boy is ever caned over eighteen, and my brother is only seven- 
 teen." 
 
 "And it would be no use caning him ! " exclaimed the irre- 
 pressible young Mordaunt ; "he has been caned a dozen times 
 for laughing in chapel. And last half I tried him to see whether 
 he had got over it. I showed him a halfpenny in Litany, and he 
 went off, and was taken out, and caned." 
 
 "I would gladly, sir," said Roland, "take my brother's 
 punishment on myself; but being over eighteen, I cannot, and 
 should, in fact, resist ; it would be almost cowardly, sir, to put 
 the fault of all of us on my brother." 
 
 "Do go to Bath, and keep me from Bedlam! " exclaimed the 
 irritated Dean. 
 
 And they fled off, and apparently had a free fight on the stairs ; 
 for as the Dean put it, sixteen out of the five seemed to tumble 
 down instead of walking down. 
 
 " This is K. all over," he said to himself, when they were 
 gone ; " this is his system ; sending his boys up here babies 
 instead of men. I wish he had sent them to Balliol, — I wish he 
 had sent them to Jericho. I have no stand-point with them. I 
 can't get at them. They are a noble lot ; but they are five years 
 too young. And this hotbed of sin ! Come in ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 There seemed some difficulty about the person who knocked at 
 the door coming in, as indeed there was. There was a curious 
 pegging sound, then a gentle turning at the door-handle, and 
 then a heavy fall. The Dean dashed out, and found a little 
 cripple lying on his back on the landing, laughing. 
 
 " I shall do it once too often," said the cripple. " My servant 
 puts me into bed, but I direct my energies to tumbling out of it. 
 I live in the gate which is called Beautiful, and am happy there ; 
 but St. John and St. Paul are in Heaven, and have never said to 
 me, * What we have, we give thee.' Will you help up a poor 
 little crij^ple, and set him on his legs, and give him his crutch, 
 Dean ? Be St. John to me. Dean ? " 
 
 " Sir Jasper Meredith ! " exclaimed the Dean. 
 
 " I thought I should creep so nicely up, and I came one stair 
 
STEETTON. 27 
 
 at a time. And I made fair weather of it until I tried to turn the 
 handle, and then I lost my balance, and fell on my back." 
 
 The Dean had never seen anything like this. He was a man 
 of the cloister, and had heard of human ills, and of baronets with 
 14,000 acres, and of cripples also. But to lind a feeble cripple, 
 with 14,000 acres, flat on his back before his own door, on the 
 landing, was a sensation for the good Dean. '' And he is from 
 Shropshire also," he considered. " Shropshire will do for us in 
 time." 
 
 He picked the little cripple up very carefully, and brought him 
 in. " What can I do for you, Meredith ? " he said, gently. 
 
 *' Give me leave to get my breath, my dear sir," began the 
 little man. " Thank ye. Oh ! that's better. I can't get on 
 anyhow. The doctors say that it is my spine, and I say it's my 
 legs, and I expect that I know as much about it as they do. My 
 legs have separate individualities ; in fact, I have named them 
 differently — Libs and Auster — and they always want to go in 
 different directions, which brings me to grief — don't you see ? I 
 suppose you have never noticed the same thing with regard to 
 your legs, for instance, have you? " 
 
 " No," said the Dean, glancing complacently at his well- 
 formed legs. " I never experienced anything of that kind — lately." 
 
 "No," said Meredith ; " your legs do look like a pair. Now 
 mine, you will perceive, if you wiU do me the goodness to look at 
 them, most distinctly are not." 
 
 " You are certainly afflicted," said the kind Dean, ** and I am 
 sorry for it." 
 
 "We will speak of that on some future occasion," said the 
 little man. " I am not at all sure that I am. Being afflicted in 
 this manner, do you see, brings you so many kind friends, and 
 such sympathy, that I am not sure that I would change it even to 
 be Roland Evans. Well, that is not what I came to speak about. 
 I came on a matter of business, and I am taking up your valuable 
 time in talking of myself. Cripples will talk about themselves, 
 you know." 
 
 "My time is yours, Meredith," said the Dean, pleased by the 
 kindly little ways of the cripple. 
 
 "Now that is very kind of you. May I take a liberty? I 
 have been a petted boy, and am used to take liberties. May I 
 have one little sprig of that Wustaria which is hanging your 
 window with imperial purple ? I half live in flowers. Dean. 
 They are the purest forms of mere physical beauty which can be 
 brought to me, and I cannot travel in search of beauty, you 
 know." 
 
28 STKETTON. 
 
 The Dean got him one at once, saying, " There is one form of 
 physical beauty which comes to you very often, I fancy — Roland 
 Evans." 
 
 "Yes," said Meredith; "I believe that he is very beautiful. 
 But I, for my part, having kno^vn him so long, have lost the 
 power of seeing that. If he were a cripple, or a leper, it would 
 make no difference to me.'" 
 
 " You like him, then? " said the Dean. 
 
 Meredith laughed quietly, and very absently, looking at the 
 carpet. 
 
 " The brain is always affected in these spine diseases," said 
 the Dean to himself. " The poor little fellow is wool-gathering." 
 
 Then he added, emphatically, " We were speaking of Roland 
 Evans, Sir Jasper Meredith. You like him, do you not ? " 
 
 In an instant one of the keenest, shrewdest faces he had ever 
 seen was turned up to his, and he stood astounded. 
 
 " Like him ! " said the cripple. " Yes, I like him very much 
 indeed. You know that you yourself would like a noble young 
 man like that (supposing that you were a cripple, which you are 
 not) who left habitually his own amusements, in which he excelled, 
 to attend to you ; who could put you in the best place to see his 
 innings at cricket, and come running to you after a race to tell 
 you about it. You would like such a man as that, would you 
 not?" 
 
 The Dean, interested, said " Yes ! " 
 
 " Ah ! So I like him. And in a similar way, I like his sister, 
 who is Viola to Sebastian. And I like the whole lot of them — 
 the two Mordaunts, Maynard, and Eddy Evans. They are all 
 good. 1 came here on a point with regard to them. I am afraid 
 they have been behaving very badly ? " 
 
 " They have been quarrelling so dreadfully," said the Dean. 
 
 " They always do in class," said Meredith. "It is an old 
 Gloucester dodge for spinning out the work, if one of the set has 
 not got up enough lines." 
 
 " If that is the case," said the Dean, angrily, " I must request 
 you to tell your friends that I will not suffer it again." 
 
 "It will not happen again," said Meredith. " They thought 
 — I declare they did — that you would set them impositions. 
 They are on their honour now." 
 
 " They are an extraordinary lot of greenhorns." 
 
 "They are," said Meredith, "with the exception of shrewd 
 old Mordaunt. I suppose you know that none of them have ever 
 been to London ? " 
 
 "I know nothing about them," said tlie Dean, "except that 
 
STEETTON. 29 
 
 K. sent them here. I never saw such an extraordinary lot of 
 fellows in my life. But you must tell them that I will not stand 
 disturhances in lecture-time. You said that you came here to 
 speak to me about them." 
 
 '' True," said Meredith. *' I ought to have had notice to quit 
 before. I will do my business. The butler tells me that, as a 
 fellow-commoner, I must sit at the high table with you. Do 
 relax your rule, and let me sit at the Freshman's table, with the 
 Evanses and the Mordaunts. They help me in a hundred ways. 
 Do let a poor cripple have his dinner among his kind at the 
 Freshman's table." 
 
 "Your request is granted, certainly," said the Dean, laughing. 
 " But you must tell your friends not to be so turbulent. We 
 were told last night that the younger Mordaunt and the younger 
 Evans fought for a plate of meat, which both claimed, and were 
 fined by the senior man at the table." 
 
 " My groom told me this morning," said Meredith, quietly, 
 " that the Bible clerk had sneaked. Young Evans certainly 
 ordered the chicken, but then young Mordaunt, as senior boy, 
 considered that he had a right to change dinners, not liking his 
 mutton when he scav it. I am sorry that they fought over it, but 
 boys icill fight over their victuals, you know. I daresay you 
 have done it yourself." 
 
 There rose suddenly on the mind of the Dean the ghost of a 
 certain Bath bun which he had struggled for at a certain lodge at 
 a certain school nearly twenty years before, and which had ended 
 in a great fight in the playground with a certain great general, 
 who was just now engaged in the reduction of Sebastopol. The 
 Dean had the best of it, as did not the general. 
 
 "But," i-aid he, "they behave like schoolboys. They are 
 ranked as men here." 
 
 " They were schoolboys yesterday, and are schoolboys still," 
 said Meredith. * ' It rests with you to make them men. What sort 
 of men you are going to make of them is more in your line of 
 business than mine. Lord help you through it ! for they are a 
 rough lot. It rests with you to take up Dr. K.'s work where he 
 left ofi". He has sent them here in tnist to you." 
 
30 STKETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PuLVERBATCH, One would think, was (at least in the old coaching 
 days) as far, intellectually speaking, from anywhere, as any place 
 could be. It was even out of the then road from Shrewsbury to 
 Ludlow — one would have thought a very quiet road — and was 
 intensely sleepy. 
 
 The Grange, Miss Eleanor Evans' inalienable property, was a 
 heavy old Grange, with an actual moat, in which Miss Eleanor 
 lived as a Mariana, though with a difference. There were eight 
 hundred acres of fat meadow and corn-land around it, washed 
 down from Caradoc, Lawley, and Longmynd ; every acre of 
 which this strenuous lady held in her own hands. 
 
 When she took possession of it, after the lapse of a bad 
 tenant's lease, and announced her intention of farming it, her 
 brother gave her a little good advice. 
 
 ''It is worth two pounds an acre, Nell, now that the Dower 
 Farm has fallen in, even after Dell has scourged it so. 1600L a 
 year — I'll find you a good tenant." 
 
 "Thank you," she said, "but I am going to find a good 
 tenant in myself." 
 
 " You will make a mess of it." 
 
 -Why?" V^ 
 
 " Because you can't farm." 
 
 "Fiddle-de-dee," said Eleanor, "I have been bored to death 
 with it all my life ; I ought to know something about it by this 
 time. And, besides women are much sharper than men. Any 
 one can farm ; don't tell me. I will take my four thousand a 
 year off that land, or I will know the reason why." 
 
 "My dear Eleanor," said her brother, "I know you to be 
 shrewd and determined ; I will allow that you have quite suffi- 
 cient intellect to manage the property." 
 
 " That is to say, as much intellect as Dell, who has 780 acres 
 of yours. Thank you, for I am very much obliged to you for 
 comparing me with a tipsy, muddled, uneducated old man like 
 him. Go on," said Eleanor. 
 
 " You are angry, my dear," said her brother, " but you must 
 remember that farming is a second nature to him." 
 
 " What was his first ? " she asked. 
 
 This was one of those pieces of pure nonsense which scatter 
 men's nonsense. Squire Charles picked himself up as well as he 
 could, and said somewhat heavily 
 
STEETTON. 81 
 
 *' Supposing that you could actually get this farm in order, and 
 get money's worth off it, you would be beaten at marketing." 
 
 ''Why?" said Eleanor. 
 
 "Because, not being able to go to market yourself, you would 
 have to send your bailiff, who would cheat you." 
 
 " But I am not going to have any bailiff. And I am going to 
 market my own self." 
 
 " The farmers will be too much for you," said Charles. 
 
 "Will they?" she said; "they must have had a sudden 
 accession of brains then." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me, Eleanor, that you are actually going 
 into Shrewsbury market with samples of oats ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " It will be thought very odd, and some will say improper." 
 
 " I know nothing about your last epithet. With regard to 
 oddity, now look round among the county families around 
 us, and say whether or no there is not a queer story among 
 every one of them. There is an odd story in our own family, 
 Charles." 
 
 " You mean about me." 
 
 " I mean about you. But I want to finish about this farming 
 business. I am going to do it. I pay rent to myself; I have 
 quite as much knowledge of farming as Dell, and ten times his 
 intellect ; why should I not do well ? " 
 
 " You will be beaten in market," said Charles." 
 
 "You will see about that," said Eleanor. 
 
 She certainly was right, for she "gave her mind to it," and 
 became one of the best farmers and keenest marketers about. 
 Her scourged land recovered, as if by magic. She had good 
 years and bad years, but she made money and a good deal of it ; 
 as a very diligent and clever person, with no rent to pay, and 
 over seven hundred acres of fine land, may do. As time went on 
 her brother saw that he was wrong, and he told her so ; and 
 added, " And you seem to be very happy, Eleanor." 
 
 " I am as happy as the day is long," she said. " I have no 
 time to be otherwise. I am interested and amused all day long, 
 in all weathers, and I have perfect health, and no cares. Women 
 are frequently very great fools to marry." 
 
 " Yet it would be well to have another to care and work for," 
 said Charles. 
 
 "I have got Eddy; he is my son, and I know he will be 
 extravagant, and bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. 
 I have spoilt him," she added, laughing, " therefore I must work 
 and slave to meet his extravagance. As I have brewed, so must 
 
32 STEETTON. 
 
 I bake ; I have made my bed and I must lie on it, as regards 
 him. I gave him a new watch last week." 
 
 " So I saw. I hope he did not ask for it ? " 
 
 *' Oh, no ; he never asks for anything, only he looks so pretty 
 when he is pleased, and he likes bright and glittering things. I 
 must work and save for him." 
 
 " You will not save much with those new cottages," said her 
 brother ; "you ought never to lay one brick on another till you 
 see your way to a clear 7 per cent., exclusive of bad debts ; and 
 you will never see three there." 
 
 " Say two and a half," said Eleanor ; " but it pays me indi- 
 rectly on my own estate. I have my labourers on my own 
 ground, close to their work. What would you say of the wisdom 
 of a slave-owner who made her niggers walk three miles to the 
 cotton grounds ? " 
 
 " You will raise the rates." 
 
 " I don't care. Oh ! by the by, your head keeper has been 
 asking me whether he may rear some pheasants in my large 
 spinney, and I have told him that I should like to catch him at it. 
 Your partridges I will protect for you, but I won't have pheasants, 
 rabbits, or hares ; you have plenty of ground of your own without 
 bothering me." 
 
 Squire Charles laughed, and left her admiringly. 
 
 So she went on, busy, happy, quiet, contented, until I regret 
 that it becomes necessary to pick her up at the age of forty-four 
 years, just at the time when that extraordinary set of boys, which 
 I have previously described, had begun their most eccentric career 
 at St. Paul's College. 
 
 The Grange at Pulverbatch was like so many Shropshire 
 houses, a place worthy a long summer-day's visit. It was a low 
 stone house, shrouded in and darkened by great dense groves of 
 elms. Sooner than touch one bough of which, Eleanor would 
 have sold her watch ; though she had very much spoilt the 
 scenery of the valley, by slashing into her hedge-row timber else- 
 where most unmercifully, and cutting down her hedges to the famish- 
 ing point. I am not antiquarian enough to say wiio built it or why 
 it was built, but Eleanor had chosen to get it into her head that 
 it was built by a small country gentleman, at the time, as she put 
 it, " when the greatest of all Englishmen for all time, Oliver 
 Cromwell, ruled the land, and had one Milton for his Poet- 
 Laureate." A mild antiquarian, on one occasion, by way of 
 making himself agreeable, told her in a mild voice that her house 
 was foniierly a religious house, a cell of the larger house of St. 
 Lawrence at Stretton. 
 
STEETTON. 33 
 
 ** It was nothing of the kind, sir," she answered, indignantly. 
 
 " I think you will find that I am right," said the mild man. 
 
 '*I don't believe a word of it," said Eleanor. And the mild 
 antiquarian said no more. 
 
 ''It was moated around on all sides, for defence," she said ; 
 ** Cai-p -ponds," said the antiquarian; and this moat was part of 
 her belief in the place. 
 
 There were carp in this moat, and although she was shrewd 
 enough to prefer the splendid trout which came out of the stream 
 running through her estate for her own eating, yet on state 
 occasions she always, as a great treat, gave her guests these 
 abominable masses of dry bones out of the moat. They were to 
 her as a haggis or a sheep's head is to a Scotchman. She used 
 to send them to her neighbours, as rare compliments and presents. 
 Well, she had few prejudices, and those were very innocent. 
 
 We shall see more of her kind, innocent, wise life as we go on : 
 a little more about her house, and herself, and she will be suffici- 
 ently fully introduced. 
 
 I should think, from what I have observed, that almost the first 
 ambition of every clever woman was to have a room oj her own, a 
 place where she was mistress, and could do as she pleased (surely 
 some clever woman has said this before, though I cannot recollect 
 where, but it is true). I have seen such rooms ; I know at least 
 two ; and I guess that in these maiden bowers, women, whether 
 poor or rich, symbolise their own souls, or the phases of them. I 
 know a bower, hung with crude oil-sketches and photographs of 
 great pictures ; again, I know another, full of saints, angels, and 
 crucifixes. I suppose that every woman would have such a nest 
 — alas ! how few are able. Eleanor, however, had her nest, 
 which most decidedly symbolised her pursuits. 
 
 Eleanor's nest was what her brother called '' the dining-room," 
 but what she would insist on calling, out of contradiction mainly, 
 I think, " the best parlour." It was a dark wainscoted room, 
 with a large stone-jammed bay-window at the end furthest from 
 the door, in front of which her great library table, with innumer- 
 able drawers, was placed, and by which the only available light 
 was let into this wonderfully uncomfortable room. At this table 
 she could look over her beloved moat, and write her letters. Here 
 she received her men, and her poor folks ; and here she sat one 
 afternoon, soon after the boys had gone to St. Paul's, reading her 
 .letters and answering them. 
 
 She was in her usual riding habit, and had been on foot or on 
 horseback since six o'clock in the morning. As the light from 
 the only window fell upon her face, you could see that, although 
 
 4 
 
34 STKETTON. 
 
 her complexion might have suffered (or been improved) by wind, 
 weather, and hard work, there was no doubt that she was still 
 a singularly beautiful woman. 
 
 She had had all kinds of letters by that post, and she had read 
 them, and laid them aside for answer. Mr. Sutton, of Reading, 
 informed Miss Evans that he did not approve of such a large 
 admixture of triticum in the grass-seed intended for soil washed 
 from lime-stone hills, but had executed the order under Miss 
 Evans's direction, and begged to inform her that the " Student "^ 
 parsnip, from Cirencester, was well worth a trial. Barr and 
 Sugden informed her that they would, if possible, execute her 
 small order for 5,000 snowdrops, but that a regular customer had 
 come down on them for 14,000, and they were at present un- 
 certain. A neighbouring miller wrote to say that if she would 
 thrash out at once, he would chance the four big ricks at 54 
 (to which she said, " I daresay ") ; under all of which there was 
 a letter from her lawyer, telling her that the dispute about the old 
 arrears, hanging on since Dell's time, was settled against her ; 
 and several begging-letters. 
 
 These were put aside for answering : then caused her no 
 thought. It was the two she had just read which made her sit 
 with her handsome head in the light, and really think. Let us 
 look over her shoulder. The first was from young Allan Gray, 
 the young man who was the son of the soldier Gray, and who, by 
 natural laws, was nephew of Charles and Eleanor Evans, and 
 cousin to Roland and Edward. 
 
 It ran thus : — 
 
 *'My dear Madam, — I enclose you Mr. Secretary's Cowell's 
 receipt for the very noble donation to our poor little work. I 
 know that the pleasure you had in giving it is even higher than is 
 ours in receiving it ; I am requested to thank you for it, madam, 
 and I thank you accordingly. Mr. Taunton, one of our best 
 helpers, oficrcd prayer for you to-night, madam, in the general 
 prayer and by name. This I know will be gratifying to you." 
 
 (** Well, and so it is," said Eleanor. *' I am sure we all want 
 
 it.") ^ 
 
 *'I wish, madam, that you could come and pay us a visit 
 here, say when you come to the Cattle Show, at Christmas. I 
 wish that such a shrewd and yet kind heart as yours could see 
 what actual good we are doing among the misery and guilt 
 around us. 
 
 *' With deep reverence and gratitude, I remain, dear madam, 
 your devoted servant, *^ Allan Geay." 
 
STEETTON. 35 
 
 *' Yes," said Eleanor, '* you are a good boy, and a shrewd boy, 
 and a grateful boy ; but I doubt I can't like you. You would be 
 glad to be rid of your obligations to me to-morrow. I ought to 
 like you, but I can't." 
 
 She was a shrewd, hard woman, this Eleanor Evans ; not 
 given to show sentiment, yet when she opened the next letter she 
 kissed it, and said, *' My darling, now we will have you, after 
 this Methodistical young prig. All the flowers in May are not so 
 sweet as you, but you might write better, you know." The letter 
 was from Eddy, and she read it with concentrated attention, 
 weighing every word, this sensible and keen lady, going over 
 the sentences three or four times to extract their meaning (of 
 which there was but little). Don't laugh at her; a love as 
 keen and pure as hers is not ridiculous. Perhaps Gray's letter 
 was more sensible, but this boy's nonsense was infinitely dearer 
 to her. 
 
 " Deak Aunt Nell, — You know that in one of our delightful, 
 confidential talks the other day, you, in laying do^\^l our mutual 
 plans for the future, said that one day I must get a good wife, 
 and come and live with you. You hinted that you would, in the 
 case of such an event, make over the main part of your personal 
 property to me ; only reserving to yourself one single room. You 
 remember the alacrity with which I fell into the arrangement, and 
 the extreme anxiety I have always shown to carry out your wishes. 
 Consequently, I have kept my weather-eye open for above a fort- 
 night, and after long and painful consideration, I am able to 
 declare myself suited for life. 
 
 "To a well-balanced mind, such as I believe mine to be 
 (it is your look-out if it is not), wealth, position, nay, even beauty 
 itself, weigh as nothing in the balance in a choice of this kind, in 
 comparison with solidity of character. Gain that and you gain 
 evei-ything. I have gained it. 
 
 *'0f course I should not think of moving definitely in such 
 an important matter as this without consulting you, my more 
 than mother, to whom I owe so much. By-the-bye, this last 
 remark reminds me that I may as well owe you a little more, 
 while we are at it. Roland has boned all my money because 
 young Mordaunt and I gave half-a-sovereign a-piece to a young 
 man we found on the Trumpington road, with scarcely shoes to 
 his feet, just come out of Reading Hospital. So do send me 
 some ; make it a tenner, if you can ; as much more as you like. 
 I am sure that you must have thrashed out the three ricks by now, 
 and must be in cash. Don't you hold your com back in the way 
 
36 STEETTON. 
 
 you do, raising the market on the poor. You thrash out, and send 
 me a ten-pound note, and I'll bring you a present, if there is any 
 of it left. 
 
 '' I suppose this will be the first intimation you will have 
 had of our splendid success. Eoland has done such a thing 
 which is simply unequalled in history. To be continued in our 
 next, provided you send the money. 
 
 " Yours lovingly, 
 
 '' Edward iiiVANS. 
 
 *' P.S. — I bought a squirrel of a cad in the meadow, who said 
 it was tame. On calling it to our rooms, it bit me to the bone, 
 and ran up the chimney. This is a wicked and ungrateful world. 
 I doubt I am already night weary of it." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor put this letter aside, and answered young Gray's 
 first. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Gray, — I must beg that in any future com- 
 munications to me, you will omit mentioning any obligations 
 which you conceive you still owe to me. Such obligations cer- 
 tainly existed at one time, but they exist no longer. I therefore 
 request, sir, that they may be no longer mentioned between us. 
 
 " At my mother's desire, I did all I possibly could for you. 
 You on your part have repaid me a thousand-fold, by turning out 
 so well, and by leading such a blameless, godly, and, I hope, 
 prosperous life as you are leading. What I did for you was from 
 a sense of duty, and not on any sentimental grounds, for you and 
 I never liked one another, which you know as well as I do, if you 
 choose — (last three words erased). Consequently, my dear sir, 
 now you have risen to your present honourable position, I must 
 tell you that these continual protestations of gratitude towards 
 a woman you always disliked are not good ton. 
 
 '' It seems strange that two people so utterly separated as we 
 are by every thought and every feeling should be engaged in the 
 same work, that of ameliorating the condition of the poor. But it 
 is so. If you wish to put me under obligations, you will show me 
 how I can further assist you in your very noble work, and further 
 how I can, in case of your requiring pecuniary help yourself, 
 assist you. I can admire you without liking you ; and I am told 
 by Mr. Cowell, whom I kncAV before you did, that you are de- 
 creasing your own income by these good works. 
 
 " Eleanor Evans." 
 
STEETTON. 37 
 
 AVhen Allan Gray got this letter, he rose with set lips and 
 walked up and down the room. " A bitter, bitter, hard, cruel 
 woman," he said ; "an insult in every tone of it. Well, if she 
 can be bitter, I can be bitter too ; " and so he sat down and 
 wrote : — 
 
 *' Madam, — I very much regret that a few expressions of per- 
 sonal gratitude, which since your last letter are no longer felt, 
 should have caused you such very deep annoyance. The cause 
 being removed the effect will not reappear. 
 
 ''With regard to my personal pecuniary matters, madam, they 
 are in good order. With regard to the Refuge, send as much 
 money to us as you possibly can. ' Sell all that thou hast,' if 
 you like. With regard to our personal relations, madam, I can 
 only say, as a man who never told a lie, that I respect and rever- 
 ence you deeply. 
 
 '' Allan Gray." 
 
 " The fellow has got go, though," said Eleanor : " but a brim- 
 stone temper ; well, we are rid of him for a time. I will send them 
 some money, and go and see them." 
 
 Now we come to the answer to Eddy's letter, and the reply to 
 that. A bitter, hard woman, was she, Master Gray? Bitter 
 to you : bitter to one who showed her every day and all day that 
 he disliked his obligations to her, but not a bitter woman, though 
 shrewd of tongue, towards the world. Was she strong ? certainly ; 
 as strong a woman as most. Was she weak? she was weaker 
 than water to some few ; to a very few. She could fight and beat 
 her brother easily, and he was an "upstanding" man. Young 
 Gray she could beat as the dust under her feet ; yet he was as 
 self-contained and as mentally powerful a young man as most ; 
 you will see that for yourselves Yet where she loved she was 
 utterly powerless. And among others, she loved Eddy : nay, she 
 loved him the dearest of them all. 
 
 Her brother went about with her on the subject of spoiling 
 Eddy. He pointed out to her that her power over him was great, 
 that her responsibilities with regard to him were great, and that 
 she should not let him have his own way. 
 
 " I can't help it," she said. 
 
 " You, so strong-minded and energetic," said her brother, 
 " allow yourself to be made a perfect fool of by that boy ! " 
 
 " I tell you I can't help it," said Eleanor, somewhat em- 
 phatically. 
 
 " You should. You will spoil him," said her brother. 
 
38 STEETTON. 
 
 *' I never spoilt you, at all events," flashed out Eleanor. And 
 Squire Charles, with certain schoolroom reminiscences in his 
 mind, was obliged to admit that she certainly never had. 
 
 Now, with the almost cruel, almost vulgar tone of the answer 
 to young Gray fresh in one's mind, let us turn to her answer to 
 that bright little nephev/ of hers, Eddy Evans, and see whether or 
 no there were not two sides to this woman : — 
 
 *' Dearest Eddy, — Your letter gives me the deepest interest. 
 I congratulate you sincerely, my dear, in having found a partner 
 for life. I go this afternoon to take the joyful intelligence to your 
 father and mother, who will, no doubt, be made as happy as I am. 
 Pray give my dearest love to your dear one, and say that I shall 
 be happy to receive her on a visit as soon as she chooses, and to 
 present her to her new father and mother-in-law. 
 
 '' I think it of all things important that a person of a character 
 so frivolous and empty as yours, should early become imbued with 
 a sense of responsibility, and on those grounds I am delighted 
 that you have taken this important step. 
 
 "I have not thrashed-out yet; the steamer comes to-morrow; 
 but I have found an odd ten pounds. Do get out of that foolish 
 habit of giving your money away like a baby. You will probably 
 hear from your father the day after to-morrow on the subject 
 of your grand alliance. 
 
 " Write to me, and tell me what Roland has done, what * your 
 great success ' is, and what share yon had in it. I can quite 
 understand that Roland has done something unexampled in 
 history, for I believe Roland to be capable of anything ; the only 
 thing which puzzles me is that you should have had any hand in 
 it. Write and explain. I will do anything at any time, my dear, 
 to give you pleasure." 
 
 After a few pleasant days among her turnips and her beasts, 
 during which she was observed to have very often a smile of 
 amusement on her face. Aunt Eleanor got Eddy's reply : — 
 
 ''Dear Aunt, — If you are willing to do anything to give me 
 pleasure, you had better send another cheque for ten pounds 
 (unless you like to make it twenty), because that gave me the 
 deepest pleasure, as it did also to Jimmy Mordaunt. We have 
 spent some of it in riot and dissipation, but have still some of it 
 in hand. You have no idea of the temptations of this place, the 
 facilities of credit, and the easiness with which young men of my 
 personal appearance and of my expectations can raise money from 
 the lenders at ruinous interest. If I sent a son here, the first 
 
STEETTON. 39 
 
 thing I should take care of would be that he was supplied with 
 large sums of ready money, and so kept from all risk of temptation. 
 Believe me that such is my experience. 
 
 " With regard to the young person of whom I spoke to you in 
 my first letter (I never spoke to her), I doubt if she will do. She 
 is a barmaid down the river. I don't think she will do ; but, as 
 you have told father, I will keep my eye on her, with a view of 
 keeping her hanging over his head, and keeping him civil. 
 
 '' We never were frivolous so long together before, aunt. 
 Suppose we drop it ; but this place is a perfect atmosphere of 
 chaff. I don't like it half as well as the old place. There, 
 between- whiles of racket and horse-play, we were serious. Well, 
 there is not much that is serious in what I am going to tell you, 
 except that old Roland has suddenly become a kind of hero in 
 the University. Roland is the first man who ever won the 
 University sculls in his first term, and my share in the victory 
 was running along the bank and howling at him. 
 
 "I need not remind you of the Doctor's objections to our 
 having Robert Coombes to Gloucester to teach us to row, and how 
 his objections were overcome by our father and Mr. Mordaunt ; 
 at all events, as far as money went. The fruits of that teaching 
 have come out now. 
 
 " The third day we were here, Roland and I went early in the 
 day, before the others were on the river, and Roland began trying 
 sculling boats at the principal place where they are let. He was 
 a long time before he found one to suit him, and kept going up 
 and dovm in front of the barges, trying one after another, and 
 changing frequently, during which time I noticed that he was 
 attracting the attention of the people who were standing by. At 
 last he found one which he said he could feel, and sent a waterman 
 and myself to the tow-path side, at which time I observed that 
 the principal boat-proprietors, and at least a dozen other people, 
 had crossed, and were standing about, or walking slowly down the 
 tow-path. 
 
 " He kept us waiting for a long time, but at last he came 
 raging do^vn, bare-legged and bare-headed, at a racing pace : and 
 I said to myself, ' I should like to see some of these University 
 oars.' The waterman and I got our elbows up and went after 
 him, and, as we went, I heard muttered exclamations of wonder 
 and admiration. I felt as if I was the proprietor of a show. 
 
 '* He went down to the starting-post and rowed over, steered by 
 the waterman. As we neared the barges we found others running ^ 
 with us, and Roland rowing more splendidly every minute. His A 
 last rapid rush home was Imperial — with a large I. 
 
\/ 
 
 40 STEETTON. 
 
 " When he stopped, there was perfect silence among the boat- 
 builders and watermen. They were bent, as I have understood, 
 on business, and were none of them inclined to commit them- 
 selves. I said to the man — a most respecatble tradesman, as rich 
 as you, I believe — who had let the boat to us, * My brother rows 
 well for a Freshman.' He answered, ' I have not time to build 
 him a boat, sir, but would earnestly beg him to use the one he is 
 in, and not change.' I thought, of course, that he was afraid of 
 our going to his rival over the water, till that rival came to me, 
 [~and said : ' I should be glad of your custom, sir, but do urge your 
 brother to stay in that boat. I have no boat in which he could 
 show his form as well as in that. Beg him, sir, not to train 
 |down ; it is only a fortnight to the race.' 
 
 *' I was utterly puzzled at all this, and looked for Roland. He 
 had locked his boat to a punt in front of the University barge, 
 and was talking to Jasper Meredith, who lay in it on cushions. I 
 hailed them, and they took me in. I told them what I had heard. 
 Jasper answered : 
 
 '' ' I have been trying to persuade your brother from entering 
 for the boat-race,' said he to me. * His answer is that he will not 
 run against these older men. I watched you two this morning, 
 and crutched it down to follow you, and see Roland row — a thing 
 f which delights me — and I have few pleasures. And I have been 
 here, and heard those cads making bets on our own Roland ; dis- 
 cussing the points in his body, as if he were a horse — his legs, 
 his arms, his chest, his thighs — nay more, his manner of living, 
 and his morality. All I can say is, that the whole business was 
 immeasurably indecent. Since the days of Commodus, there was 
 never such a thing done as for Roland to go down into the arena. 
 It is a pleasure to me to see him row, but if he had heard the 
 expressions those cads used about him, he would never row again 
 I as long as he lived.' 
 
 ■~" "'You are looking only at one side of the question,' said 
 Roland. * I only match myself against another gentleman.' 
 
 " ' Yes ; but on what terms ? ' said Jasper. * I heard one of 
 them say, " If a cove could only persuade him to train, what a pot 
 of money a fellow might put on." He did not say " fellow," but 
 I spare your ears. And Roland has dropped to this ! ' 
 
 " Roland, laughing, said : ' I am not sure that I am going to 
 row, and I don't think I am going to win. I only know that I 
 am not going to bet.' And he shot away and left us. 
 
 " But he rowed and he won. He had infinitely the worst aide, 
 and Jemmy Mordaunt and I ran through the Meadows with punts 
 over the ditches, to steer him. The thing was easily done. 
 
STEETTON. 41 
 
 Roland rowed bis man — a Henley winner — down, and after the 
 first half mile, kept him working on his wash. Although he had 
 scrupulously practised in public, few believed in him against the 
 Henley winner, and the cheers were very slight. He came into 
 the University-barge, as did the other man, and they got locked 
 together. Roland said : * We cannot all win, sir. I am sorry 
 you have lost, but I am glad I have won.' The other man said : 
 * I give you my shoes, sir, and I think you will wear them well.' 
 And then I took Roland out of his boat, and put the waterman in, 
 and we stood alone on the barge. 
 
 "Not a soul knew us personally, and so not a soul would speak 
 to us. We wanted to get the cup, but did not know whom to ask 
 about it. We were not likely to speak to men who would not 
 speak to us, and there we stood like fools ; Roland, in breeches, 
 with his legs bare (for these barbarians row in trousers). How 
 long we should have stood, I cannot say, but the President came, 
 parting the throng, and made Roland's acquaintance. 
 
 '^ His influence here is so great that it broke the ice at once. 
 He had actually called on us that morning, it seemed, which gave 
 him the right of introducing us. So one happy result of the race 
 is that we, with our charming manners, and our splendid personal 
 appearance, have a new world opened to us. I was not aware, 
 until I went to other colleges, that our college was a marked and 
 disliked one ; but it is. So much for Roland's boat-race. 
 
 " On the Meadows we picked up Jasper Meredith, and, strangely 
 enough, the young man to whom I gave ten shillings, who is now 
 one of his servants. Tor heaven's sake,' said Jasper, 'don't 
 begin talking about the boat-race. I am sorry he has won. 
 Give me the address of this man, if you know it. He is a friend 
 of yours.' He wanted the address of Allan Gray, for what 
 purpose I did not ask him. Send it to him, for I have not got 
 it. He has moved." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 See Aunt Eleanor's writing-table in the bay-window once more, 
 with a lady writing there — a lady, but not Aunt Eleanor. The 
 light of the window fell, this time, on the head of the most delicate 
 little fairy ever seen : on the head of the girl who had taken her 
 aunt's place as the great Evans beauty : on the head of Mildred 
 Evans. 
 
42 STRETTON. 
 
 The cross which the handsome Evans had made with the still 
 more heautiful Meredith, had resulted in her, and she was very- 
 splendid indeed ; very small, very fragile, very blonde, in every 
 attitude graceful ; yet not without a rather quick, decisive way of 
 changing from one perfectly unstudied pose to another. 
 
 Without shadow ; all light as morning ; light in hair, light in 
 sapphire eyes, light in her dress. She had dressed herself in 
 white, and she had got a red rose from the garden and put it in 
 her hair, and she had got a pink rose and put it in her bosom, and 
 had put a geranium and rose in a glass vase before her, and thus 
 fortified, had sat down, at our unsympathetic Aunt Eleanor's desk, 
 to write her iimocent little love-letter, which the reader will be 
 glad to be spared. 
 
 She had just finished when the door was opened widely, and 
 in came Aunt Eleanor, in a riding-habit, accompanied by a girl, 
 also in a riding-habit, who looked exceedingly like Aunt Eleanor's 
 ghost. 
 
 A veiy tall girl, with a singularly upstanding carriage, and a 
 well-set-on head, covered with fine brown hair, combed back into 
 a knot ; a very fine girl, very large and strong, but not in the 
 least coarse. Ethel Mordaunt, of whom her brothers used to say 
 that she was the greatest brick in England, whom Squire Charles 
 was apt to pronounce a trifle coarse at times, though never within 
 his sister's hearing, and whom Aunt Eleanor pronounced to be a 
 perfect lady, far too good to many any one except Eddy. 
 
 This young lady, still holding her riding- skirt under her left 
 arm, threw her whip on the table, and said : 
 
 '' You are the best judge. Miss Evans, being so much older and 
 wiser than I am ; but even a girl just out of the schoolroom has 
 an opinion, and my opinion is that you allow your good-nature to 
 be abused in countenancing these two women." 
 
 " I don't encourage them. Mrs. Gray is most respectable." 
 
 " Is she ? " said Miss Mordaunt. " Ah, I daresay she is. But 
 I don't like her, for all that. I don't like the way she talks to my 
 brothers, for instance, though perhaps my brothers may. She is 
 both familiar and slangy." 
 
 **I don't know what you mean," said Aunt Eleanor. ''Her 
 grandson and herself were left in my care by my mother, and I 
 have striven to do my duty by them ; and slangy is not a nice 
 word, Ethel." 
 
 "My brothers use it," said Ethel. ''And then there is old 
 Phillis Myrtle again." 
 
 " Mrs. Myrtle lias her faults," said Aunt Eleanor ; " but these 
 are matters which you cannot understand." 
 
STRETTON. 43 
 
 " Papa says she is a tipsy old thing," said Miss Mordaunt. 
 ** Look here, Miss Evans, see if here is not our sweet little hird, 
 writing her love-letter, and dressed up in flowers to do so. What 
 an innocent little love it is. Put it in strong, Milly, my love. 
 Leave no doubt about the state of your sentiments, my dear. 
 Don't let him have the slightest doubt of your mutual relations, 
 and let me read it after." 
 
 *'It is sealed up," said Mildred, turning round and laughing. 
 
 '' What a pity ! " said Miss Mordaunt. " I have seen a few of 
 his, but I never saw one of yours. I should like to see one, be- 
 cause I don't know how I shall have to vrrite to your brother Eddy, 
 when he, driven to exasperation by your aunt here, proposes to 
 me. Do you ever write to Eddy ? " 
 
 " I am going to write now," said Mildred. 
 
 " Tell him that his aunt's heart is set on our union, and that 
 if he will summon up the courage to propose, I will have him — 
 conditionally. He must add a cubit to his stature, to begin with ; 
 and there are other conditions also. Will you write that for me ? 
 That, do you see. Miss Evans, w^ill crown your kind plan." 
 
 *' I have no plan now," said Aunt Eleanor. And standing in 
 her place, with her riding-skirt tucked up under her left arm, she 
 looked steadily at Miss Mordaunt, standing in her place, also in 
 the same attitude, and also looking steadily at Aunt Eleanor. But 
 as she returned Aunt Eleanor's stare, the veins in the girl's throat 
 began to swell and throb, and a flush spread upwards over her 
 face, until that face was scarlet. At which time. Aunt Eleanor 
 went up and patted her on the shoulder, and said in her ear, *' It 
 was so with me once, my dear, long ago, long ago ; that is the 
 reason why I never married." 
 
 The girl said nothing, but Mildred Evans, turning round from 
 the table said, suddenly : 
 
 " I have got a letter also from Roland." 
 
 The blood fled back from Ethel Mordaunt' s face as fast as it 
 had come, and told the story full well — the story which Aunt 
 Eleanor had nearly guessed that afternoon, during their ride. An 
 old story, and generally a sad one, of childish friendship ripening 
 into love on the woman's part, but only into kindly, friendly 
 indifference on the man's. *' She loves him," thought Aunt 
 Eleanor, "and I shall never prate her out of it. No one ever 
 prated me out of it, even after I had her children on my knee. 
 God help the poor child ! " 
 
 Ethel Mordaunt had as well-cut and well-carved a head on her 
 shoulders as had her brother James, whose carriage of his head 
 has been before alluded to. This bead was very nearly down on 
 
44 STEETTON. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor's shoulder, but it was sucltlenly and imperiously 
 drawn up again, and turned towards the door ; for a footman 
 opened that door and said, " If you please, ma'am, here is Mrs. 
 Gray and Mrs. Myrtle." 
 
 Every fibre of Ethel Mordaunt's body became rigid as these two 
 women appeared. '* Send beauty away," she said, almost im- 
 periously, pointing with her head, negro fashion, to Mildred 
 Evans. *'It is not fit that she should breathe the atmosphere 
 with these two." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor chuckled internally, but did not let her laughter 
 show outwardly. " Mildred," she said, " would you kindly be so 
 
 good as to go and see whether the 1 mean, be so good as to 
 
 go upstairs and look out of the window and see if but I cannot 
 
 do it. Would you be so kind as to take yourself out of the way, 
 my dear? " 
 
 '*I can understand that, Aunt," said Mildred, laughing, and 
 slid out of the room, with her precious letter in her hand, making 
 two pretty little obeisances to Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Phillis Myrtle as 
 she went out, which those good ladies returaed with deep reverences. 
 
 '' Now you go too," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' I am going to stop where I am," said Ethel Mordaunt. 
 
 '' What is not fit company for her is not fit company for you." 
 
 " Nevertheless, I am going to stop where I am. I am clever, 
 and wish to study character." 
 
 " You will go if I tell you to go," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' Of course ; now have them in." 
 
 And they came in. Two very difierent-looking women, Mrs. 
 Gray first. A tall old woman, with the remains of a certain kind 
 of aquiline beauty, very upright in her carriage, and an expression 
 in her face — a look of cool, careless impudence, which might 
 either take the form of contemptuous badinage, or of utter scorn. 
 She was very well dressed, and in good material ; but her whole 
 appearance, striking as it was, was utterly repugnant both to 
 Eleanor and Miss Mordaunt, for difierent reasons. 
 
 Phillis Myrtle was an entirely difierent person. A little, round- 
 about old lady, with an apple face and a perpetual smile. To 
 Eleanor she was possibly more repugnant than Mrs. Gray. 
 
 It was natural that these two women should be utterly repug- 
 nant to her, even if they had been the most estimable characters 
 in the world. These two women were the only two left who knew 
 of, or cared to remember, her brother Charles's escapade with 
 Elsie Gray. It was a secret between them, though it was never 
 mentioned at all ; neither of the three knew how much the other 
 knew. Who knew most, we shall see. 
 
STEETTON. 45 
 
 It was a life-long annoyance for a veiy liigh-sOuled woman, im- 
 patient of control, to keep this secret with two such women ; yet 
 it had to be kept, for these women had the power of annoying her 
 brother seriously. Squire Charles had done well by Mrs. Gray. 
 She lived in a cottage rent-free, and had a fixed allowance, but 
 the cottage was Eleanor's, and the allowance was paid by Eleanor's 
 hand. Once, and once only, had the Squire spoken to Mrs. Gray 
 after his return from India, and that was to say, " Mrs. Gray, our 
 more recent intercourse was a very sad one ; I think that the 
 wisest thing we can do is to forget one another." And Mrs. 
 Gray said, " Your honour shall be obeyed." Nothing more ; and 
 had accepted her position quite quietly, merely curtseying to the 
 Squire when they met. Here she was now with old Phillis 
 Myrtle, the nurse, staring fixedly and boldly at Miss Mordaunt, 
 as if she was weighing or appraising her, and here was Miss 
 Mordaunt looking out of window instead of returning her gaze, 
 and drumming with her horse-whip. 
 
 *' I am afraid I have kept you waiting," began Eleanor. 
 
 *' Not at all, miss ; I have been accustomed to wait on gentle- 
 folks all my life, and my husband's family have been vassals to 
 yours for centuries. Coming from the manufiicturing countries 
 as I do, this vassalage seemed strange at first, but I have got 
 used to it. The world uses you well. Miss Eleanor, and I hope 
 it will use you as well, Miss Mordaunt, when you are as old as 
 Miss Eleanor. Why, miss, you are three-and-forty ; you must 
 think of marrying soon." 
 
 *' I am sorry to say I am. three-and-forty, my good Gray ; and 
 as for thinking of marrying, I have thought of that all my life, 
 and the more I think of it the less I like it." 
 
 It was so good-humouredly said that Mrs. Gray smiled a gaunt 
 smile, and continued the conversation with Miss Mordaunt, who, 
 by-the-bye, had not said one word. 
 
 " You will poison Miss Mordaunt's mind against marriage. Miss 
 Eleanor," she went on, audaciously. " Beauty like hers should 
 not go unsued. Mordaunts and Evanses must not fail in the 
 land ; beauty, worth, valour, perfect openness, and perfect truth, 
 are too good qualities to be lost in the land ; and where are they 
 to be found unless among Mordaunts and Evanses ? Ah ! we 
 may see Miss Mordaunt mistress of Stretton yet." Whereupon 
 Miss Ethel, with her crest in the air, marched out of the room, 
 with her riding-habit under her arm, and a look of high, cool, un- 
 utterable contempt on her face. '' I will come back, Miss Evans, 
 when this woman is gone," she said ; but she might have gone 
 upstairs without bruising her clenched hand against the banisters. 
 
46 STEETTON. 
 
 ''Mrs. Gray," said Eleanor, angrily, ''you are taking great 
 liberties." 
 
 "Only with a Mordaunt. I love it; I love to make one of 
 those snake-headed Mordaunts put their heads in the air, like an 
 adder just before he strikes ; I do it with the boys. They are 
 a red-handed old lot. Why, that youngest one, Jimmy, her 
 brother, nigh tortured your own nephew, Edward, to death at 
 school, that you know. Mad love and i)itter hate. I love to 
 play with a Mordaunt. Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " I'll trouble you not to play with an Evans, if you please," said 
 Eleanor, calmly furious. 
 
 " No ! no ! not with a she-Evans. They get their stuff from 
 the Merediths. Do you remember your mother ? Ah ! to see 
 her bareheaded, with her hands held up over her head — well, 
 don't look like that. She was a Meredith, and so are you ; your 
 brother is an Evans. All the men-Evanses are soft ; you can do 
 anything with 'em you like, except resist them when they plead. 
 Your brother took two of my sons to Waterloo, and only brought 
 back one. They would have gone to the devil after him — and 
 then — why, and then another man-Evans, your nephew Edward, 
 kisses you, strokes your hair, calls you his foolish old woman, and 
 makes you, a woman of spirit, do just as he pleases. And he will 
 live to break your heart as his father broke mine. You wait till 
 you are old, and see him spending your hard-earned money on 
 them that will despise you. Wait till you see him getting impa- 
 tient for your death, and then remember my words." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor rose. " Now look here, Mrs. Gray, and have 
 the goodness to attend to me. I am not going to have this, or 
 anything in the remotest degree approaching to it, for one instant. 
 Go out ! " 
 
 " You had better hear my errand first." 
 
 " I will not speak to you. Go 6iit ! " 
 
 " You may get your servants to turn me out if you like," began 
 Mrs. Gray. 
 
 " I shall not get my servants to do it ; I shall do it myself in 
 less than half a minute," said Aunt Eleanor. And as she rose 
 she looked so extremely like doing it, that Mrs. Gray turned 
 round, not one bit abashed, and broke into a loud laugh. 
 
 " I'll go," she said ; " and I'll hold my tongue, too. This 
 woman will tell you what we came about. There is no bad blood 
 between us, Eleanor ; I like you the better for your anger." And 
 she was gone. 
 
 " The old ivltclij" said Aunt Eleanor, dropping back in her 
 chair. " For her to have dared " 
 
STEETTON. 47 
 
 A low sigli, and a dropping, or rather dribbling, of honey- sweet 
 words reminded her that Phillis Myrtle was still seated in the 
 easiest of easy-chairs, rolling her head from one side to the other, 
 and using her pocket handkerchief. 
 
 "You may well say dared, my dear young lady," began Mrs. 
 Myrtle : '' audacious as dear Mrs. Gray can be, I never thought 
 she'd have burst out on this day of all days in the year. And 
 witch you may well say. Miss Eleanor : witch she would be if she 
 could, for I have watched her. But it ain't biling things in a 
 pipkin as makes a witch — no, my dear. Lord forbid ! If she has 
 asked me for black spells once, she has asked me a dozen times, 
 and I replied to her, ' Mrs. Gray, I don't use them ; I am old, 
 and I think of my soul ! ' And she has said to me, ' But, you 
 fool, you know them,' as heaven help me, I do. And I have set 
 her off with white spells,''' for bunions and king's evil. But now 
 she is going for good and all, and how her pious grandson will 
 like it, I can't say. 
 
 " As I was saying, my dear young lady, she comes to me, and 
 she says, ' You half-hearted witch,' she says, * he will have you 
 all the same, if you w^on't give me a black spell. If you won't let 
 me make acquaintance with your master, at all events give me a 
 white one.' And I said I would do anything neighbourly, not 
 against my conscience, only that I should want a new crown-piece. 
 Then she told me what she wanted. She says, in her own words, 
 ' I want a love-spell. That girl, Ethel Mordaunt, is in love with 
 young Roland Evans, for I have watched them, and he don't care 
 for her. And I want something to put in his wine, or his drink, 
 to make him love her ; for there will be mischief afoot if he 
 marries her before they have studied one another's character. 
 They wiU fight for the mastery, and there will be your master to 
 pay.' And I gave her some dill- water, and she put it in his drink." 
 
 Eleanor groaned. The secret she had found out that day was 
 known to this terrible Mrs. Gray ; and how many others ? 
 
 ^' Therefore, my dear young lady, it is as well that she goes 
 away. It is indeed." 
 
 " Is she going away ? " 
 
 '' Her grandson has offered her a home in London, my dear 
 young lady, and she goes to him, and a nice mess they will make 
 of it together." 
 
 " Did you two come here to tell me of this to-day ? " asked 
 Eleanor. 
 
 * All this is going on in the present day, and there are educated 
 men who believe that Mr. Home was carried round the ceiling of the 
 room. 
 
48 STEETTON. 
 
 " Yes, my dear lady, partly. And partly to ask if I might have 
 her cottage. There is no one hut us two knows anything, and no 
 one hut I and yourself, and your dear mother, now in glory, and 
 the Squire as knows a certain part of the truth ; and there is no 
 one hut my own self knows the whole and entire truth. She 
 thinks she does, hut she don't. The Lord help you, if she did." 
 
 " What do you mean hy the whole truth, Mrs. Myrtle? " said 
 Eleanor. 
 
 *' Parcelling all together," said Mrs. Myrtle. " Not parts and 
 parcels, hut the whole hiling." 
 
 *' Well," said Aunt Eleanor, ruhhing her nose, ''I suppose you 
 had better have the cottage rent-free. I need not mince matters 
 with you. It is of great importance that my brother's first mar- 
 riage should not he talked of " 
 
 That silly old trot, PhiUis Myrtle, was down on her knees 
 before her in an instant. " She don't know of that, my lady. 
 Oh ! for heaven's sake keep it from her for ever." 
 
 " Does she believe my brother a villain, then? " said Eleanor, 
 indignantly. 
 
 '' Oh ! let her beheve so, my lady. Oh ! for the sake of the 
 mother that bore you, and the brother you love, let her believe so. 
 Listen to me, a foolish old woman. Think of what her claims 
 w^ould be if she knew it ; and nobody knows that much but you 
 and I — no one alive. Think, dear Miss Eleanor, w^hat would be 
 the effect of bringing it up now — how Squire Charles had made a 
 shameful marriage in Scotland over the broomstick, but legal. 
 Think of what Madam Evans would say when she found it had 
 been kept from her. Think of the effect on the boys. Think of 
 my darling Koland, whom I nursed, how his head would be 
 bowed ; and think of your poor little Eddy. Think of him, miss. 
 Don't let that woman think there was a marriage. You have con- 
 cealed before. Go on concealing : it is no new sin. Think of 
 Eddy, miss." 
 
 " You plead well," said Aunt Eleanor. " I think you are an 
 affectionate woman, though you must own yourself to be a great 
 fool. Will that woman. Gray, speak, think you ?" 
 
 " No, my lady ; she is too proud ; and she don't know all. I 
 did not think as you knew as much as you did. I thought you 
 thought as she thought. But I am the only one that knows all. 
 Leave well alone, my lady." 
 
 " Leave ill alone, you mean. Well, I suppose I had better. 
 You can have the cottage." 
 
 " Well, aunt," said Mildred, coming in with her arm round 
 Ethel's waist, " are the two wretches gone ? " 
 
STEETTON. 49 
 
 ** Don't talk to me for a time, you two. Kiss, play, fall in 
 love, quarrel, do anything you like, but never give yourselves to a 
 deceit. It will grow out of a little lie, like the thin clouds of 
 summer, darkening and darkening, till it breaks, in ruin and 
 confusion." 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 Stretton Castle lay on the north side of the valley, under Long- 
 mynd ; Mordaunt Koyal lay upon the south side, nearly facing it, 
 with Caradoc at its back. 
 
 When the Evanses and the Mordaunts first came into that part 
 of the country, and began quarrelling, is lost in the mist of 
 antiquity. All down through the history of the county, however, 
 you will find that the Evanses and the Mordaunts did nothing but 
 squabble, and now and then intermarry, mainly for the purpose of 
 patching up a worse quarrel than usual. There was, however, 
 such a furious hurly-burly about marriage settlements, dower 
 lands, appanages, and so forth, that the remedy had been found 
 to be w^orse than the disease, and had been tacitly abandoned. 
 These disputes had been settled with lance in the tilting-ground, 
 with rapier in the meadow, and with red tape in Chancery ; but 
 at last the old jealousies and disputes had died out, and they were 
 exceedingly good friends. The last case of enmity between the 
 houses was when James Mordaunt so shamefully bullied Eddy 
 Evans at Gloucester. Even that was past and gone now. 
 
 In the great civil war, the then Evans declared for Parliament 
 — and, of course, the then Mordaunt for King. This was a very 
 pretty quarrel indeed, and the great statesman tried to utilise it : 
 not knowing, as the Maynards and Merediths, or any Shropshire 
 folks, could have told him, that the Evanses and Mordaunts only 
 quarrelled between themselves, and that, in case of a Evans or a 
 Mordaunt being assailed in any way by an outsider (even a May- 
 nard or a Meredith), the other family would at once fly to the 
 rescue, and defy creation. Consequently, during the Revolution, 
 the Evans of those times did nothing more than watch his 
 pestilent neighbour, Mordaunt ; and during the Restoration, 
 Mordaunt did nothing more than go bail for his traitorous neigh- 
 bour, Evans. Obligations in this way were mutual ; and what is 
 more to the purpose, they both kept their lands under their feet, 
 
 5 
 
50 STRETTON. 
 
 their heads on their shoulders, and what concerns us most, their 
 houses over their heads. 
 
 So that now, as of old, Stretton stood a little up the hill — a 
 long mass of dark grey, blazing with roses, with an oak wood 
 behind it, and sheets of moorland rising behind ; while before it, 
 the deer-park stooped down, like a cascade of green turf, into the 
 valley, unaltered since the time of Henry VII. For a similar 
 reason, the dark red-brick, James the First house of Mordaunt, 
 buried among its dense elms and oaks, on the other side of the 
 valley, kept its form unaltered through all political changes. 
 
 Either house, or either estate, were possessions which, to poor 
 folks, seem almost fabulous. Yet there are thousands as good, or 
 much better, to be seen anywhere. One of my neighbours, a 
 commoner, has 20,000L a year ; another, just in sight, has 
 60,000^. ; another, also a commoner, within four miles, has just 
 died worth 5,000,000/. The figures, with regard to the Evans 
 and the Mordaunt properties, drop terribly from these real, every- 
 day sums. Mr. Mordaunt is reputed to have about 7,000/. a 
 year, and Squire Charles Evans 8,000/. We have only to do 
 with the last estate, and I only mention figures to show that it 
 was a very desirable one for a moderate man. Though not by any 
 means as good as the New York Herald, and but little better than 
 Mr. Ward Beecher's church, it was worth fighting for. 
 
 There was a pleasant, orderly luxury about the place which was 
 extremely agreeable, and was rather wonderful to contemplate, 
 when one considered the beggarly income. It is perfectly certain 
 that Charles Evans could never have done what he did with his 
 limited means, but for one thing : he never went to London, except 
 to lodgings, and Mrs. Evans did not dress. 
 
 But he did everything else. To begin with, he sat in Parlia- 
 ment, for one thing, three elections, which somewhat took the 
 gloss ofi" his income ; and then he sat a fourth at a greater expense 
 than before — an expense which made even him open his eyes, and 
 brought in a furious remonstrance from Eleanor. He sat, I say, 
 a fourth time, for three weeks, after which time he was unseated 
 in a scandalous manner. There was no doubt at all about it. Out- 
 raged Britannia held up her hands in sheer horror ; and six thou- 
 sand odd of good money gone to the bad for nothing ! After this, 
 Charles Evans retired into private life, cursing his attorney, con- 
 soling himself with the fact that "the other fellow" had spent 
 more money than he had, and so let public affairs go to the deuce 
 as they liked. 
 
 Consequently, although he kept the hounds at his own expense, 
 his estate was not injured in any way. Hounds can be kept veiy 
 
STRETTON. 51 
 
 well for 2,000/. a year ; and he kept them till he made the brilliant 
 discovery that you could get as much sport out of them if you let 
 some one else keep them, and only galloped after them yourself. 
 So he gave up his hounds. 
 
 Then he bred race-horses, and, indeed, he won the Oaks, to 
 Eleanor's intense exasperation. "Now we are done for," she 
 said : "this is the finish and end of us at last." But she was 
 deceived. Charles bred a colt, such a colt as was never seen, and 
 he, a consummate horseman, taught one of his stable-boys to ride 
 it, and he won the Two Thousand,"^ and Eleanor gave the house up 
 for lost ; but no. He came back to her the next day, very quietly, 
 and told her that he had sold his horse, with its engagements, for 
 5000/., and had netted 14,000Z. in bets. " You are not going on 
 then," she said. " No," he answered ; " it is so slow." 
 
 Sailing-yachts eat nothing, and so his yachting cost him little. 
 And now that his Parliamentary career was done with and finished, 
 his sole dissipation was his yacht at Aberystwith. His was a most 
 desirable property, perfectly unencumbered, all ready for Koland, 
 who seemed to be worthy of it. 
 
 Most worthy. The good Doctor's estimate of his character was 
 being confinned day by day. The Dean had gone out of his way 
 to write to Squire Evans about his two sons : they were both of 
 them patterns (in spite of a slight tendency to boisterousness), but 
 Roland was a paragon. The schools, and consequently the world, 
 were at his feet — he might do anything — there was never anything 
 like him. Old Mordaunt wrote to his father : " Roly Evans has 
 won the University skulls, and has made a blazes fine speech at 
 the Union. I heard it. There ain't a man to hold a candle to 
 him here. He is getting petted and flattered ; but I don't think 
 they will spoil him." 
 
 Jim Mordaunt also wrote to his sister. I hardly know why, but 
 I feel as if I was violating confidence in writing down what he 
 wi'ote. It ran thus : — 
 
 " He has done a thing five hundred times greater than winning 
 the University sculls — for my part I hate to see him rowing. The 
 question before the house was the Eastern war, and the ultra- 
 Radicals were against it ; and Roland got on his legs, on the 
 Liberal side, and did so cast about his beautiful, furious words 
 about national death and national dishonour, that he carried the 
 house with him. You should have seen the way he raised his 
 head and sent the well-thought-out syllogisms rattling through his 
 white teeth : it was a sight ! Johnny says that his logic was all 
 fishy in the major term, and that his whole argument was bosh ; 
 * The Caractacus Derby is an exact parallel. 
 
52 stee;tton. 
 
 but you know Johnny. As for me, I would sooner hear Roland's 
 buncombe than any one else's common sense. So would you, my 
 sister. They are all flattering him, but they will never spoil him. 
 I got up a fight with him and his brother to-night. Pretending 
 to cut Eddy's hair, while I was flourishing the scissors I got the 
 enclosed off his head. He is in an awful wax with me, for he has 
 missed his curl : he little dreams where it has gone. Mind you 
 never, under any circumstances, let him see it ; he would never 
 forgive me." 
 
 So after their successful two first terms they all came back, full 
 of hope, health, and high spirits, to their two beautiful homes. I 
 suspect that of all the men in the world, a young English country 
 gentleman, of good name, of good repute, of tolerable intelligence, 
 with good health, and of innocent life, has more chance of happi- 
 ness than any other. Most human cares are impossible for him ; 
 he has plenty to do, plenty to think about, and his work is all laid 
 ready to his hand. I cannot conceive of any man of finer chances 
 than a rich young squire — the world and its temptations seem put 
 out of the way in his case ; yet he frequently makes a fearful fiasco 
 of it too. 
 
 There was no blot on the prospects of the young Mordaunts or 
 the young Evanses on the morning after their arrival home, any 
 more than there was a cloud in the June sky, which stretched 
 overhead a sheet of glorious, cloudless blue. All possibilities of 
 any disturbing causes seemed absolute nonsense. The chances 
 were so infinitely in their favour. Money was to be had for the 
 picking up ; they had talents, prospects, health, high spirits ; the 
 world was theirs, in a way, if they cared to go into it and succeed ; 
 or if they failed, here were two homes of ancient peace ready for 
 them to come back to. Misfortune, thanks to settled old order, 
 seemed in their cases to have become impossible. 
 
 The Mordaunts had come over to breakfast with the Evanses, 
 and Maynard was spending the first part of his vacation with them 
 for the purpose of being with his beloved Mildred Evans. Aunt 
 Eleanor had come from Pulverbatch to see her darling Eddy ; and 
 so they were all assembled in the morning room at Stretton. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor was the first person who sauntered out through 
 the open window into the bright, blazing sun. The boys stayed 
 behind eating more, and yet more, of marmalade and honey, and 
 the others sat because they were contented, until at last Eddy 
 cried out, " There is Aunt Eleanor having a row with Deacon 
 Macdingaway ; " and, indeed, Aunt Eleanor's usual expletive 
 " Fiddle-de-dee," was plainly borne to the ears of the assembled 
 company. 
 
STKETTON. 53 
 
 ** Let's go and hear the fun, you fellows," said the younger 
 Mordaunt — a proposition which, as it stood, was innocent enough, 
 hut might have heen carried out with less hoisterousness. They 
 need not all of them have rushed to the window at once. Like- 
 wise, there was no necessity of a free fight between Eddy Evans 
 and young Mordaunt, which ended in Eddy being cast on his back 
 in the middle of a bed of geraniums, with young Mordaunt atop 
 of him. However, they soon were beside Aunt Eleanor, deter- 
 mined to back her through thick and thin against Deacon Mac- 
 dingaway. With which heed the younger Mordaunt, on arriving 
 at the scene of action, by way of taking up a formidable position, 
 said to Macdingaway, " She did nothing of the kind." 
 
 Macdingaway was the head Scotch gardener, who, in an evil 
 moment for him, had confessed to one of these madcaps that he 
 had held an office in his church, after which they had christened 
 him " Deacon." He turned on young Mordaunt, and said, *' Her 
 ladyship threepit " 
 
 ** That I emphatically deny," struck in Eddy, who had got his 
 breath. 
 
 *' Her ladyship threepit that the roses should no have been 
 budded till the first week in July," said the inexorable Macdinga- 
 way ; ** and I took the liberty to disagree with her." 
 
 '' That alters the case altogether, of course," said Eddy. 
 ** You are quite right. Deacon. Aunt, you have not got a leg to 
 stand on, you know. You had better leave him alone : he has 
 much the best of the argument. Here are the others : let us come 
 to them." 
 
 As they went away from him, old Macdingaway shook his clever 
 old head. ** A' folly together," he said. '' If your father had na 
 lived before ye, where would ye be ? " 
 
 All the others were now standing on the terrace. Squire Charles 
 Evans, a handsome man of fifty, in a short velvet coat, perfectly 
 cut trousers and well-made lace-up boots ; very grey, with slight 
 grey whiskers and moustache. Squire Mordaunt, a full-necked, 
 brown-faced thickset man, without a hair on his face, in grey 
 breeches and gaiters, with a grey shooting coat. He was a very 
 bucolic-looking man, this Squire Mordaunt, but he had a shrewd 
 deep -set eye under his heavy eyebrows too. He stood looking at 
 the group as they approached, with his head thrust forward, and 
 his hands holding a whip (for he had ridden over) behind his back, 
 and he was the first who spoke. 
 
 *' What new trouble has my friend Miss Evans been getting 
 into ? " he asked, in a rather grating voice. * ' She seems to be borne 
 back in triumph from some new victory by these four foolish boys." 
 
54 STEETTON. 
 
 *' Nothing but a dispute with my dear friend and admirer, Mac- 
 dingaway, George Mordaunt," she replied, with her head in the 
 air ; *' nothing worse than that this time." 
 
 "I am glad of that," said Squire Mordaunt. ''Edward, you 
 can come out of your aunt's pocket. My dear Miss Evans, once 
 more, will you let me have that right of way through your two 
 orchards for watering my horses at Gweline Farm ? " 
 
 *' No, I won't," said Aunt Eleanor, with a dangerous look in 
 her face. Stroking Edward's hare curls, who, although he w^as 
 not in her pocket, was certainly leaning idly against her. ** No, 
 I won't." 
 
 '* But why not, my dear Miss Evans ? " said Squire Mordaunt. 
 *' Because yoii ask me, and because you ask me with that look 
 in your face. I would sooner let every gipsy on the country-side 
 camp there than let one of your dogs through, if you look at me 
 like that, and ask me like that, now then ! What do you think of 
 that, for instance ? " 
 
 The other boys had heard nothing of this ; but Mrs. Evans, who 
 was en jmssant a pretty woman, and Mrs. Mordaunt, who was not 
 pretty, but clever, interposed. 
 
 ''Surely," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "I shall have to quote Dame 
 
 Quickly on you two some day. You cannot serve heaven well, 
 
 that you never come together without quarrelling. Do be quiet." 
 
 " A wilful woman must have her way," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " And indeed she must," said Aunt Eleanor ; " you never said 
 
 a traer word than that. I am going after the boys." 
 
 Young Maynard and Mildred Evans had marched off, and were 
 courting somewhere or another ; there remained only the four boys 
 and Ethel Mordaunt, who were standing together, and apparently 
 all talking at once. The Mordaunts, with the exception of Mrs. 
 Mordaunt liad ridden over, and so Ethel Mordaunt w^as in her riding- 
 habit, though bare-headed. Aunt Eleanor, as she approached them, 
 heard that the four boys were discussing what they would do with 
 themselves on this happy summer's day, and saw that Ethel was 
 listening to them : she, also in her riding-habit, and bare-headed, 
 stooped, and pretended to weed one of Macdingaway's well-weeded 
 flower-beds. 
 
 "I vote," said young Eddy, " that we ride into Shrewsbury, 
 have ices, and see the boats go. And we might buy a piece of 
 salmon, and Jimmy Mordaunt might bring it home in his pocket." 
 " I wouldn't be a fool if I was in your place," said the younger 
 Mordaunt. "You have had plenty of opportunities of eating 
 yourself blind at the University ; and I am sure we have had 
 boating enough." 
 
STRETTON. 55 
 
 " Let us go fishing," said the elder Mordaunt. ** What do you 
 say, Roland ? " 
 
 " It is too bright for fishing, Johnny," said Roland ; " I'll tell 
 you what I should be inclined to propose. Let us take Rory, our 
 old Irish pointer, and ride away over the Longmynd and see what 
 grouse there are. What do you think, Ethel ? " 
 
 ** I think that would be very pleasant," said Ethel. 
 
 '* It is certainly an improvement on Eddy's proposal of eating 
 ices in Shrewsbury, and also an improvement on Johnny's equally 
 idiotic idea of going fishing. I am for it," said Young Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Do you think, Johnny," said Ethel to her elder brother — 
 *' do you think "that I might come ? " 
 
 " No,'^ shouted young Mordaunt ; *Sve don't want a parcel of 
 girls with us." 
 
 Young Mordaunt had said this in sheer recklessness, expecting 
 that his sister, as her wont was, would have given it to him. He 
 was rather astonished, and very much ashamed, when his imperial 
 sister turned gently to him and said : 
 
 " I won't be much in your way, Jimmy. I can ride as far and 
 as fast as any of you. And you too have been a weary while 
 away ; let me see something of you now. Let me come, Jimmy." 
 
 "I believe," said young Mordaunt, impetuously, *'that I am 
 the greatest brute on earth ; of course you are to come. I 
 shouldn't go if you didn't. Come on, you fellows, and let us get 
 the horses." And away they aU went towards the stables. _^-- 
 
 And Ethel following, passed Aunt Eleanor, pretending to weed / 
 a flower-bed, and Aunt Eleanor said : 
 
 " So you are bent on going with him then ? " 
 
 And Ethel said, '' I can't help it. One long summer's day 
 beside him is not much to ask out of eternity." [ 
 
 Aunt Eleanor said, '' You are binding a burden for your back 
 which you will find hard to carry before you have done with it. 
 I know, and your father knows too : though he might have kept 
 his tongue between his teeth this blessed day. Are you bent on 
 going?" 
 
 " Oh yes. Miss Evans. Let me go ! " 
 
 " I am not stopping you. Which way are you going to ride ? " 
 
 ** Over Longmynd, to look at the grouse." 
 
 **And so on to Maynard Barton to lunch," rejoined Aunt 
 Eleanor. " Go by all means." 
 
 '' They said nothing of Maynard Barton," said Ethel. " We 
 shall hardly get so far." 
 
 '' You foolish child," said Aunt Eleanor. '' Why, if you had 
 set out this day to ride over Caradoc or Lawley, if you had set 
 
56 STEETTON. 
 
 out to ride to the top of the Wrekin, your destmation would have 
 been the same. Roland can make these boys go where he 
 chooses, and sometime in the day you would have found your- 
 selves by some excuse at Maynard Barton, and would have found 
 Roland talking to Mary Maynard. Will you go now, you fool ? " 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! It is twelve miles to Maynard Barton, and 
 twelve miles is something. It would have been something to you 
 once. Miss Evans." 
 
 *' Heaven knows it would ! " said Aunt Eleanor. *' Well, my 
 dear, when it is all over, and you want to eat your own heart in 
 peace and quietness, come to the old woman at Pulverbatch, and 
 begin a new life with her. You won't die over it, you know^you 
 have too much chest, and are too active in your habits ; but if you 
 think you are going to get out of this without deep pain and 
 misery, you are mistaken. See, they are calling for you. Run, 
 my dear — and put the knife in delicately under your fifth rib." 
 
 She did not hear the last sentence ; but running up to the door, 
 found her mother with her hat ready for her, and immediately 
 afterwards, having received a tremendous kiss of reconciliation 
 from her brother Jim, was pitched on her horse by him, and they 
 all went away through the lanes towards the mountain. 
 
 The horses were of course good, and they all rode well 
 (according to the English standard — a ridiculously low one com- 
 pared to South America). They could, however, ride better than 
 French people, and their horses were well trained and quiet : so 
 they enjoyed themselves. 
 
 They were soon through the lanes, and out on the heather. 
 Roland Evans and John Mordaunt rode in front, and the old 
 pointer was sent out before them. Behind them rode abreast 
 Eddy, Jim Mordaunt, and his sister Ethel, who were more than 
 once cautioned by the two elders in front about making so much 
 noise ; for Eddy and Jim were furious and fantastic in their 
 horse-play, and Ethel laughed loud and long at them. '' They 
 seem jolly behind there, those three," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 << Very jolly. Keep quiet there : we shall have the birds up," 
 said Roland. 
 
 '* Quiet there, Ethel," said the elder Mordaunt, calling back 
 to them. 
 
 The old dog had pointed five times on the slope of the Long- 
 mynd, and had been whistled away. '' There are at least four 
 packs here," said Roland. 
 
 " And we are not half over the south side," said stolid old 
 John Mordaunt. " We shall spot at least four or five packs more 
 on this south side : send the dog on." 
 
STKETTON. 67 
 
 *'I should like to try the north side," said Roland. ''Have 
 you any objection ? " 
 
 '' Not in the least," said the elder Mordaunt. " You mean 
 towards Maynard Barton ? I have not the slightest objection to 
 going there or anywhere, so long as one understands where one is 
 going. Northward ho ! you three jawers. We are going to beat 
 among the bilberry slopes towards Maynard Barton. Ethel, you 
 mind the blind ruts. We will lunch with old Mother Maynard, 
 d'ye hear? " 
 
 " Are you going to Maynard Barton to lunch ? " asked Roland. 
 
 " We had better, I think," said the elder Mordaunt. '' We 
 shall know how things stand." 
 
 '' I don't understand you," said Roland. 
 
 *' I don't think you do," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 " Twelve miles out of all eternity," she said, and here was her 
 reward. Not one single word from him during the whole ride ; 
 nothing but the tomfooleries of her brother and Eddy Evans. 
 And at last, when they found themselves dismounting in front of 
 the low, dark-red fa9ade of nearly the oldest and perhaps the 
 most prosperous of Shropshire houses, only this for twelve miles' 
 ride. Mary Maynard, w^onderful pretty, and silly almost to idiocy ; 
 and Roland bending over this doll, this fool, with his really fine 
 genius flashing from his eyes. 
 
 Old Mrs. Maynard was the very mother you would have selected 
 out of a dozen, as the mother of the strong, good-humoured, 
 good-looking giant who was at that moment daundering about 
 with Mildred Evans at Stretton. If you had to compare her to 
 a flxDwer it would be to a cabbage-rose, extremely beautiful, but 
 rather stout — a rose which budded well, but which opened 
 coarsely. Compare her to a bird, she Avas a pouter pigeon, 
 full-breasted, fussy, affectionate, and never for one instant silent. 
 She was a widow, and intensely interested in love-making, as 
 she was also in eating and drinking. She was in her flower- 
 garden when our party appeared, and having given one glance at 
 them, went swiftly indoors, and gave tremendous orders for lunch. 
 
 The elder Mordaunt, who had by far the oldest head on his 
 shoulders of all our party, in spite of his blockish look, noticed 
 that this good dame, whom he knew very well indeed, was a little 
 distraught and not quite herself. He had reason to think that 
 he might as well watch matters this day ; and he watched her. 
 
 Mary Maynard was out in the porch to receive them, and when 
 they had dismounted, and were all standing about on the terrace, 
 talking to one another, Mrs. Maynard rejoined them. Roland had 
 gone at once to Mary Maynard, and they two were apart, laughing 
 
58 STKETTON. 
 
 together ; and John Mordaunt, watching keenly, noticed that Mrs. 
 Maynard on her arrival darted a sudden, quick, impatient, and 
 yet puzzled look at Eoland and Mary, but the next moment was 
 all smiles. He wondered deeply, did this young man. ''Hang 
 it ! " he said to himself; " the old girl ought to be satisfied with 
 that:' 
 
 "Now, this is good of you," began Mrs. Maynard. "The 
 very first day too : to come over all this way to see me. I need 
 not ask where Robert is ; I am sure he is where I wish him to 
 be. Tell Mildred to send him over as soon as she can ; a mother 
 must wait under such circumstances — must she not, John Mor- 
 daunt ? Roland, you have never paid your compliments to me. 
 Come here and pay them — are these your university manners ? 
 Mary, go in and see that they are getting lunch. Roland, I was 
 saying " (she was not), " that it was so good of you to come over 
 and bring Ethel with you the very first day." 
 
 " My brothers gave me leave to come," said Ethel, quietly. 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure," said Mrs. Maynard. " So kind of 
 your brothers to bring you over the very first day. Well, well, 
 come in, and we will see what there is to eat. Roland, give 
 Ethel your arm." 
 
 " Thank you, I am not lame," said Ethel. 
 
 " Well, well ! Lame ! no indeed ! Lame, she says ; that is 
 good ; conceive a Mordaunt lame — no, no ! Or an Evans either, 
 for that matter. Come into the drawing-room — it is rather dark 
 coming out of the sun. I keep the sun out of the room to spare 
 the carpet ; for Robert will be bringing your sister here some 
 day, Roland, and I must quit. Take care of the footstools, Ethel. 
 Roland, she will break her neck ; guide her." 
 
 " I can see as well as Roland," said Ethel; and they all sat 
 down in the darkened drawing-room. 
 
 If it was difficult to keep Eddy Evans and Jim Mordaunt quiet 
 in the class or lecture, it was hopelessly impossible to keep them 
 quiet, without legal supervision, after a twelve miles' ride, when 
 they were both petulantly expective of their victuals. They fell 
 out instantaneously, and cast away the scabbard ; and Ethel sat 
 and laughed at them. 
 
 Eddy deliberated where he should sit down, and while he 
 remained standing Jim Mordaunt remained standing also, with 
 his eyes fixed upon him ; of which fact Eddy was not unconscious. 
 At last he said, looking at a sofa, "I shall sit here." Where- 
 upon James Mordaunt bore down swiftly on that same sofa, 
 saying, " I am going to sit there." A tremendous single combat 
 ensued, during which James Mordaunt, who was as strong as a 
 
STRETTON. 69 
 
 bull, managed to take away Eddy Evans' watch, chain, and 
 money, and transfer them to his own pocket. After which he sat 
 quietly down, in a chair by his sister, and called her attention to 
 the pictures. 
 
 Eddy was beginning his plaint. '* I have been robbed in your 
 house by a ruffian, Mrs. Maynard, while my brother sat and looked 
 on," when he stopped, and every one started, Mrs. Maynard 
 included ; for a quiet voice out of a dark corner said — 
 
 *' The boy, Mordaunt minor, will restore the property to Evans 
 minor, and will -svi'ite out the first book of Euclid." Whereupon 
 the elder Mordaunt said to himself, " So that's her game : well, 
 I have no objection, lam sure." And Mrs. Maynard said, some- 
 what querulously in spite of herself, *' My dear Sir Jasper 
 Meredith, how you frightened me ! I thought you were gone." 
 
 *' Gone, when I was ordered ofi"? Why, no," said Sir Jasper 
 Meredith. '' I wanted to stay and see my friends. I shan't go 
 without my lunch now. Koland or Johnny Mordaunt, or any 
 of you but Jimmy and Eddy, give my poor bones a hoist into the 
 dining-room, for there is the butler announcing the vivers." 
 
 There was a general outcry of recognition, for he was a great 
 favourite ; and the bull-headed elder Mordaunt took him on one 
 arm, and carrying his crutches in the other, carried him into the 
 dining-room, and set him down between himself and his sister ; 
 James and Eddy skirmished in, Eddy, half begging, half fighting 
 for the recovery of his property, and the rear was brought up by 
 Eoland and Mary, who sat side by side. 
 
 Not a soul spoke to Mrs, Maynard except in the way of polite- 
 ness : matters were gone out of her hands, for good or for evil. 
 Such of the company as glanced towards Koland and Mai-y might 
 see that he was bending his face towai'ds here, and talking so low 
 that no one could catch what he said, and that she was answering 
 him by very few sentences, each of which was accompanied by 
 a bland, vacant giggle. Eddy and James Mordaunt misconducted 
 themselves as usual, James saying that Eddy was over-eating 
 himself, and Eddy saying that James was drinking too much 
 wine. The spectacle of these two fresh, innocent lads, with their 
 babyish horse-play of taking the food off* one another's plates, 
 might have been amusing at another time, but was passed without 
 notice now. There were several anxious hearts at that table, 
 and possibly the widow Maynard's was the most anxious of all ; 
 though, indeed. Ox Mordaunt, looking across Sir Jasper Meredith 
 to his beautiful sister, was in his way anxious too. For Ethel, 
 there was no anxiety sho\vn in hei' face. When her bright clear 
 eye was not looking down in pity and admiration on Sir Jasper 
 
60 STKETTON. 
 
 Meredith, it was raised to her brother's honest broad head, and 
 he could look back to her — well, as she asked her brother to look 
 at her. 
 
 And with one of these glances of affection from brother to 
 sister, across that unconscious cripple. Sir Jasper Meredith's 
 head, there went this unspoken sentiment. *' He can't be such 
 a fool." Apparently, however, he was ; for Mary Maynard and 
 Roland were whispering and giggling down at the lower end of 
 the table, and Dame Maynard' s brow grew darker and darker. 
 
 The only reasonable conversation at that table was that between 
 John and Ethel Mordaunt, and Sir Jasper Meredith ; the little 
 baronet, lying, a heap of deformed bones, at the bottom of his 
 chair, just able to feed himself, and no more, with the ox-like 
 Mordaunt on one side, and the beautiful Ethel on the other ; he 
 considered himself in good company, and said so. 
 
 " There seems to be a strength comes into my bones when 
 I sit between you two," he said. '' I wish you hadn't got any 
 money, you two." 
 
 "Why so?" said Ethel. 
 
 *' Because then I could give you my money to sit alongside of 
 me and talk to me, as you are doing now." 
 
 ''But we will do that without your money," said Mordaunt, 
 " and our conversation is not worth much." 
 
 *' You are not clever, you two; but then you are so good. I 
 should like my Roland to be with me too, for he is handsome, 
 and you are not handsome, you know. At least you are hand- 
 some. Miss Mordaunt, are you not? " 
 
 " Don't you think so ? " said Ethel. 
 
 "/don't know, bless you," said Sir Jasper, "I am too blind 
 to see you. I can see Roland's beauty when he is bareheaded 
 by the shape of his head, and I cannot see your head for your 
 hair." 
 
 " You are not so blind as you pretend to be," said John 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 "Indeed I am. I can see nothing in quiescence; I can see 
 things in motion well enough, and I am getting stronger in my 
 sight. I like to see Roland row, though I abuse him for doing so." 
 
 " I think you are quite right," said old Mordaunt; "I back 
 you up there. But this blindness of yours, there is a little affec- 
 tation about it, is there not ? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps a little," said Sir Jasper, laughing. " There 
 are none so deaf as those who won't hear, and none so blind as 
 those who won't see. And I won't see the girl who is giggling 
 down there, charm her mother never so wisely." 
 
STKETTON. 61 
 
 *' What ! it is as I thought, then ? " said John Mordaunt. 
 
 " I don't know what you thought," said the little crijople. ** I 
 only know that the estates come entirely into Robert Maynard's 
 hands on his coming of age, and that the widow Maynard, his 
 mother, has only a fortune of 1000/. a-year, and that she and 
 her son do not hit it oflf very well. I know, moreover, Miss 
 Mordaunt, that Mrs. Maynard is so fond of good living and of a 
 good establishment that she would sell her daughter to an articu- 
 late skeleton like myself to secure it ; do you see ? '* 
 
 ** I see perfectly," said Ethel, in the coolest way in the world. 
 *' But surely the Evans' connection, which seems to be progressing 
 so favourably there, will suit all parties." 
 
 " It will suit all parties but one. Of course it is evident that 
 Roland is desperately smitten with Mary Maynard ; and it is 
 equally obvious (although you may be disinclined to believe it) 
 that she has sufficient mind of her own to prefer Beauty to the 
 Beast. The only person that the Roland-Mary connection would 
 not suit would be the old woman." 
 
 " He is a precious good catch for her," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Yes, but he is not such a good catch as me," said Sir Jasper. 
 " Roland ! — I have hardly patience at his impudence in daring 
 to compete with 7iie in a matter like this ! — Roland has no qualifi- 
 cations comparable to mine. His father will live thirty years 
 longer ; mine is dead. In case of Mary's marrying Roland, 
 which seems, after to-day, certain, Mrs. Maynard will only have 
 an elder son's house to retire to ; in case of Mary's marrying me, 
 she would have a house of 14,000 acres to retire to, and no one 
 to stand in the way of her management but her ow^n daughter, who 
 is as clay in her hand, and a miserable cripple like myself, who 
 cannot get up-stairs without his valet." 
 
 '' Mary Maynard must have a will of her own," said Ethel, '' or 
 she would scarcely go on with Roland as she is doing, without her 
 mother's consent." 
 
 '' She is only allowed to do so to-day," said Sir Jasper, 
 ** because I, steadily declining to come to book, Roland is kept 
 as second string to the old woman's bow. That old woman 
 would sell her daughter to the Cham of Tartary, and the girl 
 would never wince at the bargain. Look at her with Roland 
 now." 
 
 " She seems quite devoted to him indeed, and he to her. How 
 pretty her ways are ! " 
 
 "Very pretty indeed," said Sir Jasper. *'You mean her 
 pretty little way of turning her head up into his face when he 
 speaks to her? " 
 
62 STEETTON. 
 
 Ethel said, <'Yes." 
 
 *' Ah, it is very pretty. I engaged a new groom the other 
 day, and he was brought in to see his new master, and I 
 saw the look on that young man's face when he first set eyes 
 on this ruined heap of humanity, which his fellow- creatures call 
 Sir Jasper Meredith. I saw repugnance in his honest, uneducated 
 eyes, a repugnance which I have removed since. Yet, Miss 
 Mordaunt, that pretty girl, now using her pretty ways to Roland, 
 has been all this morning using them to the very same heap of 
 disordered bones which is sitting beside you, and which shocked 
 a coarse groom ! " 
 
 "You don't shock us. We love you. And, therefore, why 
 need you have shocked her? " said Ethel. And the elder Mor- 
 daunt said, '' Right, Ethel ! Well said ! " 
 
 Said Sir Jasper, airily, ** There is not much to shock in her. 
 However, you two hear me to the end. The old woman will have 
 Roland if she can't get me, and she is not going to get me. And 
 now, mark me : I will die in the workhouse (which, with my 
 wealth, is improbable ; or in the hospital, which is extremely 
 probable, in case of my attempting the crossings at Hyde Park 
 Corner, or at Farringdon Street, indeed I have made myself a 
 life-governor of both institutions, with a view to such a contin- 
 gency), but I will never let Roland's life — a life of such unexampled 
 promise — be ruined by marrying that girl." 
 
 Could he hear Ethel's heart ? Professor T tells us that 
 
 a slight nervous twitch in one of his legs was enough to puzzle 
 a party of spiritualists. If the good professor's legs are subject 
 to such terrible nervous manifestations as Ethel Mordaunt's heart, 
 we should be inclined to ask him, as a man we cannot do without, 
 to give up his Alpine excursions. Her heart thumped, and beat, 
 and throbbed in a way to puzzle any number of spiritualists ; but 
 the heap of bones lying in the chair beside her never heard it, 
 and her face never betrayed it. 
 
 She said, very quietly, " Get me some of those cherries, 
 Johnny ; not the May-Dukes, but the Morellas ; I like sour 
 chen-ies. My dear Sir Jasper, if you would kindly take the 
 trouble, a^some leisure moment, to put it to yourself what 
 extreme nonsense you have been talking, I think that your 
 death-bed, whether it be St. George's or Guy's, will be all the 
 easier." 
 
 '' As how, then, Beatrice? " said Sir Jasper; "give me some 
 of your cherries, or tell him to get me some more. No ; I want 
 yours ; your brother has picked out the best for you, and I want 
 them. Hand them over." 
 
STEETTON. 63 
 
 ** I will give them to you ; but it is not very polite of you to 
 want them," said Ethel. 
 
 " I am not going to be polite," said Sir Jasper. "Disabuse 
 your mind of the idea. I want your cherries. What were you 
 going to ask me ? " 
 
 '' I was going to point out to you the nonsense you have been 
 talking. You say that you will prevent this match from taking 
 place, which is utterly foolish and wrong ; and as a matter of 
 curiosity, I should like to know what business it is of yours, and 
 what means you are going to employ ? " 
 
 "My reasons against the match are that I don't choose it 
 to take place ; and my means are — well, they are so numerous 
 that I could not even give a catalogue raisonnee of them. But 
 I won't have Roland's life destroyed by marrying that chit of 
 a girl." 
 
 " How are you to stop it ? " said John Mordaunt. "It is gone 
 too far for you, I doubt. Look at them now." 
 
 " Well, it is a strong flirtation," said Sir Jasper ; " but I won't 
 have it. At times I have thought of marrying the old woman 
 myself (she would have me fast enough), and keeping the girl 
 as an old maid for her to bully. At another time I have thought 
 of opening Eoland's eyes ; but then he is decidedly in love with 
 her, and would resent anything I said of her. At another time 
 I have thought that if he had not been an idiot he would have 
 fallen in love with — with some one else. However, that is all 
 over : there they go. Look at them. Confound — but it shan't 
 be for all that." 
 
 " Looks as if it was all over," said bull-headed old Mordaunt ; 
 "does it not, Ethel?" 
 
 "It seems so," she said, quietly and naturally. "They have 
 got their heads close together there in the garden, haven't they ? 
 Let us get up and go." 
 
 How much do cripples, and blind people, and deaf and dumb 
 people, and people who are cut off from the ordinary means of 
 human intercourse see or feel more than we do — who can say? 
 Sir Jasper Meredith, lying there in his ruin, had some dim idea 
 that there was something in the nature of a cloud, and the only 
 way which he knew of dispersing a cloud was by the J5|ld Shrews- 
 bury trick of nonsense. 
 
 There might have been a little cloud in her eyes ; there might 
 have been a slight tendency to expanding her bust, and casting 
 her head back like a snake about to strike, which, according to 
 Mrs. Gray, was a specialite of the Mordaunts. Sir Jasper Mere- 
 dith could not say why, but he felt it necessary, and more than 
 
64 STKETTON. 
 
 that, imperatively necessary, that some one should talk nonsense 
 to her. '' She looks a deal too old for her age," he said to him- 
 self. " She does not like that arrangement. Let me make her 
 laugh. It is imiDossible that she can care for Roland, and yet 
 she is angry at this." 
 
 Ethel had risen, with her beautiful square head on one side, 
 and her riding-habit gathered under her left arm, and had said, 
 *' It is time we went home." When Sir Jasper said, " My dear 
 Miss Mordaunt, will you sit down again, for I wish to speak on 
 a matter of business, and your brother being present, no time can 
 be so good as this? " 
 
 Ethel sat down at once, and her brother ate cakes. 
 
 *'I wanted to ask you. Miss Mordaunt," said Sir Jasper, 
 " whether you would like to marry me, and become Lady Mere- 
 dith ? " 
 
 Ethel looked at him for one moment, but took time at her 
 answer. She was puzzled for an instant, but she saw that he 
 meant to please and amuse her, and she met him. 
 
 " You might do worse," she said, bending her beautiful face 
 towards the heap of bones, '' and again you might do better ; you 
 might marry Mrs. Maynard, or her daughter. Give me your 
 qualifications." 
 
 " Twenty thousand a year," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 " Nineteen thousand five hundred too much," said Ethel. " I 
 shall marry a parish doctor, learn nursing, and get something 
 to do. At any rate, I will not have a word to say to you. And 
 besides, sir, you are false and faithless, for you love another. 
 No, sir." 
 
 Merely a wild random shot of nonsense, kindly meant ; but she 
 saw that her arrow had hit, and had gone deep. No one saw the 
 slight spasm which passed over Sir Jasper's face as she said these 
 words, and she held her tongue honourably. 
 
 *' Mrs. Maynard," she said aloud, *' Sir Jasper Meredith has 
 just made me a proposal of marriage, which I have refused in the 
 most perempto»ry manner. I really think that after such a dreadful 
 ordeal as this, I ought to go to my mother — you always do go to 
 your mother in a case of this kind, do you not ? Assist me with 
 your experience." 
 
 The experience of Mrs. Maynard was so difi'erent from that 
 of this frank, bold, honest girl, that she really had nothing to 
 say. As for her having sufficient humour to see that the whole 
 thing was a joke between two people who had been children 
 together, and were mere brother and sister, that was not in 
 her. She did not doubt that the thing had taken place, and 
 
STBETTON. 65 
 
 that she saw before her a girl who had refused a man with twenty 
 thousand a year, and coal under his property, and he a cripple, 
 which was such an immense advantage. She was simply dum- 
 founded. She rang the bell, and ordered round the horses, and 
 Sir Jasper took occasion to order his pony-carriage. 
 
 It was very awkward. No one spoke for a long time, until Sir 
 Jasper, in a wicked croak, said, " Think twice over your decision, 
 Miss Mordaunt. You will never get such another offer in your 
 life. Just think an instant. Twenty thousand a year and a 
 cripple ! Think of that, a helpless cripple ! Why, bless you, 
 Miss Mordaunt, you are entirely unable to see the wonderful 
 advantages which you are refusing. You have only to take away 
 my crutch, and you are absolute mistress. You could cut up my 
 deer-park for the coal that is underneath it, and double your 
 income, while I lay powerless on the sofa." 
 
 ''It is of no use," said Ethel ; and they all crowded out. 
 
 Young Evans and young Mordaunt could not, of course, mount 
 without riot and confusion ; but at last they were all fairly under 
 way. Ethel had been put on her horse by her elder brother, and 
 had ridden forward with young Erans and young Mordaunt — 
 ostensibly to pacify their great quarrel, m reality to aggravate 
 it; for in her heart she loved nonsense and fun, as did Aunt 
 Eleanor. James Mordaunt entirely refused to give up Edward 
 Evans' watch and chain, although he had restored his money. On 
 being appealed to by his sister to give up the watch, he replied 
 that there were certain cases in which the ordinary laws of social 
 morality were held in abeyance, and that this was one. He had 
 thought the matter through, and had concluded to retain the 
 watch, more particularly as it was a better one than his own. 
 
 Old Mordaunt said to Roland Evans, '' Well, old boy, I con- 
 gi-atulate you." 
 
 '* On what grounds, Johanne mi ? " said Roland. 
 
 " On your engagement with Miss Maynard," said the ox. 
 
 " Are you mad ? " asked Roland. 
 
 " Are you ? " said old Mordaunt. ** You can't be a humbug ; 
 but you may be an ass. Are you not engaged to her ? " 
 
 "Certainly not," said Roland. "What could have put that 
 into your head? " 
 
 " What put it into your head to keep it so close to hers, old 
 fellow? " said old Mordaunt. 
 
 " I was only talking about her brother, who is to be married to 
 my sister. There is nothing between us. The girl is a fool. 
 Why, your sister Ethel is worth fifty of her." 
 
 " So I think myself," said old Mordaunt. 
 
 6 
 
06 STEETTON. 
 
 " But I don't want to be engaged to any one. 1 shall never 
 marry, bless you." 
 
 " Then I would let that be understood," said old Mordaunt. 
 " The girls say you are good-looking. I don't see it myself, but 
 they say so. And if you keep your head so close to Maiy 
 Maynard's as you did to-day, you ought to mean something." 
 
 "You are a perfect fool, Johnny," said Roland. "To prove 
 what a perfect fool you are, I will go and do the same thing with 
 your own sister. I suppose that I am not suspected there ? 
 Perhaps you would like to get up a scandal between Eddy and 
 Aunt Eleanor. I leave you to your thoughts." 
 
 He went forward and detached Ethel from the squabbling lads. 
 He rode beside her all the way home, and he led her away from 
 the others. He called the old pointer to him, and on the north 
 side of Longmynd he took her down a little glen, alone. The 
 old dog stood, and Roland, laying his hand on Ethel's, guided 
 her horse gently in front of the dog, until he showed her the old 
 grouse, swelled out with indignation, in the heather, and the 
 chicks running after her, " peet ! peet ! peet ! " " Is it not a 
 pretty sight?" he said, with his hand still on hers, looking 
 into her face. 
 
 It was a very pretty sight indeed, that beautifully imperial 
 head, with the large speculative eyes. He did not mean that. 
 He was speaking of the grouse -poults. 
 
 "It is a very pretty sight," she said. "We had better go 
 home now we have seen it." 
 
 " I am sure that it was a pretty sight," said Roland, " for the 
 beauty of it is reflected on your face. Good gracious ! don't tell 
 your brother that I said that, or he will be wanting to make out 
 that I am in love with you next. He has accused me of being 
 engaged to Mary Maynard this blessed day. After that he is 
 capable of saying anything." 
 
 " Then there is no truth about this between you and Mary 
 Maynard ? " 
 
 "No more than there is between you and me," said Roland. 
 " Why, she is practically my sister." 
 
 Ethel might have wished it otherwise, but she was quite con- 
 tented on the whole. So on the long summer afternoon she rode 
 beside the man she loved, her loveless lover, through the heather 
 — idle, foolish, aimless. 
 
 Come elsewhere with me, if you please. We have had nearly 
 enough of these silly, ornamental people for the present. Let us 
 see how another life or two, with the most important bearing on 
 these summer butterflies, are wearing on. Keep, please, in your 
 
STEETTON. 67 
 
 mind, the picture of beautiful Ethel, and the beautiful Roland ; 
 she loving him beyond everything created ; he not loving her 
 better than his pretty brother Eddy, or young Jim Mordaunt. 
 Leave those two sitting on their horses, whose knees were bathed 
 in the summer heather, and come away with me elsewhere — into 
 the squalor of London. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 This life of the rich English country gentleman would seem 
 wonderfully beautiful. In a well-set, well-ordered, well-trained 
 house of this kind, you get almost all the things which are 
 supposed by ordinary people to make life valuable. To begin 
 with, you get rules of life and conduct, in which you believe, and 
 which are easy to follow : the following of which (such as going 
 to church in the morning and being as respectable as another 
 generally) gives you the prestige of being a respectable person. 
 Next you get an entourage of accumulated beauty and accumulated 
 tradition. No one ever knows of the accumulated art-treasures 
 in any old country. house, until a sleepy and tangle-headed house- 
 maid bums it doAvn. There you have enough to eat and drink ; 
 all of the best. There you have air, light, exercise. The beauty 
 of horses, the beauty of dogs, the beauty of your grass-lands in 
 spring and of your corn-lands in summer. The beauty of your 
 budding oaks in May, when the soft note of the wood-pigeon tones 
 down the slightly vulgar and too vivid green, and the beauty of 
 intertwining beech-twigs in winter, when the woodcock rises like 
 some swift, dim, noiseless ghost, and you have to concentrate 
 your whole intellect — all that is in you — into that second when 
 you press your trigger, and the pretty innocent bird lies dead, 
 with out-stretched wings, on the dead leaves before you. 
 
 Then, again, there was a greater beauty and a greater charm 
 than any of these things in a highly-toned English country- 
 gentleman's house. I mean the relations with servants ; the 
 relations between master and man, between mistress and maid. 
 One would be inclined to think that no relations could be much 
 more pleasant than those between a good master and a good 
 servant. These things, like much else, have passed away ; one 
 only alludes to this relation in saying that the lives of such lads 
 as the Evanses and the Mordaunts are more to be envied, in many 
 ways, than those of any lads in Europe. 
 
68 STEETTON. 
 
 Now we will leave these Evanses and Mordaunts, and go to 
 Camden Town. 
 
 That great outcome of one side of British genius is one of the 
 first things which an intelligent foreigner should be taken to see. 
 As an example of the national genius displayed in architecture, 
 I conceive that it is unequalled in Europe, and also in America ; 
 and in this opinion I am confirmed, after consultation, by in- 
 telligent travellers, who go with me in saying that it is absolutely 
 unique. There is a depth of vulgarity about it with which the 
 Novskoi Prospect and the Hausmann Boulevards compete but 
 feebly. The Russian and the Frenchman have each made an 
 effort at soulless, characterless vulgarity, but they have failed 
 because they have brought in the element of size or bigness, the 
 only thing which saves Niagara from being one of the ugliest 
 cascades in the world. Now, in Camden To^ra we have sur- 
 passed ourselves. We have had the daring greatness to be little, 
 mean, and low. We have banished all possibility of a man's 
 expressing his character in the shape of his house : that is 
 nothing — have not mere French prefects done the same ? But 
 we have done more. Over hundreds of acres we have adopted a 
 stjde of house-building which is, I believe, actually unique in the 
 history of the world. The will and genius of a nation often — 
 nay, generally — expresses itself in architecture. Nineveh, Paris, 
 San Francisco, St. Petersburg, Pitt Street, Sydney, the Pyramids, 
 are all cases in point. With regard to Axum, of the Ethiopians, 
 and Caracorum, of the Tartars, one has little reliable information, 
 but I have no doubt that they would bear this out, and assist one 
 in rendering the theory arguable, that the genius of a nation 
 generally expresses itself in its houses. 
 
 It would be unwise to commit one's-self. With Chatsworth 
 and Buckingham Palace before us, it could not be asserted that 
 the very curious taste for gregarious vulgarity of opinion among 
 the least vulgar, and really the most independent people in the 
 world, has culminated at Camden Town. It is possible to say 
 that, if Arminius were to see Camden Town he would remark, 
 *' Here is the genius of the English nation in bricks and mortar. 
 Stone don't pay. You can't get at best more than four per cent, 
 out of fair Ashlar, and you ought never to build under seven." 
 
 Yet there are about one million people, of good education, who 
 live in these Philistine ghettos in London, and never grumble. Is 
 there any reader who does not know some family living in one of 
 these artistically abominable teiTaces — some family shut up, with 
 not too much money, in a hideous brick box — a family which, in 
 spite of its inartistic surroundings, exhibits every form of gentle- 
 
STBETTON. 69 
 
 ness and goodness ? Any reader who does not know such a family 
 is exceptionally unfortunate. 
 
 Some, whose souls are elsewhere, never think of its being in- 
 artistic and squalid. Others, the people who habitually eat their 
 hearts, beat against such a prison like caged tigers. Until his 
 grandmother came to him, young Gray never thought of finding 
 fault with the decent, quiet little home he had prepared for her. 
 When she came, he wished she had never come, for he saw at once 
 that she disliked him, and only knew afresh that he disliked her; 
 and now that she had come, she took good care to prove to him, 
 not only that she disliked him, but that she hated Camden Town ; 
 and what was still more unfortunate, utterly hated his ways and 
 his works. A glance at him would not be amiss. 
 
 I have heard this gentlest, tenderest, and least cruel of men 
 compared to a bloodhound in face, because of a certain solemn and 
 majestic carnage of the head, and a lofty, uplooking, speculative 
 habit of the eyes, whi»h the bloodhound has among dogs, above 
 all other dogs. In mind. Gray certainly resembled the blood^' 
 hounds : in this, at least, being nearly the gentlest and kindest of 
 created beings ; here the fancied resemblance ceases. The blood- 
 hound is the stupidest of dogs. Allan Gray had a very noble 
 intellect. 
 
 I have described that wild, fierce boy (for he was little else), 
 James Mordaunt, as carrying his head well ; Allan Gray carried 
 his as high as ever did James Mordaunt. They both carried them 
 like men ready to strike ; and when you consider that, from the 
 utter dissimilarity of their education, their utter divergence in 
 every possible line of thought, these two youths might have had 
 to strike one another, one would have prayed that they should be 
 kept asunder. They were strangely brought together. 
 
 In stature, he was singularly tall and well made, though very 
 slight. Even at his present age of thirty, he looked like forty — ) 
 like a made man. In manner he was extremely precise ; silent 
 and courteous ; in dress excessively neat. ^ 
 
 Seeking about, scarcely guided at all, for a rule of life, he had i 
 found a certain very eminent clergyman among the Dissenters who 
 had given him one which suited him so well, that he never departed 
 from it. An entire faith in the verbal inspiration of the Bible ; a 
 resolute habit of self-examination and prayer ; and an intense 
 desire to do his whole duty towards every one in this world : these 
 were his rules of life, and he followed them well, while Aunt \ 
 Eleanor disliked him, and called him prig. Though, while she 
 laughed, she said that the world would get on no worse for a few 
 more of the same stamp. 
 
70 STEETTON. 
 
 His temper was naturally very quick indeed, but he soon dis- 
 covered this and tamed it — you will never see it exhibited. The 
 good and noble man who had done so much for him had an intense 
 dislike of art in all forms, and his teaching in this respect had 
 fallen on congenial soil in the case of Allan Gray. What with 
 being naturally short-sighted, and what with having a very intense 
 and practical mind, he was absolutely unable to understand the 
 very word. Eeligiously, objects of art were strictly forbidden by 
 the second commandment; practically, they were a dead and 
 totally unprofitable loss of money, which might be given to alL 
 kinds of good works. He admired his little home in Camden 
 Town as being neat and respectable, and as representing a great 
 deal of sheer hard work and of trust from his employers. In the 
 jewellery which passed under his hands he had taste — but not of 
 his own. As we know, some boys, too stupid to learn their 
 Euclid, actually learn it hy heart, and pass examination in that 
 singular way ; so Allan Gray had actually learnt by rote what was 
 in good taste and in bad, and was more looked up to as an 
 authority in that matter than any one in the shop. 
 
 Such a man brought to such a home his wild old fury of a 
 grandmother ; and in his honest, kindly loyalty, laid the whole of 
 his hardly earned home at her feet. 
 
 For the first week they got on very well together indeed. He 
 returned promptly from his business, and gave up his whole time 
 to settling her and making her comfortable. It was at the end of 
 the very first week, however, that the first jar occurred. 
 
 " As you are now comfortably settled, grandmother," he said at 
 breakfast, '' I need not come home so early. Indeed, I shall not 
 be home before eleven." 
 
 She merely shrugged her shoulders ; but he saw that she did 
 not like it. "I shall go to bed early," she said. " I don't care 
 for looking out on the gas-lamps." 
 
 '' Can you not read, grandmother ? " 
 
 " I have not got anything to read. I have read the newspaper, 
 and I have nothing to read besides." 
 
 " Have you read the book I gave you ? " 
 
 '' No. It is a religious book, which ought to be read by a 
 religious woman, which I most decidedly am not, and don't mean 
 to be. I'll go to bed and think of the fine old times." 
 
 I think all women can be kind when they have given deep pain, 
 even to a man they dislike. She saw such a look of hopeless pain 
 in Allan Gray's face as he left the room to go to his business that 
 she called him back. 
 
 ** There, you silly lad," she said, " don't mind what I say. 
 
STKETTON. 71 
 
 You meant kindly by bringing me here, and we sliall do very well. 
 I came because I thought it would be a change, and I love change ; 
 and, heaven help me, I have got it ; it is duller than the other 
 place. Let us bear with one another, boy. I have money, and 
 in a few years it will be yours." 
 
 ** You do not think I want your money, grandmother? I had 
 not the wildest idea you had any." 
 
 *' Go to your work," she said, imperiously ; and he went. 
 
 When he was gone, she said, *'I knew that he did not know 
 that I had any. He is quite honest. I wish I had not come. 
 Brick walls for Caradoc ; a Methodist, or a pretended one, for my 
 garden of beauties. Allan's Puritan crop and mutton-chop 
 whiskers for Roland's curly head and Eddy's pretty eyes. 
 Well, I am freer here." 
 
 Such was the life to which Allan Gray was condemned. Was 
 it an unbeautiful or an unhappy one ? I think that you will say 
 that it was not. That it was a singular contrast to the very 
 beautiful life of the Mordaunts, the Evanses and the Maynards, is 
 most true. Camden Town is not Caradoc, nor Saffron Hill Long- 
 mynd ; any more than Allan Gray, the toiler, was Roland Evans, 
 handsome and strong, the favourite among favourites of fortune. 
 Yet they were both happy men in their way. Both lived in the 
 future ; the one in a future of anticipated triumph ; but Allan 
 Gray's future went further than Roland's as yet. Allan's future 
 went deep and far into the next world ; his quiet fanaticism was 
 as potent a means of taking him out of himself, as were Roland's 
 dreams of triumphs in the Schools or the Senate. Roland's 
 surroundings were as graceful and as beautiful as those of a 
 Greek. Allan Gray could dispense with them, nay, was even 
 glad to do so, for he called them in his quaint language, '* a 
 snare." A man who is perfectly assured that in thirty years he 
 will be walking in the City of the New Jerusalem, as described 
 in the 21st of the Revelation, is not likely to care much about 
 the inartistic squalor of Camden Town, even if he could appreciate 
 it, which Allan Gray could not. The costermonger, against 
 whose barrow this solemn young gentleman walked sometimes, 
 and to whom this solemn "young swell" apologised, did not 
 know that the tall young gentleman was thinking with his whole 
 soul over the beatific vision. The Romish priest for whom Allan 
 sent when he found that a soul was craving, on the verge of death, 
 for the old offices which had given comfort before, little thought 
 that the young man with the face like a bloodhound, who had 
 so courteously handed over the dying man to him, went home 
 to pray that the Scarlet Abomination might cease out of the land. 
 
n STEETTON. 
 
 I A most perfect fanatic — a man who was unable to appreciate 
 any form of artistic beauty — a man given up to a business which 
 he hated and despised ; and yet who had a flower-garden too ; a 
 garden also in which he could see his flowers grow. They were 
 . apt to wither and die, certainly ; but he had heard that of all 
 I flower-gardens. 
 
 On this day, when he had first left his grandmother alone, he 
 went first to his place of business, the jeweller's, and dashed at 
 once into the books. The partners came to him once or twice on 
 business, and he gave back their kindly smiles of courtesy and 
 trust as frankly and as honestly as any man could. So he worked 
 away at the dull figures, which were not dull to him, for he had 
 his purpose, until nearly three o'clock in the day, and then 
 uneasily began to hear the carriages pass. "I must go into 
 Vanity Fair soon, I doubt," he said to himself. 
 
 He was quite right. A youth came in and said, **If you please, 
 Mr. Gray, Mr. Henry wants you." And Allan, with a sigh, arose 
 and followed. 
 
 Mr. Henry was the youngest partner, Allan's old friend : he 
 managed to brush past him. "Allan, my dear," he said, '*to 
 the rescue I Father and uncle are both engaged, and here is 
 the Duchess of Cheshire wanting loose opals and sapphires for 
 setting." 
 
 ** C. 16 and Q. 19," said Allan, in a whisper, and passed on, 
 with his head in the air, for his interview with the Duchess, 
 looking uncommonly like an ideal duke himself. What were 
 principalities and powers to him ! 
 
 ** The stones will be here at once, your grace," he said, calmly. 
 ** One of the house has gone for them. May I take the liberty 
 of inquiring whether it is your grace's intention to set the stones 
 together?" 
 
 The Duchess said, *' I had a design of doing so. I wanted to 
 give my daughter. Lady Alice Barty, a necklace for her wedding. 
 I thought they would look pure and innocent," said the natural 
 woman. *'I mean, I thought it would be in good taste," said 
 the artificial one. 
 
 Allan bowed, and said, " They will be here directly, your 
 grace." He was back for one instant among the sapphire, the 
 sardonyx, the jasper, and the chalcedony of the New Jerusalem ; 
 but he had two existences : he was quite ready for her when she 
 said — 
 
 *' Do you think it will do ? " 
 
 Now the Duchess of Cheshire was, in her old age, a very 
 religious woman of a certain sect; and a very open-handed 
 
STEETTON. 73 
 
 woman also, as more than one prophetical expounder of the 
 Revelations well knew. Allan Gray knew it, but would have 
 died sooner than trade on it : nevertheless, he gave this singu- 
 larly odd answer, which, coming from a shop-manager to a 
 Duchess, must have rather astounded her grace. 
 
 *' It would scarcely do, your grace, as the taste of the world 
 goes. And, as a general rule, you present to a young lady, on 
 her real entrance into the world, something symbolical." 
 
 "Yes," said the old lady; *'but sapphire represents the blue 
 of heaven, and the cloud of onyx the troubles on earth." For 
 she had got rambling, too, and was thinking of the time when 
 her son Charley was killed in the duel, and of other disasters 
 since, and forgot that the solemn, imperial gentleman before her 
 was only a shop " manager." 
 
 "In the New Jerusalem, your grace," said the shopman, 
 quietly, " which we will pray that the Lady Alice may enter, the 
 gates were twelve pearls : why should not her ladyship have a 
 twelvefold collier of large pearls, with the jewels interspersed? 
 That would be really symbolical, I should fancy, under your 
 grace's approbation, and at least Christian." 
 
 The astonished old lady could only say, '^Faut de mieux — 
 would the colours be in good taste ? " 
 
 " They would be in St. John's taste," said Allan, with that 
 curious confidence and audacity which foAV other sects possess 
 now, and remained silent. 
 
 "It is a beautiful idea," said the old lady. " Your house is 
 famous for its good taste. I think I will say yes ; I like your 
 idea very much ; you are evidently a good young man. Plan 
 out the necklace for me." And she retired to her carriage, and 
 talked all the evening, and for many evenings, of the wonderful 
 young man at Morton's. And Lady Alice Barty wore that neck- 
 lace on her wedding-day. 
 
 Meanwhile, Henry had been waiting with the sapphires and 
 the opals, and seeing the Duchess depart, thought that they had 
 missed an order. " Why, the old lady is gone," he said. 
 
 " Have you any exceptionally large pearls ? " asked Allan. 
 " What a pity it is that we should have let the Googerat necklace 
 go I I would give anything for those pearls now." 
 
 " Hang it ! you can have them if you want them. There was 
 no cash produced. She is burst up, and they are in the safe 
 now." 
 
 " That is well. Keep the twelve best. I suppose you never 
 heard of Chi-ysopras ? " 
 
 " Never," said the partner. 
 
74 STRETTON. 
 
 *' We must try Giallo Antico," said Allan. " Get me these 
 other stones, and don't disturb me, if you can help it. I will go 
 and design this necklace ; it is a large order for our house. Send 
 the artist to me. ' And the street of the city was of pure gold, 
 as it were transparent glass,' — that is, white enamel over gold. 
 Send me the artist." 
 
 So the ultra-Protestant actually set to work to symbolise in his 
 trade, in a gold necklace, the very thing which puzzles and awes 
 the most advanced Christians. He was disturbed, if aught could 
 disturb him. 
 
 Just before the shop's closing, he was called out again. This 
 time he had to attend to a different kind of people. An evil man 
 was buying jewels for a young girl, and the girl had had jewels 
 bought for her before, and knew their value, and was so particular 
 that Gray had to be called in again. He stood before these two 
 quite quietly, and served them well, and gave them his advice, 
 knowing that he was serving his employers. There were plenty 
 of precedents in the Old Testament, which he read most, but 
 fewer in the New, which he read least. Those two were as 
 nothing to him. A hog comes to your gate, and you throw it an 
 apple ; the hog is nothing to you, and they were less than nothing 
 to him. 
 
 '* Now," he said to the three partners, as soon as the shop was 
 shut, ** I am going to walk in my garden." 
 
 " Does your garden take much to keep up. Gray ? " said the 
 senior partner. 
 
 ''Well, it would cost more than I could afford, sir, if it were 
 properly kept up." 
 
 " Now how much, for instance," said the senior partner — '' to 
 keep it going properly, you know — do you think it would cost to 
 keep your garden in order ? " 
 
 " The whole garden ? " asked Allan ; *' I have only a share of 
 it." 
 
 '' Say the whole garden, then," said the senior partner. 
 
 ''Well," said Allan, "I could do something with 400,000/. a 
 year, if I had the management of it. As it is, I do what I can." 
 
 " We were going to increase your salary," said the senior 
 partner, laughing, " by 100/. a year, but I suppose that would 
 not be much for your garden ? " 
 
 " Very little," said Allan ; and then, remembering himself, 
 added, "you are very kind to me. I thank you deeply. I will 
 make good use of the money which you entrust to me from God." 
 
STRETTON. 75 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Allan Gray was walking swiftly away, with his face towards his 
 flower-garden, when he heard himself hailed, and pausing, was 
 overtaken by the junior partner. 
 
 "Here is a young gentleman wants you," he said; "he has 
 been waiting at the shop-door ever so long, and having given you 
 up, came into the shop. I ran after you." 
 
 " A young gentleman ? " 
 
 ** A regular young swell. He says that he knows you would 
 speak to him if you saw him." 
 
 Allan Gray, coming into the shop, saw a slight, deer-eyed youth 
 before him, who held out his hand and said, " Allan, you have not 
 forgotten me." 
 
 It was Eddy Evans. The few demonstrations of kindly feeling 
 which Englishmen allow themselves were over in a moment. 
 Their eyes did the rest, and then Eddy and Allan were alone in 
 the street together. 
 
 " You had not forgotten me ? " said Eddy. 
 
 " Was it likely that I could forget you ? Did I not think you 
 had forgotten me ? " said Allan Gray. 
 
 " See then," said Eddy, with both his hands clasped over 
 Allan's arm, and his face turned up into the solemn face of the 
 other, " how unfair you can be. Have I not deserted all pleasure, 
 as they call it, to come here for the higher and more real pleasure 
 of seeing you ? " 
 
 Allan said nothing, but he somehow noticed Eddy's hands, 
 which were clasped over his left arm. Eddy's hands were very 
 small, and he had on the most beautifully made lemon-coloured 
 kid gloves. 
 
 These attracted Allan's attention so much, that he took one of 
 Eddy's hands in his, and held it there, and passed his brown 
 fingers up and down the seams, and said, " What pretty gloves ! " 
 For he loved the lad as much as he could love any one, and he 
 permitted his love to demonstrate itself so far. 
 
 " I doubt you are an old brute," said Edward. " You are not 
 a bit glad to see me." 
 
 " I am very happy," said Allan. 
 
 "Yes, but you don't show it," said Eddy. "/ am happy to 
 
 see you again, but I don't look like a Memnon. I want to 
 
 spend the evening with you. Where are you going ? " 
 
 " I will go anywhere with you," said Allan. " Where are you 
 going?" 
 
76 ) STEETTON. 
 
 ** I was going to dine at the Bedford with the others, and then 
 we were going to the play, and then we were going to Cremorne. 
 But I gave it all up to come to you, and you don't care for 
 me." 
 
 *' I care for you more than for any living being, Edward," said 
 Allan. 
 
 *' Hush, man, I know you do," said Edward. ** Have I not 
 come to you ? have I not proved that I, also, care for you — after 
 Roland ? " 
 
 '* Friendships will settle in a few years," said Allan. *' We 
 will see how this sentimental fondness for one another will settle 
 itself. Which is a great problem." 
 
 **Not such a great problem as this," said Edward. ** Where 
 are you going to take me ? " 
 
 *'I ivas going to my flower-garden. Will you come? Dare 
 you come ? " 
 
 '* I dare anything. I am an Evans, and I would sooner go to 
 Newgate with you than to Vauxhall with another. I will come." 
 
 ** Then we will go. How did you come to London ? " 
 
 ** Our fathers gave us money to come and see the town, and we 
 have come to see it ; Roland, and Johnny, and Jimmy Mordaunt, 
 and I. And we have been to St. Paul's, which is 404 feet in 
 height ; and to the Monument, which is 202 ; and to the Tower, 
 which was built by Augustus the Stark, King of Saxony ; and I 
 found it very slow, for tastes vary. Indeed, Jim Mordaunt 
 quarrelled violently with his brother on the same subject on the 
 very summit and top of the dome of St. Paul's, Jimmy declaring 
 that any one could have built it if he had had the money, and 
 Johnny accusing his brother of trying to be fine. I got sick of 
 all this giddy dissipation, and asked Roland for liberty. So he 
 took away my money, and let me come to you." 
 
 '* Why did he take away your money ? " asked Allan. 
 
 ** He always does. I give it away when people ask me for it, 
 and so does Jim Mordaunt. John Mordaunt used to take his 
 brother's money away until he got too big. Jim won't stand it 
 now, and fights." 
 
 " You don't fight Roland, then ? " 
 
 '*No, Roland does as he likes. Nobody ever could resist 
 Roland, you know. Besides, he leaves me some. I have five 
 shillings or more now." 
 
 *' How old are you, Edward Evans ? " 
 
 ** Seventeen." 
 
 " You are very childish and simple. I doubt if we had better 
 go where we are going — yet, we will go. Are you too great a 
 
STEETTON. 77 
 
 child to share my pleasure ? Why should I ask you ? Let us 
 come ? " 
 
 The bright evening summer's daylight fell full and strong upon 
 the squalor of the streets through which they passed ; streets 
 which became more squalid, mean, and ugly as they passed along. 
 In the darkness of the winter's evening their wretchedness is 
 hidden ; under the summer sun it is patent. Eddy chattered at 
 first, but less and less as the streets got narrower and more dirty, 
 and at the top of Saffron Hill he was quite silent. 
 
 For the people were so wild, so strange, and so very fierce. 
 They scolded one another so much, and when they were civil to 
 one another, their language was hard and wild ; and to Eddy, 
 listening with his keen little ears, it seemed that their conversa- 
 tion turned on two things only, money and drink. 
 
 " I don't like this place," said Eddy, very emphatically ; '*it 
 is a bad place. I like pretty places and pretty things. What 
 are those bells? " 
 
 '< The big one?" 
 
 " Yes ; the one like Tom." 
 
 *' That is the bell of the Roman Catholics ; they have 
 established themselves here." 
 
 " Do they do good ? " 
 
 " Every one who works for Christ does good," said Allan Gray, 
 the extreme Protestant. *' Of course, they do good. They work 
 among these Irish, whom they have, for their own purposes, kept 
 sitting in outer darkness, and they do good. And they'd need." 
 
 " What is the little sharp bell? " said Eddy, getting interested. 
 
 " That is the Puseyite church," said Allan, with a smile. 
 " We tried that together, you know, at Shrewsbury." 
 
 " I liked it," said Eddy ; ** you did not. Do they do good." 
 
 " No end," answered Allan. ** I get into trouble for saying so, 
 though." 
 
 " Do you Low Church and Dissenters do good, Allan ? " 
 
 " We think so ; you must come and see. Stay here a 
 moment ; there is a row. Keep quiet." 
 
 The narrow steep lane before them was crowded with people of 
 the very lowest order, all talking in that dreadful, hoarse, London 
 voice, which, I confess, I have never heard elsewhere. As Allan 
 and Eddy had been looking down that lane, they had seen it 
 swarming with *' roughs," male and female, intermingling, growl- 
 ing, and swearing ; but now there was an incident. Ask the next 
 policeman, or read your newspaper, before you say that I exag- 
 gerate here. 
 
 From the door of one of the houses came stumbling, impelled 
 
78 STEETTON. 
 
 by some blow from behind, a woman, bareheaded and mad, who 
 recovered her balance in the middle of the street, and confronted 
 the door from which she had come. Her fierce, bruised face, her 
 demoniac fury, and her horrible wild words, made Eddy tremble 
 and cling close to Allan. In another moment a man had dashed 
 out of the door and confronted the woman, who was at bay, and 
 the cowardly crowd parted. It was an Irish row, and they were 
 man and wife. No one had a right to interfere. 
 
 Then began once more the fierce, wild objurgation, rising to a 
 scream on the part of the woman and a roar on the part of the 
 man, until there was an instant's silence, as he went at her. 
 Then inarticulate curses, worse than the worst roar of any wild 
 beast, as he seized her by the hair, cast her heavily down, and 
 began kicking her on the head. 
 
 Not a soul of all the soulless cowards around interfered. They 
 were Irish ; the man was a dangerous character ; and, moreover, 
 they were man and wife. Not one soul interfered. Allan Gray 
 uttered an oath which was strange to his vocabulary, and made a 
 dash forward against the crowd ; but there was one more nimble 
 than he. 
 
 While he was stopped disputing by three or four heavy coster- 
 mongers — who had the strongest objection to any interference, on 
 any grounds, between a man and his *' missis," Eddy, with that 
 rapid dexterity which is gained at football and cricket, had parted 
 the crowd — nay, had done more. He had delivered his two little 
 fists straight into the eyes of the Irish gentleman, and was 
 apparently prepared to do so once more. 
 
 It is impossible to say how the matter would have ended, for 
 the woman had risen, and dazed and stunned as she was by her 
 husband's kicks on the head, had her wits enough about her to 
 see that this youth before her husband was the youth who had 
 saved her life by giving her husband two black eyes. She there- 
 fore found it necessary, according to the creed of her class, to 
 entirely eradicate and destroy that youth. Having thrown a few 
 flowers of speech at our poor Eddy, she made a resolute advance 
 towards him, and in another moment it would have fared badly 
 with him — when Allan Gray, having been recognised by some 
 among the crowd, there was a cry raised of ** Teacher ! Teacher ! " 
 and he was allowed to pass. With singular misfortune, he 
 arrived just in time to get between Eddy and the infuriated Irish- 
 woman. Eddy, who was expecting another attack from the 
 husband, watched Allan Gray, and knew more about him than he 
 had ever known before. Deep down in the man there was a strain 
 of humour^ utterly unsuspected by himself, but detected at once 
 
STEETTON. 79 
 
 by headlong Eddy, who knew the article when he saw it, if ever a 
 lad did. 
 
 The woman raged at him, with her ten nails spread out, blind 
 in her wrath. Gray with great dexterity caught her two wrists in 
 his hands, and said, quietly, " Now, my dear, good soul, do just 
 think how very much at random you are acting." 
 
 "Where's the j^oung man as hit him?" she said, slightly 
 struggling. " Give me that young man ! " And then she pro- 
 ceeded to describe what she intended to do to that ornamental 
 young undergraduate who had saved her from the brutality of her 
 husband, with a degree of detail which cannot be reproduced here. 
 Her object, it seems, was Eddy's lungs — she called them his 
 '* lights " — and garnished her speech with adjectives and par- 
 ticiples. Her argument took the form of what a sporting paper 
 might call ''reiterated asseveration." She struggled a very little, 
 for the poor thing was faint, and Allan Gray soon dropped her 
 hands. 
 
 "Ah! " she said, "you're a teacher, I doubt; I didn't see 
 you. But," with sudden vivacity, " I'll have out the liver of any 
 chap that lays hands on my man ! If they was a teacher's I 
 would ; if they was yours I would. He has been a good husband 
 
 to me out of hquor, and I'll stand by him against ." Aposei- 
 
 pesis is the best thing here.''' 
 
 " What a very foolish woman you will find yourself, if you once 
 have sufficient resolution to bring your mind to bear upon it, you 
 know," said Gray, with the most perfect temper. "You should 
 bring your mind to bear on questions of this kind, and should not 
 take action in this rapid and illogical manner. You should think 
 the question out." 
 
 " Where is the young man as interfered between me and my 
 man ? I'll have that young man's life, I will ! " she went on, with 
 that hoarse, thick, London voice, which most of us, alas ! know. 
 
 " Now just think how foolishly you are talking," said Allan 
 Gray. "You would have been killed if he had not interfered, 
 you know ; " and the whole business was suddenly finished by a 
 maudlin and tearful reconciliation between the man and his wife, 
 not much less disgusting than the quarrel ; after which, Eddy and 
 Allan Gray walked on together. 
 
 * One pretends to write ** a story of real life." If one were to give the 
 mere incidents of low London life, one would be accused of exaggeration. 
 No publisher could be found who would print the language which one 
 hears habitually about Saffron Hill. No one who has not been there 
 knows what that district is. Lord Shaftesbury at Field Lane, and Mr. 
 Mackonocliie at St. Alban's, Holborn, are working and civilising most 
 nobly. God speed them both I 
 
80 STKETTON. 
 
 ** I don't think much of your flower-garden as yet," said Eddy ; 
 " these people are worse and more brutal than the country 
 people." 
 
 " They have a hundred times more individuality of character," 
 said Gray, shortly ; and Eddy, puzzled with the length of his 
 words, passed into a whitewashed passage, at the end of which 
 were stone stairs. 
 
 Eddy thought first of gaols, then of workhouses, then of hospitals, 
 as they passed up flight after flight of stairs ; but at last Gray 
 opened a door, and there was a warm whiff of hot humanity, and 
 an universal buzz of teaching and learning voices, and he thought 
 at once of the old class-room at Gloucester. 
 
 *' Where shall I go ? " said he, to Allan Gray. 
 
 " Wliere God directs you," said Gray. '' I must attend to my 
 class ; God will see after you. This is my flower-garden." 
 
 A strange one. About three hundred present in a whitewashed 
 room, of all ages, and nearly all degrees,* divided into classes. 
 Gray having deserted him, Eddy the ornamental did what most 
 shy English lads do when they find themselves in a social difii- 
 culty, took off his hat, and sat down in the first place he could 
 find. 
 
 And what a* queer place it was, and yet such a very familiar 
 one. A young gentleman, in spectacles, was instructing a class 
 of boys in Scripture history, and Eddy slipped in, on to the end of 
 the form, as a kind of ornamental head -boy, used to the situation, 
 and dropped from the skies. The instant he sat down on that 
 bench the old school-fear was upon him, and the spectacled young 
 gentleman of his own age was his dreaded master. That young 
 gentleman looked at him through his spectacles, and Eddy 
 trembled. But he had sat down at the head of the class, and 
 was committed to anything. The young gentleman looked very 
 much as if he would like to go through a Biblical pedigree or so 
 with him, and Eddy devoutly hoped that he wouldn't. 
 
 Looking at his fellow-pupils, Eddy saw that there were eight of 
 them, and that these sons of the conquerors of India had developed 
 their genius in the direction of dirt. Yet there was a striking 
 similarity to the old Shrewsbury classes in the way they behaved. 
 The furious, irrepressible boisterousness, of which the Dean of St. 
 Paul's complained, was rampant enough here. 
 
 As Eddy sat and looked, he saw this. Two boys, utterly tired 
 out, had gone to sleep one against the other. A very brisk boy, 
 who was very creditably answering the Biblical questions of the 
 
 * We have had surgeons and engineers in Field Lane before now, and 
 shall have them again. 
 
STEETTON. 81 
 
 spectacled young gentleman, perceived these two boys. After 
 looking steadily at the young gentleman and at Eddy, to take 
 them into his confidence, this boy, instead of answering his 
 question, advanced across the floor, and taking the nose of the 
 smaller of the sleeping boys between his finger and thumb, half 
 wrung it off his face ; after which, he went back to his place with 
 the air of a boy who had done a dexterous thing, and continued to 
 answer Biblical questions in a way. 
 
 The young gentleman in the spectacles took no notice ; and as 
 for Eddy, it seemed to him that he was back again at a school, 
 mastered by monitors. He was wondering whether or not he 
 could " take down " the present teacher, or whether he could be 
 taken down himself and everlastingly disgraced by the dirty boy 
 who had pulled the sleeping boy's nose, when a trifling miscarriage 
 on the part of this very lively boy got him relieved from his 
 hideous thrall. The young gentleman in the spectacles, doing 
 good work, if ever a man did it, sacrificing time, pleasure, age, 
 and not a little health also, in his self-imposed task of civilising 
 these boys, had found nothing better to teach them than obscure 
 and very doubtful questions of theology. He saw Eddy, with his 
 dark-blue necktie, an Oxford man ; a congenital Puseyite, as he 
 had been taught to believe, though Eddy was nothing of the kind. 
 He therefore thought that he would air his boys' theology before 
 Eddy, and send him back discomfited. The end was disaster. 
 
 " With regard to the true fold," he said ; " who are the true 
 fold?" 
 
 '^ All faithful people," said the lively boy who had pulled the 
 other boy's nose. 
 
 ** And for whom do we pray in this collect, that they may be 
 brought into the fold ? " 
 
 The boy meant to say, for he was a sharp boy, and remembered, 
 *'A11 Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics." What he did say 
 was, '' All Jews, turkeys, fiddlers, and architects." After which 
 Eddy fled. 
 
 There was at the end of the room, next the door, a class which 
 had no teacher at all ; Eddy, in sauntering past it, and looking 
 very curiously at it, as he did at the others, was descried by them, 
 and, so to speak, hailed. 
 
 " Will you come here, sir? We have not got any one," said 
 a bright-looking lad about his own age, who rose from the 
 teacher's chair with a Bible in his hand, and confronted Eddy ; 
 who could but come, very frightened, with all his rings, and pins, 
 and gewgaws ; he sat down, took the Bible, and stared round him 
 stupidly. 
 
 7 
 
82 STRETTON. 
 
 *'I don't know anything about teaching," he began, finding it 
 was necessary to say something, " But I know the Acts in 
 Greek, and I have been used to class and lecture. Where are 
 we?" 
 
 The bright-looking lad's eyes somewhat attracted his, and he 
 addressed him. 
 
 " We are on the voyage of St. Paul, sir," said the bright 
 youth. And a voice at Eddy's other elbow said, " And we've 
 been arguing. I maintain that St. Paul would have to tramp it 
 from Gaeta to Rome after they got ashore there. And most 
 burning and bustin' hot it is, as I well knows, having tramped it 
 myself; and nothing to see when you get there. Not to be 
 compared to the Broadway, or, for that matter, Sydney, or, if you 
 strains a p'int, Rio, or, if you strains another p'int, Ratcliffe 
 Highway. I never see nothing at Rome equally to what you may 
 see at Calcutta. Thai's the place. Why, old Jummagy Bum- 
 magy (Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy) hangs out a hundred times better 
 than the old Pope. Blow him.'' 
 
 Eddy looked in his wonder to the bright lad, who understood 
 him at once, and said — 
 
 " Sailor, sir." 
 
 Eddy looked suddenly at the sailor — a man with close-cropped 
 grey hair, and a red-brown face, with a rather obstinate expression ; 
 and as he did so he shut up his Bible, and the others shut up 
 their Bibles. For, as the sailor said that night when he got into 
 bed, they had been making uncommon bad weather of it. 
 
 '' I want to ask you people a few questions," said Eddy. " I 
 think you are better able to instruct me than I you. Will you 
 tell me this — I hardly know where to begin, but this, if it is not 
 impertinent — what have you got to live on ? " 
 
 The heads went at once together to the centre of the class, 
 listening. Some one — of course, it is nobody's business — had 
 better look at those heads now and then, at a leisure moment. 
 They are generally dirty, suggesting blue precipitate ; yet there 
 are eyes in them out of which the devil can look. The heads all 
 drew together to hear what their spokesman, the bright young 
 man, was to say to this pretty lad, with the 200/. worth of 
 jewellery on him. I doubt more than one in that class could 
 appraise Eddy pretty accurately — at Fagin prices. 
 
 '* Well, sir," said the bright young man, '' we ain't any of us 
 got none on it at all. We are all in here oflf the tramp." 
 
 " Have you been tramping ? " asked Eddy, interested. 
 
 *' Tramping round for work ; yes, sir." 
 
 ** How very pleasant ! " said Eddy. " Why on earth did you 
 
STEETTON. 83 
 
 come here ? Do you mean to say that you went on from one 
 place to another, without caring where you slept, in this beautiful 
 summer weather ? I should like that immensely." 
 
 " You see, sir, that we had nothing." 
 
 "I always thought," saidl Eddy, "that you had barrows of 
 cherries, or grindstones, or vans with brass knockers, when you 
 went on the tramp. I always thought it looked so pleasant." 
 
 " We hadn't got no money," said the sailor. 
 
 " I have not got any, either," said Eddy, wishing to awaken a 
 fellow-feeling somehow, but feeling very much at sea. " My eldest 
 brother has taken away my money, because he was afraid I should 
 make a fool of myself ; and my brother is a very talented young 
 man, with a singularly good judgment." 
 
 The sailor, who was getting sleepy again, assented to this 
 proposition more emphatically than good manners would warrant 
 in other circles. He was decidedly of a mind with Roland. 
 
 One of the other Eutychians here suddenly became animated 
 as though by a miracle, and said, in that hoarse Cockney voice 
 which no one whom I have ever heard, except Mr. Maccahe, can 
 imitate, " If the young governor's brother were a near hand with 
 the dibs, as his were. Lord knows, yet the young governor might 
 probably have such a thing as the price of a pint of beer about 
 him, which he'd never miss," and was continuing his argument 
 when the sailor awakened himself thoroughly, and said in a voice 
 which, though hoarse like the Cockney's, was not slovenly as his 
 was, but emphatic enough to be heard ten feet oft' in the wildest 
 gale which ever blew round the Horn — 
 
 ''Shut up!" 
 
 Eddy, a little frightened, looked at the bright young man, who 
 raised his eyebrows and put up his finger. For the old sailor 
 was going to speak ; and it was evident to Eddy that this young 
 man, for whom he was getting a stronger and stronger interest, 
 put value on the old fellow's opinions. 
 
 *' Your brother was right in a-taking your money away from 
 you. I can see as you've heaps on it, mor'n what most folks 'ud 
 git through with. But you'll never have enough. You'll give it 
 all away, as I give mine ; or you'll lend it, or you'll drop it in the 
 lee-scuppers in a gale of wind. Why, if you was paid a hundred 
 and forty pound down, as I've known done, on the capstan-head 
 in Hudson's Bay, for the run home, and that ship was drove 
 into Rio through one of these racing skippers racking every stick 
 out of her, you'd knock every penny of it down in a week. Your 
 brother must be an uncommon sensible young man for taking 
 your money away from you the minute you come ashore. I 
 
84 STEETTON. 
 
 should like to see him. I wish I had a hrother as would 1 xve 
 took mine." 
 
 *' But, sir," said Eddy, puzzled and startled, turning over the 
 leaves of the Bible, " if you haven't got any money, we might give 
 you some of ours." 
 
 *' What 'ud be the good, with two such as you and me ? I've 
 had heaps on it at times, well earned mostly : though I picked up 
 a digger once in Francisco, which digger is on my conscience now 
 I'm down in my luck : fourteen hundred dollars at Eucre in three 
 sittings, and I slipping down right or left bower '•' on the ground, 
 as the hand served. Lord forgive me ! He won't try to pick up 
 a British sailor again in a hurry," went on the old man^ with a 
 flash of the old Adam. " But the money done me no good, no 
 more than yours will. I give the main of it away, and I knocked 
 down the rest ; and then I loafed round, because I wouldn't ship 
 for fear of another rush, and I were very bad off, young sir, until 
 Bill Taylor come." 
 
 The bright young man whispered, *' Let him go on, sir; he 
 knows heaps of things." 
 
 Eddy, with his Bible now wide open, and his eyes more open 
 than his Bible, asked — 
 
 " What did Mr. Taylor do for you, if you please ? " 
 
 '* He convinced me of sin," said the old sailor. ** And I have 
 never lost the conviction. I can't help going on a-doing on it at 
 times ; but then, don't you see, I'm convinced of it ; and that's 
 nigh half-way; for Bill Taylor t said so, and there was nobody 
 ever like he." 
 
 At this point a loud voice from the platform said, with some- 
 what of a whine, Eddy thought, " My brethren, I will now address 
 you on the fourth chapter of the Ephesians ; " and at the same 
 moment he felt a touch upon his shoulder. It was Allan Gray." 
 
 " Arise, and let us go hence," he said. And Eddy arose. 
 
 But the class arose also, and came round him, and pressed on 
 him. And the bright young man, who was spokesman, said, 
 *' Come to us again ; " and all their eyes brightened when they 
 said after him, " Come to us again." 
 
 And Eddy said, hurriedly, *' I will try ; I think that we might 
 do one another good." And to the young man he said, *' Tell 
 me your name, and come to me at Ashley's Hotel to-moiTow 
 morning." And the young man gave him his name ; and his 
 name was Joseph Holmes. 
 
 * As intelligible to the British reader as it was to Eddy. 
 t Evidently the Great San Francisco Episcopal Methodist. 
 
STEETTON. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Allan Gray, taking Eddy, departed somewhat swiftly by a side- 
 door, just as the expounder of the evening had laid down his 
 argument, which was that the whole human race was naturally 
 doomed to a fate utterly too horrible for description, or even con- 
 templation ; that the Deity had in all time and eternity known 
 the fate of each individual ; and that there were certain symptoms 
 by which you might know whether or not the Deity had before- 
 hand, apparently for no reason, condemned you to eternal fire or 
 everlasting bUss. Allan Gray and Eddy had heard this much 
 before Allan got Eddy away from his new friends. 
 
 When they were in the street, Allan Gray said, '' Well, it is 
 cooler here. That fellow would have it hot enough for us, if he 
 had his way." 
 
 ''But I thought you were the same way of thinking yourself," 
 said Eddy. 
 
 " Don't begin that sort of thing, pray don't," said Allan, with 
 extreme irritation. " What earthly business can it be to you 
 what my religious opinions really are ? " 
 
 '* I am very sorry," said Eddy ; "I did not mean to make you 
 angry ; please don't be angry ; no one is ever angry with nie, you 
 know." 
 
 Allan's touch on Eddy's shoulder quite reassured him. That 
 little gentleman knew the look of an eye, and the touch of a 
 hand, as well as most. 
 
 " My dear soul," said Allan, " who could be angry ivith you ? 
 I am only angry to you. You are one of the very people expressly 
 made to be angry to." 
 
 ''Well, be angry to me then," said Eddy. "What is the 
 matter ? Are you cross with the fellow who was preaching, for 
 instance ? " 
 
 " Yes. God is not a vindictive fiend." 
 
 "F waschasseed for saying the same things in the very 
 
 same words," said Eddy. 
 
 "Let them try it with me," said Gray, in a low snarling 
 voice. Is Samson to sit for ever in the Temple of the Philistines? 
 Let them provoke me to get my two arms round the pillars, and 
 the house shall come down upon their heads, and on mine too. 
 I tell you, young Evans, that God is not as they paint Him." 
 
 And Eddy said, " You went about searching for fomiulas, you 
 know; and you have taken up these. If they don't suit you, 
 change them." 
 
8o STEETTON. 
 
 ** Have you no laitli left then ? " said Allan. 
 
 " Yes ; I think so. But ask me when I lie dying, and I'll tell 
 you better about it." 
 
 ' * Sixty years hence, ' ' said Gray. * ' How is your Aunt Eleanor ? ' ' 
 
 << Yery bad," said Eddy, a boy again. 
 
 '* What is the matter with her ? " said Gray. 
 
 '' The same that was the matter with the young lady in 
 ' Pickwick ' — want of taste. She don't like you." 
 
 '' Does she dislike me very much ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " Most specially and particularly," said Eddy. '^ Whatever 
 your doubts on religious subjects may be, you may make your 
 mind easy about that." 
 
 " Don't be flippant," said Gray. 
 
 ''I am not," said Eddy. '' I am speaking to facts. My aunt 
 hat«s you like poison." 
 
 *' What does she say against me ? " 
 
 *' She says you are such an abominable prig. And so you are, 
 you know." 
 
 Many do not understand English badinage. When it seems 
 coarsest and most offensive, it frequently only proves that the 
 men who are using it are the best friends in the world. This 
 last remark of Eddy's made Allan Gray laugh, and put him in 
 good humour. 
 
 This good humour was so obviously shown on the face of Allan 
 Gray that Eddy shot his bolt, and then with his keen, kindly, 
 steady little eye^ watched to see whether or no it had hit. 
 
 '' Come home with me to the hotel and see Roland." 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! " was the reply. 
 
 ** Well then, don't," was Eddy's not undexterous answer. 
 
 After walking a little time, Allan Gray said, ''I hate meeting 
 gentlemen." 
 
 ** Which is the reason why you were sorry to see me. Go on." 
 
 ** But I am not sure, whether or no, it would not be better for 
 me to meet your brother." 
 
 ''Why?" said Eddy. 
 
 " Well, I can't exactly say." 
 
 " Well then, come on, and don't be an ass." 
 
 " Mind," said Allan Gray, " he is to be civil." 
 
 " Was he ever anything else ? " said Eddy. 
 
 " He will not have returned from the playhouse," said Allan Gray. 
 
 "He is thundering away at his logic by now," said Eddy, " so 
 come." 
 
 And so the rivals met. Eddy, in writing to his Aunt Eleanor, 
 pointed out to her that both on the father's and on the mother's 
 
STRETTON. 87 
 
 side he had come of families famous — not to say notorious — for 
 good manners. But he frankly confessed to his aunt that he 
 had never seen any such politeness exhibited as was exhibited 
 in the interview between Roland and Allan. *' Allan's manners," 
 he said, ''were perfect (for there is nothing in the least degree 
 Brummagem about Allan), but Roland beat him." 
 
 Roland, the scholar and the athlete, had his square-sided, 
 snake-like head bent over his books when the two came in. He 
 was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, and he caught sight of his brother 
 first, and Allan saw him drop his pen, and noticed that the two 
 brown hands turned themselves with their palms uppermost, 
 and spread themselves out to meet those of the brother. 
 Allan, standing in the shade, saw this ; but saw more. He 
 saw a bright light in Roland's face for one instant, which he 
 knew, but which I have a difficulty in describing. The eyebrows 
 were elevated and the mouth was slightly parted, and from 
 between the parted lips the soul said: ''My darling! My 
 darling! where have you been?" 
 
 Allan looked into the soul of Roland for one instant. It was 
 enough for him. Not now for one instant dreaming of the great 
 question which was to arise between them, he remembered those 
 words, and envied Roland nothing but his pretty little brother. 
 
 " And which, indeed," said Eddy, " I am not going to tell you 
 where I have been. Here is Allan Gray come to see you." 
 
 The bright expression on Roland's face was changed at once. 
 Allan Gray only saw before him a very tall, handsome young man, 
 with a short, curling head of hair, who rose and greeted him with 
 the smile of courtesy — a very different smile from that with which 
 he had greeted his brother Eddy. 
 
 "I am sincerely pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. 
 Gray," said Roland. "At one time I confess I was extremely 
 jealous of the influence you had over my brother Edward. I am 
 jealous no longer. I hear nothing but good of you. I think that 
 you have done what I have not — conceived a line of life for your- 
 self, and that you are following it out. I understand that you are 
 given to good works." 
 
 This was so frankly said, and evidently so frankly meant, that 
 even that king of prigs, Robespierre, could not have resisted it. 
 Allan Gray had no such intention. 
 
 " You receive me frankly, and like a true gentleman," he said. 
 " With regard to your jealousy of me, it is nothing ; with regard 
 to my having made a scheme of life, it is time I did so — you, so 
 young, can wait ; with regard to my good works, some of us must 
 turn to, or the house will be afire." 
 
8d STRETTON. 
 
 " You will sit down and be comfortable, now that you have 
 come, won't you ? " said Eoland. " What are these good works 
 of yours, and how can I assist at them ? " 
 
 " The work at which I am assist mg,''^ said Allan, '' is the old 
 work of civilisation. We are trying, through one form of 
 Christianity, to civilise the people upon Saffron Hill. The way 
 you can assist at it is by giving me money." 
 
 " That is easily done, and shall be done," said Roland. 
 
 ^' Thank you," said Allan; "send the money to me. What 
 we, who are working, want is money. The Puseyites at the top 
 of the Hill want it ; the Papists are beating us by having more 
 than we have. * Money ! money ! ' is our cry. I have not got any ; 
 send me some. What are you going to do with yourself? Soldier ? " 
 
 There is an implied compliment, to most young men, in being 
 accused of going into the army. We are a nation which is never 
 at peace. The gates of Janus are never open with our people. 
 We are always spreading the English language somewhere. The 
 great American army, recruited from 20,000,000, beat down an 
 army recruited by 8,000,000. The English army, after a death- 
 throe with Russia, crushed out a rebellious army backed by a 
 population of 150,000,000. Therefore Alphonse, Arminius, and 
 Silas, don't you get villipending the British army. Is such a lad 
 as Roland Evans to be thought a fool because he blushed scarlet 
 when Allan Gray called him soldier? And, indeed, he looked 
 like it. It was a compliment. We may have had our Walcheren, 
 or indeed our Chillianwallah. But, my good Alphonse, brother 
 of my heart ! we have never had our Passage of the Beresina (^e 
 will give Eylau as a French victory). Arminius, my dear fellow, 
 there was a battle of Jena once. Silas, my dear, did you ever 
 hear of Bull Run ? No ! all young fellows of spirit have a pride 
 in being thought British soldiers in esse or in j^osse, and Roland 
 liked Allan Gray for his suggestion ; for Roland had fought most 
 of the battles of modern Europe, and indeed some which have not 
 been fought yet ; for example, the battle of Nieder Lahnstein, 
 where you, being (do you see) a Frenchman, turned your Prussian 
 left, dash at the heights behind Ehrenbreitstein, take them, and 
 have the whole of the Rhine Provinces at your feet, don't you see, 
 with the command of the Rhine. Roland would have undertaken 
 to do that little -business for you to-morrow, just as willingly as 
 he would have undertaken to bring about a coalition between the 
 older Whigs and the Radicals, both doctrinaire and uneducated, 
 for he was a boy of schemes. And this young man. Gray, was a 
 young man of perception. Roland warmed to him, which was 
 well for him. 
 
STEETTON. 89 
 
 ** I should like to be a soldier," he said ; " for I am strong, 
 courageous, and clear-headed in danger ; but I fear I am 
 condemned to Parliament." 
 
 '*I wish /was," said Allan, *< I would get some things done, 
 I know, if I was." 
 
 *' That's just it," said Eoland ; '' you wouldn't do anything 
 of the kind. You can do nothing of the things you want to 
 do. Where would Free Trade have been now, if it had not been 
 for a combination of perfectly incalculable accidents ? Peel for 
 one accident ; the Irish famine for another." 
 
 ** You go too fast," said Gray. " Who told you that Free Trade 
 was a good thing, except in particular cases ? I allow that free 
 trade in corn is good, as it feeds the people ; but Free Trade in 
 other matters is murder to us in this over-populated country. 
 When we get a nearly pure democracy, we shall have protection 
 to native industry back again — hot and heavy. A pure democracy 
 will never stand Free Trade. When did they ever do so ? " 
 
 ** I don't remember," said Roland. 
 
 "I fancy not," said Gray. ''Your American and your 
 Canadian laugh it to scorn. There is such a queer petitio 
 principii about it in the first tenn (correct me if I am wrong, 
 for I have not been to Oxford and learnt boat-racing), which 
 seems to me to condemn it. We practically find that we can 
 compete (having a very rich and compact country) with every 
 nation on earth on advantageous terms. Therefore, Free Trade 
 is as good for other nations as it is for us. And so we send our 
 dear Cobden to tell other nations what he entirely believes — that 
 a franc is as good as a shilling. Some nations believe him ; 
 some don't. The Americans don't, and they are a trading 
 people too." 
 
 ''But you are attacking the very principle of Free Trade," 
 said Roland; "why, the very Tories have given it up." 
 
 " There spoke a Whig," said Allan Gray, laughing the while. 
 " Won't think for himself; will only think for his party. What 
 are you going to do when you get into Parliament ? " 
 
 "Precious little, I suspect," said Roland, laughing also. " It 
 takes half a dozen first-rate men, and accidents to back them, 
 to get anything done. And I am not a first-rate man, and my 
 accidents are inseparable, and become qualities. For instance, I 
 have too much money." 
 
 " Give some of it to us then," said Allan Gray. 
 
 " I will. Depend on me ; you and I shall be good friends in 
 time. Now what would you do, if you were in Parliament ? How 
 would you get matters done ? " 
 
90 STKETTON. 
 
 **I should go on making myself a nuisance, like the im- 
 portunate widow, until they icere done ; look at . Look at 
 
 him, and a fool too, all said and done." 
 
 These two rather splendid young men were drawing nearer and 
 nearer to one another. They were not very unlike in character, 
 though cycles apart in thought. Roland moved closer to Allan, 
 and said, " What things would you have done, for instance ? " 
 
 " Why," said Allan, '' I would have the poor cared for hetter ; 
 and with regard to the public schools " 
 
 He had, in reality, spoken some tolerably reasonable sentences 
 about the public schools, but for dramatic purposes we will not 
 repeat them. There was a violent objurgation outside the door, 
 and then a violent crash against it. The Public Schools were 
 upon him, to the utter puzzlement of poor Allan Gray. " Why 
 were such fools brought into the world ? " he asked himself at 
 first. And then, when the rough prettiness of their horse-play 
 had made him laugh, he said, " What are they good for ? " Let 
 the boy Arbuthnot answer him that question, with the flag shaping 
 itself on to his dead limbs ! India is a great fact, my dear Allan 
 Gray, even in these times of big things ; and these boys helped 
 to get it for you. And although the 180,000,000 can't accept 
 Christianity, yet we have made them accept railways. Our boys 
 are working your work, Allan Gray, and pretty near half of them 
 have died in the service. Don't abuse the boys ; they are not 
 bad fellows when you know them. 
 
 For here tliey come in their fury — their quaint, petulant fury, 
 which accounts for all kinds of battles ; let us say from Agincourt 
 to Magdala (popular, but incorrect). In comes Jimmy Mordaunt, 
 blind with wrath, hotly full of his grievance ; in comes Johnny 
 Mordaunt, making as much noise as his brother. The old story 
 — the elder brother has dexterously, in pretending to get change, 
 grabbed all the younger one's money, and considers it as prize of 
 war, refusing to give it up. The brothers Evans take violent 
 sides in the dispute, and a row royal ensues. 
 
 It seemed so strange to Gray to see Roland taking part in such 
 boys' play. It lasted some time ; doubtless, like Tom Pinch's 
 organ, to the great delight of the gentleman downstairs and the 
 gentleman overhead ; and when it was over, Allan Gray was gone. 
 
STEETTON. 91 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I THINK that Roland was secretly angry with the elder Mordaiint 
 as to his good-humouredly bringing him to book about Mary 
 Maynard. Miss Mordaunt was much too fine a young lady to 
 have any mistakes made about her of any sort or kind. He 
 would have been profoundly delighted that Roland should marry 
 his sister, and would be very glad to see his friend happy with 
 Mary Maynard. Only John Mordaunt, by far the shrewdest of 
 the five boys, was determined that he should make up his mind. 
 
 Roland and Ethel had been brought up together, and had 
 always called one another by their Christian names, and as 
 Roland would have said, were as brother and sister. So would 
 not Ethel have said. Ethel's secret was known to two people, 
 and guessed by a third. 
 
 Miss Evans had seen it, and had tried rough excision, as we 
 saw ; that awful Mrs. Gray had guessed it, and had bullied 
 Phillis Myrtle to give her a philter, which would have only a 
 temporary efl'ect, and would go off, as she hoped, after they were 
 married, causing neglect on Roland's part, and cause the red- 
 handed, wild, rude Mordaunt clan to become her daughter's 
 avengers on the Evans family for what she had suffered at their 
 hands. Such was the amiable old lady's scheme at one time, 
 before she retired to London. She was gone. 
 
 One more, as you may remember, knew Ethel's secret, — her 
 brother Jim. Jim used, when a youngster — indeed, right up 
 to the tiin>e of the bathing accident — to bully every one he could 
 get to stand it, and, among others, of course, his sister. Both of 
 them high-spirited, rough, and strong, they used to have terrible 
 battles, for she would resist in defence of her property, and resist 
 fiercely too, though he was too strong for her. His father had 
 thrashed him for it, his brother thrashed him with a cricket- 
 stump for it ; but the boy only lay quite quiet and silent on the 
 grass while the blows descended, until Johnny, with a loud oath, 
 threw the stump far and wide ; and then the boy got up and let 
 out his sister's fancy fowls into the farmyard— a horrid kind of 
 revenge, which he could enjoy silently in her bitter disappointment 
 at the shows. On the whole I think that when she was about 
 twelve years old she fairly and honestly hated her brother James. 
 
 That there is a natural brotherly love I know ; that it may, 
 under certain rare circumstances, be changed into a far other 
 fjeling, I have seen. 
 
 An actual cessation of hostilities took place, as a matter of 
 
92 STEETTON. 
 
 course, when they were ahout fourteen, which was succeeded by 
 indifference. 
 
 After Roland had saved Jim's life, there was, as the Doctor 
 saw, a marked change in the latter. At home they were surprised 
 at him. Though by no means less boisterous, his boisterousness 
 had lost all its cruelty ; and though he was far too close-mouthed 
 to say anything to his sister, yet she noticed an alteration in him 
 beginning — nay, it had scarcely begun when it was over. Before 
 he had been home a week, John was profoundly astonished at Jim 
 bursting into the room where Ethel and he were, and saying, '' I 
 took your whip over to Shrewsbury, and waited while it was done ; 
 and I asked for the cheesecakes, and he had not got any of 
 them," and bouncing out again. Still more, a week after, did 
 his father and mother notice Jim and Ethel, with their heads 
 together, walking rapidly and talking eagerly, going over the hill 
 rabbit- shooting. 
 
 Of course, Jim talked a great deal now about Roland ; and why 
 should not she talk of what pleased him '? This talk went on and 
 on until it grew to badinage on the part of James, which she 
 sometimes resented. There was no secret between them at all, 
 only they never, either of them, spoke of Roland when others 
 were present, save very slightly. And one day, James, in a mad 
 mood, cut off a lock of Roland's hair, and sent it to his sister in a 
 letter. She scolded him, but she kept it. 
 
 So the cloudless vacation went on — not one appearance of 
 change. Nothing happened, save one, of the slightest importance, 
 and that was only Imown to three people. 
 
 The Shrewsbury people must have a regatta, and Squire Evans 
 and Squire Mordaunt being asked rather early for subscriptions, 
 and being acted on by their boys, sent very large ones, arousing 
 the wrath of their political opponents and the emulation of their 
 neighbours. Sir Jeremy Hicks and Sir Topham Shiner topped 
 them at once, and the committee found themselves with half as 
 much money again as they wanted. There was only one thing to 
 be done : make a greater thing of it — a four-oared race for £5 
 cups, and a pair-oared race for similar cups, open to all 
 England. 
 
 Our young men had never thought of rowing, thinking there 
 was nothing worthy of their skill, until the news of this came. It 
 came first to the Evanses at breakfast, and Roland and Eddy 
 were across the valley to the Mordaunts in ten minutes. They 
 would row, of course, now it was no longer provincial : but old 
 Maynard ? Roland volunteered at once, before anything could be 
 done, to ride across Longmynd to the Barton and see ; and, in 
 
STRETTON. 93 
 
 spite of Jim's prophecy, returned with Maynard to lunch, rather 
 fat, but looking like rowing too. 
 
 Squire Charles Evans took the most intense interest in it. 
 Devoted to every kind of sport, he had never seen any of this, 
 now promising to he the most popular of all. He'd hear all the 
 expense ; he'd give them a handsome present all round if they 
 won ; he'd give a dinner to the tenantry : there was nothing he 
 would not do. That evening Eddy was despatched to Oxford 
 for a boat, with orders to see it home, and they discussed their 
 plans. 
 
 These fellows had been carefully taught to row together for 
 five years, and now had developed into four heavy men, perfectly 
 accustomed to one another. They had rowed together often at 
 the University also, but had only tried their strength in some 
 college fours, which, of course, they won easily. They rowed 
 thus : James, bow ; John, second ; Ox Maynard, third ; and 
 Roland, stroke. Eddy, coxswain (9st. 41bs.) ; James Mordaunt, 
 the lightest rower, list. 21bs. 
 
 They found they went as well together as ever. After the 
 first burst, they turned and looked at one another, and said, 
 ^' That will do." The only question was, " Who was coming? " 
 
 They never went near Shrewsbury. They found a piece of the 
 Severn, lower down and nearer Stretton, which was even better 
 than the course. To this place every day went the drag, the 
 Squire driving, with the crew and divers occasional gatherings ; 
 once Sir Jasper Meredith, who sneered at the whole thing, 
 generally Mildred, or a servant or two. Aunt Eleanor and 
 Ethel used to ride over, and trot along the tow-path, and the 
 young men rowed none the slower for that. Several times, while 
 rowing about — for they spent most of the day there — Roland 
 made Mildred get in and steer, and once, to her awe and delight, 
 with her hair broken down and streaming like a flag, they took 
 her raging all over the course at full speed. This was on a 
 particular occasion when Eddy had to be elsewhere. 
 
 It was reported that two crews had come to Shrewsbury, 
 and it was necessary that Eddy should go and look after 
 them, and returned with a face blank with dismay. " This 
 won't do, fellows," he said ; " there's the London Rowing Club 
 there." 
 
 " One of their scratch crews come pot-hunting," said Jim. 
 
 Eddy mentioned four names which made Roland whistle loud 
 and long — some of the best names in the club. It was even so. 
 Four club-oars were going to retire into real life this season, 
 and being four old friends, thought they would see the last of it 
 
94 STEETTON. 
 
 handsomely ; and so, going on from regatta to regatta, from 
 Barnes upwards, now found themselves at Shrewsbury in an 
 amused state of mind. 
 
 "I think we can manage the Manchester crew," said the 
 London coxswain, laughing. 
 
 " There's a local crew of bumpkins training down the river," 
 said number two. " Do you know what they are like ? " 
 
 "No! lufc I know their stroke's name, * Evans ' — did you 
 ever hear of him? " 
 
 " A youth to Henley and to fame unknown I Can't say I 
 do." 
 
 "I'll tell you, then," said stroke. "Evans is the man who 
 won his university sculls by beating Hexam easily, and Hexam 
 is the man who won the diamond sculls by beating you." 
 
 It was number two's turn to whistle now. " I wonder what 
 sort of stuff he is sitting behind," he pondered. 
 
 " Pretty good, you may depend upon it," said stroke. " I wish 
 we were fitter. Fancy getting picked up in a place like this ! I 
 shall emigrate if we are." 
 
 The Londoners easily beat the Manchester men ; and soon 
 after came down to join issue with their "dark" opponents, 
 whose captain was the great sculler Evans, the young man who 
 had beaten the last winner of the diamond sculls. They saw 
 the Shropshire boat swinging up towards them, and they did not 
 like it. Stroke said, between his teeth, to coxswain, " Picked up, 
 by Jove!" 
 
 Our lads had not the least idea of winning against these well- 
 known London names ; and looked on them all, particularly 
 stroke, as a countryman looks at Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli ; 
 for, not having been to Henley, they had never seen these mighty 
 Londoners. And, indeed, they were worth looking at ; set men, 
 of about three or four-and-twenty, bearded, brown, with brown 
 ribbed arms — it looked, size excepted, like David against the 
 Philistine. 
 
 Roland guessed pretty well what the London tactics would be, 
 and he was right. When the word was given, the Londoner 
 went away like a whirlwind, with the hope of getting far enough 
 before them to wash them — that is to say, to keep the other boat 
 riding uneasily in their wash, taking ofi' one-third of their pace, 
 and so win by sheer desperate rowing. Roland, on his part, was 
 determined that this should not happen, and, with his experience, 
 was away so quick after the Londoner that he never really cleared 
 the Shropshire boat. For three quarters of a mile the struggle 
 went on in this way, and then condition began to tell : Roland 
 
STRETTON. 95 
 
 began to gain. Eddy did not see it at first ; and when he did, 
 he whispered the fact to Roland, who never changed his stroke. 
 Aunt Eleanor, who was riding on the tow-path with her brother, 
 gave a somewhat unfeminine shout when she saw her beloved 
 Eddy's boat steadily pass that of the London coxswain. 
 The* Squire who rode with her, was in the wildest state of 
 excitement. 
 
 A quarter of a mile from the post, the Shropshire boat had 
 drawn fairly clear, and a little further the Londoners made one 
 of those splendid efforts for which they are so famous ; coming 
 on with a rush, they completely headed the Shropshire boat, and 
 the Squire's heart was in his mouth — he thought it was all over. 
 But not so, Roland : crying out " Gloucester," he, for the first 
 time, quickened his stroke, which was well responded to, and 
 after a furious struggle (the Londoners rowing magnificently to 
 the last), pushed the boat in half a length ahead." 
 
 Shrewsbury roared aloud in the fulness of its joy. Here was 
 a boatful of their own lads, Evanses, Mordaunts, and Maynards, 
 which had beaten in fair fight five of the pick of London's 
 rowing chivalry. They might well roar, and indeed they did ; 
 and in the middle of their roaring, the Squire laid his hand upon 
 his sister's arm, and said, " Follow me, Eleanor, quick." 
 
 There was a narrow lane up to the hotel, and they pushed their 
 horses up it. The yard was deserted, save by an ostler or two. 
 Sliding off his horse, and followed quickly by Aunt Eleanor, who 
 thought he looked strange, he went into a little parlour, and 
 having shut the door, fainted away on a sofa. 
 
 She rang the bell, and did what she could for him. When the 
 man came, she said '' Doctor ! quick ! Don't make a fool of 
 yourself and tell any one. Doctor, I tell you." 
 
 Before the Doctor came he had got sensible again, but was a 
 little stupid and wandering. Eleanor took occasion to ask the 
 Doctor what it was, and was it the sun ? 
 
 He said, "No, my dear Miss Evans. I had better trust 
 you with the secret, but I would keep it from him : it is his 
 heart J" 
 
 So ended the Shrewsbury regatta, with these consequences, at 
 least. The coachman drove the drag home, and the Squire 
 thought he would sit inside, being tired ; it was nothing. They 
 rioted and shouted all the way home ; and Mildred, sitting 
 between Jim and her lover, was inexpressibly happy, and Eddy 
 outshone himself. Ethel Mordaunt rode with Aunt Eleanor, and 
 
 * Those who saw the " Eton boys " win at Henley last year, will see 
 that there is no romance about this. 
 
96 STRETTON. 
 
 cast many a look up at the party on the drag, as though she 
 would be glad to be there herself. But the Squire sat alone 
 inside, dull in the reaction after the morning's terrible excite- 
 ment, and thinking of many things past ; and Aunt Eleanor rode 
 along, very dull too, and wondering whether she had done right 
 in promising to keep his illness from his wife. 
 
 He got perfectly well the next day, and no one was the wiser. 
 But on the 12th he made excuses : the day was hot, the birds 
 wore well-grown and wild, he would find them at luncheon at the 
 Cairn and chance a shot there, but Roland must take his gun in 
 the morning. 
 
 This refusal of his to shoot seemed very much to impress 
 Squire Mordaunt. They had shot together on the 12th for so 
 many years now, that he knew there was a reason. Very often 
 during the day he looked very pensively and curiously at Roland, 
 and seemed a little guilty when discovered. He talked olten to 
 Roland, but in a constrained manner, as though leading up to a 
 purpose, which Roland, who was as quick as lightning, saw in an 
 instant. 
 
 What a singular delusion that is, talking up to an object, of 
 leading the conversation towards your question ! The feeblest 
 intellect can detect the manoeuvre, and the feebler the intellect 
 the more cautious and reticent does it become, from the mere 
 instinct of self-preservation. Again, used towards a tolerably 
 good intellect, this mode of gaining an answer produces irritation 
 of the highest kind ; it is an insult to the understanding. But 
 perhaps what the Americans call the " highest old sport," in the 
 way of conversation, is to hear an inferior intellect using this 
 dodge towards a higher one. 
 
 It was soon evident to Roland that Squire Mordaunt was trying 
 to lead up to something, but he could not find out what. 
 
 "Well shot, boy," old Mordaunt would say. ''Ah, you 
 should shoot well ; you come of shooting stock. I suppose in 
 your time, when it comes, you will keep up the old head of 
 grouse, hey? " 
 
 " I don't like to anticipate that time, sir." 
 
 *' Quite right ! quite right ! " 
 
 Then again, " We will take the south side of this glen, Roland. 
 Knee-deep in fern, lad. Every acre would grow corn. Shall you, 
 now, break any up ? " 
 
 *' I am very well as I am, sir. I have never thought of such 
 things." 
 
 '* You should. Suppose you had a lawsuit over your father's 
 will, now, with Eddy. And there's Mildred's fortune — very 
 
STEETTON. 97 
 
 large, I can tell you ; and then there's your mother's jointure, 
 very large. You won't be so very rich, I can tell you." 
 
 "I shall have enough for my wants," said Roland ; ''and to 
 tell you the truth, Mr. Mordaunt, my father has been such a kind 
 and gentle friend and companion to me, that I shan't care much 
 about taking possession." 
 
 "Very meritorious. You are a good fellow, Roland; I hope 
 my boys are of the same opinion." 
 
 Roland could not make out his object at all, and had to be yet 
 more puzzled. 
 
 ''Bless me!" said Squire Mordaunt once again during the 
 afternoon; "what tearaway young fellows you are now-a-days. 
 Why, there's young Redman : his mother has lost all her jointure 
 in railway shares, and he has given her up the estate for life, and 
 gone to Canada to make a fortune there." 
 
 " Happy fellow," said Roland. " I envy him. I'd a hundred 
 times sooner have the making of a fortune than the spending of 
 one." 
 
 Mr. Mordaunt pressed him no more, and meeting Squire Evans 
 at lunch, they all talked and shot together, and Squire Mordaunt 
 having dined with them, walked pensively home under the harvest 
 moon, and went straight to his study, and sat down in front of his 
 escritoire with a candle. 
 
 "The boy," he mused, "will do well anywhere, if all goes 
 against him. If all goes with him, however, he will be a poorish 
 man. The defence of the Langley estate against the Bourden 
 Langley claim took six years' rents. Whew ! let us look at it 
 again." 
 
 He took out a letter. Let us look at it : — 
 
 " Sir, — As a friend of the Evans family myself, I wish to 
 inform you, as another friend of the family, of this very singular 
 fact : — At the death of the present Mr. Charles Evans, the 
 succession to the estates will be disputed. 
 
 " I know nothing, and can advise nothing. I only know that 
 they are not going to move during the life of the present Squire ; 
 and, moreover, that they have a great deal of confidence. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 "Nemo." 
 
 " I don't like the look of it," said old Mordaunt. " These 
 people have money behind them and a good case, to judge 
 from our friend Nemo's letter. I shall ride over to old 
 Eleanor." 
 
 8 
 
STEETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 See broad and big Squire Mordaunt pensively riding, on a great 
 brown horse, into the gate at Pulverbatch, under the dark elms, 
 past the fish-ponds, up to Aunt Eleanor's front door. See his 
 own daughter running out in her riding-habit to greet him, and 
 making him bend down from his saddle for a *' regular good 
 hug." A pleasant sight ! 
 
 *' Why, puss," said her father, '' I missed you at breakfast." 
 
 " I rode over here. She is necessary to me at times. She 
 does me good." 
 
 *' Stick to her, my girl. There are few like her. Where is 
 she?" 
 
 ^' Out in the yard ; " and having given up his horse, he followed 
 his daughter until they came to the gate of a splendid, deep-littered 
 straw-yard, of great extent, hemmed in on all sides by various 
 buildings, and on one side by a vast barn, as big as some 
 cathedrals, from the open doors of which came a pleasant sound 
 of thrashing. 
 
 Advancing slowly across the centre of the litter, in a short 
 gown, with her back well in, and her head well up, a basket on 
 her arm, came Miss Evans, heading a wedge-shaped procession. 
 In front of her skimmed and hopped innumerable pigeons, about 
 her feet and immediately behind her were the fowls — the hens 
 " pawking " and gandering, the little ones losing their mothers in 
 the crowd, and peeting shrilly when trodden €)n by the bigger 
 ones ; the cocks solemn and gallant. Then about forty little 
 black Fisher Hobbes' pigs, shrieking wildly, and changing places 
 until they looked like four hundred ; then a dozen porkers, two 
 calves, and four hrumphing old sows bringing up the rear. With 
 this following, she approached the gate, and saluted Mordaunt — 
 
 "Well, George, and so you have found your way here once 
 more? " 
 
 " I should come here more, if you did not scold me so." 
 
 " That's nonsense. I only scold you when you provoke me. 
 How are you, old friend ? " 
 
 And so, pleasantly chatting, these three went the tour of the 
 farmyard, looking at all its wonderful order, thrift, and abundance. 
 In the ''woman's kingdom," which some say is coming, I, pro- 
 jecting my soul into the future, prophecy that a very great number 
 of " disenthralled " women will become farmers, and, mdreover, 
 the very best of fanners. Even as they are now, with such 
 education as they are allowed to scrape together, a vast number 
 
STEETTON. 99 
 
 of women have every qualification which goes to make up a good 
 fanner. Thrift, diligence, and attention to details are three quali- 
 fications which few, even now, will deny to the majority of women, 
 and those three qualifications are one half the battle. Let them 
 be instructed in the science of the matter, and that is not such a 
 very difficult thing, and the instinct of order and management, so 
 much higher in ordinary women than in ordinary men, will do the 
 rest. Why are we always wanting (by advertisement) a "Lady 
 Superintendent" for some institution or another? Why cannot 
 a ''limited hotel" get on without a ** Lady Manager " ? Look 
 at the duties of a great nobleman's housekeeper ; and then tell me 
 that a well-trained, clear-headed woman could not make a better 
 farmer than one half of the ill-educated, narrow-minded men who 
 have got the land. Why, one of the best-managed farms, some 
 14,000 acres — mind you, in Victoria — was kept by two old maiden 
 ladies : and for that matter, Eleanor Evans is no ideal personage. 
 
 ''I wish I could make my farm pay like this," said Squire 
 Mordaunt, pensively. '* I lost a thousand pounds the last two 
 years. If it was not for my wife keeping things so well in hand 
 in the housekeeping, I should be pinched to keep the boys at the 
 University." 
 
 "Why don't you give the farm up to her, then?" asked 
 Eleanor; "then you might go on with your fox-hunting, and 
 your game-preserving, and your politics, and your magistrate's 
 work, with an easy mind. A farm takes a man's or woman's 
 whole time and energy, and here you put ten irons in the fire, 
 leaving the poof fann till the last, and then come crying to me 
 because you lose money over it. Come in." 
 
 They went into Eleanor's long, dark room, and she put down 
 her hat and her egg-basket, and taking a particular pencil from a 
 particular place on her desk, began writing a date on each of the 
 eggs, as she handed them to her aide-de-camp, Ethel, who mean- 
 while had opened a long drawer — one of a dozen in an old oak 
 press ; the drawers were half filled with oats, and in these oats 
 Ethel carefully placed every egg, in the succession in which it was 
 handed to her. 
 
 " There," Eleanor said, when it was done ; " I suppose you are 
 too fine a gentleman to do that ? " 
 
 Mordaunt confessed it. 
 
 "I thought as much," said Eleanor, triumphantly, "and you 
 talk of farming ! Why, by this simple detail, and by never trust- 
 ing the eggs into my servants' hands, I average ten chicks out of 
 every sitting of thirteen ; and, in spite of your bothering foxes, 
 which I, not having had my warnings attended to, mean most 
 
100 STEETTON. 
 
 persistently to trap, I made 97^. last year out of my fowls alone, 
 clear profit. What does your pork which you eat cost you ? " 
 
 ''I never made any exact calculation," said Squire Mordaunt, 
 drily. '* I got up to 8s. a pound once, and then I dropped it. I 
 want to speak to you." 
 
 ** Then, Ethel, my love, go and get the garden report together 
 for me, as your father is going to waste my time. (Ethel went 
 out.) I am sick and tired of you men. I don't know what you 
 were brought into the world for. And then, if things go wrong, 
 it is always us. Now, what is the matter ? " 
 
 **You did not always think so of men, dear Eleanor," said 
 Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 ''And don't now, my dear George. Ah, it is a long while 
 since that. Where is your brother ? " 
 
 "In India still." 
 
 "Ah, well ! George, remember that no one but you and I 
 know that only tender passage in my life. Keep my secret." 
 
 "It is not much of a one, Eleanor. He made you think that 
 he loved when he did not. And you talk of it being the only 
 tender passage in your life ! Why, your life is a piece of music 
 made up of tender passages. But here, I am uneasy, and I have 
 come to you as having the clearest head in your family. Read 
 this," and he put before her the anonymous letter. 
 
 She read it twice very carefully, and then she folded it up, and 
 said : " This is very serious and very annoying, indeed." 
 
 " Have you any idea what it means ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I know well enough what it means. It means 
 twenty thousand pounds worth of law, and very likely a sequestra- 
 tion of the estate pendente lite. You were called to the bar once 
 — that is good law language, is it not ? " 
 
 "I have forgotten my law," said Mordaunt, "but that don't 
 seem to ring true somehow. However, I understand what you 
 mean, which I probably should not if you stated it correctly. 
 What is it all about? " 
 
 " Oh, it is the old Cecil Evans's claim on the estate, dormant 
 now for forty years. It was last made when our father came into 
 the estate. His father died without a will, and our father 
 inherited ; and then up gets one Cecil Evans and claims to 
 inherit as eldest legitimate son. He abandoned his suit after 
 a short time, publishing everywhere that it was only from want of 
 funds. Indeed, I remember to have heard it said that many 
 thought him ill-used. He went to Australia, where they have 
 made mints of money, and are now far richer than we are ; and 
 now they are going to spend some of it in trying to turn us out." 
 
STEETTON. 101 
 
 " Have they a good claim ? " 
 
 " Good enough to cost a deal of money. But it was always 
 said that we had papers which would checkmate them. Old 
 Somes, our solicitor, is alive still. Let us communicate with 
 him ; he knows all about it." 
 
 ''Shall we teU Charles?" 
 
 " Certainly not, unless they move before his death. I have my 
 reasons for not telling Charles." 
 
 '' They should be good ones." 
 
 '' They are good ones. I tell you it would kill him in a week," 
 said Eleanor. 
 
 ''Has he been ill?" 
 
 " Yes ! Between ourselves, he had a very dangerous attack 
 the day of that silly regatta. Let us go to old Somes." 
 
 " Well, we will agree to it," said Mordaunt. " What was the 
 name of the man who — you know what I mean — before my 
 brother?" 
 
 " Georgy Rolston," said Aunt Eleanor, frankly. "I wonder 
 what has become oi him, for instance." 
 
 "He is Dean of St. Paul's," said Mordaunt; "the very man 
 who is looking after our boys." 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 All things must end, even a long vacation ; and the yellowing 
 leaves began to tell of separation. But what are changes under 
 such circumstances as we find here, with youth, health and 
 wealth ? only changes from one form of pleasure to another. 
 The mothers and the sisters, saddened at the parting, listened 
 to the young men's talk ; it consisted only in anticipations of 
 pleasures even greater than those of home. They were glad 
 enough to get away, as they had been glad enough to come. 
 
 With regard to young James Mordaunt, however, it was very 
 difficult to see whether he was glad or sorry at the change. He 
 spoke with intense pleasure of his return to the University, and 
 of the various things they would do, yet he was distraught, 
 melancholy, and by no means himself: and no explanation could 
 be offered of the change in him, except that he had fallen in love 
 with somebody. 
 
 Since Roland had been spoken to on these matters by the down- 
 
102 STEETTON. 
 
 riglit Mordaunt, his conduct had been most discreet; he had 
 never flirted with Mary Maynard — when any one was by ; and as 
 for Ethel Mordaunt, he had treated her like his sister, only with 
 more profound consideration. 
 
 They had all left their college in early summer, full of anticipa- 
 tions of home ; and now they returned to the college, full of 
 anticipations of an agreeable change from the perpetual sunshine 
 weather of home ; and the change after all was a failure to them. 
 The great, first attraction of one of the old English Universities, 
 is the entire and perfect freedom from restraint during the time 
 when the youth is as much a schoolboy as ever. On the return 
 after the first long vacation, this is almost always gone, and the 
 individuality of the man begins to show. The man is not merely 
 a cricketing, or boating, or tart-eating schoolboy ; not merely the 
 gregarious creature of whom you can scarcely find five separate 
 types in a school of five hundred ; he begins to show what 
 individuality there is in him ; begins, when thrown on himself, 
 to show what he is likely to be in the future. 
 
 The most empty and frivolous of lads ; the lad who has spent 
 his first year in doing all that he has been forbidden to do, drink- 
 ing and smoking more than is good for him, ordering things which 
 he does not want, .but which must be paid for, finds out this ; for 
 .no hum,an. ^oijl-was ever satisfied with new waistcoats and fresh 
 jewellery for long". He gathers these choice flowers still, but the 
 bloom. aEd' sceni are gone, and he merely goes on doing it because 
 he has beguir ; and becomes, in his third year, if he lasts as long, 
 a miserable and unhappy spectacle, entering on the ministry of a 
 church which requires a clear head and a bold heart for her sei*vice, 
 a blase, heedless man, often deeply in debt, sighing regretfully, 
 up to the latest moment before that Trinity Sunday which is to 
 alter his life for ever, for the fleshpots of Egypt. With him we 
 have little to do ; these lads of ours had little in common with 
 him, yet they felt that the University was not as it had been. 
 
 There was certainly some little pleasure at meeting such few 
 friends as they had ; but this did not last long. The river, which 
 they all loved, was not the same, with its broken reeds and muddy 
 banks, as it was in bright June. They took their four down, and 
 rowed as splendidly as ever ; but it was in a perfunctory way, 
 and Roland was a little cross at the observation which they 
 attracted, and demanded of Eddy the innocent, whether they 
 could not go down the river like others without being watched. 
 The four-oared races were rowed that term, which made Roland 
 the more petulant ; and the first day, seeing certain men prepared 
 to run up with them, he rowed like fury over three-quarters of the 
 
STEETTON. 103 
 
 course, and then eased, turned, and rowed down again, giving 
 these gentleman their run for their trouble. The University was 
 a failure as far as boating went. " What rot it is ! " he said in 
 the barge. '* I could find four watermen here on the shore, who 
 could give us a hundred yards, and row round us." 
 
 <* You are beginning to find that out," said Sir Jasper Meredith, 
 laughing at him. '' Didn't I always tell you so ? You are a fine 
 fellow, Roland ; but you have neither the pluck nor the dexterity 
 to sweep a chimney." 
 
 " I'll bet your life I'll sweep any chimney in the University I 
 can get into," replied Roland, in a loud voice. 
 
 " Leave him alone, Meredith," said old Mordaunt, " or he'll 
 do it. He has got out of bed the wi'ong side, and will make a 
 fool of himself in any way you will name, if vou will only defy 
 him." 
 
 *' True, king," said Roland, laughing, in good humour. 
 "Well, what shaU we do till haU ? " 
 
 Jimmy Mordaunt, in a stolid sententious manner, looking 
 nowhere, with his head in the air, suggested that they should 
 go up street together, have ices, and look at trouser-patterns for 
 Sunday morning. " We used to like it well enough four months 
 ago," he said ; ''of course we should like it now." 
 
 Sir Jasper Meredith laughed, winked, and said, "He has read 
 you the lesson, that young bull. Take hold of me, will you, and 
 carry me somewhere out of this. Are you going to take me over 
 the plank, old Mordaunt ? Well, old Mordaunt, and what do you 
 say to it all ? " 
 
 Old Mordaunt was far too wise to say anything. He grinned, 
 however, as he deposited Meredith with his servant. Nothing 
 more. 
 
 There was a ghost of a revival of the old days among them that 
 night. They were quietly together in the Evans' rooms, when 
 it occurred to James Mordaunt to take strong objections to Eddy 
 Evans' recent conduct, on many grounds. There was no new 
 specific charge at once, but a number ; and James put it that he 
 was getting objectionable in many ways. That he was steering 
 badly, talked loudly in the street, ate too much and too fast, 
 slopped his drink about at dinner, talked while he was chewing, 
 and scraped his plate with his knife. This, of course, as was 
 usual, ended in denials and recriminations, in which Eddy used 
 language towards James which of course ended in a fight, or to 
 speak more truly, in a blind, aimless, innocent romp between the 
 two lads. Unluckily, however, even the old fun fell worse than 
 dead, for Eddy, having laughed all the wind out of him, as he 
 
104 STKETTON. 
 
 afterwards explained, fell ratlier heavily under James Mordannt, 
 and made his head bleed. They did not fall so light as in the 
 old times. Poor Edward would have cried if he had been still a 
 boy ; but it was their last romp together. 
 
 Old Mordaunt had started a pipe, the first of the set who did 
 so, and puffing it, he said, " You two must give up skylarking. 
 You are getting too old and too strong. All that has passed 
 away. Eh, Roland?" 
 
 They put down their names for the Greek prose lecture, because 
 the Dean still had it, but only for his sake. The Dean's eyes 
 brightened when they came in, and they brightened up also when 
 they saw their good friend. 
 
 But it was all as dead as ditch-water. Maynard, the ox-like, 
 who never said anything, but went his ways through the world with- 
 out exciting himself (saving when he quickened his perfectly rowed 
 oar to the motion of Roland's back) now was the brightest of them 
 all. Their old world had become dead to them. Before him a 
 new, bright, and most beautiful world was about to open. The 
 Dean knew why, and was not surprised ; but he was surprised 
 that this good, handsome, not over clever lad should shine so 
 brightly beside the four others, so much brighter and cleverer 
 than he. " The mere fact of a lad's going to be married next 
 Christmas," said the Dean to himself, "need not make all that 
 difference. There is something wrong in these Gloucester boys." 
 
 Maynard had never been a great favourite of the Dean's. 
 He had thought him lumpish and rather stupid, though his 
 scholarship was high for that college. The Dean had very little 
 society in his college, being by fer the best man there, and the 
 tattle of the common-room was distasteful to him. Consequently 
 he spent far too much of his time in his own rooms among his 
 books. 
 
 But books will not last a man always. The eye gets physically 
 wearied of print in time, and when that happens, a man should 
 have society among his own equals. In his own college the Dean 
 had none. His old friends were dropping one by one from the 
 University, and the few who were left were changed in many ways, 
 and the Dean was a lonely man. So it came about that in the 
 dull, long nights, when the college was asleep, he had got into an 
 unfortunate habit of summing up his own case against destiny. A 
 most unhealthy habit indeed. 
 
 Here was his case against destiny. He was the son of a poor 
 clergyman, but a splendid scholar. His father had carried every- 
 thing before him in the way of University honours, and had then 
 thrown everything — his fellowship, his chances of promotion — in 
 
STEETTON. 105 
 
 every way to the dogs, by manying a young lady to whom he was 
 promised, and by declining on a small curacy, where his scholar- 
 ship was a mere incumbrance. He had then got a small living, 
 and had just lived long enough to get his boy (the Dean) nomi- 
 nated to a good public foundation. After which he died, leaving 
 his wife with 1001. a year of her own, and 15001. on a life 
 insurance policy. 
 
 This 1500Z. was devoted to the Dean's education: money 
 seldom went further. At school the boy carried everything before 
 him, spending as little as possible, and spending nothing without 
 consultation with his mother. " I must be a great man," he said 
 to her. " I have abilities for it ; and I must show among boys 
 and men as a gentleman, and not as a scrub. If you will trust 
 me, mother, I will invest this money at cent, per cent." And she 
 trusted him ; and was he not now enjoying an income of 7001. a 
 year from a capital of 1500L ? He did all he had ever said he 
 would do, and his mother lived in wealth, happiness, and pride ; 
 talking of her son, the Dean, among the gossips, as though he 
 were Dean of Durham, and waiting calmly for the time, now 
 soon to come, when he would be head of his house, and Vice- 
 Chancellor, walking, in scarlet cloth and velvet, among princes, 
 warriors, scholars of all nations, with six silver maces before him, 
 conferring honours upon them all. Good lady ! her heart swelled 
 with an unutterable pride, as she in her imagination rehearsed her 
 behaviour as mother of the Yice-Chancellor, when all the sages 
 from the east and from the west, from Berlin to Harvard, should 
 be taking their honours from the hands of her son. 
 
 Could he destroy it all by telling her that he was a miserable 
 and disappointed man ; that he had missed his aim in life ; that 
 the world she thought so great was so unutterably small to him ; 
 that his deanery of the college was merely in his eyes the situation 
 of an over-paid bear-leader ; that the position of proctor, in which 
 she had rejoiced so much, was an office utterly loathsome and 
 degrading to him, which he had fulfilled so ill and so unwillingly, 
 that he was cheered to the echo by all the worst of the under- 
 graduates at the end of his tenn ; and that his name was even 
 now remembered as that of the '* good proctor " ? Could he tell 
 her that there were times now when he recalled what he had meant 
 to be, which made him say to himself in his bitterness that he 
 would as soon be carried through the streets as Guy Fawkes, as 
 walk through them as Vice -Chancellor ? No ; he could not tell 
 all this to her, or to any one ; though as the evening which 
 followed the first day of the term closed in, these thoughts came 
 crowding on him as thick as ever — nay, thicker. He would not 
 
106 STEETTON. 
 
 face the long night alone. He rang his bell, and sent his servant 
 to request Mr. Maynard to sup with him at nine o'clock. 
 
 Then he set all his doors open, and walked up and down through 
 all his rooms, from one end to the other, still putting his case 
 against the world. How came it that he was tied here by the leg, 
 an inevitable head of a house, an equally inevitable Vice-Chancellor 
 in his turn, while the great world, in which he could have shone, 
 went spinning on and leaving him and his ideas behind ? Could 
 he have escaped, the very name of his college would have been a 
 drag and a shame to him in those days. And his holy orders, 
 forced on him by the rules of his house — there was a bar. His 
 head grew hot as he thought of that, as it always did ; for the 
 Dean had opinions which he kept to himself, but which even the 
 breadth of the National Church could scarcely hold. And he was 
 an honest man. If he had ten thousand a year to-morrow. 
 Parliament was closed to him. He put that thought under his 
 feet and stamped on it. 
 
 " Get," said a very pleasant voice, " a bishopric. With your 
 political power, not so very difficult." And he said to himself, 
 " That was very neatly put, my dear friend in black. Fancy if it 
 was to come to thai!'" And as he said it, he grew pale and 
 trembled. And then he went into his innermost chamber and 
 knelt before a chair ; but he had scarcely knelt a minute before 
 he cast the chair from him, and began his walk again, singing 
 what he was apt to sing a little too often when his scepticism was 
 strongest, and his consequent cynicism greatest — 
 
 ♦* There was turning of keys and creaking of locks. 
 And he took forth a bait from the iron box. 
 Many the cunning sportsman tried, 
 Many he fiung with a frown aside, 
 Jewels of lustre, robes of price, 
 Tomes of heresy, loaded dice. 
 At length was a perfume of sulphur and nitre, 
 As he came, at last, to a Bishop's Mitre." 
 
 " Well, it has not come to that yet. Let me forget ! If I had 
 only had ten thousand pounds, and if she had not been a fool, — 
 God bless her ! — it might have been different. Let us prepare 
 for this young bridegroom." 
 
 A bitter, cynical tongue had the good Dean, well known in 
 lecture, in common-room, and in senate-house : a man who had 
 made many enemies by his stinging, quiet sarcasm. Some of 
 those enemies would have given money to have seen him now, 
 forty-five years of age, and in a wig, gathering flowers out of his 
 Httle terrace-garden by candle-light, and bringing them in, and 
 
STRETTON. 107 
 
 laying them on the table, sorting them out and putting them in 
 a vase. Poor old Dean ! 
 
 His next act was much more Don-like, and less sentimental. 
 He took his hunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked his 
 escritoire, and from a second place in it took another key. And 
 even while holding that key in his hand, he did another strange 
 thing, not to be believed by senate-house or hebdomadal board. 
 Pulling aside a pile of neatly docketed papers, — which were, 
 indeed, so many lamentable efforts of Greek prose, all to be waded 
 wearily through in the course of the week, — he took out an old 
 bundle of letters tied together, in the tie of which was stuck an 
 old rose. Going to the table, he took the best fresh geranium he 
 could find, and put it in beside the rose, and laying down the 
 letters beside the Greek exercises, scratched his head in deep 
 thought, and in doing so scratched his wig off. 
 
 It fell impartially, like the rain, on the Greek exercises, the 
 letters, the rose and geranium, and looked up at him, as only a 
 wig cmi look. With an air of vivacious effrontery, as though it 
 would say, ^' You and I are fine fellows ; but must pull together ; 
 we are nothing apart." The Dean scratched his bare head, and 
 said, with a sigh, '* Ah ! it is too late for all that now." 
 
 The sudden entry of his seiTant caused him to lock up his 
 escritoire very rapidly, and to lock his wig inside, with his love- 
 letters and the other witnesses of his folly. Turning to scold his 
 servant, he caught sight of himself in the glass, and scolded not. 
 He undid the escritoire, and taking out his wig, put it on in the 
 presence of his servant, and going with his key to his most sacred 
 wine-bin, took out a very particular bottle of wine, saying to him- 
 self, " This will unloose his tongue, at all events." 
 
 In came supper — a most delicate, light little supper, for the 
 good Dean had learnt in his seclusion to know the pleasures of 
 good eating, and had, indeed, sent two of the young men in the 
 kitchen, at various times and at his own expense, to his London 
 club for instruction. In came Maynard, beautifully dressed, 
 looking splendid, with a geranium in his button-hole. The 
 servant was sent away, the oak sported, and Maynard, the simple, 
 was left undefended, to be pumped by this wily old Dean. 
 
 " You won't find any beer here, Maynard," said the Dean. 
 ** These vivers are too good to be washed down by that infernal 
 compound of malt, hops, and raw beef, which is good for nothing 
 but to irritate the temper, and the consumption of which accounts 
 for so much of our national history. You will find a bottle of 
 White Hermitage beside you : don't be afraid of it. I have my 
 half-pint of Beaune, as you see. A young stomach like yours 
 
108 STRETTON. 
 
 should be able to stand bashed vension (not Magdalen, my dear 
 youth, but Arundel) and Hermitage." 
 
 Maynard made some respectful reply, and they supped like 
 gods ; and when thoroughly refreshed, moved to the fire, with 
 their wine between them. 
 
 ** And so," said the Dean, *' you are to marry Miss Evans at 
 Christmas." 
 
 Maynard' s sober tongue was thoroughly loosened by drinking 
 White Hermitage as though it were beer, and he thought the 
 Dean an uncommonly friendly, gentlemanly fellow, and very 
 handsome too. 
 
 He replied, without the least sheepishness, that such was the 
 case, and received the Dean's congratulations with respectful 
 dignity. 
 
 '' If you will allow me, we will drink to the bride-elect," said 
 the Dean. And down the throat of the innocent Maynard went 
 another quarter of a pint of the White Hermitage. 
 
 **A handsome family," said the Dean. ** At least, judging 
 from Roland, I should say so. Eddy is ugly, certainly ; but one 
 might almost predicate of him that his inseparable accident would 
 be pretty sisters." 
 
 " You think Eddy ugly, sir ? " 
 
 ** Decidedly, I should say. A weak, silly, frivolous little being, 
 but very amiable." 
 
 ** I assure you, sir," said Maynard of the loosened tongue " that 
 you are quite mistaken. Eddy has quite as much go in him as 
 Roland." 
 
 The Dean laughed, and put the question by. ** The Evanses 
 are very rich, are they not ? You get wealth as well as beauty 
 and wit by this match, I hear." 
 
 ''No," said Maynard. "I have a large property. She only 
 has five thousand at present." 
 
 " Indeed ! By-the-bye, did I dream it, or is there not some of 
 the Evans' property alienated ? " 
 
 " Not that I am aware of," said Maynard. " I settle two farms 
 on her for pin-money. In case of my death, she has everything, 
 barring my mother's jointure and my sister Mary's little fortune. 
 There never has been any question of money. Why should 
 there?" 
 
 "Of course not, " said the Dean. "I am clumsy in my 
 inquiries. I wanted to know whether there was not some of the 
 Stretton property alienated — on Miss Evans, I mean." 
 
 " Aunt Eleanor ! " said Maynard. 
 
 "Exactly," said the Dean, settling himself. "The very 
 
STKETTON. 109 
 
 person. Fill your glass, and tell me all about her. I knew 
 something about these Evanses in old, old times, and I remember 
 this Miss Evans. She has taken to woman's rights, farms her 
 own land, goes shooting, and goes to market, does she not ? She 
 was pretty at one time — what is she like now ? " 
 
 " Aunt Eleanor," said Maynard, solemnly " is one of the most 
 beautiful women you ever saw in your life, sir ; and if there is an 
 angel on earth, it is she." 
 
 "Pity she did not marry," said the Dean, whistling. 
 
 " There never walked a man in shoes good enough for her, sir ; 
 and that is why she did not marry. As for her estates, which 
 she certainly farms, they would be defined by Mr. Hallam as an 
 appanage to her mother's right, in no way influencing the suc- 
 cession, or in any way at the mercy of the main hereditary branch. 
 They are at her own disposal." 
 
 " Hang Mr. Hallam ! " said the Dean, fearing that Maynard 
 had drunk so much Hermitage that he would get sententious 
 instead of communicative. Why did she not marry ? " 
 
 *' You may ask my mother that story, sir," said Maynard. 
 
 ** Come, you know it," said the Dean ; *' and you may as well 
 tell it. Do you ever smoke a cigar? " 
 
 There was no hesitation in Maynard's confidence after this. 
 
 *' Miss Evans," he said, "had once a proposal from a man 
 whom she greatly esteemed, and to whom my mother says 
 she had shown the most marked partiality. To the great as- 
 tonishment of her most intimate friends, she refused him so 
 emphatically that he retired, and was seen in that part of the 
 country no more." 
 
 " Ay, indeed ! " said the Dean, " a poor-spirited fellow. 
 Well, and did she ever give any reasons for her unreasonable 
 conduct '? ' ' 
 
 "They became apparent to a few; although she esteemed the 
 first man, there was one she esteemed more ; in fact, she refused 
 the first man in favour of another." 
 
 " And is yet unmarried ! " 
 
 " Yes ; the man was a soldier, and had shown her great 
 attention ; but the one word was never spoken by him, and 
 he went away and married another. It was disappointment 
 and a feeling of humiliation in having given away her heart 
 and not having it accepted, which prevented her from ever 
 marrying." 
 
 " Still handsome," said the Dean, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Still beautiful," said Maynard ; and took his leave. 
 
 The Dean, sitting before the fire, said, " She had better have 
 
110 STKETTON. 
 
 had me before I had to wear a wig ; but it is too late now." And 
 there was no one to care what the Dean said, so he took off his 
 wig and went to bed. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to go to bed ; but few things, at times, 
 are more difficult than going to sleep. The Dean found that out. 
 As soon as he was in the dark he began thinking. If I were to 
 write down all what he thought about, you would certainly not 
 read it. I can only give you the results. 
 
 " Eleanor still handsome, and I a bald old man in a wig : 
 though I am only her age, when all is said and done. I have 
 a good mind to go down and see her ; but, perhaps, I had better 
 send my wig, to let her see how things stand. She has taken to 
 all kind of things, why the dickens hasn't she taken to socialism ? 
 Then she might turn her estates into a Phalanstery, and I would 
 join her with my money, get her to marry me, and burst it all up 
 triumphantly. After such nonsense as that, I know I must be 
 going to sleep." 
 
 But he was not. After a full hour he was broad awake enough 
 
 to say, *' What did I ever do to K that he should have 
 
 sent these outrageous young Bedlamites to me, and so arouse 
 my interest in her again ? There will be mischief among those 
 
 boys. K licked them into shape ; he would lick any hoij 
 
 into shape I ever saw. But boys have any ugly trick of growing 
 into men ; as they are. And one single pretty woman would play 
 the deuce among the lot of them." 
 
 Finding that this consideration did not make him more sleepy, 
 the good Dean arose, and putting on his wig and some clothes, 
 buckled to at the Greek prose exercises : which had the desired 
 eflfect. For he fell asleep over them, and nearly burnt down the 
 college, but only in reality burnt his wig. 
 
 As he had not got a lock of hair on his head to send as a 
 specimen of the colour, the leading barber of that town sent him 
 the closest match he could : a bright red wig, made for a gentle- 
 man commoner of scrofulous tendency, of St. Vitus' College, who 
 had had his head shaved for delirium tremens ; the only wig 
 without grey let into it which the barber had in stock. The Dean 
 took it and wore it, to the delight of the undergraduates ; for a 
 red wig was better than a grey one. 
 
 ** If my confounded hair had stayed on my head," he thought, 
 ** things would have been different. I am only her age." And 
 so he made himself ridiculous by wearing the red wig. If any one 
 else had done it, he would have murdered them with sarcasm. 
 But no man knows what an ass he is when he is in love. 
 
STBETTON. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A VERY long foreseen confusion now occurs in this story. If the 
 kind reader has been patient enough to notice the fact, he will 
 perceive that not one of the people whom I have tried to present 
 to him in an amiable light had been doing anything at all. The 
 energetic Gray, the most active among our characters, hitherto 
 had been only vegetating. There had come no question between 
 him and the world. Aunt Eleanor's chief glory was in her plan of 
 sowing white rock stubble turnips, and arguing with Mr. Martin 
 Sutton, of Reading. As for the boys, they had been doing rather 
 less than nothing. Sir Jasper Meredith having now attained his 
 majority, had built some cottages, but finding a return of scarcely 
 one per cent., had gone off into doctrinaire radicalism, and had 
 screeched his commonplaces of supply and demand into the ear of 
 a sympathising vestry, who said that they always knew that no 
 Meredith was the man to raise the rates on them. But none of 
 them had done anything. 
 
 The whole lot of them would have slept through life, and 
 awakened wondering in eternity, had it not been for a houleverse- 
 ment in affairs, which brought out the character of all. 
 
 We must follow our boys first. In spite of the cynical croaking 
 of Sir Jasper Meredith, these boys held together, with Roland as 
 their captain. In those old times men could row and read at the 
 same time. Witness an Oxford eight at Putney, in 1852, with 
 two first-class men in her. Now we have changed all that ; it 
 matters not, I am only speaking of the past. In the four-oared 
 races of the October term, Brasenose, with the sjDlendid fury 
 which seems to be a sjjecialite of that college, rowed down every 
 crew in succession, until they were thro^vn, in the last terrible 
 heat, against St. Paul's, manned by our five boys. Brasenose, with 
 the Berkshire shore, raged away ahead, in the style which few 
 men can approach. But when the Gut was passed, the steady 
 steam-engine style of the Gloucester boys began to tell. Eddy 
 Evans, sitting like a little Memnon in the stern, merely nodded 
 to his brother to quicken the stroke. Roland did so, and was 
 answered by the crew as one man. The magnificent rage of 
 Brasenose was as nothing. Opposite the Cherwell, Eddy tickled 
 his boat over in front of them, and washed them, and there was 
 an end of the old regime ; no more University boating for them. 
 One or two of them in after times, and in subdued voices, disputed 
 whether they had got more harm than good out of it. At all 
 events, there was an end and finish of it. 
 
112 STEETTON. 
 
 Three days afterwards the Moderation lot were out, and Roland 
 and the elder Mordaunt figured in the first class. 
 
 The very next Thursday, at the Union, Lord Eustace Vander- 
 bilt made his great Radical speech, in which he demonstrated, to 
 the satisfaction of the majority, that Christianity and democracy 
 were identical ; that the only true formulas of Christianity were 
 to be found in the traditions of the Church ; and that, therefore, 
 the only true democracy would be found in the formulas of the 
 High Church party. Lord Eustace was clever, and had a vast 
 deal to say for his theory ; as well as any one else has who takes 
 it up. But the instant he sat down, Roland was up and at his 
 throat. Old Mordaunt, who was sitting beside him, growled 
 out to him, from time to time, "to draw it mild," but Roland 
 scorned him. 
 
 "Priestcraft and democracy!" he cried. "Who is he that 
 publishes the banns of that adulterous marriage ? Who is this 
 man who sits there with brazen forehead, and talks this blas- 
 phemy? The great grandson of the favourite of William the 
 Third, who would have struck his degraded successor to the 
 earth if he had heard his atrocious sentiments. (Order, order.) 
 It was well to cry order ; it was a most excellent and admirable 
 thing to cry order, when an honest English country gentleman 
 denounced a renegade Dutchman, pampered as his family had 
 been, and rewarded as his family had been, for turning to and 
 talking mere Sacheverellism, or worse." Roland also was at 
 a loss to conceive what this young nobleman expected to gain by 
 it, and took about half an hour in trying to find out : during 
 which he tore the Constitution to tatters ; gave his opinion of the 
 Church pretty strongly ; a,nd called the house to witness the state 
 of things we had been brought to : which, with a rapidly civilising 
 population of nearly two hundred millions, the possession of the 
 principal naval keys of all seas, and a surplus of three millions, 
 was scarcely an easy matter. 
 
 Then finding, like most young speakers, that he was wide of 
 his subject, he harked back to it as well as he could. " What 
 did the noble lord want ? what did the noble lord mean ? If the 
 noble lord meant that the only form of pure democracy was 
 Christianity directed by priests, he would fight that noble lord to 
 the last drop of his blood. If, on the other hand, the noble lord 
 meant merely that pure primitive Christianity meant pure de- 
 mocracy, he would take the noble lord to his bosom." Then he 
 rambled on, missing his central point oftener than he hit it, and 
 ended by doing what all inexperienced speakers do, twaddling off 
 into a thin end of nothing at all. One of the greatest and most 
 
STEETTON. 113 
 
 Important accomplishments required for public speaking, is to 
 know when to leave ofif. To speak for an hour on a proposition, 
 to keep your audience interested all the time, and then to round 
 up your speech with your original proposition, claiming to have 
 proved it, is not an easy thing. The only recipe for doing so 
 which I know of, is to believe in your proposition, and speak the 
 truth. 
 
 Old Mordaunt then rose, and deprecated personalities ; de- 
 nounced the habit of reducing on argument from the general to 
 the particular ; and committed himself to the statement that there 
 were few men in the world whose hearts were more entirely in 
 accord, on the whole, than those of his friend Koland Evans, and 
 the noble lord opposite. ''He did not happen himself," he said, 
 '* to agree with either of the honourable members, because he 
 happened to be a Tory. He was very sorry for it ; but Tory he 
 was. Lord Eustace Vanderbilt would observe that his family had 
 been Tories centuries before any Dutchman had heard the word 
 Whig. He supposed it was bred in the bone, and would come out 
 in the flesh. Still he had the highest honour for his friend 
 Koland Evans, and for his family. Had it not been for the 
 Evans' family, he (Mordaunt), could never have appeared there. 
 At the time when the noble lord's (Vanderbilt' s) family were 
 cowering like whipped hounds under the lash of the Spaniard, his 
 (Mordaunt' s) family had been busy at every kind of Popish 
 sedition ; in which he gloried. The Evans' family, having per- 
 sistently taken the winning side, that of Protestantism, had always 
 brought the Mordaunt family through, and he would stick to them 
 now. He stuck to his friend Eoland, by saying that his language 
 was indecent and indiscreet, even towards a mere mushroom 
 Dutch interloper, and that he could not have meant what he 
 said." After which he sat down suddenly, and preserved an ox- 
 like silence. 
 
 Such an astounding breach of all possible good manners para- 
 lysed the assembly. As for old Mordaunt, he had done what he 
 wanted — roused Eoland, and he sat quite still " I want to see 
 how he will get out of a scrape," he said to the little wizened 
 form of a man who nestled beside him. " He insulted the man, 
 and I have driven the insult home." 
 
 Lord Eustace Vanderbilt and Roland were on their legs at the 
 same time ; both white with wrath. The President hammered for 
 order, and they obeyed him ; before either had spoken a thin, 
 cracked little voice, piercing shrill, was heard, and the Union, 
 turning towards it, saw that it proceeded from Sir Jasper 
 Meredith, 
 
 9 
 
114 STKETTON. 
 
 '' Sir," he cried, "I rise — if such an unhappy and miserahly 
 fonned eidolon as I can be said to rise — to order. Sir, it would 
 be foolish in you to deny the fact, that two of our best men have 
 quarrelled personally, and have interchanged insults. I beg you 
 to give me time for speech, sir — I beg you and the assembly 
 to forgive any want of consecutiveness in my argument ; for if 
 you, Mr. Fitzgerald, were the shattered wreck which I am, your 
 sentences would not run so smooth, and your logic would not be so 
 perfect. I cry for your pardon, sir, and I cry for theirs. Please 
 listen to me, you two : though I shake and tremble with fear at 
 speaking in public. You two mean the same thing ; why quarrel 
 over details and personalities ? I beg you to make friends. The 
 hot words which you have said to one another will fester to all 
 eternity, if you do not recall them. Forget and forgive, you two. 
 Forget and forgive everything, and go on hand in hand towards 
 the amelioration of our country. You two, in your youth, strength, 
 and beauty, look at me, staggering meanly here before you. I 
 have forgiven the wicked old past, which has brought me to this. 
 Forgive you, in like manner, and cast no words abroad about 
 Cavaher and Roundhead, about Defoe and Sacheverell. Agree ! " 
 
 Said old Mordaunt, " He is a worse speaker than I am ; and I 
 am bad enough." Yet, no. That strange little cripple, bad and 
 illogical as his speech was, touched the heart of the assembled 
 boys. His splendid head, superimposed on the shambling heap 
 of bones, was striking enough ; his rugged, almost inconsecutive, 
 speech did the rest. When he cowered back, and lay once more 
 on old Mordaunt's shoulder, the house was clamorous for a 
 reconciliation between Roland and Lord Eustace Vanderbilt. 
 
 It was solemnly made. Roland and Lord Eustace shook hands, 
 and Sir Jasper Meredith shrunk close to the shoulder of old Mor- 
 daunt, saying, '' You did right to rouse him. But we shall never 
 know the best of him ; he has too much money." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX, 
 
 So began the end of the old regime. That was the very last 
 glimpse that our boys had of a British university. They had 
 been educated as rich boys are educated at a public school and at 
 a university. The time comes now when, by a series of accidents. 
 
STEETTON. 115 
 
 they were cast into the world. Will you bear with me while I 
 sum up their qualifications for fighting that same world ? 
 
 Roland. With regard to Roland's rowing, there has never been, 
 I believe, but one opinion. It was unapproachable. Roland rowed 
 before the new art of '* catching " the water at the beginning of 
 your stroke, and rowing so many strokes a minute, came in fashion. 
 Roland rowed like Coombes, his master ; diligently observing the 
 rule to ''catch" nothing, but to imitate, as far as possible, the 
 motion of a steam-engine. Roland, with his Maynard and his 
 Mordaunt between him, and Eddy steering, won everything. I 
 only mention his rowing powers first, as a tribute to the genius of 
 the age. I have now to descend to the unimportant fact of his 
 scholarship. 
 
 I suppose I ought to apologise for doing anything so vulgar, or 
 so commonplace. Yet we are a practical people, and the French 
 say a money-loving people. Roland's education had cost the 
 change out of 1500/. already. He had been the favourite boj 
 of one of the most successful masters of modern times. He so 
 far differed from the ordinary public schoolboy of these times, that 
 he could have got into Balliol, or taken his degree when he left 
 school. It was not necessary for his father to spend 2001. on a 
 coach, before he could pass his matriculation, and another hundred 
 before he could pass his "little go." He was a very favourable 
 specimen. He could have competed with the head boys from 
 Cheltenham or Marlborough, just then coming into existence, in 
 classics. The question is — what did he know ? 
 
 He could do a better piece of Greek prose than, probably, any 
 man in the House of Commons, in the Chamber of Deputies, or 
 in Congress. His Greek prose was so good that there were 
 scarcely two dozen men in England who could correct it. He 
 could translate any Greek book, let it be what it would, elegantly 
 and correctly. Erasmus and his friends, or Milton, were scarcely 
 better classics at his age. He was a young lion. In the viid 
 voce part of his examination, a middle-aged Moderator, fresh from 
 the country, got frightened at him, and sought safety in flight. 
 Roland, standing on the other side of that dreadful table in those 
 divinity schools, there and then, under the most beautifully 
 decorated roof in England, corrected and shut up that Moderator. 
 
 Then his " science." He could reel you off the limits of human 
 knowledge. He could pick you out the few queer places in his 
 Aldrich, and pour out the vials of his contempt over the " logic " 
 of the late Archbishop of Dublin. At the Union he had got on 
 his legs, and utterly demolished the " science " of Emerson, show- 
 ing that he had not mastered the mere grammar of his art. 
 
116 STKETTON. 
 
 Then in divinity. He would as lief read you his Bible in Greek 
 as in English, and had made numerous emendations in Pickering's 
 notes. His essay on the miraculous draught of fishes, in which 
 he clearly proved that they were Thymalli and not Cyprinidse (in 
 which he was quite wrong), was printed. And he could say half 
 
 I the articles by heart, including the somewhat difficult one on 
 ±*redestination, which James Mordaunt called the article on 
 Pedestrianism. 
 
 I have now come to the end of my hero's accomplishments. 
 He was destined for Parliament, and would have educated himself 
 there, and done well there. I acknowledge that he had learnt how 
 to learn, and that when the world had shown him what it was 
 necessary to know, that he would have learned it. But let me tell 
 Ypu what he did not know. 
 
 r^He knew nothing of the history of his own country. He could 
 Tell you of commonplaces about a Spartan Hegemony, but the Fox 
 and North coalition was news to him. Before^jtljja-^-^fttftetre^Dhe 
 Game, ^e had scarcely, from the most ordinary sources, put 
 himself in possession of the most ordinary facts in English 
 history. 
 
 ^ About physical science he was absolutely and perfectly ignorant. 
 
 fFor this we can scarcely blame him. Mr. Lewes, and another, 
 whom family reason^^revent my naming, had^not then brought 
 science to our doors. ^) Darwin and Huxley were watching the 
 wonders of God in tlie deep sea, and had not got epitomised. 
 Mrs. Sabine had not translated the Cosmos, which brings us to 
 the fact that Roland was entirely unable to read the Cosmos in 
 the original German. Not to mince masters, that he was prac- 
 tically ignorant of every modern language, 1 He might have gone 
 on the grand tour, and have come back not much wiser than he 
 went. The bright, agreeable Frenchman, with his bright half false 
 ideas (always, however, containing a half truth), and the slow, 
 wise German, were alike dumb dogs to him. Outside this small 
 over-populated island of ours, the world was a dead black blank 
 to him : those very admirable fellows, Fritz and Alphonse, having 
 no language to speak to hirii but that of the eyes. If you turn on 
 me and say that Fritz and Alphonse might have taken the trouble 
 to learn the language of Shakespeare, I can only retort that they 
 did not and will not. \j also ask you whether, after the above 
 summing-up of Roland's accomplishments. Squire Evans got Ws 
 money's worth (1500L) for his money ? I say that he did notTj 
 Suppose Roland stripped of his wealth, what was he fit for? 
 For my own part, I shall soon get near to believing that the 
 Cornell " University " in the United States, or the Oxford, or 
 
STEETTON. 117 
 
 still more, the Cambridge of Chaucer, is the best in the world. 
 And now, when we have broken through tradition in every way, 
 just conceive what we might make of our young men on the 
 ''Cornell" principle, with the Oxford and Cambridge revenues. 
 But our purpose is to write a stoiy, and this is past it. Let me 
 come back to my proposition. Roland, after 1500Z. of expenditure, 
 was little fit to cope with the world, as far as education had helped 
 him. 
 
 In one moment, see what the Oxford and Cambridge of Chaucer 
 were, not as bearing in any trifling opinions of mine, but in showing 
 for the mere sake of five minutes' amusement, how each university 
 has kept its character through so many centuries, at all events, in 
 the public mind. What are the popular opinions about Cambridge 
 now? The ideal Cambridge man is plodding, thrifty, quiet, diligent, 
 solemn, wise. The ideal Oxford man is fantastic, noisy, extrava- 
 gant, and given to practical jokes. Most of the "Joe Millers" 
 for many years are laid at the door of " Oxford students." Just 
 compare the ideal Oxford man of the day with the ideal Oxford 
 man of Chaucer, as compared with his Cambridge man, and see 
 how true it comes after so many centuries. Compare Allan and 
 John, the Cambridge lads, who carried the wheat to Trumpington, 
 with Hendy Nicholas and Soloman, the Oxford lads ; and Allan 
 also was a Scotchman (we have had a senior wrangler or so from 
 that kingdom of late years, I believe) ; and was there ever such an 
 Oxford man as Soloman ? His love for gaudry, his love for private 
 theatricals, with an easy part and a fine dress. That inimitable 
 Chaucer makes him act Herod. " Nothing to say and a fine dress 
 — Toiy Oxford all over," says a cynical Cambridge friend. 
 
 And of the others, what can be said ? they were but little more 
 prepared for the world than he. Had they been put to the test of 
 competitive examination, they would have been found fit for nothing 
 but ushers in schools or curates. Clive or Hastings were not more 
 ignorant, or more helpless before they underwent that great com- 
 petitive sink-or-swim examination, which is called The World. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 As the time for the great wedding, which once again was to unite 
 the rather often united houses of Evans and Maynard, drew near, 
 some of those connected with the preparations noticed that there 
 
118 STEETTON. 
 
 would be two rather conspicuous absentees. Young James Mordaunt 
 had suddenly discovered that his whole heart was set on trying for 
 the Engineers, and, failing that, getting into the Artillery ; and in 
 a letter to his father, urged the necessity of going to Bonn to 
 study at once. 
 
 The request was so very sudden and odd, that Squire Mordaunt 
 wrote to his eldest son to consult him about the matter, and to 
 beg to him to see if Jim was in earnest. The result was, that 
 the two brothers were closeted together, and the elder Mordaunt 
 looked very grave and vexed when they parted. John Mordaunt 
 wrote to his father very curtly, to say that he thought it would be 
 much better if James was allowed to go to Bomi at Christmas 
 instead of coming home. He could give no reasons, he said, but 
 he had got his brother's leave to put the case before Roland Evans, 
 and Roland Evans had agreed with him. Squire Mordaunt gave 
 his consent wonderingly ; and Eddy Evans noticed that from tliis 
 time his brother Roland and John Mordaunt treated James 
 Mordaunt with a rather solemn kindness and respect, which they 
 had never exhibited before. 
 
 There was no skylarking and folly now. Jim was the most 
 solemn and miserable of the group. He got up a fiction that his 
 health was bad, and that there was something the matter with his 
 heart ; poor boy ! there iras. Something past mending. 
 
 Eddy fell in popularity this autumn. Seeing every one (except 
 Maynard) very low in their minds, he would play the fool to cheer 
 them up ; but no one wanted the fool played, and all the old 
 babyish balderdash fell dead. For fun is a good enough thing in 
 its way, and in its time, and is very like the flower called 
 '^ Gazanea,'' or '^ Dame cVonze heures," a flower which under 
 the morning's cold, is no flower at all, but an ugly bud ; but 
 which, under the eleven o'clock sun, spreads out into a golden 
 corona studded with pearls. Who knows it better than a story- 
 teller ? There has been fun of a sort in this story. How difi'erent 
 it must look to a man without a care, and to a critic, reading the 
 story in a perfunctory manner. I know a man who was highly 
 complimented once, by probably the best judge of humour in 
 England, on a passage in his novel. That identical passage was 
 ticketed the very next week in one of the leading reviews, by the 
 best critic we have, as pointless and degrading balderdash. What 
 had pleased the one had utterly disgusted the other, yet they were 
 both fine judges. Thackeray, master of humour, says distinctly 
 that what some think a mass of rather ugly stupidity, is the most 
 amusing book ever written''' ; and, under any circumstances, jokes 
 * *• Humphrey Clinker." 
 
STRETTON. 119 
 
 fall dead sometimes. No wonder that Eddy's babyish folly fell 
 dead on the ears of men so deeply anxious as Roland Evans and 
 the elder Mordaunt. 
 
 For a very ugly thing had happened. I have, I hope, not con- 
 cealed from you the character of the younger Mordaunt. You 
 remember the frightful bullying of poor little Eddy Evans by him, 
 and have kno^vn that there was a wild beast vein in him some- 
 where. Say, if you like, that the Evanses and the Mordaunts had 
 been crossed too often, and were beginning to show the true 
 symptoms of the decadence of a family by a stupid, blind petulance 
 in the males. Draw a parallel with racehorses, if you like. Blue 
 Mantle or D'Estournel for instance. Account for it as you will, 
 the fact remains the same. That splendid young man, James 
 Mordaunt, tamed now for five years by fear of death and by 
 gratitude to Roland, had broken out again. He had fallen in 
 love, it seems, with Mildred Evans ; and to Roland and to his 
 brother John he talked of murder and suicide in the maddest 
 manner. 
 
 To such steady-going stage-coaches as John Mordaunt and 
 Roland Evans this was simply horrible. They, in their utter 
 ignorance of physics, thought that this excitability of brain was 
 permanent. It terrified them more than it need have done. How 
 could they guess or know that the mad ferocity of the latest 
 European cross of blood frequently went Berserk at the time ot 
 the most rapid physical development? Who was there to tell 
 them that the Prussian duellist student, as soon as he moves his 
 chair to his bureau, becomes the most quiet of men, a little 
 haughty, perhaps, but a good fellow ; or that that brown-faced 
 gentleman who asks your opinion on a point in croquet, has been 
 mad once, and elbow-deep in Indian blood ? Had tliey ever seen 
 a private of Pelissier's Algerian division boiling beans and giving 
 a baby bonbons ? No. These lads knew nothing of these 
 things. But poor James was pronounced mad, and was sent to 
 Bonn. 
 
 Sir Jasper Meredith might have come, but his conduct was as 
 crooked as his limbs. Mr. Evans asked him, and he wrote to 
 Roland to refuse. He wrote, I am sorry to say, a very petulant 
 and impertinent letter. "I shall not come," he said. ''Now 
 matters have come to a point, I am not sure that I am pleased. 
 Your sister has had little or no choice in this matter. Who can 
 be sure that she would have chosen Robert Maynard at all if she 
 hadliad any one else to choose? I hate this kind of marriage 
 beyond measure. Before either of them know their own minds, 
 they bind themselves to live for at least fifty years together. 
 
120 STRETTON. 
 
 barring accidents. It is not at all a wise arrangement, and I am 
 going to stay with Jimmy at Bonn." 
 
 Roland showed this letter, in a state of white fury, to 
 John Mordaunt. ''The ill-tempered little fellow," he said, "to 
 write me such a letter as that : I have it in my heart to beat 
 him." 
 
 " He is a cranky little chap," said ox Mordaunt. " And it is 
 no business of his, which makes his letter a piece of cool 
 impertinence, which you ought certainly to resent. But I don't 
 know. No man in this world ever speaks decidedly, unless 
 there is some grain of truth in what he says. I ain't positive of 
 many things, but I'm positive of that. Why, the very telegrams 
 themselves begin, ' It is asserted,' or something of that sort, to 
 let you down easy. Meredith is positive in this matter as far as 
 he dare be. I doubt he knows something." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you agree with Meredith ? " asked 
 Roland. 
 
 " No," said Mordaunt, " not exactly. But I wish the engage- 
 ment had been a longer one : that is all. When little Meredith 
 says that they don't know their own minds, I agree with him. 
 It is a boy-and-girl match, and may turn out well or ill. It is all 
 a toss up." 
 
 " The women of our family always make good wives," said 
 Roland. 
 
 " Your family ? " said old Mordaunt. " Yon are like ourselves, 
 crossed with half the blood in Shropshire, and, like ourselves, 
 you have produced no great sire who could leave his mark in the 
 family, like the horse Tadmor, for generations. You Evanses, 
 certainly, don't breed true. Look at Eddy. He is no more your 
 brother than I am. And the bride, she is not your sister, she is 
 Eddy's. Don't talk to me about your family. Is your family 
 capable of fierce rabid vindictiveness ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Roland. " Look at our history." 
 
 " You haven't got any history," said old Mordaunt. " You 
 have never produced a distinguished man before yourself. So 
 your family is incapable of vindictive ferocity ? Why, man, that 
 vagabond poor brother of mine, Jim, used to leather and pound 
 Eddy, and I have thrashed him for it ; and whilst I have been 
 thrashing my brother, I have been glad that your little kitten of 
 a brother had not had a knife in his hand when my brother was 
 bullying him. And Mildred is his sister, not yours." 
 
 " You put matters rather coarsely, old fellow," said Roland. 
 
 "I am a brute, I doubt. Where you got your refinement 
 from, in the atmosphere of this valley, I can't think. It is 
 
STRETTON. 121 
 
 suffocating me. To wind up all in a downright manner, I hope 
 everything will go right. Boh Maynard is a good fellow, not 
 without brains ; hut upon my soul I wish they both had more 
 time to look about them. In the name of heaven, what is there 
 to prevent him, when he gets into the world, finding a woman he 
 likes better than your sister ? That would be death to her." 
 
 ** Then love will last unto death," said Roland. 
 
 " How do you know that ? Who told you that ? You have 
 had a fancy for more than one woman, have you not ? " 
 
 '' Certainly not," said Roland, promptly ; ''I never had a 
 fancy for any woman in my life. By-the-bye, do you mean little 
 Mary Maynard? Well, I like her about as well as I do your 
 brother Jim." 
 
 There was something contemptuous in old Mordaunt's voice, 
 when he growled out, " Then you are more lucky than most men. 
 For my own part, I am not made of the same stuff that you are. 
 I can sum up three girls that I would have gone to the devil for 
 in the last three years. But I have changed, and hurt no one. 
 Suppose Bob Maynard was to change ? " 
 
 " He can't change after he is married," said Roland. 
 
 *'No, you are right there," said old Mordaunt ; ''that is just 
 the very thing he can't do." 
 
 ** Well, don't go on," said Roland ; and so old Mordaunt left 
 off. 
 
 It was strange to Roland that this very wedding, a splendid 
 affair altogether — a marriage which united two considerable 
 estates, and which brought youth, beauty, and wealth together in 
 such a singular manner — was objected to by the very people he 
 thought would approve of it most. The vague, bucolic old 
 Mordaunt had scarcely finished his illogical lowings over it, 
 and had not yet reached his father's house across the valley in 
 the dark, nay, even had walked into the trout-stream, and was 
 still swearing, when Aunt Eleanor came into the room where 
 Roland was sitting, and told him, as a piece of good news, that 
 Mildred was quite quiet now. 
 
 " What the devil has the girl got to be unquiet about ? " 
 
 *' I don't know," said Aunt Eleanor, who, in spite of her 
 farming and shooting, was as thorough a woman as ever walked. 
 That is to say, when anything happened she would accuse the 
 nearest man of it on the spot, and leave him to get out of the 
 scrape the best way he could. *' I don't know what she has to 
 be unquiet about, but she is perfectly quiet now, and seems 
 inclined to sleep." 
 
 " Have you beeu worrying her in any way ? " 
 
122 STEETTON. 
 
 *' I haven't said a word to her. What do you mean ? " 
 
 ** I'd sleep her," said the exasperated Roland. '^ Why, she is 
 going to marry the man of her own choice to-morrow. She must 
 be an idiot." 
 
 *' We are all idiots, we women," said Aunt Eleanor. **We 
 know it, my dear. That is the worst of it. Mildred is an idiot. 
 But she has been in a state of strong nervous excitement all day, 
 and is comparatively quiet now." 
 
 '* But you did not make such a fool of yourself when you were 
 married, Aunt." 
 
 *' My dear, I never was married," said Aunt Eleanor, quietly ; 
 '' your memory is going with study, my dear." 
 
 This so took the wind out of Roland's sails that he had to 
 start on a fresh tack. 
 
 *' Aunt Eleanor, I beg your pardon. But I want to ask you 
 something ; would you postpone this marriage if you could ? Old 
 Mordaunt has been gandering here, and has just gone home in 
 the dark, swearing. Now, would you postpone this marriage if 
 you could ? ' ' 
 
 *' Yes," said Aunt Eleanor. " Good-night." 
 I So she went to bed. And Roland, who, in his unapproachable 
 purism, is about as good a hero as a bean-stalk or a punt-pole, sat 
 before the fire and wondered why the deuce people couldn't marry 
 1 one another without all this botheration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The elder Mordaunt, having fallen into the trout- stream and done 
 his share of swearing in getting out of it, blundered on to his 
 father's house, and, getting over the hedge, saw that the party 
 which his father had had to dinner, and which party he had 
 avoided, had not yet dispersed. He therefore wont in through 
 the servants' hall. 
 
 It was full of all kinds of people, coachmen, footmen, and grooms ; 
 and he was wet through. He had thought that he might have 
 got warm there, and possibly supper, served by his own servants ; 
 but the strange faces made him pass on, and he went up to bed 
 sulky and silent. 
 
 It would have done him no harm to have heard the comments 
 which were made on him by the domestic servants (as far as \ 
 
STKETTON. 123 
 
 knov/ them, a kind, gentle, and affectionate set of people) when 
 he was gone. They had nothing to say of him hut what was 
 good. For the elder Mordaunt was miiversally respected and 
 liked. He went upstairs, however, and hurried into hed in the 
 dark. 
 
 He had not slept long hefore he was awakened ; there was a 
 light in the room, and looking up he saw his sister standing 
 heside his hed. 
 
 It is very rare indeed to see great and very youthful heauty 
 dressed in such textures as are usually reserved for married 
 wotaen. Ethel Mordaunt dressed so ; it was part of her imita- 
 tion of Miss Evans. She was dressed in very dark maroon- 
 coloured velvet, with hare neck and arms, and not one single 
 jewel, save one dull amethyst, on her hosom. The effect of the 
 splendidly moulded arms and bust, with the freshness and brilliant 
 colour of extreme youth upon them — a freshness and colour which 
 soon goes, like the bloom upon a grape — was startling and dazzling 
 beyond measure, in contrast to the dark velvet. The sight of a 
 blooming girl, beautiful beyond most, but dressed in velvet, is so 
 rare, that my readers would find it hard to realise, and it would 
 certainly be a very expensive whim to do so ; it would cost twenty 
 pounds ; yet you may do it, as far as colour is concerned, for 
 nothing. Get a bud (mind, a bud) of that inimitable rose called 
 *' Jaune D'Espray," and wrap it, say, in a leaf of the variegated 
 arrowi'oot, and you will gain an idea of the effect of young flesh 
 against velvet ; but see that there is no dewdrop upon it, for that 
 would represent a jewel, and with its coarse, mathematical 
 humdrum prismatics, would catch your eye and spoil the 
 picture. 
 
 Old Mordaunt, in any other case, would have seen all this, 
 perhaps ; but then, it was only his sister ; he asked her what the 
 deuce she wanted, and whether a fellow was to be bullyragged 
 out of his very bed ? 
 
 " Don't be cross, dear," said Ethel, sitting down on the bed. 
 
 Old Mordaunt said, ''If you will hook it, and leave me to sleep, 
 I won't be cross ; if you sit there, I will. Go to bed, will you ? 
 Why the deuce can't you go to bed ? You wouldn't like it if I 
 were to hunt you up in the middle of the night, and break your 
 rest. I should hear of that at breakfast, I daresay. Just you 
 hook it, my lady. Come." 
 
 '' I want to talk to you, John." 
 
 ''I know you do. And I know what you want to talk about. 
 And I know how you will wrap it up, and bring it out piece by 
 piece. And I know your obstinacy (you call it determination — I 
 
124 STKETTON. 
 
 don't). And I know that you'll sit there till the morning until 
 it's done, as girls all do it, by piecemeal insinuations. There ! 
 I'll do it all for you, like Dickens's brickmaker did for the district 
 visitor. How is Mildred ? Mildred is making a fool of herself, 
 in every possible way. This match is of her choosing, and she 
 now is making a silly fuss as if she was averse to it. How does 
 Bob Maynard take it ? He knows nothing of it. If he did, the 
 assembled women would steadily and stoutly lie the whole thing 
 away from him, and she would lie the loudest. What is Roland 
 doing ? he is doing nothing ; yet everything but the one thing I 
 wish he would do. What is Eddy doing ? he is giggling. What 
 is Aunt Eleanor doing ? jawing and scuffling, and trying to make 
 noise enough to make people believe there is nothing wrong. 
 What are you doing ? keeping me awake, and so just you hook it, 
 or I'll make you." 
 
 '' Don't be cross, Johnny." 
 
 ** You said that before, and if anything exasperates a man more 
 than another, it is being told not to lose his temper. That is a 
 thorough example of female tact, or woman's wisdom ; go to 
 bed." 
 
 " I will go," said the good Ethel ; '* but I'll say something 
 before I go which will prevent you from sleeping this night, my 
 dear old man." 
 
 John Mordaunt sat up in his bed at once. He saw that she 
 was in earnest. " If you have really anything to tell me, my old, 
 good sister, I will lie awake all night. You are not angry with 
 me?" 
 
 *'Do you remember any one who was ever angry with you, 
 Johnny ? " she said, drawing nearer to him. 
 
 " No one except the Doctor at school," said John Mordaunt. 
 " Speak up, old girl." 
 
 *'I will. Johnny, do you know this, that women are bad 
 hands at keeping secrets?" 
 
 *' Mary Hewitt's story of the Snail and the Sawyer taught me 
 that, when I was eight years old," said John. 
 
 *' Very like," said Ethel. " But I can tell you that a woman 
 can keep her own secret through fire and water, to the rack, to 
 the stake. But a woman cannot always undertake the miserable 
 burden of another's secret." 
 
 " Have you a secret of your own then, sister ? " 
 
 ** Ay, and mean to keep it too, my brother. But I have 
 another secret ; the secret about Mildred and Jim. And you 
 must know, brother, I trust you beyond all men. Brother, there 
 is nobody like you," 
 
STKETTON. 125 
 
 ** And I was cross to you because you woke me ! " said John, 
 taking her hand. ** Sister, let me tell you at once ; this secret 
 is known to us ; I mean to Roland and myself. Jim has gone to 
 Bonn, and will get over it. It was all madness. She knows 
 nothing of it. All madness." 
 
 " You are the madman, dear brother, if you think so. What 
 do you know of this most miserable business ? Trust me, and 
 tell me categorically." 
 
 '* I'll tell you all that Eoland and I know," he said, very 
 quietly. " Jim was always very difficult, you know, and hard to 
 deal with. You know of his brutality to Eddy at school, and of 
 his being picked out of the water, nearly dead, by Roland and 
 Eddy. After that his life seemed to change, for he is a queer 
 boy, Ethel ; you cannot always calculate on him ; and he devoted 
 himself to these Evanses in his wild way. They could do any- 
 thing they liked with him. And in the end of the last long 
 vacation. Bob Maynard took things rather too comfortably with 
 Mildred Evans, and left her too much with James. And Jim fell 
 in love with her. He was in love with her brothers before. And 
 Jim — our poor, good Jim — who is a trump, old girl, is sent to 
 Bonn. And it is all over, and she never will know anything about 
 it. That is all." 
 
 *' Is it ? " said Ethel, by this time as pale as a ghost. " Then, 
 brother, you don't know anything about his having spoken to her. 
 You don't " 
 
 It was John Mordaunt's turn to turn pale now. '' Leave the 
 room for a minute, Ethel," he said. '' I must get up over this." 
 
 She was scarcely outside the door, when he called her in ; he 
 was sitting half dressed in a chair. '' Finish this, old girl," he 
 said. " Let's have it out. So Jim, poor old Jim, he spoke to 
 her, did he ? And she cut him up with scorn, and sent him right- 
 about to the deuce ? " 
 
 *' Why, no, she didn't," said Ethel. 
 
 " Think what you are saying, old girl ; just think what you 
 are^ saying." 
 
 " Good heaven ! Johnny, do you think that I haven't thought ? 
 I tell you that she has changed her mind — I tell you that she 
 would go to the world's end for Jim." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " From both of them. Jim told me first, before you all went 
 to that weary, silly Oxford. And she told me the day before 
 yesterday. And if it matures, I am to be her bridesmaid to- 
 morrow." 
 . John Mordaunt began walking quickly up and down the room. 
 
126 STKETTON. 
 
 The first thing he said was, " Why, Ethel, there never was but 
 one soul between us five, since we grew up, till now. Why, Lorn 
 Eddy with the rudder lines, to Jimmy in the bow, there was but 
 one soul among us. And to see the old four-oar burst up like 
 this ! I am not a sentimental man, but I don't feel as if I could 
 stand it. I'd cry, if I knew how, but I never did." 
 
 " The question is," said Ethel, " what can we do ? " 
 
 " In what way ? " said John, stopping in his walk. 
 
 '* Generally," said Ethel. 
 
 " There she goes," said John ; '< that is her woman's wisdom 
 all over. What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean," said Ethel, *' what can we do ? " 
 
 "Pish!" said John Mordaunt; ''do you want to stop the 
 marriage, or don't you ? Speak out and give your opinion. 
 What is it?" 
 
 *' That is just exactly what I don't know myself," said Ethel. 
 " I trusted to your well-known sound common sense to tell me 
 what to do." 
 
 " And I'll be hanged if I know," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Could we prevent it if we tried ? " said Ethel. 
 
 " I don't think we could," said John. 
 
 " Then suppose Jimmy was to stay at Bonn, and we were to 
 keep our own counsel ? " 
 
 " It might be better," said John. 
 
 '' It could hardly be mended," said Ethel. " On my honour, 
 she is very fond of Robert Maynard, and if you will stay away, 
 and Robert will be kind to her — and when was he not kind ? — 
 she will forget Jim, as I might in long ages forget Roland, if he 
 was kept away from me. Keep them apart, and they may forget 
 one another." 
 
 '' It is impossible," said John Mordaunt : *' the thing has gone 
 too far. They are to be married to-morrow, and if we try to 
 stop it, we have not a leg to stand on. Let it be. Trust to 
 God, and let us keep our own secrets. Now go to bed." 
 
 She left him. She little dreamed, in the heat of her speech, 
 that she had betrayed her own secret to her elder brother. She 
 did not remember her words, but he did. He knew now, as 
 Miss Evans had known before, that her whole iieart was given to 
 Roland. 
 
 If John Mordaunt was one thing more than another, he was 
 a gentleman. I have seen gentlemen with various degrees of 
 education, and in various dresses. Sometimes in a blue coat 
 and brass buttons, as a county magistrate. (Did you, my dear 
 reader, ever see a country gentleman in a blue coat and brass 
 
STEETTON. 127 
 
 buttons ? I never saw but one, and he has been dead these 
 ten years — it is only the literary way of putting it.) I have 
 seen gentlemen in all kinds of disguises. Among the first rank 
 of the gentlemen whom I know, I should be inclined to rank a 
 duke's son who is a sailor ; a dissenting farmer ; a High Church 
 curate ; and a nondescript sort of ballaster on the Thames. If I 
 ever betted, I would give long odds that none of these four would 
 do a dishonest action, or would say one word, unless speaking to 
 a principle, which would wound any one else. I suppose that 
 such a person is a gentleman. 
 
 One specialite of a gentleman is not to betray secrets. John 
 Mordaunt kept his sister's secret with regard to Koland tight 
 between his teeth. She had forgotten that she had betrayed it, 
 and he never reminded her. It was a dead secret. 
 
 A dead secret between those two, sacredly kept. It was no 
 secret between poor wild James and her ; but she would have 
 been horrified if she had thought that her elder brother knew 
 of it. He was a man, and might — might — what ? Form an 
 opinion on it, and make some sort of movement. Aunt Eleanor 
 had found it out, and she was as the idols of Abou Simbel. She 
 had told it to the bird, her dog, and her brother Jim, and one 
 was as likely to betray her as the other ; for poor Jim had a 
 dumb, brutish fidelity about him, which the fear of death could 
 not make him violate ; and Jim had once, in one of his childish 
 skirmishes, cut a curl from Roland's head. And where was that 
 curl now, I wonder ? 
 
 That objectionable woman. Myrtle, used to do the dressmaking 
 in old times, but she was in London, staying with Mrs. Gray, and 
 she was succeeded by a tipsy old^rot, called Booth, who had been 
 kept hard at work in the housekeeper's room under Myrtle, in the 
 old times, but who now was allowed to take her work home, in 
 consequence of having had an apoplectic seizure or two on the 
 premises, and tho doctor having warned Squire Mordaunt of the 
 extreme inconvenience af an inquest on the premises, which he, 
 as coroner, was capable to speak of. This old lady had got some 
 of Ethel's fal-lals still in hand, things necessary for the wedding 
 to-morrow ; and Ethel knew she would come, sooner or later, 
 being a resolute and trustworthy woman when in liquor, though 
 not much good at other times (which were few) ; and so she sat 
 waiting for her, until all but a few servants were gone to bed. 
 Trying to think that it would aU be for the best, and not making 
 veiy good weather of it. 
 
 The dogs which are necessary to a country gentleman's exist- 
 ence heralded Mrs. Booth's approach. She was one of those 
 
128 STEETTON. 
 
 women that dogs could not bear, and so all those which were 
 loose skirmished about her heels, and those which were chained 
 up howled in anguish, because they could not get at her. Not a 
 dog touched her ; they might howl, and yell, and bark, but not a 
 dog came very close to that woman. Well, one, but he was like 
 the Urquhart-Rabelais breed, junior and inexperienced. A black- 
 and-tan terrier puppy, not much bigger than your fist, aroused 
 from his slumbers by the noise, hurled himself at her, as if it was 
 Balaclava, and he was the Six Hundred. She sent him by a 
 dexterous kick in among the others, who fell upon him and hunted 
 him back to his mother. After which, she was sho"\vn up, very 
 flushed, to Ethel's presence. 
 
 " You are very late, Mrs. Booth." 
 
 *' Yes, miss. I stayed to supper with Mrs. Gray and Mrs. 
 Myrtle." 
 
 '' Why, Mrs. Myrtle is in London." 
 
 '' Saving your presence, miss, was. Mrs. Myrtle has come 
 down for the wedding, and Mrs. Gray has come with her." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The wedding-day rose frosty and bright. There had been a 
 little sheet of snow in the night, which had laid a shawl of lace 
 over the dark, purple velvet of Longmynd, made the clear 
 summit of Caradoc shine like a silver crystal, and, apparently, 
 had affected Aunt Eleanor's temper. 
 
 I would not invade the sanctity of a maiden lady's bedroom 
 further than by saying that if Aunt Eleanor's bed did not stand 
 against the wall, she certainly had got out of it the wrong side ; 
 for the first thing she said to her own face in the looking-glass 
 was, " A parcel of fools ! " 
 
 Then she set to work ringing her bell, which at first produced 
 no result whatever. This pleased her immensely ; for when you 
 are in an ill-temper, nothing is so delightful as to find an excuse 
 for it. While she was ringing, her maids were engaging in a 
 lively and acrimonious debate as to whose duty it was to get up 
 at this exceptionally early hour of the morning. Aunt Eleanor's 
 personal attendant declined on the grounds of precedent — her lady 
 had never rung her up so early before ; the ringing, she argued, 
 was for the housemaids to get up and make the house tidy in 
 
STRETTOK. 129 
 
 decent time, instead of lying routing there. The housemaid 
 declined to take this view of the matter, but made a coalition 
 with the body-servant on the subject of cook, who was at once 
 bawled awake and told that Missis wanted her at once, Cook, 
 looking out from among the sheets, listened to the case of the 
 allied powers, told them briefly that that sort of thing wouldn't do 
 with her, and at once went fast asleep again with a rapidity and 
 dexterity acquired by long practice — acquired in many hot 
 kitchens ; leaving the allied powers paralysed, and for the time 
 silent. 
 
 But there was a little scrubbing-maid from the workhouse 
 (consequently petted by Aimt Eleanor before all people in the 
 house) who lay in a bed in the corner, sleeping harder than even 
 cook, who appeared to the allied powers available. Here another 
 hitch occurred : there was a general debate as to who should get 
 out of bed and wake her. The powers all round having declined 
 seriatiun to move in this matter without an alliance, offensive and 
 defensive, being signed all round, the weakest power, the lady's 
 maid, whose case was not so good as the others, proposed that 
 she should be *' pelted up." Which, with some modifications, 
 was done. Prussia and Austria threw shoes and other tilings at 
 her until she woke, and then England and France told her there 
 was nothing to be afraid of, so, at the last, poor little Denmark 
 put on her petticoat, and went to face the terrible Aunt Eleanor 
 single-handed. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor ordered little Denmark to bed again, in the 
 most emphatic manner, daring her to get up for the next two 
 hours, after which, in her camisole, she went up to the maids' 
 bedroom. 
 
 Here I draw the veil. They say that cook slept through it all, 
 and snored the while ; but we know what rumour is. Any one 
 can snore. It is pretty certain, however, that more housewifery 
 went on in Pulverbatch Grange in the next hour than had gone 
 on in any previous hour. Squire Mordaunt used to say that 
 Eleanor's maids would knock out the walls of the Grange with 
 the points of their scrubbing-brushes. It escaped this ordeal, 
 however, and so will probably continue to shelter the head of the 
 grey-haired old woman who sits there now, until she is carried to 
 Stretton churchyard with the others. 
 
 With breakfast came three most unexpected visitors. Eddy, 
 with John and Ethel Mordaunt. She was astonished, and she 
 said, " Why, what do you three want here ? " 
 
 Old John Mordaunt answered ; for Eddy, who was to have 
 spoken, hung fire. 
 
 10 
 
130 STEETTON. 
 
 a Why, we like you better than anybody else, Miss Evans, and 
 we thought that you would like to see us this morning. So we 
 walked across to breakfast." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor was perfectly silent for an instant. Her face 
 was perfectly quiet, but Ethel, who saw everything, saw her fine 
 bust heave once or twice. All she said was, *' This is very kind 
 of you, my dears — come in." 
 
 They went in ; and Aunt Eleanor began bustling about among 
 her lazy maids to get them something for breakfast. They said, 
 all three, that they did not want anything particular for them. 
 Ethel put in as a riclinf/ remark, that there would be plenty of 
 breakfast presently, and that it would be a pity to spoil their 
 appetites. On this theme Eddy enlarged, as it seemed to have 
 struck him as a new idea, and he looked at Ethel with great 
 admiration. 
 
 He, an authority in matters of eating and drinking, gave it as 
 his opinion that it would be a pity to have much now. 
 
 " Lord bless me ! " said Aunt Eleanor. " Do let me pass 
 some of the trouble off in my own way. It is not every day 
 that one gets into such a stupid botheration as this. Be quiet, Eddy." 
 
 '* You consider this matter as a botheration, then, Miss 
 Evans ? " said old Mordaunt. 
 
 '' Of course I do. What do you think of it, then ? " said 
 Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 ** A most happy match, surely. There is wealth, beauty, and 
 affection." 
 
 " That means that they are both good-looking, have enough to 
 live on, and like one another, John Mordaunt," said Aunt 
 Eleanor. **You and I are both good-looking, we are richer 
 than they are, and, unless I am deceived, are very fond of one 
 another ; and a pretty pair ice should make. Fiddle-de-dee ! " 
 
 There was nothing to do but to laugh. " I don't say that they 
 won't be as happy as any other two fools who marry when they 
 can't help it. What aggravates me is that they cotild help it. 
 How any woman who could exist without being married could ever 
 go and get married, I can't think. Look at me." 
 
 They did so — and an uncommonly handsome lady she was. But 
 it was rather confusing that she did not go on with her argument, 
 but conceived that a mere contemplation of her person finished it. 
 Eddy had to take up the conversation, and a nice mess he made 
 of it — as usual. 
 
 *' But you could have been married if you liked, aunt." Which 
 was just putting the argument upside down. **I am sure you 
 could." 
 
STKETTON. 131 
 
 *' Fifty times," said Aunt Eleanor. Which, by the way, was 
 not true. ** Then, why didn't you ? " said Eddy, to the confusion 
 of counsel. " It would have been much better for you. Your 
 husband might have drunk, or made away with your money ; and 
 then you would have had some of those trials in life which you 
 are always recommending to me. It might have purified and 
 elevated your character, you know. I am only quoting your own 
 words." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor took no notice of Eddy's nonsense ; she never 
 did. Towards the world Miss Evans was shrewd and caustic ; 
 towards that pretty, kindly youth, she was, as folks said, a fool. 
 Whatever he did was right. She had given her heart to him, and 
 he repaid her with its blood. She passed him over now, and went 
 on with her argument, looking straight at Ethel. 
 
 " That sister of yours, John Mordaunt, she will be wanting to 
 get married some of these days." 
 
 " There is nobody good enough for Ethel," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 ^^ Ex-actly," said Aunt Eleanor; ** but you mark my words, 
 she will want to go marrying somebody. And nobody is good 
 enough for her." 
 
 " I think that ' nobody ' is," said old Mordaunt. 
 
 " Yes, but * nobody ' don't see it. And nobody is a foolish 
 prig, and he won't do half as well in the world as he thinks. And 
 so pretty, old Ethel, come and get ready, for it is quite time. If 
 nobody is a donkey, somebody is a goose, as somebody else was 
 before her. Eddy, go and see after the carriage ; " and Eddy 
 went. 
 
 " There goes the best of you all," said Aunt Eleanor. " There 
 is no one like him. Don't tell me." 
 
 " I am not going to tell you, Miss Evans," said old Mordaunt. 
 " I quite agree with you. There is no one like Eddy. He is the 
 only perfectly unselfish person I ever saw." 
 
 ** I'll not have him go to India," said Aunt Eleanor. *' I'll 
 make him exchange if his regiment is ordered there." Whereby 
 Ethel and John gathered that Miss Evans destined Eddy for the 
 mihtary service. 
 
 " Well, my dears," said Aunt Eleanor ; '* perhaps we had better 
 start to see these two married, if we mean to go at all. Where is 
 Roland?" 
 
 He had gone over to Maynard's Barton, it seemed, to fetch the 
 bridegi'oom, whereat Aunt Eleanor said, '' Humph." 
 
 They drove gaily away, in Aunt Eleanor's carriage, along the 
 frosty roads ; and it was really impossible to resist the weather, 
 and they got cheerful. Eddy said that he wished they had a flag ; 
 
132 STRETTON. 
 
 that it was a great mistake not Laving a flag ; Aunt Eleanor 
 looked so fine that she wanted a flag to set her off. And, 
 certainly, that lady was remarkably fine indeed, and showed the 
 more splendid because the others had not got on their wedding- 
 dresses ; priceless grey silk, and priceless white lace composed 
 her dress. She looked uncommonly like the landscape. Her 
 beauty was perfectly unimpaired ; and looking at her, that strange 
 stolid young man, John Mordaunt, said, with perfect respect and 
 perfect coolness, that the bride would not be the handsomest 
 woman there that day. 
 
 '' Do you mean Ethel or me ? " said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 '' You," said John Mordaunt. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor was immensely gratified. *' I believe I am very 
 handsome," she said. "J think so, and I am a tolerable judge, 
 I believe. You may say that again young man, if you choose. 
 You are a young man of discretion and discernment, and say what 
 you mean. It is a pity that I am old enough to be your mother, 
 or you and I might have made a match of it, and I would have 
 licked you into sliape, and made a gentleman of you ; as it is you 
 must stay as you are. I suppose you will want to marry some 
 day, and I will give you your wedding present. If the young lady 
 to whom you give your attentions ever tells you that she don't like 
 having her beauty admired, break off the match instantly j for she 
 is a humbug," 
 
 Johnny Mordaunt laughed, silently, between his big shoulders, 
 and said that Ethel was the girl for him — a sentiment of which 
 Aunt Eleanor approved most highly. 
 
 The four very quaint people were very late. The bride and 
 bridegroom were there, Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Maynard were there, 
 Koland was there, in puce-coloured pantaloons, looking noble, and 
 talking to Mary Maynard, the bridesmaid, m a way which looked 
 very like an immediate repetition of this insane folly, said Aunt 
 Eleanor to herself; every one was there, except Squire Charles 
 Evans. The younger party had to tear upstairs to dress them- 
 selves, and while they were doing so, Aunt Eleanor sailed about 
 and made herself agreeable, more particularly to Mrs. Maynard, 
 a woman she utterly detested. 
 
 '' You must be a happy woman, Mrs. Maynard," she said, " to 
 see your son so well married." Mrs. Maynard wept : it is the role 
 on such occasions. 
 
 '' What is the woman crying about? " thought Aunt Eleanor ; 
 " she ought to be in a state of frantic hilarity, and no doubt is." 
 And then went on aloud, " I wouldn't ciy if I was in your place, 
 Mrs. Maynard. It is all stuli* and nonsense and fiddle-de-dee, 
 
STEETTON. 133 
 
 crying, you know. I certainly should cry if my boy, Eddy, was 
 going to be married, because I should lose the sweetest companion 
 I ever had in my life. But you and your son have never been on 
 the best of terms, in spite of his very sweet and gentle nature, and 
 so I should have thought that you would be glad, at all events, 
 that all matters of dispute were ended between you by his 
 marriage." 
 
 Mrs. Maynard said that Aunt Eleanor did not know what a 
 mother's feelings were : a remark which would have silenced most 
 maiden ladies, in whom the Jewish superstition is ingrained with 
 tlieir first education. It had no effect on Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' Not know a mother's feelings ! I should rather think I did, 
 if anybody did. Why, you never cared half as much for that boy 
 of yours as I do for Eddy. He never was the delight of your eyes 
 and your heart, as Eddy is to me. Bah ! you and your mother's 
 feelings, indeed ! " 
 
 I solemnly aver that Aunt Eleanor, against her will, began this 
 conversation with the sole and entire view of being agreeable to 
 Mrs. Maynard ; and she finished in this way. I don't defend her 
 in the least. I never knew any one who could be more agreeable 
 than she could, or a more finished lady, when she chose to be. 
 But the greatest fault in her character was that when she despised 
 anybody heartily, she could not help showing it. She tried, but 
 she could not. Some may say that this did her honour. I think 
 not ; but will not argue further than saying, that if all people were 
 like Aunt Eleanor, society would become impossible. You can't 
 live on quinine. 
 
 Moving from her, with a view of getting civil again, she en- 
 countered Squire Mordaunt, who said, " Hallo, Eleanor ! what 
 have you been doing to the Crocodile ? " 
 
 " More than I meant." 
 
 "You always do," said Squire Mordaunt, testily. *'Hang it 
 all, Eleanor, why caii't you be civil? " 
 
 " Well, don't begin, George. Where is Charles ? " 
 
 '' Charles is ill. I don't think he will show," said Squire 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 " Not very ill ? " said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " Oh, no. Now, come, old girl — go back to that woman, May- 
 nard, and be civil to her." And Aunt Eleanor went at once. 
 Perhaps you may have remarked that there are some men, by no 
 means strong or clever, to whom the most independent women will 
 listen at once. Squire Mordaunt was one of them. 
 
 But we must hold their conversation over till after the pageant, 
 for there was no time for it before, Ethel, dressed for second 
 
134 STEETTON. 
 
 bridesmaid, sailed into the room ; dressed in full panoply, bouquet 
 in hand, with her head in the air, looking so imperially beautiful 
 that Mrs. Maynard went into raptures about her to Aunt Eleanor, 
 and sailing straight up to little Mary Maynard, who was under- 
 going a strong flirtation from Roland, touched her on the shoulder, 
 and said — 
 
 ''Now, Mary, if we are to be married to-day, we must take 
 away our bride. Roland, if you are going to make another match 
 with Mary, say so, because if you are not, you had better see after 
 your man." For, you see, the school of Aunt Eleanor had had 
 some efi'ect on Miss Ethel ; and I am far from saying that as 
 flings are, Aunt Eleanor's school is a good one for a young lady. 
 We must take things as we find them. 
 
 However, they went to church and got married, and the bride 
 seemed very happy and proud, and the bride and bridegroom came 
 back in the same carriage ; and all was rejoicing at Stretton, save 
 the little fact that master was too ill to join in the festivities, but 
 lay in bed. It did not much matter to any of them. *' Pa is ill," 
 said Eddy. Roland, who went and sat with his father, did not 
 look grave. The doctor came down to breakfast, and was very 
 merry : telling the company that Squire Charles' ailment was 
 nothing. But the concentrated eyes of Aunt Eleanor and Ethel 
 caught those of John Mordaunt, across the piled table. And 
 when his eyes answered theirs, he shook his head. And Ethel 
 and Eleanor knew that Asrael was coming from the bridal cham- 
 ber. But although these two could talk too much at times, they 
 could hold their tongues like another. 
 
 Who are here, in the name of goodness, under the leafless pop- 
 lars, watching the crashing, hissing ice ? 
 
 A mass of wasted bones, calling itself a man — calling itself Sir 
 Jasper Meredith. A splendid, rather cruel-looking young man, 
 with a fiercely-erected head, like that of an adder, who called him- 
 self James Mordaunt. They sat together, this winter afternoon, 
 looking out of the convent window, at Nonnenworth, of all places 
 in Europe. 
 
 '' We can't go back to-night, Jimmy," said Sir Jasper Mere- 
 dith. 
 
 " No, the boatman would not take us," said poor, wild Jim ; 
 " it is all over by now, I suppose." 
 
 '* Yes, it has been over this two hours," said Sir Jasper. '' She 
 is married by now. Why don't you groan, why don't you fling 
 yourself into the river among that ice — eh ? " 
 
STRETTON. 135 
 
 " I don't come of a groaning family," said the younger Mor- 
 daunt. " Besides, she is Roley's sister, and Boh Maynard is a 
 good fellow, and she is hetter with him than with me, Jasper. I 
 am only a brute." 
 
 ''You are a very gentle one then — I never had a more gentle 
 friend, even in Roland." 
 
 " Yes. I have been tamed by Roland and Eddy, and by you, 
 
 my old brick. But the brute is in me still. By , old man, 
 
 when I think of what is happening to-day " (I can go no further — 
 the young man was mad) — '' and she not loving him — I could 
 commit crime. I could, by the Lord Harry. But he is a good 
 fellow, never a better. All I say is, I see my way to crime." 
 
 *'I have committed it, Jimmy," said Sir Jasper Meredith, 
 coolly. '' ]\[ove me, will you ? — my hip seems going right through 
 the sofa on to the floor. I have committed crime." 
 
 " As how, then. What crime ? " 
 
 " Swindling or conspiracy, I think. Do you ever think of any 
 body else besides yourself, by any chance ? Do you ever think of 
 Roland?" 
 
 ** I only love his sister through him." 
 
 *' Would you like to see him married to Mary Maynard ? " 
 
 '' That miserable little fool ! How dare she ! Jasper, my 
 whole heart was set on his marrying my sister, and on my marry- 
 ing his. There are mysteries which you, in your refined nature, 
 do not see, but which I, more brutal possibly than you, can see. 
 For Roland, I want my sister Ethel. For myself, I wanted 
 Mildred. Then the accord of our two lives would have been per- 
 fect. People think, Dr. K thinks. Aunt Eleanor thinks, that 
 
 my love is for Eddy. It is not so ; it is for Roland. I would 
 have married his sister, but that is over ; over this very day. At 
 least he may marry mine." 
 
 " Perhaps he will," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 " No chance," said poor Jim. "He is taken with Mary May- 
 nard, his brother, you know. Ethel is the only woman fit for him. 
 Shall I tell you a secret, Jasper ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sir Jasper, '' provided it is not that your sister 
 Ethel is in love with him, and that he don't care twopence for 
 her." 
 
 '* But that was the secret." 
 
 " Sweet innocent, as if we did not know it ! How about Mary 
 Maynard ? Roland was inclined to make a fool of himself in that 
 quarter, but I have violated the laws of my country and bowled 
 him out. Ethel shall have a fair chance." 
 
 " What have you done ? " 
 
136 STEETTON. 
 
 '* A most rascally thing. Mrs. Maynard wanted me sadly, as I 
 told your brother and Ethel, at lunch, at Maynard's Barton. The 
 old woman of Maynard's Barton has been trying to get me for a 
 son-in-law. Now I have not responded. The girl is a fool, and 
 her mother another. I have tried to save Roland from many 
 things — for instance, from that wretched boat-racing ; but I never 
 worked so hard as I have now to save him from this miserable 
 match with this fool of a girl. I have tried mother and daughter, 
 and have found them both willing, either for me or for him. And 
 now I have sent a letter to the mother, most incautiously worded, 
 which will make her tell Roland that his chance is over there." 
 
 " Have you proposed for the girl ? " said Jimmy. 
 
 "No. Only bowled Roland out. I could not stand by and see 
 him marry such a fool as that. I want your sister to have a 
 chance. If the old woman is down upon me — well, the old woman 
 will be down upon me. But unless Roland makes a very great 
 fool of himself, he has little chance at Maynard's Barton. Will 
 you carry me to bed ? and if you will take the advice of a heap of 
 bones — go yourself." 
 
 James carried Sir Jasper to bed ; but he did not follow the 
 advice of that funny little baronet,- to go to bed himself. On the 
 contrary, he stood in the door-way of Nonnenworth till a late hour, 
 listening to the cold, cruel ice, as it hissed and crashed down the 
 Rhine, looking up from time to time at the empty, bare arch of 
 Rolandscck, above and beyond it. At Rolandseck, of all places in 
 Europe. 
 
 Now we must return to the marriage-feast. Every privileged 
 man, according to the old country custom, saluted the bride ; and 
 then, by a still older custom, the groomsmen saluted the brides- 
 maids. Roland, holding out his gloved hand, took Ethel's gloved 
 hand, and calmly and coldly saluted her on her cheek. She was 
 as calm and as cold as he was until he, still holding her hand, 
 said, " God bless you, dearest Ethel ; you will do the same for my 
 bride as you have done for my sister." And Ethel, gallant girl 
 as she was, bravely patted his hand and said, " Indeed, dear 
 Roland, I will. May I congratulate you ? " And he said, " I 
 think so." Then he kissed Mary Maynard, who made a fuss; 
 and the kissing being all done, they went home, and fell to eating 
 and drinking. 
 
 Ethel told Aunt Eleanor what Roland had said, and Aunt 
 Eleanor at once, as Ethel expressed it, retired on her temper. 
 '* My temper," she used to tell Ethel, '' is by far the most valu- 
 able of all my possessions. I make 50 per cent, by my farm ; but 
 
STEETTON. 137 
 
 then I make 200 per cent, by the credit of having a temper, 
 which, as you know, my dear, is not a very had one." And, 
 indeed, the good lady was right. She always got her own way in 
 everything ; not because she had the credit of having a bad temper, 
 but an uncertain one. You never knew exactly what form her 
 temper would take. There were three moods to it. Firstly, she 
 would occasionally break out and scold, in which mood her caustic, 
 well-trained tongue would carry all before it ; secondly, if it suited 
 her, she would remain stony dumb — a phase which generally 
 exasperated every one, except Squire Mordaunt and Ethel, into 
 fury and subsequent submission ; thirdly and lastly, she had a 
 phase of temper which beat every one but John Mordaunt 
 (nothing ever beat him). "I don't mind Miss Evans's temper 
 one bit," said Ethel once, to her father and mother, ^^ till she 
 gets imlite. Then I can't stand it." Miss Evans was not 
 polite on this occasion. She had fallen back on the mood of 
 stony dumbness, and she watched Mrs. Maynard, Mary, and 
 Roland. 
 
 Being allowed, however, by those accustomed to know her, to 
 be out of temper, she got her own way, and disarranged the 
 whole table until she had got Ethel on one side of her, and John 
 Mordaunt on the other ; with a view, as she explained to them 
 vaguely, of keeping her eye on the crocodile. Ethel and John 
 supplied her with vivers, which she took like a calm woman of the 
 world, but still maintaining a stony silence, until John, having 
 given her something she liked, she said, " You are very good to me, 
 my deav." 
 
 John said, " Pray don't. Miss Evans." 
 
 " Don't what ? " she said, sharply. 
 
 *' Don't be polite to us. We haven't done anything." 
 
 *' My dears, I was not thinking of being polite to you two. I'd 
 be polite to that woman if the table did not divide us," she con- 
 tinued, rubbing her nose with a spoon, thoughtfully. '* I can't 
 make that woman out a bit." 
 
 *' Send Eddy round to ask her what she is up to," said 
 John Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Just exactly the very thing I was thinking of myself. I have 
 a good mind to send Eddy round to her with my message, and stop 
 his allowance till he comes back with her answer." 
 
 " What would the message be. Miss Evans — how would it 
 run ? " asked John Mordaunt, laughing, frankly, in her face. 
 
 " Something like this," she said, beginning on her jelly. 
 ** You old trot ; you most scheming Cleopatra, inundation old 
 crocodile, listen to me. What do you mean by puzzling me ? I 
 
138 STRETTON. 
 
 can't make you out. What are you at ? What do you mean ? 
 You have been angling and fishing for him, and you have caught 
 him. Therefore, my fine madam, what makes you look as black 
 as thunder, and what is the reason that your idiotic little daughter 
 will scarcely speak to him, and evidently wants to go to her room, 
 and cry her eyes out ? Explain this, crocodile, and send back the 
 explanation by Eddy, or I'll come round for it myself." 
 
 '' I don't tiiink she would like that,'' said John Mordaunt. 
 
 *' I don't think she uoidd,'' said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 '' Let us watch them," said John Mordaunt. " I cun't make 
 her out." 
 
 Ethel had not heard one word of the latter part of the conversa- 
 tion. She was talking to a young squire, on the other side of her, 
 whom she liked, but whom she had to bully out of the folly of 
 making love to her. Aunt Eleanor and John Mordaunt ate and 
 watched for a little time, but saw only what Aunt Eleanor had 
 rather vividly described — Roland undoubtedly making love, and 
 both mother and daughter repelling it. 
 
 John Mordaunt, after a time, became aware that one of the 
 faces on his right was so far thrust forward as to engage his 
 attention ; looking that way, he saw that it was his father's. He 
 at once drew back, and pulled Aunt Eleanor's sleeve. ** The 
 governor is looking at us," he said, and by watching Aunt Eleanor, 
 he learned a lesson in carriafje. 
 
 With her cold, calm eyelids sunk upon her eyes, she bent a 
 little forward, and by a slight turn of her head, which no one could 
 notice unless he had been watching her intensely, let Squire 
 Mordaunt know that she understood him. Nothing more was 
 necessary. The ladies, shortly afterwards, left the table, and 
 some one made a speech. Eddy came and sat by John Mordaunt, 
 and wondered why he was so thoughtful. John Mordaunt was 
 revolving these things. Had his governor ever been in love with 
 Aunt Eleanor ? If not, how did they understand one another so 
 well ? If he had ever been in love with her, why the dickens 
 didn't he marry her ? And if he had, what effect would it have 
 had on his, John Mordaunt's, prospects ? Which last thing was a 
 matter too big for him. 
 
 Roland was gone, and he thought he would go after him ; why, 
 he scarcely knew. Eddy was busy taking the best flowers from 
 the vases, poor little man, and tying them up into tiny bouquets, 
 *' One for each of the girls," he said ; *' they would be withered 
 by to-morrow if they were left ; and each of them is a drop of 
 blood out of Macdingaway's heart." John Mordaunt, a rumina- 
 tive animal, left the assembled squires and parsons over their wine 
 
STKETTON. 139 
 
 and their arguments, and went out towards the conservatory. He 
 will tell you to this day that the last thing he ever heard of the old 
 time was his dear father's hoarse, loud voice, saying, '' I deny it, 
 sir. Those who speak of the agricultural labourers in those terms 
 are mere Cockneys." 
 
 He went into the conservatory, and there he met a group which 
 showed him that the day was not to be all holiday. 
 
 Roland. Seen by him for the first time in furious anger, with 
 his hands behind his back ; tall, splendid, imperious ; just at this 
 moment, terrible to stolid, good John Mordaunt ; Mrs. Maynard, 
 as white as a sheet, but with her pretty face set in feline determi- 
 nation ; and Mary Maynard in tears, with her face in her pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 It was Roland's turn to speak. '' I ask you once more, madam, 
 if this young lady's answer is dictated by you or not ? " 
 
 " You asked her when I was not by, and she gave you her 
 answer," said Mrs. Maynard, full of pluck, though gasping for 
 breath. " You must take it, sir." 
 
 " Have I never been encouraged to speak to her as I spoke just 
 now? " said Roland. 
 
 '* Never for one instant," said Mrs. Maynard, most promptly, 
 growing paler and paler, but, to do the woman justice, exhibiting 
 enormous courage. " Perhaps you will deny that I nearly turned 
 you out of my house at the beginning of last summer. You would 
 wish to deny that ? " 
 
 *' But since ? " said Roland. 
 
 ** Let us have a finish and end of it, sir. My son has married 
 a beggar to-day, my daughter shall not marry another to- 
 morrow." 
 
 *' Madam," said Roland, *' I cannot conceive what you mean." 
 
 "You should not have made me lose my temper," said Mrs. 
 Maynard ; " but it is gone, and much with it. You cannot under- 
 stand. By this sweet marriage of to-day, I am turned out of 
 Maynard's Barton. I have but little provision, and I want pro- 
 vision, for I am getting old. I want provision in my daughter's 
 house, now that my son has cast me out." 
 
 ''Madam, you have five hundred a year," blundered John 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 "Oh, you are there, are you?" said Mrs. Maynard; "there 
 are not any more of you, are there? Yes, John Mordaunt, I 
 have five hundred a year, which would make the whole of 
 Master Roland's income, under certain circumstances. By the 
 way, you being there, and having some sort of ox-like memory 
 in you somewhere, will please to remember this — that this young 
 
140 STEETTON. 
 
 lady's refusal icas dictated by me : and that we wish you a very 
 good afternoon." 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mrs. Maynard," said Roland ; '' you have 
 only confirmed me in a half-formed plan. Mary, darling, good-by. 
 She won't have it, you see. Mary, my little darling, come here. 
 I could appeal to ycur brother on any day but this ; but I won't. 
 Mary, your mother is too much for you. Come here, pretty little 
 love, and let me kiss you." 
 
 And Mary came, and lay in his arms for one short minute, for 
 she was as fond of him as it was in her nature to be fond of any- 
 thing. And her mother let her, possibly because John Mordaunt 
 faced her suddenly to the right-about, so that the parting should 
 be secret. He said, afterwards, that he would have pitched her 
 into the flower-pots if she had offered to look on. Mrs. Maynard 
 bad a shrewd idea that this fate would befall herself, and so she 
 kept quite quiet ; but when her little fool of a daughter was 
 released, and cam,9 back to her, she let her spite fly out. Coarsely, 
 but quite to the purpose. 
 
 *'Now," she said to Roland, "you fool, you can go and hang 
 after Ethel ; you blind idiot." 
 
 '' This is exactly what I mean to do, madam," said Roland. 
 " Good-by, my little Mary ; good-by, my little darling." 
 
 So the two young men went to the drawing-room, and John 
 Mordaunt said, " I can't make you out. I never thought you were 
 a tender, sentimental fellow until now." 
 
 ''I can't make myself out," said Roland; *' in what follows, 
 remember me at my best : it is not much to ask." 
 
 They were in time to see off the bride and bridegroom, and when 
 they were gone, Roland got together Aunt Eleanor, Ethel, and 
 John Mordaunt, and told them the whole story of his having 
 proposed to Mary Maynard, and of his refusal. 
 
 Fiddlers came, and they danced. Roland danced with Ethel, 
 and told her about his misfortune, and talked strange and odd talk 
 to her, principally on this theme, '' that classes could not under- 
 stand one another till they thoroughly intermixed," which suited 
 Ethel's Radicalism wonderfully. And Roland danced as he rowed, 
 in a masterly way. Aunt Eleanor came down, after sitting a time 
 with her brother, and sniffed at them. She reported her brother 
 as much better, and had herself dissuaded him from coming down 
 stairs. Mrs. Evans came down after a time, and sat smiling at 
 the dancers. 
 
 But at midnight a cry arose, '' The bridegroom cometh, go ye 
 forth to meet him." It began by a feeble wail of a frightened 
 nurse in the topmost corridor of the house, and it ended in the 
 
STEETTON. 141 
 
 silence of the ball-room, suddenly Imslicd. Squire Charles was 
 dead, and Roland was lord I 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 His death was very sudden. The nurse had heard the very 
 slightest movement in his bed, and coming to him had found him 
 quite dead. When the house was still as death itself, Roland went 
 all alone and looked on death for the first time. It had the effect 
 it usually has ; it saddened and ennobled him. 
 
 In older, wilder times, the sight of death was nothing ; it is 
 but little now in war. But in our carefully guarded domestic life, 
 the sight of death, still more the first sight of death, has its full 
 value. To appreciate, for the first time, the great fact of all, that 
 some day or another the body most familiar to us will be stiff and 
 cold, and never move again, but perish into the eartli, is an era in 
 a man's life. To recognise for the first time the inevitable ; to 
 feel that the face can never smile more w^iich laughed at our jest 
 but yesterday; to realise the wonderful change of all changes, 
 makes most men think for a time. The feeling goes off after a 
 few times, but the first time generally has its full effect. On 
 Roland, full of strange schemes in that little -uttering head of his, 
 it had actually more than its proper effect. 
 
 He had asked John Mordaunt to stay by him, and that leal 
 soul had stayed. He Imew w-here Roland was going when he 
 took a candle from the table, and he knew where he had been 
 when Roland came silently back, and set down the candle once 
 more ; but there was something in Roland's appearance which 
 displeased John Mordaunt. 
 
 Roland certainly looked as handsome as ever ; his personal 
 gifts in this matter have been dwelt on before, possibly too often. 
 But it seemed to honest John Mordaunt that the face was thinner, 
 more pinched, and more narrow than he had ever seen it before, 
 as though it had caught some reflection from the narrow, pinched 
 face of the dead man who had put all worldly things behind him. 
 John Mordaunt was disquieted. He was not a silent man when 
 he thought it his duty to speak, and when he spoke (as we have 
 seen before) he spoke to the puqiose. 
 
 ''Roland, old boy," he said, quietly, "though every one who 
 
142 STEETTON. 
 
 has known you has liked you, yet I know, year after year, more 
 entirely that no one has ever understood you ; and I understand 
 you less than ever at this moment." 
 
 ** As how, Horatio ? " said Roland, very quietly. 
 
 ** A good name, Hamlet," said John Mordaunt ; " that means 
 confidence. Come, I will go ahout with you. You are sorry — 
 you are desperate sorry, old man ! Why don't you cry ? You 
 ca7i cry, you know." 
 
 " Yes ; I cried when I lost the Greek prize. I can cry for 
 selfish vexation and wounded vanity, hut I can't cry now. You 
 would hardly expect a fellow who has dropped into eight thousand 
 a year to bellow over it, would you ? " 
 
 '* That won't do, Roland. Don't lie." 
 
 *'I suppose not," said Roland. "I suppose, if you thought 
 that I meant what I said, you would have seen the last of me." 
 
 '* As you did not mean it, I will say, yes." 
 
 " Well, you will see the last of me soon ; for I am off out of 
 this." 
 
 Not one word would John Mordaunt speak — not one assisting 
 suggestion would he make. "He is going to tell me some folly, 
 and he will do it better if he is left alone." So that young man 
 remained silent. 
 
 '* I am sick of the whole business," said Roland ; '* of the 
 whole business from beginning to end, and I am going to put an 
 end to it. You shan't sit there like an image, Johnny ; you shall 
 answer me. Am I a reticent young man ? " 
 
 " Most eminently so," said John Mordaunt, with a steady, 
 ox-like face turned on him. "If you come to that, a deal too 
 much so. 1 never could make you out : there is a cobweb in 
 your brain somewhere, which / never could find. What foot do 
 you halt on ? " 
 
 "Am I a discreet young man?" asked Roland; "discreet 
 among women, I mean ; for I am a most bitter ass." 
 
 The thought of what was upstairs prevented John Mordaunt 
 from laughing ; but he said — 
 
 "Your discretion is so notorious, that it has lost you friends." 
 
 " Suppose, then," said Roland, "that I were to tell you that 
 I had made a most thundering and irretrievable fool of myself 
 about a woman." 
 
 "I should not believe it. Oh, you meant that little doll you 
 proposed to to-day, and who refused you at her mother's orders ; 
 I only say you are well out of it. I am sorry to say so much of 
 the sister of an old boat-mate married this unhappy night ; but I 
 do my duty. Is that all ? " 
 
STRETTON. 143 
 
 " No ; I don't refer to her. I mean something about another 
 woman." 
 
 " Then I am the last man to hear it, old fellow," said John 
 Mordaunt. ''I cannot tell you why, hut I am the last man to 
 listen to your confessions. I respect your grief profoundly, but 
 I cannot help asking you how, with another affair on hand, you 
 could have been drawn into a proposal, even to that feeble fool 
 Mary Maynard? " 
 
 "I have not got one word to say for myself," said Eoland, 
 eagerly. ** I have not got one single, solitaij word to say for 
 myself. Do you mark what I say, Johnny ? " 
 
 '' I mark it." 
 
 ** What have I been in the happy little innocent party of boys 
 from Gloucester, who have rowed together, swum together, learnt 
 together, and squabbled together." 
 
 *' What have yau been ! " cried old Mordaunt : *' the tie which 
 has bound us together — our solemn, silent, glorious old Eoland. 
 Have we ever wavered in faith to you that you should distrust us ? 
 If you have erred, Roland, who are we to denounce you ? Why, 
 if that brother of mine, Jim, were to waver in his albgiance 
 to you, I don't know what I would do with him — I don't, upon 
 my word." 
 
 " So you think of me, John Mordaunt ; but your friendship 
 misleads you. I have been only a purist and a prig." 
 
 '' Come," said John Mordaunt, '' we are not at the Union, you 
 know. Take a bit of advice from a fool. If you have done any 
 girl wrong, do her what right you can ; marry her. Coming 
 from me, of all men, that is honest counsel, Roland. Two wrongs 
 don't make a right, any more than two and two make five. Now, 
 listen to me, old fellow. Consult your Aunt Eleanor, and see if 
 she does not confirm me. I am fearfully sorry about it, because 
 I had dreamt that some day we might have been more like 
 brothers than we are ; and I cannot believe this even now. Why, 
 Jim or I, or Ethel, would have gone to the stake for your honour. 
 If you say it is so, it is : but it is a bitter thing for me to hear. 
 Don't let Ethel hear of it, Roland," he added, suddenly. *' Don't 
 let her guess that you are false and dishonoured." 
 
 Roland actually laughed. '' You are all abroad, old man ; 
 you are scarcely wise in advising me to marry a woman who 
 has proved herself unworthy of marriage. Do you believe that 
 I would have kissed your sister to-day if I were dishonoured with 
 another woman ? With regard to your argument of two and two 
 always making four, some Cambridge men declare that when 
 numbers get into their higher powers, two and two do not make 
 
144 STEETTON. 
 
 four, but five ; wliich causes them to deduce an argument against 
 the mmiortahty of the soul." 
 
 ''By what process, in the name of goodness?" said John, 
 buckling on his armour of Oxford precisionism in a moment. 
 
 ''I am sure I don't know," said Roland. " The benighted 
 souls don't learn their logic, you know. They confine their 
 attention to mathematics, of wliich we know nothing." 
 
 John Mordaunt was pleased at the turn the conversation had 
 taken. He might amuse Roland ; and Roland looked dangerous. 
 
 " They and their mathematics ! Well and good. Give me 
 my logic. Give me one immovable axiom ; say like one of 
 Euclid's, ' A straight line is the shortest way you can go from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho ; ' or, ' A point is no bigger than a footless 
 stocking without any leg.' Give me an axiom like that, and let 
 me work it down logically. Why, theology all depends on the 
 original soundness of the proposition." 
 
 " Of what proposition ? " asked Roland. 
 
 John Mordaunt gave him one — one in which most believe. 
 But when Roland said, "Is that an axiom, then, and does all 
 theology rest on that ? " Mordaunt saw, with the deepest con- 
 cern, that it was an axiom no longer with Roland. 
 
 **His faith is gone," he thought; "and he will never get on 
 without one. At least, I don't know. Some do, and some don't. 
 I thought he was what the provost called ' sound.' I am all 
 abroad about him now. Where is the row?. Is it in his 
 politics ? Let me see." 
 
 " I say, Roland, you had better go to bed." 
 
 " I can't sleep. Let us talk. Do you mind ? " 
 
 " I will talk till cockcrow to please you and myself. I wish 
 we were at Balaclava now — at least, one of the four of us." 
 
 " I wish one of us was, meaning myself," said Roland. 
 
 " I wish we all four were, with Eddy steering. We would 
 take the old four in past Fort Constantine, and they should never 
 I hit us till we ran her ashore in the Careening harbour." 
 ^"^ " Don't talk nonsense, old friend. All that is past. Still I 
 should have liked to have had my hand in this business. I'll have 
 it in the next, if it is only to carry a pair of colours. They should 
 have swarmed into Sebastopol at once, man — the British alone, I 
 mean — and have let the French cut ofi' the Russian retreat at 
 Perekop. But what can you hope from a miserable country 
 like this, which last swept away its cobwebs in its last real 
 revolution two hundred years ago ? The blessed and ever 
 glorious French Revolution swept most cobwebs out of French eyes. 
 Tbey at least can produce generals — our old-world system cannot." 
 
STRETTON. 145 
 
 - ** India, old man! " said John Mordaunt. *' Don't be foolish." 
 
 "India, I grant you," said Roland. " Would you kindly give 
 me the list of our more famous generals in that province, now 
 employed in the Crimea? " 
 
 This was certainly a "hit" for John Mordaunt; but he 
 returned to the charge. " You don't speak up for the French 
 Revolution, old fellow ? " 
 
 Roland said, "I do. It is the finest thing that ever happened 
 in Europe. Some of them went further than I should be inclined 
 to go iioiv. Marat erred in intense love of his species ; Robe- 
 spierre erred in his puritanism ; Danton in wordy ferocity. 
 Carrier should never have been sent to Nantes ; he committed 
 errors there, and was a drunkard. Camille Desmoulins was a 
 perfect fool ; but we exist by these men's deeds, and yet we spit 
 when we mention them ! " 
 
 " But, Roland," said John Mordaunt, " all this infernal nonsense 
 about St. Just " 
 
 "I did not mention him at all," said Roland, " you men- 
 tioned him ; it was you who brought the name of that Antinous 
 of the Revolution into the discussion. I suppose you will charge 
 his beauty against him next. His hand is red ; but was David's 
 pure ? Marat slew ; but what did Joshua ? " 
 
 " What is the meaning of this fantastic balderdash, Roland ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I am sick of my life, and for no reason — at 
 least, for no reason which these wretched Philistines can give me. 
 I have always had everything which could make life beautiful 
 since I was a child, and I am sick of it. What is before me ? 
 The schools ? Bah ! A double-first and the compliments due 
 to the honour of my college. And then to drop back on my 
 position as a country gentleman ? I tell you that I am utterly 
 sick of, and that I utterly loathe, my whole future career. From 
 this moment I give it up. For me to drop back on to Oxford 
 honours and turnips — I'll have none of it. Vive la Revolution ! 
 I am for India." 
 
 " Ho ! " said old Mordaunt. "You are going to neglect the 
 estate which God has given into your hands, to go a swash- 
 bucklering among half- armed natives are you?" 
 
 " I suppose that is about it, put it your way," said Roland. 
 
 "And about Marat now?" said John Mordaunt. "I think 
 you said that he proposed his thirty thousand assassinations on 
 the ground of his intense love for his species ? " 
 
 Roland said, "You are travelling out of the record, Johnny; 
 you don't know everything. I will lie down here and go to 
 sleep." 
 
 11 
 
146 STEETTON. 
 
 And he went to sleep, and honest John Mordaunt watched hhn, 
 and said, from time to time, ''Poor lad! and so he has broken 
 out just like James. You never know what is in them. It is 
 the Norse blood. I wonder when this unreasoning Berserk strain 
 in it will be bred out, and we shall have peace ! It only comes in 
 now when the world gets between them and their women. But 
 fancy Uolcmd going Berserk ! I would never have dreamt of 
 that." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The funeral was over a week, and Roland was in possession de 
 jure, not de facto, for Roland was in London, and had not left his 
 address. 
 
 This was extremely tiresome ; because all sorts of things had 
 to be done which could not be done without him : the will had to 
 be proved, among other things, for which Roland was necessary. 
 Mrs. Evans being in a state of imbecile grief, was of no use 
 whatever. The family solicitor took the will over to Aunt 
 Eleanor, at Pulverbatch, and asked her advice as to what they 
 were to do, no answer being procurable from Roland. Aunt 
 Eleanor told them it was no business of hers, and wanted to 
 know what they would take after their drive. Roland's actions 
 were becoming very eccentric. The solicitors asked, " Could she 
 give them Roland's address?" and she answered, ''Lord bless 
 you, no." And the solicitors departed. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor had her trusty ally, Ethel Mordaunt, with her, 
 " and she told to her a deal more than she told to the solicitors. 
 
 These two, so singularly alike in character, but so far removed 
 from one another in years, sat before the fire, in Eleanor Evans's 
 room, at Pulverbatch, and Ethel knew that Aunt Eleanor was 
 going to tell something, because she was so very cross. 
 
 No woman ever lived who could keep a secret better than Aunt 
 Eleanor. She loved it ; but the effect of her parting with it was 
 to make her very cross. A lady who gives away a diamond is 
 apt to be cross after she has done so, and even before. Ethel 
 knew that she was going to hear something the moment that Aunt 
 Eleanor said — 
 
 " Get some wine and water, child, and let us go to bed. Don't 
 sit there looking so ridiculously handsome. What have you done 
 
STRETTON. 147 
 
 with your beauty, child ? It is a gift. Have you done anything 
 with it? if so what?" 
 
 "Much the same as you have done with yours, Miss Evans," 
 answered Ethel. " Nothing." 
 
 " That is pert ; don't be pert. Eddy is pert ; but I allow 
 him liberties which I should never dream of allowing to you. 
 Did you ever get it into your head that you were a great 
 fool ? " 
 
 ** I have thought so for a long time ; and have thought that, 
 in spite of all you have said to me, you encouraged me more in 
 my folly than any one else." 
 
 " Are you going to give up your folly ? " 
 
 ** No, Miss Evans. There are some follies which we cannot 
 give up. I suppose that you are the only one who knows anything 
 of mine. You have never betrayed me ? " 
 
 " Child, child ! you have betrayed yourself a hundred times. 
 Child, where is the curl of his, which poor Jim cut from his head, 
 and sent to you in a letter ? Where is that curl ? " 
 
 " It is in my desk. Has Jim betrayed me ? " 
 
 *' No, my dear ; only you told me the whole business yourself, 
 you know. You really should remember. Do you love him 
 still?" 
 
 " Yes, Miss Evans." 
 
 " I don't believe he cares twopence for you, you know," 
 said Aunt Eleanor. " If I thought he did, I'd say so ; but I 
 don't think it, and so I won't say it ; and you are well out of 
 it. Lord help that man's wife, if she didn't do what he told 
 her ! " 
 
 *' Koland is very gentle," said Ethel. 
 
 *' Yes, my dear ; but he has a terrible quality, that of silence. 
 He can hold his tongue for days and days together ; and that 
 quality will madden a high-spirited woman into either utter sub- 
 mission or furious rebellion ; it is a toss-up which." 
 
 '' Is that so ? " said Ethel, only half understanding her. 
 
 *'Yes, it is so," said Aunt Eleanor, sharply; "you can't 
 understand, of course. No one ever believed you could ; but 
 Eddy can. He told me of it first ; Eddy says that when they are 
 in for one of those idiotic boat-races, he never knows Roland's 
 tactics until they are off, and then he forbids Eddy to speak, 
 unless under orders. And again, here is a letter from a leading 
 Oxford Don about him : ' Dearest Eleanor,' iiHvijoorte, that is 
 all fagon de parler, you know. ' Your Eddy is — ' much he 
 knows Eddy ! ' your Roland is more incomprehensible than when 
 K- sent him up : there is some twist in his brain, with all his 
 
148 STKETTON. 
 
 reticence and discretion.' So there is in Allan Gray's," added 
 Aunt Eleanor, rubbing her nose with the letter. 
 
 " Do you correspond with the Dean of St. Paul's ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 " Yes, miss, I do," said Aunt Eleanor ; " and he was in love 
 with me once, and I am in love with him now. What do you 
 think of that, for instance ? " 
 
 Ethel had nothing to say on this subject ; but for want of 
 something to say, she said that she seemed, from Aunt Eleanor's 
 description, to have had a happy escape from Eoland. 
 
 *' I don't know about that,'' said Aunt Eleanor; " no man is 
 worth a hang if he has not a cobweb in his brain which makes him 
 do something. Roland has, and you have not. I doubt whether 
 you are worthy of Roland, do you know ? " 
 
 " Has the Dean of St. Paul's a cobweb in his brain, Miss 
 Evans?" asked Ethel. 
 
 *' He is an old man, and I am an old woman, and we are not 
 going to marry," said Aunt Eleanor. " Don't be pert, and 
 exchange shots, and I will tell you something. Roland is mad. 
 Roland is madder than all the hatters at Lincoln and Bennett's ; 
 he is in one of his moods — one of those moods in which he has 
 won his boat-races. Ethel, the succession to the property will 
 be disputed, and he won't even send his address to his 
 solicitors." 
 
 '' His succession disputed ! " said Ethel. 
 
 *' Ay," said Miss Evans, ''and warmly too. Your father has 
 been with me to-day, and has accused me of lying, which I never 
 did. I told him, what I believed to be the truth at the time, 
 that the claim was the old claim, and that there was no danger 
 from it. He does not like the look of matters at all, and he says 
 that, unless we can move Roland from his donkey mood, every- 
 thing will go seriously ^vl'ong. And the solicitors have been here 
 with the provisions of his father's will. Why, I have denounced 
 them as idiotic for this ten years, and he promised to alter them, 
 but he has not done so. Your father, Mordaunt, says the estate 
 won't carry the lawyer's expenses, if Roland don't move. It will 
 be the greatest succession case ever known." 
 
 " But who claims Roland's estates ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 '' One Allan Gray," said Aunt Eleanor, rubbing her nose. 
 
 " Allan Gray ! " said Ethel, " I never heard of him. And who 
 are the witnesses to his claim ? ' ' 
 
 '' I am sorry to say that I am one," said Miss Evans. *' Old 
 Mother Gray and Myrtle are others. The case is strong. Your 
 father says it is a lie from beginning to end — but your father is 
 your father." 
 
STRETTON. 149 
 
 <' Will Boland be left a beggar ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 " I don't know about beggars," said Miss Evans. " He won't 
 have any money." 
 
 "What a splendid thing that will be for him! " said Ethel. 
 '* Why, it will be the making of him." 
 
 "Wants making, does he?" said Aunt Eleanor. "Well, 
 perhaps he does ; as for being a beggar, he don't come of a 
 begging sort. He shan't want money though, even if I have to 
 rob Eddy. But Eddy shall give it to him. I don't approve of 
 Roland, myself, I allow. And not for all the Rolands on earth 
 shall Eddy be one penny the poorer. I will work more into 
 pigs, my dear, if things go wrong with Roland. I hate pigs, but 
 they pay. I will work into the pig business to make it up to 
 Eddy, if things go wrong with Roland. Eddy shan't suffer in 
 any way." 
 
 " How you love Eddy ! " said Ethel in a wondering way. 
 
 "You must love something, and I love him," said Aunt 
 Eleanor, suddenly. "I have stores of suppressed love in my 
 heart, and I have given all that I could spare from the Dean of 
 St. Paul's, and from you, and from your brother, John Mordaunt, 
 to Eddy. And I promise you that there is precious little left for 
 you three to divide among you." 
 
 And so there comes before one, dimly seen in the distance, the 
 figure of a woman who cast herself groaning against a wall, and 
 then fell in a heap in the corner. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 That Roland behaved like a fool I do not deny. Had he made \ 
 such a fool of himself at thirty, he would not have been worth 
 writing about. But he was only twenty-one. 
 
 In looking for a precedent for his remarkable conduct, just 
 look at your own conduct when you were twenty- one. Did you^ 
 not do things then that you would not do now ? Did you not do 
 generous and carelessly foolish things which you would not do 
 now ? Why, I who speak, know well a man with an estate of 
 eight thousand a-year — a shrewd, sensible fellow enough in most 
 things, yet a man who is not given to spend money on himself, 
 who has crippled himself for the best part of his life by an act of 
 careless, fantastic generosity, wilder in one way than Roland's. 
 
150 STKETTON. 
 
 In the Australian madness of 1852, how many men do I know 
 who, sick of things here, gave up safe positions in England out of 
 the pure old English spirit of adventure ? How many ? As many 
 as were Mrs. Nickleby's lovers. 
 f^ I am only contending for the fact that I could give the names 
 of at least a dozen men who at an early age made as great fools 
 of themselves as Roland. I am not excusing him ; I am excusing 
 myself from a charge of improbability. Roland was a very extra- 
 ordinary young man. If he had not been, we would not have 
 told this story, but another. 
 
 He was sick of it all. He had looked at it all, and it seemed 
 that there was not one spark of truth in it, from beginning to end. 
 His qualities were, a sharp, clear brain, a powerful, well-ordered 
 body, and a never-ceasing longing for excitement and power over 
 his fellows. As silent and as beautiful as a fox, but with all the 
 large-heartedness of the dog — the animal who cannot be taught 
 class-distinctions. He had been often excited by his father's 
 army stories ; they had warmed an enthusiasm which needed no 
 warming ; and he had tried to reduce them to practice by boat- 
 racing. When he won the University sculls he thought himself 
 as fine a fellow as any who fought at Waterloo. But all this was 
 insufficient for him, and his future was fairly before him now. He 
 I hated it. And the man who had made him hate it worse than 
 any one, was little Sir Jasper Meredith. 
 
 It was not in one, or in two, or in three dozen conversations, 
 that that shrewd little cripple contrived to disgust Roland with 
 his future career. Nevertheless he was the man who had the 
 principal hand in doing it. Don't dedicate your son to any 
 particular career, if there is any go in him at all. I once saw a 
 boy of twelve come into a room full of ladies, and I heard his 
 mother say, " There comes another young clergyman." Where- 
 upon the ladies rejoiced and fal-lalled ; but from that moment 
 the boy's fate was sealed : he would die sooner than be a parson. 
 I am only speaking of a fact which I think typical. English and 
 American lads of mettle and use will not allow themselves to be 
 disposed of without their own will. Lads without mettle will 
 allow this liberty to be taken with them — which accounts for a 
 particular kind of curate ; and furthermore, to carry out the 
 argument, for a particular kind of barrister, the caricatured 
 Buzfuz. 
 
 Sir Jasper Meredith had a very strong love, an almost 
 feminine love, for Roland. Roland was in a way his god. The 
 little man could make no physical effort, and had a large brain, 
 and so he used to lie and dream. And he used to lie and dream 
 
STRETTON. 161 
 
 of all he would do if he were Eoland ; and, moreover, what he 
 would not do if he were Roland. And he came to the conclusion 
 that Roland was wasting his energies by this ridiculous boat- 
 racing, and put the matter before him several dozens of times ; 
 which was one matter ; but he proposed Roland's career for him, 
 which was quite another. 
 
 '* My career ! " said Roland to him. ''A brave one for a man 
 like me ! Jasper, you are silly. Schools, you say. I could do 
 well there — and then? Look at" (supply the name for your- 
 self). " Landlord ? Why, any one could be that. Magistrate ? 
 Man, my temper is not sufficiently good, and my prejudices are 
 too strong. I should convict every poacher, and let off every 
 thief. Chairman of quarter sessions ? My dear man, I should 
 say to the grand jury, ' Get your idiotic business over as you 
 can, and let us get out of this.' And to the petty jury, ' You 
 boxful of thundering idiots, if you sit there in a row after your 
 last verdict, I'll shy something at you ; ' and that wouldn't do, 
 you know. I don't rank the intelligence of my countrymen high. 
 Then again, Jasper, as member of Parliament, I am a loose 
 bird with my money ; out four thousand pounds, you know. If 
 the dear old dad would tell us what he spent, it would be nigh 
 twelve thousand pounds. You did not know your father, did 
 you?" 
 
 " No," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 " Nor mother ? Then you don't know what it is." 
 
 *' You mean their death ? " 
 
 ''No, I don't." 
 
 " You come into eight thousand a year now," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 " And I'd have given it up to keep liim alive," said Roland. 
 " There was no company like my father's. He was a true-born 
 Radical." 
 
 By which it may be seen that at this time Roland was as good V 
 a Radical as the rest of us. Mr. Disraeli was no better Radical ' 
 than Roland. Mr. Bright was Conservative compared to him. 
 He had asked himself the question which all young men of any 
 go ask themselves. ' ' What is it all about ? What does it mean ? ' ' 
 And he had answered to himself that it was all words, and did 
 not mean anything. 
 
 And moreover, he had been disappointed in love, which made y 
 a great difference. Men who have met with disappointment in ^ 
 that line, tell us that it plays the mischief with a fellow. Or to 
 put it in loose scientific language (which is always the best 
 method), that it superinduces a phase of the Epithumia, always 
 underlying, and to some extent influencing, the action of the 
 
152 STRETTON. 
 
 Tliumos, and in an extreme case that of the Logos. This being 
 an extreme case, Roland's Logos was actually affected. His 
 Thumos, or simply intellectual part, told him that Mary Maynard 
 was a fool, and that he was another. His Epithumia, or senti- 
 mental part, told him that he was very fond of her, and that he 
 would make a fool of himself for her ; and so his Logos was 
 affected, and he set to work to do so ; and succeeded. 
 
 One is very sorry about poor Roland's Logos getting affected 
 in this manner. It merely means that he lost his temper and 
 made an ass of himself. The only thing I wish to call your 
 attention to, is, that men like Roland, when they lose their 
 temper, are a long while before they find it again. Perhaps 
 reasonable beings will understand Roland's position better by 
 ^my saying this. He had succeeded in everything, and now was 
 ' thrown overboard by a girl whom he half despised, but senti- 
 mentally loved. And thus he made a fool of himself. I need 
 not tell you that he made a very discreet, decorous, high- 
 minded, self-sacrificing fool of himself; made himself as great 
 a fool as Bayard, Sidney, or Willoughby. I only want you to 
 I believe that his folly is probable. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Eastwakd ! The dear old man of Waterloo was dead, and his 
 voice was to be heard no more for ever by the son who loved him 
 so well. 
 
 Was he sorry ? He was deeply sorry ; but beneath his son'ow 
 there was a depth of gladness immeasurable. Roland was his 
 own master ; no one had the right to advise and direct him now. 
 A son of freedom was now free, and felt the blood moving in his 
 veins. His step was taken, and he was going to dispense with all 
 vain babble which might defeat the carrying out of his object. Is 
 he the first fool that has cast all to the winds for a fancy ? Did 
 not one poor boy, Hastings, slink into a dishonoured grave only 
 yesterday ? But from the ruin of no such quest as Roland's. 
 
 Roland was in London, and had not yet been home. At ten 
 o'clock one morning he was shown into a somewhat dingy ante- 
 room, where there were many strange men waiting, almost all in 
 uniform, few of whom seemed to know one another, but who were 
 all lounging about, and looking out of window. 
 
STEETTON, 153 
 
 They seemed very restless and idle, and were mostly in com- 
 plexion blonde. Roland sat modestly down at the door and 
 looked at them. He said to himself, " They are a class ; they 
 want individuality." As a general remark this was certainly 
 true. Still there were exceptions. He selected one in an instant 
 from among these men (every one drawn from life), so soon to be 
 gathered in the harvest of death. Roland said the other day that 
 he must be a born general to have selected that man as a good 
 officer the first moment he saw him. 
 
 He was a small man, with rather a long nose, and very keen 
 grey eyes — eyes out of which looked diligence and persistent duty. 
 Roland looked on him first because he was unlike the usual style 
 of British officers, and Roland thought that, had he not been in 
 uniform, he would have looked mean. Two or three friends of 
 his got him to strip to the waist a few years afterwards ; he did 
 not look mean then, with twenty-eight sword-cuts on him, and 
 probably the best-won Victoria Cross ever given hanging on his 
 coat when he put it on again. This man stood to be slashed 
 almost to death because he would not leave a common soldier. 
 
 The next man who took his eye was a gigantic cavalry officer, 
 with SOOl. worth of fripperies upon him, who stood in the middle 
 of the room, and had found two men whom he knew. This officer 
 gave intense delight to Roland. At last he had seen a Plunger. 
 And this Plunger actually said " Haw ! " before, as Roland put it, 
 he went into the major term of his syllogism. He was the only 
 officer whom Roland ever met who used that strange interjection. 
 My experience, smaller than Roland's, confirms this. I have 
 heard an officer say, '*Hum! Haw! Damme!" on the stage. 
 But (save this one) not off it. 
 
 This tremendously great man stood talking in the middle of the 
 room to two other officers. There must have been some argument 
 before the time Roland came in, for the first he heard of it was 
 the cavalry officer re-opening the previous case by saying — 
 
 "Haw!" 
 
 *' Now I shall hear a real Plunger," said Roland, and he listened 
 intently. 
 
 ''Haw! You put it so," said the Plunger. ''I on my part 
 put it in this manner. I saw that man (married, you understand) 
 walking with a common woman in the streets : and I did my best 
 to get him kicked out. And I got him kicked out." 
 
 *'But, as father of the regiment, you should have given him 
 more hearing," said a meek little officer who was talking to him. 
 
 '* Sir, as father of the regiment, I got him kicked out. I would 
 have kicked my own son out of doors for such a thing, had «ne 
 
m STRETTOi^. 
 
 of my sons been capable of it. I am not merely father of my 
 officers, I am father of my men. And my men would neither 
 follow us nor respect us, if we saw such things done and made 
 no sign." 
 
 " It was a little irregular, was it not ? " 
 
 ** Yes, sir," said the great Plunger. *' I doubt it was. I doubt 
 that the irregularity of that court-martial means (to me) a fine of 
 ten thousand pounds. They will take the regiment from me, but 
 my men will remember that I only tried to prevent their being 
 commanded by a scoundrel." 
 
 " But it was irregular," said the little officer. 
 
 ^' It was," said the dragoon, " and I must pay the piper. If 
 he had not been married, I would never have said a word. But 
 it is as it is. I won't demoralise the regiment by having married 
 officers degrading their order in this way. I am not clever, like 
 you, sir, but I see that unless some moral tone is kept up among 
 the married officers, our regiment, any regiment, will go to the 
 devil. Let Mike O'Dowd take my boys into action next time. 
 He is a better man than ever I was." 
 
 And Roland said — '' I like this. This will do. These are 
 men." Eoland had brought his silly boat-racing to a strange 
 school. If he had wanted to attend to his interests, he had better 
 have been far away. If he had wanted to join himself to the 
 heart of a great nation, in her deadliest, darkest hour, he was 
 in the right place. 
 
 He sat near the door all alone, and watched. A slight, very 
 handsome man came, and found the great cavalry officer. This 
 man also was noticeable, very noticeable, indeed in a military 
 way, for he had seen an objectionable Russian battery, which was 
 playing mischief with our people, and some one said that it ought 
 to be taken ; and the young man said that he would take it if 
 three would follow him. And three followed him, but he missed 
 them, and thought they had gone back ; and so leaped into the 
 battery alone, shooting right and left with his revolver, believing 
 that the bonny broad acres were gone to his brother for evermore. 
 But no. His men were with him, and the good young gentleman 
 wears his cross at his button-hole to this day. 
 
 " What a pretty fellow you are ! " thought Roland, who was a 
 prettier fellow than he. ''I like this." Roland, looking more 
 closely, came to the conclusion that the V.C. was as pretty a 
 fellow as he had ever seen. Only there came in a prettier one. 
 
 A tall and solemn young man, with a black beard, a very 
 deliberate young man, who knew his own mind. The young 
 man, seeing before him a perfect flower-garden of scarlet and 
 
STUeTTON. 155 
 
 gold, geranium and calceolaria, turned to Roland, sitting near the 
 door, and bending down his well-turned head, said — 
 
 *' Are you the clerk ? " 
 
 '* No," said Roland, behind his hand ; ** I am come here by 
 appointment, after my commission." 
 
 " Ho ! " said Lord S . ** You and I can sit together then. 
 
 Is it a full dress levee ? " 
 
 " I believe that it is," said Roland. 
 
 "You don't seem to know who I am," said Lord S . 
 
 " I was waiting to see whether you would remember who I was, 
 my lord," Roland answered, coolly. 
 
 Lord S looked more closely, and said — " Why, you are 
 
 Evans, of Paul's. You don't mean to say that you have left the 
 University ! * What dost thou from Gottenberg, old friend ? ' I 
 thought you were going to stick to the paternal acres, and go 
 through the real course of training for Parliament." 
 
 '*I am sick of it all," said Roland, "and I am going into 
 the army." 
 
 "I am sick of it, also," said the young lord, vei*y gravely ; 
 " but I am going to stay at home and try to mend it. How very 
 foolish the young lady must be." 
 
 " What young lady ? " said Roland, blushing deeply. 
 
 " The young lady who has caused you to take such a singular 
 resolution." 
 
 " Do you know then " said Roland. 
 
 " Not a word," said Lord S ; " only when I see a young 
 
 fellow of talent and chances entering the army, I guess there is a 
 young lady at the bottom of it." 
 
 Roland was perfectly aghast at this wonderful instance of 
 shrewdness. He did not know, country bumpkin as he was, 
 
 that Lord S had known more of the world when he was 
 
 fourteen than Roland did when he was twenty. He had absolutely 
 nothing to say. Lord S said, " Who is the other man ? " 
 
 Roland, fairly off his balance with wonder, said, without 
 hesitation — 
 
 " Sir Jasper Meredith." 
 
 " Why, he's not a marrying man ! This is the doing of the 
 young lady's mother, I fear. Why, before I left Oxford, I have 
 seen you carrying that little, venomous -tongued heap of bones 
 about in your arms. Yes; this is the mother's work." 
 
 Roland was more aghast than ever, and Lord S intensely 
 
 enjoyed his confusion. 
 
 " This sort of thing often happens with our people," said Lord 
 S ; "but why Jessamy is to run away and 'list, because 
 
/ 
 
 156 STEETTON. 
 
 Jimmy's mother has manoeuvred for another thousand a year or 
 so, I cannot see. Don't do it ; don't 'list. We want fellows like 
 you. You know how I hate your extreme democracy ; I have no 
 chance of showing you how I love you." 
 
 There was nothing in Roland which could make him resist this 
 brave man, and he said, standing up and speaking in a whisper, 
 **I have made a fool of myself elsewhere." 
 
 "I hope not," said Lord S , coldly. 
 
 " I mean in this way," said Roland, eagerly : *' I begin to think 
 that — that — things might have been different in another quarter. 
 Do you see ? " 
 
 Lord S nodded, and the look in his eyes — he was a bride- 
 groom of two months' standing — encouraged Roland to say more. 
 
 " If I can win honours," said Roland, whispering to him. " I 
 will bring them back and lay them at her feet. I will say to her, 
 ' Ethel, I never understood you ' " 
 
 " And all that," said Lord S . " I think you really had 
 
 better 'list for a time. But it is very strange ; I asked Fitzgerald 
 about you, and he told me that you were so self-contained and so 
 silent. How is it that you have let out so much to me about 
 your private affairs — to a man you have hardly seen ? " 
 
 Roland was wondering to himself, and was trying to answer, 
 when a clerk came out of the inner room, and coming up to Lord 
 S , said, " The minister waits Lord S 's pleasure." 
 
 Lord S went off* at once, and had nearly got to the inner 
 
 door, when he turned and came quickly back to Roland. 
 
 " Do you want infantry or cavalry? " he whispered, hurriedly. 
 
 ** I want service," said Roland. 
 
 ** There is no chance of service. The Crimea is only a break- 
 down ; glorious ! but still a break-down. You can't get service. 
 We shall not meddle again in European aff'airs. You can't get 
 service. Guards?" 
 
 ''India," said Roland. 
 
 *' You might get a chance of seeing service there, certainly," 
 
 said Lord S ; and he paused, although the great man was 
 
 waiting. 
 
 " If it fell about that the darkest midnight, of the darkest night 
 which ever fell upon a nation, fell on this nation, would you ? 
 Yes, you would — ^would the 140th do ? they are an old-fashioned 
 regiment, and still wear cowry shells on their trappings." 
 
 ''Any regiment which will show me service, S ," said 
 
 Roland. 
 
 "And Ethel?" Lord S whispered to him, and went his 
 
 way to the inner room. 
 
STEETTON. 157 
 
 And Roland was left to his own thoughts ; but not for long. 
 For he was, for the first time, among a section of the men who 
 help to govern our Empire of nearly 200,000,000 of souls. He 
 was naturally interested ; he was soon more interested. 
 
 " Nhow I'll swear it on the Stone of Blarney," said a smallish, 
 handsome man — Norse-Celt, if it mattered; "I swear it on the 
 very Stone of Blarney itself that you're wrong. 'Tis West is to 
 have the recrooten in Dhuhlin, and East is to have the Eightieth." 
 
 The cavalry-colonel, to whom this was addressed, said, first of 
 all, "Haw!" (I have mentioned before that he was the only 
 officer I ever met who did.) And when he had said " Haw ! " he 
 said, ''That is a mistake; East should have had the recruiting, 
 and West the colonelcy." 
 
 " The short man said, '^ Bedad, it is all betux and betune — six 
 of one, and half a dozen of the other. Kiss the Blarney Stone, 
 colonel ; it is yourself that has never kissed that same." 
 
 " Why on earth are you talking Irish to-night, R ! " said 
 
 a very solemn and quiet voice ; and Roland, looking up, saw that 
 a blonde, quiet-looking man, of about forty, was looking over the 
 shoulder of the short, handsome man who was talking Irish. 
 
 " Only keeping my tongue in," said the short man. '' I am 
 forced to talk all languages, as you know. West has got the 
 recruiting at Dublin ; and if they had given it to a man who could 
 talk Irish, as I can, we should have a thousand more. recruits every 
 year." 
 
 " True enough for you," said the last comer, N . 
 
 Said the cavalry-colonel: "Haw! My fellows would always 
 have followed me, to the devil. I can't talk Irish to them, 
 though. I'd learn it if I could. I like the men, and the men 
 like me. There are half a dozen men in my regiment who won't 
 get on decently without a flogging ; and there's two officers in my 
 regiment that I should dearly like to flog. But I can't, by the 
 rules of the service. However, all said and done, I can take my 
 regiment into action without any chance of a shot from behind." 
 
 Roland had sat staring his eyes out during all this ; but now 
 he saw what he had always wished to see — a really great man. 
 
 He was a great man in more senses than one, for he was six 
 foot two, over-topping the cavalry- colonel. And he knew every- 
 body intimately — at least, everybody except Roland, and he bowed 
 even to him. " I'll know everybody some day," said Roland. 
 But meanwhile he admired. The clerk showed Roland's friend, 
 Lord S , out of the minister's private room, and the tall new- 
 comer caught that young man, and said to him, " I want to see the 
 minister at once/' and he waited among the others. 
 
158 STRETTON. 
 
 Roland's Oxford friend, Lord S , came straight to him. 
 
 He said, laying his hand on Roland's shoulder, " Have you 
 changed your mind ? ' ' 
 
 *' No, my lord. I do not come of a family who change their 
 minds easily." 
 
 " Ethel ? Will she change her mind ? " 
 
 *' It wants no changing," said Roland. 
 
 ** Then you must go," said Lord S . '* May God go with 
 
 you ! But, Evans, in the dark, dim night which is coming (0 
 God, may morning come after it), think of this. Think of what 
 we might make India if we kept her, and think of what she would 
 be if we lost her. If you are to die, die for keeping India till we 
 have civilised her. You will find it all straight in there. I have 
 come to him on one petition, and I have given over my own and 
 
 urged yours." And so Lord S departed, and was seen no 
 
 more. 
 
 Roland stepped through a softly- shutting door, and was in the 
 presence of the minister, a pale and very thoughtful-looking man, 
 of about forty, deeply sunk in an easy-chair ; he was reading a 
 letter, which he held in his hand, and he turned his face from it 
 to Roland, saying — 
 
 " So you wish to leave your books for the army, do you? A 
 strange resolution. Your friend, who has just left me, has given 
 a most brilHant account of your prospects." 
 
 *' I am tired of England," said Roland. " I fear I am a spoilt 
 child." 
 
 *' Well, sir, we are not the party to grumble, at all events. 
 You are late in applying, but in consideration of your father's 
 services, we will do everything we possibly can for you. You may 
 consider the matter as settled." 
 
 And so he came out, looking brighter about the eyes, taller and 
 grander than when he went in. And there met him the 
 enormously tall man, with a very gentle, quiet, and clever face, 
 who said to him, " Is the minister disengaged, sir ? " 
 
 And Roland, knowing who he was, and feeling the pride that 
 any honest lad feels for serving those who have proved themselves 
 really true and great servants of the State, said, " I will ask the 
 clerk, my lord." 
 
 *'I thought you ivere the clerk," said his lordship, laughing. 
 *' Pray forgive me I But the clerks are getting to look so like 
 soldiers since they have taken to the moustache, that one is 
 puzzled. I see the Colonel Heavy has plunged into the Audience 
 Chamber. Are you in the army? " 
 
 *' I almost dare say so, my lord," said Roland. 
 
STRETTON. 169 
 
 Lord X sighed. ** Are you going as food for powder ? 
 
 You are old for the army, are you not ? " 
 
 "My father was a Waterloo man, and the minister has 
 promised me a commission. He was Captain Evans, of the 
 140th." 
 
 " Was he in the House ? " 
 
 *' For two Parliaments," said Eoland, " in old times." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; was he Evans of Tyn-y-Bald, or Evans of Llan- 
 david, or Evans of Eglwystafid ? " 
 
 " Neither, my lord ; he was the Evans of Stretton." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; I see, I see. A Shropshire Evans. I thought you 
 were a Welsh Evans. Yes, yes ! Your father married a 
 daughter of old Cecil Meredith, who rattled on Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion. The present man, I am told, is a cripple. Yes, your grand- 
 father Meredith was a silent member ; in fact, I never heard him 
 open his mouth. Mum, Meredith, yes. And so your father is 
 dead. Dear, dear ! how men drop. You have come into the 
 whole of Stretton, then?" 
 
 *' Yes, my lord," said Koland, aghast. 
 
 *' Well, manage your property. It will take you all your time. 
 You have actually more acres than I have ; but I find it hard to 
 do my duty as I would wish it done. Why are you going into 
 the army? Why don't you attend to your property, and come 
 into Parliament ? You can't manage your property if you go into 
 the army. I suppose," added he, laughing, '* that Miss Mordaunt 
 wants to see you in a fine ccat ? Go into the yeomanry. You 
 will look quite as fine in her eyes. Stay, I must go ; here is the 
 colonel coming out. Mind, lastly, always to keep to your father's 
 principles ; be an honest Whig, as he was, and you will come to 
 no grief. Good-by." 
 
 Roland left the room lost in wonder. Here was a man, whom 
 he had seen once or twice, in holiday visits to the House of 
 Commons, recently ennobled for great service ; a man whom 
 Roland conceived to be among the kings of men. And this man 
 knew more about himself than he did — Roland had never dreamt 
 that this man had ever heard of him in his life ; but he knew every- 
 thing. Why, he was only wrong on one single thing ; he had 
 made a mistake about Ethel Mordaunt, using her name when he 
 meant Mary Maynard. It was a miracle to Roland. What 
 earthly interest could this great man have in him and his afi'airs ? 
 
 The reason was not very far to seek, if Roland had known any- 
 thing at all of the world. His father had ''dropped," and he 
 (Roland) was the head of a house with very considerable territorial 
 influence. If Roland had only kno^vn the fact, his quiet, and, as 
 
160 STEETTON. 
 
 he thought, foolish neighbour, the great Whig, Sir Spium 
 Goggleston, had been looking out of his spectacles at Roland 
 for a long time, and had been reporting on him. He had found 
 out the secret of Squire Charles's heart at the boat-race at Shrews- 
 bury. He got the happiest reports of Roland's furious Radicalism 
 at Oxford. He had looked up Mrs. Maynard, who being strongly 
 for Mary's union with Sir Jasper Meredith, had lied nobly, and 
 told him that Roland would marry Ethel. He had looked up 
 Aunt Eleanor, who hated him and had kept him waiting in a cold 
 room for half an hour, and then violently scolded him on account 
 of a sitting of Crevecceur eggs, which she had bought from Lady 
 Goggleston, for which Aunt Eleanor had paid five shillings, but 
 which had been so shamefully jolted in transmission that none of 
 them came out. (In fact. Aunt Eleanor expressed her determi- 
 nation to county court Lady Goggleston for the money ; but don't 
 mention this.) Sir Spium left that house, it might be said, naked 
 and wounded. Still Aunt Eleanor, in her temper, had assisted 
 him with regard to his report at head-quarters. She had said, in 
 the argument about the eggs, several things which she might just 
 as well have left alone. Goggleston had introduced Mary 
 Maynard' s name ; and Aunt Eleanor, in repudiating her, had 
 unhappily introduced Ethel's. For which she could have bitten 
 her tongue out. 
 
 So Goggleston, by hook and by crook, had reported this about 
 Roland. A splendid unencumbered property, tenants well treated, 
 who would work like sheep for the Whigs. Carries with him the 
 families of Maynard, the head of which house has just married his 
 sister ; and Mordaunt, to the eldest young lady of which house he 
 is engaged to be married. Roland was a most important young 
 man. He never dreamt it ; but with a possible dissolution he was. 
 
 A Liberal Whip knows all about you, if you are of any im- 
 portance. But a Tory Whip knows all about you and your friends 
 too, if you have any. 
 
 That, one would suspect, is one of the secrets of the Con- 
 servative organisation which has beaten us, here and there, just 
 lately. If Sir Spium Goggleston had sent his wife instead of 
 going himself, she would probably have found out the relations 
 between Roland and Ethel. One effect of which would have been 
 that Roland, while he was walking towards Allan Gray's lodgings, 
 would not have been wondering why the great old Whig had made 
 such an abominable mistake as to connect his name with Ethel's. 
 
 But the streets were empty, and he whistled as he went. 
 
STRETTON. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 When Roland knocked at the door of Allan Gray, he had for- 
 gotten all about the great men he had seen, and all the things they 
 had said. For he had received a very curious letter from Allan 
 Gray, and he was thinking over it. 
 
 The door was opened by Mrs. Gray, whom Roland knew. He 
 was very polite to her, and he passed into the parlour on the right, 
 where Allan Gray was sitting in state with papers on the table 
 before him. 
 
 Allan Gray, less trained than Roland, bowed solemnly, and 
 brought hmi to the fire. " Indeed, and it is cold to-night," said 
 Roland. '* A fire is a good thing, and in this instance it amounts 
 to a personal obligation." 
 
 Allan Gray could not make head or tail of this beginning. He 
 bowed stiffly, and said — 
 
 "I hsd not anticipated the honour of this interview." 
 
 " Lord love the man, you said you would not object, and now 
 I have come you say that you had not anticipated, — and soon, — " 
 said Roland. "Why, if any two men in England want a great 
 talk together to-night, it is you and I." 
 
 " I thought my case was so strong that you would scarcely dare 
 to meet me except by deputy." 
 
 "Lord love the man, again. What is his case? As for 
 daring, I tell you ponit-blank, that I dare do anything, save 
 wrong." 
 
 Allan Gray had never seen coolness of this kind before. He 
 said — 
 
 " You received my letter, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Roland. " It seems that you are going to dispute 
 my succession to Stretton Castle. I can't ask you on what 
 grounds, because, don't you see, that would be unfair and un- 
 gentlemanly on my part. I can only say that, from all I have 
 ever heard of you from Eddy, you are much fitter to have it than 
 I am. I have the will to do good, you have the way. Why on 
 earth should we talk about the matter? " 
 
 " I wished to talk business," said Allan Gray, utterly puzzled. 
 
 " What on earth would become of the lawyers if we talked our 
 own business over?" said Roland. "Here am I, gazetted on 
 next Tuesday. My dear man, how can I talk business with you ? 
 If you had got a new and very glorious career before you, would 
 you want to talk on business which had much better be left to 
 your lawyer ? ' ' 
 
 12 
 
162 STKETTON. 
 
 '* I would really be more in earnest about it, sir," said Allan 
 Gray. 
 
 "I will be perfectly in earnest about it," said Roland, ''Tell 
 me, once again, what is the matter? We will begin de novo.'' 
 
 " I am going to dispute your claim to the inheritance." 
 
 "Stretton? " 
 
 " Exactly. My case is complete, and is a very strong one. 
 What is yours ? " 
 
 " I have not the wildest idea," said Roland, laughing. 
 
 Allan Gray was actually angry. " I never believed you 
 frivolous," he said, sternly, " and this is frivolity, sir. If it is 
 intended as an insult to me, I despise it." 
 
 Roland was on the high horse at once. " My good friend," 
 he said, "you have called me frivolous. Now it is well known 
 that whatever I may be, I am not that." 
 
 " You are treating a great question very frivolously, sir." 
 
 " I don't know anything about its being a great question," said 
 Roland. "It is possible enough that you may be heir to the 
 property which I at present consider mine : the succession has 
 been disputed before now. I am not in the least degree frivolous 
 when I laugh at the idea of discussing with you a question which, 
 before it is finished, will be discussed by the best legal heads in 
 the land. You have instructed your attorneys, I suppose ? I 
 shall at once instruct mine. And from that moment, my dear 
 Mr. Gray, the lowest messenger in the courts of law will have no 
 more influence over the case than you or I." 
 
 This obvious piece of common sense rather staggered Allan 
 Gray, but he said — 
 
 "I intend to direct viy la\\7ers." 
 
 "Mine," said Roland, "are, I am happy to say, not fools 
 enough to allow of any interference whatever. Are you trained 
 to the law ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor I either," said Roland. " It is against my interest, but 
 I will give you this piece of advice. You leave your lawyers 
 alone. Come to India with me, and let them fight it out. Only 
 don't let us quarrel. Yours is the old Cecil claim. Have you got 
 any money ? " 
 
 " No," said Allan, quite unable to cope with Roland's ex- 
 treme coolness. 
 
 " Then your solicitors can scarcely be respectable men, for this 
 is a great speculation. We knew of it before, you know, and we 
 can turn it at every point. Who are your men ? " 
 
 Allan Gray mentioned a house, " most undeniable," as the 
 
STEETTON. 163 
 
 horsey men say. Even Eoland knew their names as those of 
 leading and most respectable men. 
 
 ''By Jove!" he said. ''Have they taken up the Cecil 
 claim ? " 
 
 "I know of no Cecil claim," said Allan Gray. "My claim 
 comes from this simple fact : I have the most unimpeachable 
 evidence that I am your elder brother by your father's previous 
 marriage. Of that there is no earthly doubt whatever. The 
 names of my attorneys will guarantee that. Their respectability, 
 on the one hand, and their well-known cautiousness on the other, 
 would be guarantee that they would not take up the case of a 
 penniless jeweller's journeyman on speculation unless they believed 
 it. I am, I believe, perfectly sure of that part of my case." 
 
 " My elder brother ! " said Roland. 
 
 "Undoubtedly so," said Allan Gray; "and, what is more, 
 your legitimate elder brother." 
 
 " I cannot believe that part of it," said Roland, after a minute's 
 thought. " My father must have known whether he was married 
 to your mother or whether he was not ; and to accuse him of 
 neglecting or not acknowledging a legitimate son, is to insult his 
 memory. I assure you, in the most temperate manner, that you 
 are miles wrong in your estimate of my father's character if you 
 consider him capable of such a thing." 
 
 " He never knew of my existence," said Allan. " A fraud was 
 practised on him by a foolish woman who loved him " 
 
 " Well, that is all a matter for the lawyers," said Roland. 
 "You need not show your hand to me, of all people. We will 
 fight it out fair and square, lawyer to lawyer. I don't see any 
 reason for any personal rancour between us. I want to know 
 nothing at all " 
 
 Roland, who had been sitting hitherto, rose at this moment, 
 and walked hurriedly up and do^vn the room. Allan Gray spoke 
 three times to him before he answered, and then his answer 
 seemed to be scarcely to the purpose. 
 
 " I want to ask you one question, and one only, as from one 
 gentleman to another. I assure you that it is only on senti- 
 mental grounds, and can do you no harm at all. In the list of the 
 witnesses which you have to call is there one Mrs. Maynard, of 
 Maynard's Barton ? " 
 
 " There is ? " said Allan Gray. 
 
 " Hah ! thank you. That will account. I will ask no more 
 questions. Well, if you can prove yourself to be my elder brother, 
 I shall not be ashamed of you. Do your duty by the tenantry, I 
 shall be sorry to lose my money, but probably you will do your 
 
164 STRETTON. 
 
 duty by those few sheep in the wilderness better than I could 
 have done — for I am sick of England. I will be a bigger man 
 than you, even if you gain your point. Well, good-by, and 
 the worst of luck to you in this matter, and the best in all 
 others." 
 
 *' I cannot conceive that you understand the great gravity of 
 your position, sir," said Allan Gray. " Have you read your 
 father's will ? " 
 
 " You mean, do I know your strong point ? Yes. I am a very 
 clever and shrewd person, with a very high education ; not unused 
 to debate either. And from the beginning of this conversation I 
 perceived the awful hold which the wording of my father's will 
 gives you, if you can only prove your identity and legitimacy. 
 The will runs, ' To my eldest son,' never mentioning my name. 
 I saw that point a little time ago." 
 
 " Upon my honour, sir, I did not give you credit for such 
 shrewdness," said Allan Gray, honestly. 
 
 Roland drew his head up and laughed nearly silently at him. 
 *' You mean that you thought you could match your intellect with 
 mine. Poor dear ! I can show you a few other points to 
 amuse you if you will. Eddy is provided for by his aunt, and so 
 my father has omitted his name altogether. My sister is men- 
 tioned as 'My only daughter,' so you can't hurt her. Good- 
 night ; and as a parting piece of advice, never word your own 
 will if you make a dozen." 
 
 And so Roland departed, leaving Allan Gray lost in wonder at 
 his recklessness and bonhomie. 
 
 Gray, having lived a narrow, money-seeking life all his time, 
 could not understand Roland's recklessness at all ; and, after long 
 thought, came to the conclusion that Roland thought that he was 
 perfectly safe, and that hence came his easy bearing. 
 
 But it was quite otherwise. To Roland, who was a shrewd, 
 clear-headed fellow, matters looked extremely ugly. What on 
 earth was there to prevent his father having married in a secret 
 way before ? It was quite likely. Many men had done so. If 
 Gray could prove that, the foolish wording of his father's will 
 would point at once to Allan Gray as his father's heir. And 
 
 He determined to knock up Mr. Somes, the head of the 
 London branch of his Shrewsbury lawyers, and speak to him 
 about it. Mr. Somes was over his dessert, and alone, and 
 Roland, after a few preliminary civilities, opened the matter to 
 that gentleman. 
 
 Mr. Somes, a young man about thirty, with long whiskers, 
 looking very much like a cavalry officer without moustaches, fixed 
 
STEETTON. 165 
 
 his slirewd, bold eye on Roland at once, and begged Roland to 
 tell him what he thought of the matter. 
 
 Roland gave him the news which has been stated above, and 
 added, " I think very seriously of this business." 
 
 Mr. Somes nodded. *' Do you know anything of this young 
 Perkin Warbeck ? " he added. 
 
 "I only know that he is a young man of the very highest 
 character," said Roland. '' He is a great friend of my brother's. 
 He is, I believe, admirable in every relation of life. I know 
 enough of him to say that if he did not fully believe in his own 
 claim, all the tortures of the Inquisition would not have made 
 him advance it." 
 
 *'It is an ugly business, Mr. Roland," said Mr. Somes. " It 
 may go well with us, and it may go ill. I feel it my duty to tell 
 you so. What are his proofs ? " 
 
 " I have not the slightest idea," said Roland. " Mrs. Maynard 
 knows something, and that is all I know about the matter." 
 
 " Mrs. Maynard of the Barton ? Yes, a client of ours. We 
 have half Shropshire for our clients in consequence of our Shrews- 
 bury connexion, you know. The mother of the future Mrs. Evans," 
 he added, smiling and bowing. 
 
 "Why, no, Mr. Somes," said Roland; "that is oflf; and a 
 good thing too, for I am going to India." 
 
 Somes showed no astonishment. He wanted to know some- 
 thing more. 
 
 " We will hear about India another time, Mr. Evans. So. 
 Mrs. Maynard is one of his witnesses, and there's nothing between 
 you and Miss Maynard ? I suppose there is another gentleman 
 in the field, handsomer than you are, although we Shropshire 
 people used to consider you not bad-looking ? " 
 
 " I believe. Somes, that poor Jasper Meredith is au mieux 
 there. But what does it matter to me now ? " 
 
 Somes gave a sudden start, but Roland did not notice it. Very 
 shortly after, Roland went away, and young Somes, filling himself 
 some claret, took a letter from his pocket-book, and read as 
 follows : — 
 
 '♦ Bonn. 
 
 " Dear Somes, — I have made such a thundering ass of myself, 
 and have not a soul to advise me. I am coming at once to 
 England. 
 
 " I have so far committed myself in writing to Miss Maynard, 
 that her mother makes her write to me every day, and writes her- 
 self three times a-week, calling me by my Christian name ; what 
 on earth shall I do ? 
 
166 STKETTON. 
 
 '' I have no one to advise with but you. You have always 
 been as much of a friend as a man of business. Do advise 
 me, &c. 
 
 ** Jasper Meredith." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXYIII. 
 
 Ethel >as more than ever with Miss Evans in these times, and 
 these two got more and more attached to one another. Ethel, 
 watching her friend, saw that she was more and more distraught 
 and anxious as time went on. 
 
 **I am going to have Eddy home," she said one morning, 
 abruptly. "He must do something for himself, for goodness 
 knows how many I may have on my hands soon ; and the army is 
 not so expensive as Oxford, and so he had better be seen after. 
 Ho ! I suppose you know that Roland has got his commission, 
 and passed his examination easily." 
 
 Ethel was very much surprised. 
 
 " Ah ! you may well stare, indeed. A nice mess ive have made 
 of it among us. I am sure I don't know whatever we shall do. 
 I suppose you have not heard that Sir Jasper Meredith is engaged 
 to Mary Maynard ? " 
 
 '' Impossible ! " cried Ethel. 
 
 " True, young lady, for all that. Mrs. Maynard announces it 
 everywhere, most openly. Well," she continued, rubbing her 
 nose. *'I am sorry for the little cripple, but it has saved our 
 Roland, at all events. Now, perhaps, he will believe people when 
 they tell him. I don't myself know what the man's intellect is 
 made of, not to see through such a woman as that. In some 
 senses he had better go where he is going ; he leaves no fool 
 behind to watch his interests." 
 
 " Will he go abroad with his regiment, then. Miss Evans ? " 
 
 " Lord bless you, didn't you know? He is going to India for 
 years and years." And when, with kindly shaking hand, she 
 had administered the blow, she was silent, leaving the girl quite 
 to herself. 
 
 Ethel was silent also. At one time she breathed a little 
 quicker, and there was a fluttering in her breath, but it soon 
 jTstopped. Aunt Eleanor took no notice for a little while, and then 
 went on with affected petulance. 
 
 ** Of course he must go and fight somewhere. None of our 
 
STKETTON. 167 
 
 ftimily would have their health if they were not fighting somebody. 
 I am always fighting the Board of Guardians, or the farmers, or 
 Deacon Macdingaway, or you, or Eddy, or some of you. The 
 dear fellow who is gone fouglit at Waterloo and in India. It is 
 all very well for his mother to say that it is ridiculous. I don't 
 see it. He could make himself a rich man and a famous one 
 by going to India, whereas he could do no possible good in regard 
 to this lawsuit by staying here. / think it the best thing." 
 
 " The lawsuit I " said Ethel. '' What lawsuit ? " 
 
 " Law, child, they are going to dispute his succession, or some- 
 thing of that sort ; but I'll sort 'em. That deceitful old trot ? " 
 
 "What deceitful old trot? " asked Ethel, in wonder. 
 
 "Phillis Myrtle. That woman has deceived every one, and 
 now she has let it all out in her drink to Mrs. Gray. I am not 
 going to talk one word more about the matter. Your brother 
 Jimmy is coming home to pass his examination for the army, at 
 Chelsea Hospital of all places, as if he was a wooden-legged 
 pensioner, given to drink and language. I suppose you will say 
 thas-you didn't know that next ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I did not, Miss Evans." 
 
 ** I knew she would," said Aunt Eleanor, with scornful triumph. 
 '* The next thing she will say is, that she does not know that 
 Roland is coming here to this house, this very night, to dine and 
 sleep, and to say good-by to us all — that will be the next thing 
 she will say, mark my words." 
 
 " Indeed it will, Miss Evans," said Ethel. 
 
 '* I knew it," said Aunt Eleanor, *' I knew she would say that. 
 However, child, it is true, and as it is too late for you to go home, 
 you had better stay and make the best of it." 
 
 And now, for the first time. Aunt Eleanor looked at Ethel, and 
 discovered that Ethel had turned, and was looking very steadily 
 at her without speaking. 
 
 **Yes," said Aunt Eleanor, quite coolly, "you are perfectly 
 correct in your supposition. I arranged this meeting here to- 
 night, and so you may keep your eyes to yourself, child. I 
 thought proper to do so, and I did it : I never give any further 
 reasons for my conduct than that. I first of all communicated 
 with Jimmy to know when he was coming, and I got him to 
 promise to be here to-night. Then I sent and ordered Eddy 
 home ; in fact, he is at his father's house now. Then I ordered 
 your brother John to step across ; and lastly, I sent for Roland. 
 And so they will all be here to dinner ; and I am going to scold 
 the cook and spoil the dinner for a quarter of an hour, and then 
 I am going to dress. If you say a word, I will be civil to you. 
 
168 STKETTON. 
 
 Go." And Ethel went without a word, and there was silence in 
 the house. 
 
 Not for long. A wild storm, which had heen for some time 
 progressing towards Pdverbatch Grange, now broko open the 
 door, and held high riot in her peaceful hall. Aunt Eleanor 
 heard it as she was putting on her brooch ; and as she listened, 
 her face grew fixed and worn-looking. And she did a strange 
 thing. 
 
 She knelt down at her dressing-table and prayed — prayed 
 earnestly, until the first passionate spirit of her prayer had gone 
 by the mere iteration of the words. Then, like a good Christian, 
 she rose from her knees, strengthened, resigned, but perfectly 
 self-possessed and determined ; and with her head in the air, 
 went down the staircase saying, " My bonny boys ! " 
 
 Her bonny boys were misconducting themselves in the most out- 
 rageous manner. Jim Mordaunt had gone straight to Stretton 
 Castle, and had driven over with Roland and Eddy in a dog-cart. 
 They had arranged that Roland should sit behind with the groom, 
 and that Eddy should drive, to which James had agreed with a 
 calmness which to Roland foreboded disaster. He had proposed 
 to drive, but was at once objurgated by Eddy and James, as 
 departing from his given word ; and so they had departed, Eddy 
 driving. But in the first dangerous lane, Jim Mordaunt discovered 
 that he wanted to drive, and fought Eddy for the reins. Eddy 
 resisted, and Roland found it necessary to interfere mildly, and to 
 send the groom, who was convulsed with laughter, to the plunging 
 horse's head. After long recriminations, James was allowed to 
 drive, and made the horse run away (fictitiously) in the darkest of 
 dark places ; and by scientific handling of his whip, knocked Eddy's 
 hat ofi", and pretended that he could not pull his horse up to 
 recover it. Petruchio at his maddest was not so mad as James 
 was that night ; and so, when Aunt Eleanor came softly stepping 
 down the staircase, with her candle glittering on her diamonds, 
 she found Eddy with his curls in disorder, and the rain-drops 
 glittering upon them, scolding James and appealing to Roland ; 
 James sedately exculpating himself, representing the whole matter 
 as an unavoidable accident ; and Roland standing by laughing, 
 and saying at intervals, *' You fools ! you fools ! " 
 
 They did not see her till she said, '' Well, young men, have 
 you been having some fun ? " 
 
 Their good-humoured, kindly riot was stilled in an instant as 
 they came towards her. She was a strange lady this, yet one 
 who could give a reason for her actions, too. She passed Eddy 
 and Roland, and going straight to Janies Mordaunt, and kissing 
 
STEETTON. 169 
 
 him on the forehead, whispered to him, '* God bless you, my hoy : 
 you are not the first, and you won't he the kst." And then 
 leavii g him suddenly, she shook hands with Roland, looking at 
 him sieadily. After this she turned to Eddy, and said, '' Where 
 is your hat, sir? " 
 
 " He knocked it off on purpose," said Eddy. 
 
 ** Why, bless the boy, his hair is all wet," said Aunt Eleanor, 
 making an excuse to pass her hand over the curls of this " carum 
 caput." '' Go and dry it, sir, upstairs. No, don't ; you will not 
 hurt. Come into the parlour." 
 
 But as they were going the door was opened by one of the men, 
 and a gruff voice asked, ''Is my brother here?" And James 
 went back ; for it was his brother, and they made their greeting 
 alone. 
 
 " How goes it, Jimmy ? " said the elder. 
 
 **No better, old man," said the younger. 
 
 " That's bad, old chap," said the elder. " Keep a light heart, 
 and you'll soon forget it. By-the-bye, the bay mare has come 
 down with Tom, in Donnington Lane, and is knocked all to bits. 
 I always said she was too straight in the shoulder. The Governor 
 must have squinted when he bought her. Is Ethel here ? " 
 
 ''No, Johnny. Why?" 
 
 " Because she ain't at home, that is all. I suppose she is 
 somewhere." And so they went into that room which Miss 
 Evans was jDleased to call her parlour. 
 
 The dinner-table was laid at the lower end, and they clustered 
 round the great fireplace at the upper or drawing-room end, and 
 talked pleasantly and quietly together. There was no more noise 
 now ; the last sparkle of the old fun was over. A great parting 
 was coming, and the shadow of it was upon them. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor made Roland come and sit beside her, and as she 
 talked to him about his resolution of going to India, and of this 
 wonderful lawsuit, she not only managed to turn himself and her- 
 self away from the fire towards the door at the lower end of the 
 long room, but also, in the heat of her assurance that she would 
 manage for his interests in the best way, contrived to get hold of 
 his hand. As she held it, the door opened, and some one came 
 in with a candle in her hand, throwing the light upon her face. 
 At which time Aunt Eleanor found herself clasped tightly on the 
 wrist by Roland ; and said, very quietly : " You might have found 
 that out before. You may well pinch me black and blue, indeed. 
 Yes, indeed, you may well. I won't scold you because you are 
 going to India. But if you ever have time to think, think what a 
 fool you have been over that matter," 
 
170 STEETTON. 
 
 '' It Is too late, aunt." 
 
 *' Why, you don't suppose, do you, that such a girl as that is 
 likely to allow herself to he played fast and loose with, as you 
 have played fast and loose with her ; and to be insulted by a chit 
 of a Mary Maynard, as you have insulted her ; and to be ' Etheled ' 
 ae you have ' Etheled ' her ; and then listen to a word you have 
 got to say without — without — boxing your stupid ears. You don't 
 suppose that, do you? I don't. Look at her." 
 
 And, indeed, she was well worth looking at, holding her brother 
 James's shoulders, and looking into his eyes with gentle, tender 
 curiosity : for Ethel was as well worth looking at as any young 
 lady in the good county of Shropshire that day. 
 
 '' Roland," she said, stepping forward and smiling on him, " and 
 so you are going to India : mercy on us, how lonely we shall all 
 be, and how the times will have changed ! I shall stay with Miss 
 Evans altogether, if she will have me now." 
 
 She was quite self-possessed, much more so than was he ; and 
 as he sat beside her, and talked to her all that evening, he thought 
 more and more what a fool he had been. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Roland had been in bed some three hours, when he was awakened 
 in the dead of night by a horse's hoofs on the gravel ; and while 
 he was still lying wondering, a servant entered half-dressed, with 
 a light, and put a telegram in his hand. 
 
 *' The Colonel of the 140th Dragoons to Cornet Evans : — You 
 will instantly join he ad -quarters, and make every preparation for 
 sailing at once. Cornet Marlow having met with a severe accident. 
 No delay can be permitted." 
 
 His first astonishment over, he bade the servant dress himself 
 and help pack, while he went off to rouse Eddy. Eddy at once 
 determined to go with him, and see the very last of him, and they 
 spent the night in packing, having determined only to tell their 
 mother what had happened in the morning, and then only half the 
 truth. 
 
 It was very strange, moving about the darkened house with 
 lights in the dead of night, and coming, under such strange 
 circumstances, on old familiar objects, now to be parted from 
 perhaps for ever. This had been his only home, and yet he 
 
STEETTON. 171 
 
 parted with it almost without a sigh, as he parted with servant, 
 horse, dog, almost all. The fire of life was burning high and 
 clear with him ; there was no present and no past for him, only a 
 glorious future. 
 
 The parting from his mother was not difficult, for indeed he told 
 her only that he was summoned to the head-quarters of his regiment. 
 Not another soul save the servants did he see, but had driven off 
 in the carriage long before any of the Mordaunts were astir. He 
 looked across the valley at their house in the fresh morning air, 
 and the house was closed, and no smoke was coming from the 
 chimneys. Much was to pass before he saw them again. 
 
 He was very silent, but very gentle and kind in the train. 
 During the whole of the long day's journey to Chatham, he talked 
 only in a wondering, eager way about the future : where they 
 would send him ; how he should get his necessaries together in 
 so short a time, and how delightful it would be. The moment 
 they got to Chatham, he reported himself to the Colonel, who 
 seemed pleased at his diligence, and complimented him. 
 
 The Colonel looked at Roland with intense curiosity as he did 
 so, and Roland looked intently on the Colonel. He was a tall, 
 long man, with a lean, brown face, and two bright, hazel eyes 
 looking out from under grizzled eyebrows ; also a pair of grizzled 
 moustaches, not curled, which scarcely concealed the determined 
 pout of the lower lip. A very pleasant-looking man when in good 
 humour, as he was now. His name, Colonel Cordery. 
 
 "I hear all kinds of fine things of you, sir. I hope you will 
 like us. We have the name of being one of the most agreeable 
 regiments in the army. If you will fit in with us, we shall fit in 
 with you. We are a little old-fashioned and quiet, and you will 
 find it dull after Oxford, I fear ; but we have not got a single snob 
 in the regiment, which is a great thing." 
 
 "You are very fortunate, sir," said Roland, by way of saying 
 something. 
 
 '' It is more good management than good fortune, though," said 
 the Colonel, thoughtfully. "You see, we have a way of getting 
 rid of snobs ; we all get so thundering polite and genteel (not 
 gentleman-like, we are always that) that they can't stand us, and 
 exchange. That is the way we manage. We are rather surprised 
 at your joining our regiment. I should have thought that you 
 would at least have tried for the Engineers, or, missing that, the 
 
 Artillery. However, I have such a letter from Lord S about 
 
 you, that you will be one of us at once. You will find us not 
 very high in literary acquirements ; we could all construe our 
 Caesar's Commentaries, but not many could do so now. But you 
 
172 STKETTON. 
 
 will find tliis a regiment which knows its duty. You will find the 
 officers personally knowing the men, and the men respecting the 
 officers. How strange that a man with your prospects should 
 become a dragoon ! Well, that is no business of mine. You will 
 find us good fellows, ready to welcome you heartily." 
 
 ''I fear I shall have short time to learn my duty, sir," said 
 Roland. 
 
 '' We will teach it you, theoretically, on board ship, as they do 
 musketry at Hythe — never allow a man powder and ball till he is 
 a perfect shot. Ha ! ha ! A man whose father has kept hounds, 
 and who has himself got a first in Moderations at Oxford, need 
 not fear cavalry drill. You will come to mess to-night ? " 
 
 ** Certainly, sir. I will step round and tell my brother, and 
 dress." 
 
 *' Bring your brother. And look here — you have five days' 
 leave ; you must go back to London for your outfit ; who are 
 your agents? " 
 
 <'C , I believe, sir." 
 
 " Well, they will see to you. I will introduce you to-night. 
 Go along and dress." 
 
 In a short time the men began to dawdle into the mess-room 
 one by one, and to talk shop to one another. And if you hear 
 the officers of any regiment talking about their duty, get your son 
 into that regiment by hook or by crook, for it is a good one. The 
 Colonel and his boy (the Colonel was a widower, and the boy was 
 in the Engineers, doing well), came in ; and the Colonel sat down 
 before the fire, very thoughtfully ; and discovering his sword, took 
 it off and put it in the coal-scuttle, from which it was dexterously 
 removed by a subaltern. The Colonel was in a brown study, and 
 the other men talked low. 
 
 At last he said, spreading his hands abroad, before the fire, 
 *' Well ! well ! he knows his own affairs best ; but it is a most 
 astonishing thing to me." 
 
 Those round him understood him at once. One of them said, 
 '' Will the new Cornet do. Colonel? " 
 
 '' Oh yes, he'll do fast enough. But why on earth did the 
 
 Minister and the Horse Guards and Lord B send him to 
 
 us?" 
 
 "Because," said his son, ''they knew, all three of them, that 
 my father's regiment was the best-governed and best-ordered 
 regiment in the service." 
 
 "Well, it is a good regiment. Hush! Here they are; he 
 and his brother," and he rose. 
 
 The mess had got it into their heads that they should see a 
 
STEETTON. 17S 
 
 pale, bent man, over-worn by studies, and a pasty-faced youth 
 from Oxford — his brother. Soldiers can judge of men, and they 
 were taken by surprise. 
 
 Again, among men who have undergone a certain class-training, 
 there is an unwritten law by which one gentleman can often 
 recognise another at first sight. The first sight is very often 
 wrong. One may find a finished gentleman in training and in 
 heart, under the disguise of an outward- looking cad, and you may 
 find a thorough-going cad under the disguise of a gentleman. 
 But with regard to Roland and Eddy there was no mistake ; and 
 once more they were taken by surprise. Their experience of 
 Oxford men had not been uniformly happy —in fact otherwise ; 
 but here were, at first sight, two traditional Oxford men. 
 
 Roland came in first — grand, imperial, perfectly cool, and 
 perfectly conciliatory — in height reaching the Colonel, in personal 
 appearance far surpassing any man in the room. The unspoken 
 verdict upon him was, "He will do." And as Aunt Eleanor 
 might have said — "I should think he would." He met with a 
 warm and genial reception from this jolly regiment, and was from 
 the first moment a success. 
 
 But by no means such a success as Eddy. Eddy came in with 
 his great eyes staring, and his mouth slightly parted in sheer 
 curiosity. He was introduced to one and to the other, and he 
 made tlie requisite bow ; but the look of whimsical curiosity was 
 still in his face, when Roland, the Colonel, and the Adjutant were 
 deep in confabulation, and when most of the junior ofiiccrs had 
 gathered round him. 
 
 For Aunt Eleanor was right. There was something singularly 
 attractive about this lad. The poor boy had a Avay of looking very 
 handsome when he admired anything, and of not throwing any 
 expression into his face when he was disgusted at anything. He 
 was admiring now, and they gathered round him. Also he was 
 pleasantly ready with his tongue. Lieutenant Spiller began the 
 conversation. 
 
 '' Are you going into the army, Mr. Evans ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Eddy ; *' but into the infantry. You see, my aunt 
 is afraid of my falling into dissipated ways if I join the cavalry. 
 Now, does your experience bear her out, for instance ? " 
 
 " Certainly not in this regiment," said Spiller, laughing ; " but 
 your aunt is in the main right." 
 
 " She generally is," said Eddy. " I wish you could make a 
 vacancy for me ; I should like to go with Roland." 
 
 " Marlow only made the vacancy for him by breaking his leg in 
 two places," said Captain Markham. 
 
174 STEETTON. 
 
 "Then I must decline in the infantry," said Eddy, and they 
 all went to dinner. 
 
 There was contention about Eddy. Roland was made to sit by 
 the Colonel to be talked to, but with regard to Eddy there was 
 contention. "Come here, Evans," said one. "His place is 
 here," said another. Eddy was perfectly cool. He said, "I will 
 sit where you like, for you all seem very nice. Don't spoil me 
 for the infantry, that is all ; I am not used to be spoilt at 
 home." 
 
 The dinner was plain, but eaten with a good appetite. They 
 had all been hard at work that morning. Roland and the Colonel 
 talked much together, and when warmed with his meat and drink 
 (in moderation), the Colonel, like an honest man, grew confi- 
 dential. 
 
 " To tell you the very real truth, Evans," he said, " I was not 
 best pleased at your coming here at all first." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, sir ; I will try to remove your causes of 
 objection." 
 
 " They are removed already, I think. We don't, as a rule, 
 want scholars in our regiment ; they are apt to be bumptious, and 
 we can't stand bumptious men. Now you don't seem in the least 
 degree bumptious." 
 
 " I assure you I am not, sir." 
 
 "No! no! Quite so. I dare say you will do us a deal of 
 good ; freshen us up a bit, eh ? I suppose you read the Salurday 
 Beview now? " 
 
 Roland confessed he did. 
 
 " Beastly paper, but very clever, is it not ? " 
 
 Roland said that at the University it was considered able. 
 
 " Yes, you are very rich, are you not ? " 
 
 Roland said, " I ought to have some six or seven thousand a 
 year." 
 
 " Are you extravagant ? " 
 
 " No, quite otherwise," said Roland. 
 
 "Because I want to point this out to you. You are by very 
 far the richest man in this regiment, and we are the quietest and 
 cheapest cavalry regiment in the service. Consider, Evans, what 
 wicked thing you would do were you to bring on habits of com- 
 petitive ostentation in our pleasant little family. We are not 
 Solomons ; I have fools under me, who, poor boys, would resent 
 your ostentation, and hate you for it in the first instance, and then 
 try to emulate it — to their ruin, ay, and to the ruin of the regiment. 
 We are a happy little family, Evans ; don't you make it an unhappy 
 one by idleness and extravagance." 
 
STRETTON. 176 
 
 " Before heaven, sir," said Roland, '' I only desire to learn my 
 duty from you." 
 
 The Major, a lean man, with a hungry face, pinched in sharply 
 under the cheek bones, and wandering, speculative eyes, here 
 answered — 
 
 *' The young man has spoken well. Works are well. What 
 is your faith? " 
 
 *'My dear Brocklebank," said the Colonel, ''is not this rather 
 too soon? " 
 
 Major Brocklebank never noticed him. ' ' Have you gone through 
 the fire of ill-concealed Papistry, at Oxford, young man, and have 
 you come out without a scorch ? It is impossible. I fear you 
 are a High Churchman." 
 
 " I am very much afraid I was what you would call a High 
 Churchman," said Roland, rather frightened at having to confess 
 his faith in strange company, but perfectly resolute. " And I am 
 afraid — I mean I hope — I mean I intend to remain as much of 
 one as I can ; and since this confession has been forced upon me, 
 I may as well tell the whole truth at once, and say that in politics 
 I am an extreme Radical." 
 
 *' Come out and see the men, Evans," said the Colonel. And 
 Roland rose and went after him, pleased and proud at being com- 
 manded by a better man than himself. When he got into the 
 barrack-square, under the clouded moon, he discovered that the 
 Colonel was convulsed with laugiiter. 
 
 " Old Brocldebank and you ! " he said, when he found his voice. 
 ** Why, old Brocklebank is a Dissenter and a Radical, and you 
 are a Puseyite and a Radical. We shall have some fun out of you 
 two. Only mind, Evans," he said, seriously, ''don't, by your 
 superior scholarship, make Brocklebank ridiculous. He has 
 proved himself a veiy splendid officer ; you have still to prove 
 yourself that. And he has done more to purify our mess from 
 loose talk than ever I did. They daren't before him. Come and 
 see your men." 
 
 "I thought a cavalry regiment was very different from this, 
 sir," said Roland. 
 
 " There is no regiment hke ours, sir," said the Colonel. 
 " Brocklebank and I have made it what it is. By heaven, sir, 
 I wish you could have seen it before our time. Well." 
 
 They walked in silence for a few moments, and the Colonel 
 said, " Will you see your men first, or your horses ? " 
 
 And Roland said, " The men." 
 
 "I am glad of that. What I want to impress on my subalterns 
 is that they should know their men and should gain their confi- 
 
176 STRETTON. 
 
 dence. We will see your troop, No. 2, Pause for a moment, 
 Evans, before you look at these men and boys, and think." 
 " Give the key-note," said Roland. 
 
 ^' I will. These men whom you are about to see will, sooner 
 or later, be given into your charge for life or death, for good or 
 evil. They are ill- educated ; they are recruited from the very 
 worst class ; not one of them but recruited under a cloud of debt, 
 of despair, or of ruined love for women : or possibly worse. Now, 
 mind, sooner or later there will come a dim, dark hour for you 
 and for them — an hour of disaster and retreat,. And in that hour, 
 Evans, they will cry to you for brains, for dexterity, for courage, 
 for conduct, knowing that their lives are in your hand. Are you 
 prepared for this responsibility ? We cannot supplement our 
 battalions by conscription, like the Continental nations. Will 
 you undertake the government of these few?" 
 
 *' I will try to learn from you, sir," said Eoland, for this evening 
 was different from what he had expected ; and, indeed, seeing 
 that the darkest of dark hours was approaching, it was not at all 
 unnatural. 
 
 The Colonel opened a door and passed in, Roland following 
 him. 
 
 It was a long, low barrack-room, with beds, now turned down 
 on each side, and tables along the midst. There were about forty 
 men in the room. 
 
 The most of them had not gone to bed, but some had, for it 
 was getting late, and as they were to sail so soon, discipline was 
 a little relaxed. Every man rose when he saw the Colonel, and 
 the Colonel bade them sit down again. 
 
 They were sitting in their shirts and trousers, playing at draughts, 
 at chess, at cards, mainly '' all fours," along the centre tables. 
 They knew the Colonel's humour, and went on with their games, 
 as though he were not present. Round each jjarti of chess, cards, 
 or draughts, there were many lookers-on, noisy enough before the 
 Colonel had come in, but silent now. 
 
 "These are your fellows," said the Colonel, in a whisper; 
 "look at them." And Roland did so. 
 
 Sleepy ? yes. Thoughtless ? yes. Largely curious about the 
 Colonel's visit ? yes. Utterly uncurious about him, Roland ? Yes 
 again. Strange lads ! many of them handsome, many ugly ; but 
 not a hopeless oarsman among them, so Roland put it. Sleepy 
 and idle, yet looking, by some bright trick of the eye, indescribable, 
 as though they could row, if taught ; or, indeed, fight on occasion. 
 " I only came here to-night, men," said the Colonel, raising 
 his voice, " to introduce your new Cornet to you. Cornet 
 
STEETTON. 177 
 
 Marlow being invalided, he will go with you to Calcutta, you 
 know." 
 
 Every eye was turned on Roland One young man sat up in 
 bed, and kicked another young man in the next bed, who would 
 not wake ; whereupon the other young man groped under the bed 
 for his boots to shy at the first young man ; and was proceeding, 
 with expletives, to ask whether eight hours' stable-guard was not 
 enough, when he was stifi'ened by the sight of the Colonel, and 
 went fast asleep ; for bed is a sanctuary which is utterly inviolable 
 in free countries against all powers. 
 
 *' These men are in bed before bugle," said the Colonel to a 
 corporal. 
 
 ''They have been at work on board all day, sir," said the 
 corporal. 
 
 '' What men are in the sick- ward ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 " Only one, Job Hartop." 
 
 ** You have seen your men in health, Evans ; come with me 
 and see another side of it." 
 
 Job Hartop was in an ill case ; in fact, the world was over and 
 past for Job Hartop. The surgeon was there, and said the 
 depression brought on by chronic inflammation of the lungs was 
 so great that he could not rally. The nurse was there, and she 
 said that he was sinking fast, and would rattle soon : the Chaplain 
 was there, and said that his spiritual state was satisfactory, but 
 that there was something on his niind. The Chaplain added that 
 he was going to give him the Communion. Would they stay ? 
 
 Roland said "Yes," directly. The Colonel said a few words 
 about preparation, but added, ''We may have short shrift, some 
 of us, one day. I will stay too." 
 
 They spoke in whispers, as we do when one is dying. The 
 priest made ready the elements, and then they aroused the dying 
 lad, who had been laid, with his face deep in his pillow, turned 
 away from them. 
 
 Such a strange, beautiful, flushed face turned towards them. 
 You would scarcely have believed at first that death was there ; 
 but when you looked at the parted lips, with the dry white tongue 
 behind them, you saw him. The battle could not last much 
 longer. 
 
 The Colonel put the Chaplain aside for a moment. " Hartop," 
 he said, "you are near your end, and we are going to take the 
 Sacrament together ; is there anything I can do for you ? " 
 
 The lad said, " No, sir, I thank you kindly." 
 
 "Is there no message to your relations, — to father or to 
 mother ? " 
 
 13 
 
178 STRETTON. 
 
 ** No, sir, thank you. They are well shute of me." 
 *'Is there no message to any one else now, dearer than either 
 father or mother ? " said the Colonel, quietly. 
 The young man paused, and then said, slowly — 
 *' Yes. Her name is here, in this letter, under the pillow. 
 And I want her to be told this. If I'd ever thought she cared for 
 me, I'd never have gone after the other girl. But I didn't see it. 
 And I never cared for the other one. And the other one, her 
 mother wouldn't let her have me, and so I 'listed and come to 
 this. I should like her to be told that, sir, if it could be managed. 
 Who is that young gentleman ? " 
 
 *' That is Mr. Roland Evans, our new Comet." 
 *' Perhaps he will take that message for one of his own troop," 
 said the dying man. " Stick to your troop, sir, and your troop 
 will stick to you. What was that song that daft Geordie Cameron 
 used to sing, the time we were quartered with the 72nd at 
 Carlisle?" 
 
 '' Never mind songs now, my poor lad," said the Colonel. 
 " Ay, but — but I. do mind. I am giving the young gentleman 
 the message to take to her. I know." 
 
 " * Won't you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas?' " 
 
 "No! " 
 
 " ' And I'll lay my heart on your dead heart, Douglas.' " 
 
 " That's near it, but not all." 
 
 *' ' Mine eyes were blinded, your words were few.'" 
 
 *' That is it ! That is the message. Comet. Now shrive me, 
 and let me die." 
 
 And the Chaplain began the Communion Service, and they all 
 partook. And the young man had eaten the bread and drunk the 
 wine, but when the Chaplain, experienced in all kinds of death on 
 many fields, came to the passage, *' Glory be to God on high," 
 he substituted another, '' Lord, receive the soul of this Thy 
 servant " ; and the Colonel and Roland, looking on the bed, saw 
 that the young man was dead. 
 
 Such was Roland's first introduction to this strange little British 
 army, which has to hold the world on its back like the tortoise. 
 When they were out in the square together, he asked the Colonel, 
 '' Who was he ? " 
 
 "I have no idea," said the Colonel. "He was one of those 
 young men who come to us from no one knows whither ; for what 
 
STEETTON. 179 
 
 no one knows why; and make our best soldiers for particular 
 purposes." 
 
 " For what purposes ? " said Roland. 
 
 *'For desperate purposes." said the Colonel. ** That stamp 
 of man is utterly careless of life. There is one day in my life I 
 do not care to speak about — the day of Chillianwallah. And on 
 
 that day I saw hope if we could get a message across to B , 
 
 under heavy fire. And I sent a trooper, a gentleman, a man with 
 a secret, with it. But he was cut over, and his secret with him. 
 George Peyt wasted two years before he took the title of Lord 
 Avonswood, and Lady Flora Barty has turned Roman Catholic. 
 That is all / have heard, and I don't believe one word of it." 
 
 '' Then in cavalry regiments you have your romances," said 
 Roland. 
 
 *' Lord bless you ! " said the Colonel. '* Why did you give up 
 your career for us ? " 
 
 This was dangerous ground. 
 
 *' What do you suppose makes young men enlist then. Colonel ? " 
 
 "Women, women, women," said the Colonel, emphatically. 
 "If the women will only make such fools of themselves as they 
 generally do, we can recruit the British army without a conscrip- 
 tion. Why, the British army would never have had 7i\y services, 
 but for that very cause. Nor yours either, my good lad." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said Roland. 
 
 " And I beg yours also. Don't tell me. Ho, by the way, I 
 should have told you. You are not junior Cornet. There is 
 actually one who knows less about his duty than you do. I only 
 knew it to-day." 
 
 " He must be rather inexperienced," said Roland. 
 
 " Well," said the Colonel, " he has been studying in Germany ; 
 and I dare say knows German tactics. I don't say that he is a 
 bad man, because, if he were, he would not have been sent to me. 
 But I hate jobbery." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And this is a thundering piece of jobbery. The worst I have 
 ever heard of, or dreamt of. I am not going into details. I arii 
 no reformer ; I believe we could get on pretty well as we are, if 
 they would let us alone. But this is too strong." 
 
 " Indeed, sir." 
 
 " Yes, and indeed," said the Colonel. " Markham's aunt is 
 dead, and Markham naturally don't want to go to India ; so he 
 sells out. And lo and behold, a schoolboy is gazetted to us — I 
 assure you, a mere schoolboy — from sheer political interest. I 
 was never spoken to about the matter. I only was officially 
 
180 STEETTON. 
 
 informed of the fact. They may do such things now, but they 
 won't do them ten years lience. It is shameful. Bully him, 
 Evans. I know he must be a Turk." 
 
 " Has he passed Chelsea, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; he is one of your kind, a scholar ; I believe that he 
 is a University man. The whole job has been done in a fort- 
 night ; it appears that no regiment but ours would do for him, and 
 his father is a considerable man in his county, and so the bear is 
 sent to us to be licked into shape." 
 
 '' What is his name, sir ? " 
 
 *' James Mordaunt," said the Colonel. 
 
 *' That bear wants no licking, Colonel. Jim has followed me." 
 
 *' You know him, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. I know one of the finest fellows who ever walked 
 — in his way — in your way ; by Jove, sir, you have strengthened 
 the regiment by ten men." 
 
 " And who is the lady in this case ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 *' I fear it is my sister," said Roland, quite off his guard. In 
 a moment afterwards, he was praying the Colonel to forget, not to 
 have heard, to ignore, his last speech. And the Colonel said, 
 quietly, " My dear young man, I am the best colonel of cavalry, 
 socially speaking, in the army. Is it likely that I could say one 
 word?" 
 
 Yes, Jim, by simple sulky ferocity, and threats of (as he put 
 it) making a greater beast of himself than he had ever done 
 before ; and what was more powerful still, by threatening to 
 enlist in Roland's troop, had carried the day ; and if ever one 
 man was backed up by another, he was backed up by Sir Jasper 
 Meredith. 
 
 Squire Mordaunt didn't see his way, so he said. He did not 
 like to ask the Minister. It was an unusual and singular thing. 
 It would be a sheer job ; and if he wanted anything afterwards he 
 should be ashamed to ask it of the Whigs. Sir Jasper screeched 
 and hobbled round him for an hour. 
 
 " What is the good of talking like that ? " he asked, shrilly 
 (Aunt Eleanor once said that he was Pope without his powers of 
 versification). " You have ratted, my dear sir : for heaven's 
 sake take your money like an honest man. You can't possibly 
 rat again, you know, under five or six years ; and you may be 
 dead before then, for you are ageing fast. Realise your rat while 
 they remember it, and provide for Jim." 
 
 ''Don't be impudent, Jasper," said Squire Mordaunt; **you 
 have an ugly tongue : keep it between your teeth, boy. If you 
 call providing for Jim putting him in a cavalry regiment, I don't." 
 
STBETTON. 181 
 
 ** Then keep him at home," cried Sir Jasper, not one whit 
 abashed ; " keep him at home in idleness and sulkiness, away 
 from Roland, and the Lord help you." 
 
 " It is no business of yours," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " Not a bit," said Sir Jasper ; *' that is the point of it. If it 
 was any business of mine, I should take a side. As it is, I take 
 none ; but I know and can see things which you can't. If you 
 send him with Roland he will do. If you don't, take the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 "And if he gets killed there? " said Squire Mordaunt, at a 
 loss for an argument — 
 
 "Then you will have no further trouble with him," said Sir 
 Jasper ; " which would be a relief to my mind if I were his 
 father." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Roland, assisted by Eddy, rather enjoyed himself for the next 
 five days ; nay, I suspect, enjoyed himself very much indeed. 
 
 C 's people had the dressing of him ; and loving their art, as 
 
 artists should, gave up their souls to the decoration of the hand- 
 somest young officer they had had in hand for a long time. 
 Their trade is one which rises into an art ; and they carefully 
 decorated Roland for the feast of vultures. 
 
 Nature directed them, I suppose. Game cocks only fight in 
 their grandest plumage. War and marriage must be done in fine 
 clothes, by all accounts. And Roland, kept posturing about 
 before cheval glasses, as his fripperies were tried on, rather wished 
 once or twice that Ethel could have seen him. Thus, one thing 
 suggests the other, and vice versa. One can go no further in 
 one's simile. 
 
 But Roland, in trying on his gaudy trappings, found out some- 
 thing of which he was not aware. He vilipended some of the 
 most (as it seemed to him) ridiculous extravagances of his 
 uniform. His horse's trappings were laced with money cowries. 
 "How ridiculous is this," said Roland to the tailor; "this is 
 barbarous nonsense . ' ' 
 
 The tailor brought him his best sword, and put a horse's head- 
 piece on a block. " Will you be kind enough, sir, to see if you 
 can cut down to the leather through those cowries?" And 
 Roland declined, laughing, for he looked at the cowries, and 
 
182 STEETTON, 
 
 looked at the sword, and came to the conclusion that the pure 
 silica of the cowries would beat the sword. " I never saw that 
 before," he said. '*I thought there was no meaning in it. I 
 suppose you will tell me next that there is a reason for my wearing 
 a cascade of crimson horse-hair down my back." And as he said 
 so, he put on his helmet and postured before the glass. 
 
 '' There is a very good reason for that, sir," said the little 
 tailor. 
 
 *' You would find a reason for anything," said Eoland. 
 
 " Well, sir," said the tailor, '' allow me to put on your helmet ; 
 you take your sword and slash away at the back of my neck 
 through the horse-hair. / am game." 
 
 " Well, I never thought of that,'' said Roland. 
 
 *' You a'n't in the army tailoring, you see, sir. Sir, what the 
 outsiders call gewgaw and fripperies, all have a meaning and 
 intention. Our army is an old one, and has not been badly 
 managed on the whole. Our army, you see, sir, we having no 
 conscription, has always been a small one, over-matched and 
 over-worked. Consequently, our army developed the greatest 
 defensive powers of any. And our officers are rich and extrava- 
 gant. Consequently they have ornamented their defences. But 
 there a'n't a gewgaw or a button in the British army which don't 
 tell of some old fight when the thing was found to be necessary. 
 Some are obsolete, some have run into sheer gawdry. But they 
 all mean something. The extra hussar jacket, for instance, 
 defends the rein-arm, leaving the sword-arm free. That a'n't 
 obsolete yet, sir." 
 
 " I never saw this before," said Roland : " but with these new 
 rifled muskets cavalry will become obsolete altogether." 
 
 "Well, sir," said the tailor, " these arms of precision will for 
 a time play the devil with the cavalry tailors ; but you will always 
 require cavalry for pursuit, sir, and we must revert to old ideas." 
 
 '' As how then ? " asked Roland. 
 
 *' Armour, sir ; aluminium. The specific gravity is small ; in 
 hardness it can nearly compare with rhodium, and it dresses up 
 very nice indeed with scarlet and gold, or with blue and silver. 
 Here, for instance, sir, is a cuirass of the Cent Gardes ; you may 
 hang it on your little finger. Our house is prepared to go into 
 aluminium to any extent, if we only knew which way the Horse 
 Guards were going to move in the way of cavalry. A gentleman 
 with your strong Parliamentary interest, three seats, dear me, so 
 they say, might tell us what they were going to do. And I am 
 sure we shall be grateful. That was a sudden thing, sir, your 
 poor pa's death." 
 
STEETTON. 183 
 
 "It was sudden," said Roland. 
 
 *' A.nd you going to India, too, so soon," said the tailor ; 
 ** without even the will proved; so some say. If you happen to 
 want any cash, sir, our house is in the habit of advancing cash to 
 youTig gentlemen of your expectations. Our terms are five per 
 cent., and we would sooner take your interest than another's." 
 
 Roiand, in his gawdries, turned from the glass, and said — 
 
 *' My father dealt with your house for many years, and he 
 always said that they had treated him well : I mean in a friendly 
 way. He always spoke affectionately about you. Now I tell you 
 point blank that I am not in a position to borrow money. There 
 is Uw in our house, and Lord only knows where law may end. 
 My Aunt Eleanor will pay for this outfit. Beyond that I can 
 guarantee you nothing." 
 
 '* Lord bless you, sir," said the little man, "you mean about 
 the disputed succession. All humbug from beginning to end. 
 Tlie plot of two foolish old women. We know, sir. We haven't 
 been your father's bankers for so long as not to know his afi'airs. 
 Our opinion is expressed, too, when I tell you that you can draw 
 on us for any amount you choose. Though why not stay in 
 England and fight it out, I can't see." 
 
 "I am sick of England," said Roland. 
 
 " Quite so, sir. Many are. I am. But Miss Evans will see 
 it through for you better than you could yourself. We have a 
 deal of these sort of matters on our hands. I don't know what 
 would become of our trade if it wasn't for the young ladies not 
 knowing their own minds. Well, sir, they think the better of 
 you for it, which is a comfort. Here is your young lady's brother 
 in the shop at this moment." 
 
 " What young lady's brother ? " said Roland, aghast. 
 
 " Miss Mordaunt's brother," said the little tailor, " Mr. James 
 Mordaunt : Cornet Mordaunt. May he come in ? He has been 
 cross about his tunic, and wants to see it on in the glass." 
 
 Roland called out : " Jim, come in here ; " and added also : 
 " Go out, and leave us alone," which the army tailor did. 
 
 Roland was grand, in full cavalry unifonn ; James was only 
 dressed in ordinary clothes. Still it would have been difficult to 
 say which was the grander out of the pair. They both had that 
 knack of caiTying their heads erect, and neither of them was 
 sentimental, though each had a deal of sentiment to dispose of. 
 
 The relations between these two young men were as deeply 
 sentimental as ever were those between Frenchmen or Germans. 
 They Imew that there was a sort of sentimental love between 
 them ; Roland had found out that he was in love with Ethel ; and 
 
i84 STBETTON. / 
 
 James, poor boy, knew too well that he was in love with Mil(?red. 
 But they were both ashamed of it ; and met like mutually con- 
 victed vagabonds. There was no " effusion " in their meeting. 
 
 " Well, young Mordaunt," said Koland, ''what do you think of 
 this ? " meaning his (Roland's) personal appearance in his cavalry 
 uniform. 
 
 "I shall be quite as fine as you, old Evans," said James, 
 " when I get my clothes. Are you cross with me ? " 
 
 " No, I am not cross with you. No, I don't know that I am 
 cross with you. Stay, Jim, don't let us be fools. I am sc very 
 glad that you are going with us. I wish you had been a hundred 
 miles off, old chap, but I am glad you are coming with us." j 
 
 *' Why do you taunt me ? I have done no wi'ong." j 
 
 "Nor I," said Roland. "Come, Jim, let us be friends, and 
 go through it all together. It might have been otherwise, but it 
 was not to be. Let you and I tackle to this regiment, and do 
 our best." 
 
 " I never wavered in my loyalty to you, since you saved my 
 life," said Jim. " Tell me what to do, and I will do it. I am 
 brave, strong, and affectionate, but I am a fool ; you must tell 
 me, and I will do it." 
 
 " We will go hand' in hand, my boy," said Roland. " There 
 will only be you and I out of the whole boat together. 
 The old four is now reduced to a pair. You must row bow 
 to me." 
 
 It was their way of swearing everlasting friendship, unsenti- 
 mental, but quite effectual. There was no more "tall talk" 
 after this, until the very last. 
 
 " How do I look, James ? " said Roland. " Am I fine ? Are 
 you frightened at me ? " 
 
 "Not a bit," said James. "What would be the good of me 
 if I was ? I grant that, as a spectacle, you would be imposing 
 on horseback. But I don't see the use of you. You seem to 
 me to be purely ornamental. Let me fig out ; I was always 
 better-looking than you, and may play the roU of a dismounted 
 dragoon better than you." 
 
 So they figged liim, out; "But he did not look one whit 
 better," said Roland; and at last, tired of posturing in armour 
 which they had not proved, they walked away together arm-in- 
 arm ; and from that moment the two were never separated any 
 more, neither in quarters, nor in march, until the midnight march 
 at Belpore. 
 
 They walked round and they picked up Eddy, who was prepared 
 with any amount of nonsense, which they let him talk as he would, 
 
STRETTON. 185 
 
 feeling a little solemn themselves. Then they went to the play, 
 and saw Charles Kean in the '' Corsican Brothers," and Eddy, in 
 his silly way, pretended that he was frightened. Then they had 
 oysters and porter, and went soherly home, just as the boy 
 Arbuthnot might have done before he sailed for the Crimea. 
 Eton, Harrow, the plough-tail, the working bench ; then all the 
 sudden fury of war. Such was the history of most young 
 soldiers in those days. 
 
 On the morrow the three met again, and went to Chatham. 
 The regiment was paraded, and Eddy saw Koland and James, on 
 their new horses, all a-blaze with scarlet, blue, and gold, with gilt 
 helmets, and cascades of crimson horsehair falling down their 
 backs — a great sight. They did not partake in the parade, but 
 sat on their horses by the Colonel, not yet knowing their places ; 
 but Eddy and others thought them the two finest young fellows 
 in the whole regiment. 
 
 Motion of any kind was delightful to Eddy. The motion of 
 the next two days was singularly delightful to him. The business 
 of a great transport is always pleasant ; surely that of a great 
 cavalry transport is the most pleasant of all. 
 
 Eddy, awakening from late slumbers, found that Koland and 
 James had been gone long before, and going down to where the 
 ship lay, found them in neat undress uniforms, hard at the work 
 which they had selected for themselves. 
 
 The ship lay by the wharf, and the horses were being led on 
 board, not slung, the Adjutant superintending. Early as it was, 
 our two lads seemed to have got themselves recognised as know- 
 ing, at least, some part of their work, for their voices were loud 
 and their remarks were emphatic. 
 
 '' That is an ugly, straight-shouldered brute," said Roland, to 
 a farrier ; " fifteen pounds and half a crown back." 
 
 " He'll go in a crowd, sir. Rear rank horse." 
 
 ** Scarcely pay his passage," said Roland. ^^ Here's another. 
 Jim, look at this hammer-headed one." 
 
 ''I'm looking at him," said Jim. And, indeed, so was every 
 one else. He was a horse with a head like a carpenter's 
 hammer ; a horse with a shoulder back to his croup, well ribbed 
 up, with splendid gaskins, long fetlocks, and enormous feet — a 
 splendid cavalry horse, but with the temper of D'Estournel. This 
 horse refused to go on board on any terms whatever. 
 
 No man could live near his heels — human existence was an 
 impossibility in his rear, and a weariness in his van ; for pull 
 you never so hard at his halter, the beast would not move at 
 all. There was a hammer-headed brutality about him which 
 
186 STEETTON. 
 
 nothing could affect for an instant. The British army was 
 puzzled. 
 
 " Put the bridle on him," cried Roland ; and a trooper brought 
 a bridle, and did so ; the horse submitting in a way which 
 astonished those who did not know his tactics. ** Now, Jim," 
 said Roland, *' up you go ! " and before any one had time to 
 speak, Roland had given Jim a leg up, and Jim was sitting bare- 
 backed on the dangerous brute. ** Keep clear," said Roland, 
 as he took the bridle, and began leading the horse towards the 
 gangway. 
 
 The horse, finding a man on his back, began going, and went 
 until he found the boards under his feet ; then came the tug of 
 war, and every one held his breath. 
 
 The fury of the brute came all of a sudden. For an instant 
 he planted out his fore-feet, and was quiescent ; then Roland said, 
 ** Heels, Jim ! " and James rammed his heels in. For the next 
 twenty-five seconds there was a struggle, which no one who saw 
 it forgot. The brute reared, but Roland was hanging by his 
 head, with both reins gripped under his chin ; he kicked furiously, 
 but James was on his back laughing. He backed until his heels 
 were over the green sea-water, fifteen feet below, but he was 
 kicked forward again by James ; biting, squealing, striking with 
 his fore-feet at Roland, he made a whole life of terror to the 
 bystanders, over the slippery plank ; but our two boys had him on 
 deck before many had time to utter an interjection, and stood 
 beside him laughing. 
 
 The Adjutant complimented them in very strong language, and 
 the men admired them from that moment. Roland took no 
 notice of the matter ; James only said, " We have many Irish 
 horses in Shropshire ; I shall be delighted, at any time to ride or 
 break any horse which every one else is afraid of. But I am 
 nothing to Evans." 
 
 " There is another ticklish subject there," said the Adju- 
 tant. 
 
 **I see," said James, ** a nervous , chestnut. Is that you, 
 Eddy? I say, old man, ride that chestnut aboard for them." 
 
 Eddy, unnoticed till now, turned to a trooper, and said, " Leg 
 up, please," and they put him on the fidgety chestnut, much 
 admiring the pretty little plucky dandy. 
 
 *' Horse ! horse ! " said Eddy, when he was on its back, " how 
 can we be fond of you if you do these things ? On you go, now. 
 Come, old man," he said, patting the horse's neck ; *'let us go 
 aboard." 
 
 Trembling with terror, the kindly, timid brute went forward 
 
STEETTON. 187 
 
 step by step. On the plank he paused, and there was the silence 
 of sheer terror among the bystanders ; but Eddy, by patting 
 and gentle talk, got him over ; and there was a cheer from the 
 men. 
 
 " A fine little fellow," said the men. They saw him again in 
 other circumstances. 
 
 It was noticeable that Roland and James, though asking the 
 commonest questions about their duty, were recognised as first-rate 
 officers by every rank. They were reckless and cool — they were 
 proud and familiar. No man would have hesitated to ask a favour 
 of either of them ; and, at the same time, no one would have 
 dared to take a liberty. The men thought that in the long, dull, 
 garrison work in India, these two bold lads would stand their 
 friends ; and the officers thought they would be good companions. 
 They were appealed to already, in spite of their ignorance of 
 duty. The officers had heard that they were men who could have 
 done anything they chose at the University ; and the men had 
 heard, possibly through the gossip of the regimental servants, of 
 their physical accomplishments, which reports they had now seen 
 singularly confirmed. They had made a very good start with 
 their regiment. 
 
 Both of them were lads who put their hand to anything 
 which they found ready to it ; and they worked hard at this 
 shipment of horses for two days. At the end of that time they 
 were all aboard, and Roland, Eddy, and James were talking 
 between deck, stroking the noses of such horses as would let 
 them, and congratulating one another on the successful issue of 
 their efibrt. 
 
 In the narrow passage left between the larboard and starboard 
 horses' heads, the narrow passage amidship, there were only 
 two young men on stable-guard, who sat on deck, with their arms 
 round their knees ; they were nobody at all, and so James 
 Mordaunt thought that there could be no harm in making a row 
 with Eddy. 
 
 *' Here is a horse with a pink nose," said Eddy ; *' they are all 
 beasts, these pink-nosed horses. 'Pink nose, seedy toes.' That 
 is rhyme and reason too." 
 
 " I don't think you know much about the matter," said James 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 " Well, I never knew a horse with a pink nose that could keep 
 his shoes on," said Eddy. '* And no more did you. I know as 
 much about horses as you do." 
 
 " That is very possible," said James, " but you bring in your 
 little sciolisms in such an offensive manner that it is difficult to 
 
188 STBETTON. 
 
 avoid thrashing you ; so difficult that I cannot avoid it. In fact 
 I am going to do it now." 
 
 *' James, my dear James, remember where you are," said 
 Eoland. 
 
 "I will not be always lectured by you," said James. 
 ' ' E dward , come here . ' ' 
 
 Edward not coming, James fell suddenly on him, and they 
 fell over the stable-guard, who was intensely amused and de- 
 lighted by the whole proceeding. Roland interfered, saying, 
 '' James, do remember the men, and the fact that you hold Her 
 Majesty's commission. For heaven's sake, don't play the fool 
 like this." 
 
 Eddy, meanwhile, finding James too strong for him, had got 
 loose, ran up the companion stairs, and nearly brought down 
 some one who was descending by the run. After a few defiances 
 and challenges to James, he went on deck, without seeing for a 
 moment who it was he had so nearly knocked down. 
 
 Allan Grray, unused to shipboard, descended clumsily. He had 
 been in many queer places, but this was the very oddest. A long, 
 well-lighted passage, with rows of horses' heads on each side. 
 Confronting him were two young men, one of whom he hated, the 
 other of whom he dreaded and respected. 
 
 James Mordaunt he hated with his whole heart. Worthless, 
 empty, frivolous, cruel, were the best words Dissenter and Radical 
 had for him. With Roland it was far otherwise. He respected 
 and dreaded Roland. He had wit enough to see that Roland had 
 not only ten times his brains, but had had ten times his educa- 
 tion, and had made use of it. And Roland was behaving so' 
 strangely and so recklessly, that he was persuaded that Roland 
 had some reserved power. The North American Indians give 
 free pass to a lunatic, on the grounds that he knows his business 
 better than they do. Such respect was paid to this reckless 
 young Roland by young Allan Gray. 
 
 It was inconceivable to him. Roland, as any one knew, might 
 have taken the highest honours at the University, might sit in 
 Parliament, might be the best man his family had ever produced. 
 
 Lord S had talked to Allan Gray about Roland at Field 
 
 Lane, praising him to the skies, and lamenting his High Church 
 proclivities. Yet what did the puzzled Allan Gray see, coming as 
 he thought to save this young man ? 
 
 Roland, the possible prime minister, in blue trousers, with a 
 scarlet stripe down them ; with a blue fatigue-jacket buttoned 
 with one button at the throat, but open below, showing his white 
 shirt. Bareheaded, for the between deck was hot ; with his 
 
STEETTON. 189' 
 
 hands in his pockets, swaying himself to and fro, as the ship 
 rolled. For the message had come from the sea, and the ship 
 was afloat. This was what Allan Gray saw. 
 
 And, in addition, the proud, clean-cut, cruel, inexorable head 
 of James Mordaunt, similarly attired, looking over Roland's 
 shoulder. The good Allan Gray had meant to say all sorts of 
 kindly things, hut this was forced out of him. 
 
 "Is this what your talents and education have brought you 
 to, Mr. Roland?" 
 
 ** Yes," said Roland. "I am going to be a good centurian ; a 
 thundering good one, too. Eh, Jim ? " 
 
 *' I am sorry you should throw your talents away in such a 
 profession," said Allan Gray. 
 
 " My dear soul, some one must do it, or what would become of 
 those who stay at home and groan ? We render your existence 
 
 "It is hard to see such talents as yours thrown away in 
 slaughtering your fellow-creatures," said Allan Gray. 
 
 " That would apply to Cromwell as well as to me," said 
 Roland. 
 
 " Cromwell fought for the Lord," said Allan Gray. 
 
 "I fight for civilisation and the spread of the Christian 
 religion, old man," said Roland. " Come, you have something 
 more than this to say to me. Let us go on deck ; we must 
 always be friends, mind, come what will." 
 
 "I am here as a friend," said Allan Gray, as soon as they 
 were on deck. " I am come to remonstrate with you about going 
 abroad just now, when this suit is pending between us. My case 
 is terribly strong, and I could gladly have a compromise. You, 
 with your territorial traditions, might do great good at Stretton. 
 I know nothing of the management of an estate. I beg you to 
 pause, if you can. It need never come to law if you will behave 
 reasonably. I want money from the estate for my claim, but not 
 for myself, only for religious purposes. I swear to you for nothing 
 else. You shall stay at Stretton, and I will never move. I would 
 never have moved if it were not for my poor. Roland, I beg you 
 pause and think." 
 
 "I have paused and thought," said Roland, very quietly. 
 " There is no personal quarrel between you and me. Let the 
 matter go which way it will. I only go to claim a share in what 
 is inconceivably the greatest inheritance of modern times, the 
 government of 180,000,000 in India. What are our few sheep, 
 under Longmynd, compared to them ? Go to, man, I have longer 
 views than you. You, if you live, may gain a small property in 
 
190 STEETTON. 
 
 Shropshire ; I shall be satrap of the greatest empire which 
 the world has ever seen. Would you not change with me, 
 Allan?" 
 
 The wind was screaming and booming through the rigging, and 
 the lights were dim and blurred on shore. The tide was hissing 
 down to the sea, while the great ship was heaving slightly as 
 though impatient to be gone. Close by, sentries in ramparts and 
 fortifications were walking to and fro, sometimes challenging — ■ 
 throbs of the heart of the greatest empire in the world. Gray 
 listened and said — 
 
 " Roland, you are undertaking responsibilities which I should 
 not have dared to undertake. God prosper you ; to move you 
 from your purpose would be ridiculous, I know. I will say no 
 more. I shall establish my claim, but I think you and yours will 
 be none the worse for my doing so. Yet, is there no one who 
 could plead better than 7 .? " 
 
 **Nota soul," said Roland. ** Go away. Don't say a word 
 more; he is listening. Go away, and God go with you." And 
 Gray went. 
 
 " What did that mad fellow with thee ? " said Jim, coming up 
 with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Well, he did not do anything," said Roland ; '' but he 
 showed me something." 
 
 ** For instance ? " said Jimmy. 
 
 " Well, he showed me a fanatic," said Roland. 
 
 ** Only that. Vm that. What is he fanatic about ? " 
 
 " Good," said Roland. " We must try to be as good as that 
 man, and know the world and our duty as soldiers ; and when 
 we are killed in some petty squabble in India, Jim, our brother 
 officers will say * they were thundering prigs, but not bad fellows, 
 take them all in all.' So you see your dinner of glory, my child." 
 
 ** Well, we will eat it together, Roland," said Jim. 
 
 On the bright spring morning Roland stood on the deck with a 
 telegram in his hand, which he had read, and which he laughed 
 at — 
 
 '* Miss Evans, Shrewsbury, to Cornet Evans, transport 
 * Vigilant,' Chatham. — It will all go against us. Come back 
 at any risk, and compromise. Ethel thinks as I do. She wants 
 you to come back very much indeed." 
 
 "I will come back to you, darling," said Roland to himself. 
 " I'll come back to you. We will come back to our Ethel some 
 day, Jim? " 
 
 '' Possibly," said Jim. '' There are Eddy and Allan Gray. 
 Good-by, you two." 
 
STRETTON. 191 
 
 And, indeed, it was good-by for some of tliem. The screw 
 began throbbing, and the ship moved resolutely down the river. 
 Allan Gray and Eddy saw Roland and James standing on the 
 bridge as they rounded the point, and then they lost sight of 
 them ; but not for ever— not for ever ; they met again. 
 
 Poor little Eddy, gallant little heart, broke down and cried on 
 his old friend's shoulder. Gray cheered him up, as well as he 
 could ; but Gray's precious oils (good fellow as he was) were apt 
 to break heads, and did not mend Eddy's heart. 
 
 " There she goes ! " said Gray, at last. 
 
 There she went ! A cobweb of rigging aloft, and two great 
 white funnels, pouring out volcanoes of black smoke ; seen above 
 the sand-hills and the straight lines of the fortifications. So she 
 went, throbbing her way down the great river, with Roland and 
 Jim on board, towards the heaving Channel ; towards the restless 
 ocean ; towards the vultures' feast in the far Easterly lands. 
 
 And Allan Gray took off Eddy to Field Lane, just to cheer him 
 up with a little dissipation. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " So that is all over and done," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " What is over and done. Miss Evans ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 '' Roland." 
 
 " Is he over and done ? " 
 
 *' Yes, there is an end and finish of the boy, body and bones. 
 He is gone to his death : and there were elements about him, too. 
 I am sorry that he should die so young, unpitied and alone ; but 
 it was mainly his fault, and hers.'' 
 
 " Who is she ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 " Never you mind. I suppose they bury them decently in 
 Bengal ; no suttee, or anything of that kind." 
 
 " My dear Miss Evans, you are speaking at random." 
 
 " My poor brother, Roland's father, saw the thing done, at all 
 events. The woman gets on the top of the faggots drunk, and 
 they smother her with straw and burn her up ; which, on the 
 whole, seems to me the best arrangement for all parties. A 
 woman who would make such a fool of herself entirely deserves 
 it." 
 
 *' But that only refers to widows," said Ethel. 
 
 " I am talking of Roland's widow," said Miss Evans. ** Of 
 
192 STEETTON. 
 
 course he will marry a black woman now ; and she will naturally 
 want to burn herself. I should myself. A nice mess you have 
 all made of it among you." 
 
 Ethel sat perfectly quiet. '' Don't talk to me ! " said Aunt 
 Eleanor, and Ethel did as she was bid. 
 
 For Aunt Eleanor was busy in the great room at Pulverbatch 
 with her farming accounts. And Ethel was sitting and sewing 
 very patiently and very quietly. "Bother the things!" said 
 Miss Evans. 
 
 ''"Which?" said Ethel. 
 
 "Well, if you choose to be epigrammatic al, Ethel, I will tell 
 you. Everything. There!" 
 
 " What in particular ? " 
 
 "Allan Gray." 
 
 " Certainly ; and again ? " 
 
 "Eddy." 
 
 " What folly has he been doing now ? He might obey you, I 
 should fancy." 
 
 "He wants to go to India. His regiment is ordered there 
 almost at the moment he joined, and he won't exchange. Now, 
 I made a solemn compact with him when I paid for his com- 
 mission that he was to stay with me. And he is going to break 
 his word." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear that," said Ethel. 
 
 " Why, then. Miss Mordaunt? " asked Miss Evans. 
 
 " Because you had no right to extract such a promise from 
 such a child ; and he is perfectly right in refusing to be bound by 
 it." 
 
 " I have done everything for him, Ethel. The love and 
 devotion I have shown that boy has been more than any mother's. 
 No boy ever had such tender indulgences poured on his head as I 
 have poured on his. And oh, that he should fly in my face ! 
 That is bitter ! " 
 
 " Shall you do well with your pigs this year, Miss Evans ? " 
 said Ethel, quietly. 
 
 "Don't be bitter and hard with me, Ethel. I have no friend 
 but you." 
 
 " I have no friend but you, yet you whetted your wits on me 
 just now. You were cruel to me just now. And what is your 
 love to mine? " 
 
 " I am very sorry. I am a poor old woman, I doubt, and not 
 good-tempered. Don't be hard on me. Say you think that 
 Eddy has been wicked in going." 
 
 "I don't see that he has. For me, I begin to respect the 
 
STKETTON. 193 
 
 child. Do you mean to say that he refuses to exchange without 
 any prompting? " 
 
 ''Not without prompting," said Miss Evans. "Allan Gray 
 has set him against me. Allan Gray, whom I brought up, has 
 turned against me, and has persuaded Eddy to rebel." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by rebelling," said Ethel. 
 '* You put Eddy into the army at your expense, but you never 
 bartered the boy's honour. If Gray has persuaded him to keep 
 what my bonny Jim calls his sacramentimi militaire, I can only 
 say that it is the best thing I have ever heard of him." 
 
 " You look on with complacency, then, at Eddy's being killed." 
 
 " I shall be very sorry for the child," said Ethel. " But you 
 must remember that I have a brother there, and also many people 
 go to India who are not killed." 
 
 " I wanted him to stay at home," said Aunt Eleanor, showing 
 her imbecility on the only point on which she was capable of 
 showing it — Eddy. 
 
 " Well, and Allan Gray did not choose him to stay at home, 
 rightly it seems to me. When he has gone to India Allan Gray 
 is to be our lord and master, and we have only to submit." 
 
 " Ah ! you may laugh, who love no one ; but for me, I am an 
 old woman, and love Eddy." 
 
 "Heaven save you, Miss Evans, from ever being as heart- 
 sick as I am, and forgive you the words just spoken. Here is 
 Eddy. You say I love no one, do you ? That was a cruel and 
 bitter thing to say. Miss Evans. You lose your better nature 
 when you say such things as that. I will not bear it from you, 
 Miss Evans. I will go to John and my father. Theij can love 
 me, at all events." 
 
 And so both these very good souls began to cry, both resolute 
 in their causeless quarrel, just as Eddy came into the room, and 
 said, " Hallo ! you two, I am off out of this by next week." 
 
 Ethel scornfully withdrew herself into a window. She did not 
 hate Eddy, but, putting him always beside his brother, she 
 despised him. Aunt Eleanor wept. 
 
 " Have you been quarrelling, you two ? " asked Eddy. " There 
 is no good in that. / used to quarrel with Jim until that bathing 
 business. For me, I am going to quarrel with no one in future 
 except Her Majesty's enemies." 
 
 He said it in mere fun ; but looking at them again, he saw 
 that they had really been quarrelling. He looked right and left 
 for a moment, and thought; then he went up to Ethel, stood 
 beside her, and took her hand. 
 
 ** Ethel I my glorious Ethel ! Will you think for one moment 
 
 14 
 
194 STRETTON. 
 
 how dear you are to me, through James, and, if I dare say it, 
 through Roland ! I am going away after Roland and James, 
 into that dim East from which many never return. Come, Ethel, 
 sister of my heart, let me tell them that you and old aunt were 
 good friends. Come ! make it up. Aunty ! aunty ! aunty ! 
 whom will you have when I am gone ? ' ' 
 
 Ethel sat quite still. She meant no permanent quarrel, and 
 was quite prepared to let Miss Evans walk over her body. Yet 
 she waited and listened ; for Miss Evans had been uncommonly 
 reticent lately, and Ethel was determined to know as much as she 
 could. She took Eddy's hand, however, and kissed it, saying, 
 *' Blessed are the peacemakers." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor resorted to tears, and bemoaned the general 
 ingratitude of the age. She did this categorically, stating her 
 case against the world. The next time Mr. Gladstone, or it may 
 be Mr. Disraeli, goes out, they will do exactly the same thing. 
 At this moment, it is possible that we may hear the same sort of 
 thing from Mr. Johnson before this is published. What Mr. 
 Johnson may say I cannot tell. Aunt Eleanor's case was simply 
 this : — 
 
 Her brother had been a good brother to her, but had been 
 indiscreet, and she had kept his indiscretions perfectly quiet. 
 And now every one was turning against her. She had faced her 
 own father and mother, in the Waterloo time, when accusations 
 were brought against him, and when she was the only soul who 
 knew that he had married that ridiculous child. She had fought 
 her brother's battle, and then her brother had been hard on her 
 about her way of going to market for herself. She had fought 
 George Mordaunt's battle, and his daughter Ethel had turned on 
 her. She had fought the Dean of St. Paul's battle (how she did 
 not say), and he never came near her. She had been a good 
 friend to every one who had known her. She had been a good 
 landlady, good sister, good aunt, good everything ; but every one 
 had thrown her overboard. Allan Gray, for instance. Take him. 
 She had no idea of his perfectly ridiculous pretensions ; but had 
 been more than a mother to him. He had got hold of this Phillis 
 Myrtle story, and was turning against her. To Eddy, that black- 
 hearted boy, she would say nothing at all. He was past that. 
 She had believed at one time that Ethel would be her friend, but 
 now Ethel had turned. She wished she was dead. She was pro- 
 ceeding to say that she had a reputation for common sense, but 
 there was no one near enough to her to appreciate it, and was 
 becoming blinded with tears, when she found that Ethel and 
 Eddy were kneeling before her, with their hands in one another's. 
 
STBETTOK. 195 
 
 "What are you doing, you very ungrateful creatures?" she 
 said. 
 
 "Please, aunt," said Eddy, *'we are kneeling to ask you not 
 to be silly." 
 
 ** Well, I won't if you don't drive me to it, my pretty ones. 
 But you will if you don't take care. Have I been very silly ? " 
 
 ''Extremely so," said Eddy. "Come, aunty, what is the 
 matter ? What has put you beside yourself like this ? Why 
 do you quarrel with us two ? " 
 
 " Law, it is all Allan Gray," she said. " Get up, do." 
 
 " Have you forgiven us ? " said Eddy. 
 
 " No," said Aunt Eleanor. "You are a couple of fools ; and 
 I hate fools." 
 
 " Why am I a fool. Miss Evans ? " said Ethel. 
 
 " Because you might have managed better. I have no 
 patience. Why, bless you, time was when, if I had given 
 encouragement ' ' 
 
 " To the Dean of St. Paul's ? " said Ethel. 
 
 "Don't be ridiculous, I beg of you," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " Why am I a fool, aunty ? " said Eddy. 
 
 " Because you won't exchange. Because you will go to India." 
 
 " Then I will not go, if you command me, aunt," said Eddy, 
 sighing, and looking at her. " I owe all I have in the world to 
 you ; and if you command me, I will stay at home. For you, 
 aunt, I will desert all — Roland, Jim, honour, career ; you have 
 only to say, stay, and I will exchange. Aunt, say that word 
 ' exchange,' and I will do it. Roland and Jim shall not stand 
 in the way if you say it. Come ! " 
 
 Aunt Eleanor rose and leant against the wall, hiding her face. 
 Her sublime agony was so terrible to the young people that they 
 were hushed and dumb. She turned after a time, and she said— 
 
 " Eddy, my own, my best-beloved, go. Ethel, stay with the 
 poor old woman. I shall have no one but you." 
 
 "You have told me to go, aunt," said Eddy, very cool, but a 
 little pale. 
 
 " I will tell you again if you will. My brother was at 
 Waterloo." 
 
 " Then I will go," said Eddy. " But I will stay now if you 
 will unsay your words." 
 
 She held her peace. 
 
196 STKETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 *' What is Allan Gray like, Miss Evans ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 ''Well," said Aunt Eleanor, ''you will see him directly for 
 yourself, for he is coming here in a quarter of an hour." 
 
 " Then I will fly," said Ethel. 
 
 "Indeed and you just exactly won't," said Miss Evans. "I 
 will not be left alone with him, I assure you. I might be tempted 
 to say something unbecoming my position to him. And he is a 
 very good fellow, when all is said and done — a deal better than 
 some of us." 
 
 "But I also might say something to hurt his feelings," said 
 Ethel. " I am exasperated with him also. Is he handsome ? " 
 
 "He is amazingly handsome," she replied ; "as handsome as 
 Roley Foley, in his way. You shall see for yourself, for here he 
 is coming across the moat. Tell James to show him straight in, 
 and stand behind my chair." And so the good lady faced towards 
 the door ; and Allan Gray entering, for the first time saw Ethel 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor saw a sudden startled flush in AUan Gray's face 
 as he caught sight of Ethel's splendid beauty, and she said to 
 herself, " Here is all mischief to pay. Bother the fellow I what 
 did he want coming here for ? He is going to fall in love with 
 her. And so you shall, my fine master ! " she went on in thought, 
 in a moment more. " I'll plague you for this business. I have 
 got you, my young master. I'll have the plaguing of you. Ah ! 
 look at and blush ; you may well. I will be cat, shall I ? 
 Hoi" 
 
 And, to the unutterable astonishment of Ethel and Allan Gray, 
 she said suddenly to the latter — 
 
 " How d'ye do. Mouse ? " 
 
 Ethel bent down. " Why do you call him that ? " 
 
 " What ? " she asked. 
 
 " Why, mouse." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Miss Evans, slightly disturbed. 
 " I meant to say, ' How d'ye do, Mr. Gray ? ' I am very sorry 
 to see you. I always was, you know. You and I don't owe one 
 another anything, and don't like one another. You have heard of 
 Miss Ethel Mordaunt ? " 
 
 Allan Gray said that he had had that honour. 
 
 " Well, now you have the honour of seeing her. That is she 
 behind my chair, looking at you, and thinking — what are you 
 thinking of, Ethel?" 
 
STEETTON. 197 
 
 " I am thinking that unless you offer Mr. Gray a chair, I shall 
 go and get him one." 
 
 '' Excellent ; witty, in faith. My dear Gray, sit down. I am 
 not at all glad to see you, as I told you before — and yet I don't 
 know, Allan, when all is said and done. I am getting old, and 
 the faces I love best are going into the East, to be seen no more. 
 It may come that I may be so utterly alone in my old age that 
 your face may become dear to me. You are going to try to 
 dispossess my Roland, but you believe in your case. Let it be ; 
 we will fight that, you and I. But you love my Eddy, and that 
 is a bond between us. Do you know that your Eddy is going to 
 India?" 
 
 '* I am glad to hear it, Miss Evans ; but I am surprised that 
 you should let him go." 
 
 '* Honour orders him there. My boy shall never exchange to 
 avoid service, though it may tear my heart out. Come, Allan, you 
 never would ; I know you well enough for that." 
 
 ** I — no," said Gray ; '' but Eddy is so different in your eyes. 
 He has seen no sorrow and no sin. You will not spare him then ? 
 Mine has been a most unhappy life ; and God knows I have 
 risked it often enough." 
 
 *' And indeed you have" said Aunt Eleanor, roundly. '' Ethel, 
 my dear, our boys will have the chance of charging half a dozen 
 times into desperately ranked masses of our enemies, and perish- 
 ing gloriously or winning fame which lives in men's mouths. Mr. 
 Gray faces death, not once in a way in the fury of battle, but every 
 day, in fever-plagued courts and alleys. Ask Letheby what he 
 has got to say about Mr. Gray's work in the cholera, and then 
 you will understand that when the Victoria Cross is allowed to 
 civilians for valour, Allan Gray will have five or six of them." 
 
 *' So I should be disposed to think, from his personal appear- 
 ance," said Ethel, as coolly as if she was admiring a handsome 
 sideboard. 
 
 Even Aunt Eleanor started for an instant, and looked round at 
 her. Ethel was leaning over the back of the chair, and looking 
 fixedly and with every symptom of admiration on Allan Gray. 
 Aunt Eleanor had not at that moment time to reflect that when 
 such a pure and noble- woman as Ethel has utterly given her 
 heart to one man, as Ethel had to Roland, she would allow herself 
 freedom of speech in all innocence towards other men, a freedom 
 of speech she never would have dreamt of had she been fancy-free. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor was quite puzzled for the time, but she went on, 
 speaking very quickly — 
 
 " Are jOM come to see me about any law ? " 
 
198 STKETTON 
 
 *' No, madam," said Allan Gray. *' I only came to pay my 
 respects to the lady to whom I owe everything in the world — to 
 yourself. You say we do not like one another, Miss Evans. I 
 have often heard you say that before. But allow me to say that 
 the dislike is entirely on your side." 
 
 '' Well, I believe it is," said Miss Evans. " It exists, however, 
 and perhaps I have sufficient dislike to keep us both going. For 
 I don't like you, you know, and I never did. I'll tell you what is 
 the best thing you can do, if you don't mind. Spend the day 
 with me, and stop to dinner." 
 
 " I would if I thought I could remove some prejudices from 
 your mind," said Gray. 
 
 *' Lord bless the man ! you'll never do that with me. I am all 
 prejudice from beginning to end. Most women are. My dear 
 young man, everybody's creed is a mere mass of prejudice — Whig, 
 Tory, Democrat. The only party in this country which will never 
 see power are the doctrinaire Radicals, the only unprejudiced 
 party. And if they do get in, a nice mess they will make of it." 
 
 *'You do not believe in academic Girondisms," said Gray, 
 smiling. 
 
 *' Not a bit. I tried it forty years ago, when I was beginning 
 to get old, and it won't do at all. Be a Radical or a Tory at 
 once. But come, Allan, as an old enemy, stay with us to-day 
 and dine ; and I will see if I can get evidence from you and 
 upset your ridiculous lawsuit. Come." 
 
 "As an old and ohliged friend, I will," said Allan Gray, " with 
 the greatest pleasure. Remember, I have never sat down to table 
 with a lady in my life. What time do you dine. Miss Evans ? " 
 
 " Miss Evans dines at one," said Ethel, very quietly. '' S-fie 
 calls it lunch. Shall I stay and dine with you. Miss Evans, 
 because I am going with Johnny riding at three ? " 
 
 " If you please, dear," said Aunt Eleanor, feeling rather guilty, 
 and a little frightened. " Yes, do stay. Let us go for a walk on 
 the farm. It is a great faim, Allan Gray. It is one of the 
 greatest farms in the county. It is all to be Eddy's, and a nice 
 mess he will make of it. Few people, I should be inclined to say, 
 have greater capabilities of making a great mess of a^ farm than 
 Eddy. What is your opinion ? " 
 
 " I should be inclined to agree with you," said Gray. **But 
 he will scarcely venture to farm it himself. So he might get a 
 good tenant, you see." 
 
 *' Might ! Yes, he might. But he would choose the first 
 smooth-spoken goose who offered for it. However, he will get 
 his throat cut in India, and so it does not much matter," 
 
STKETTON. 199 
 
 So they walked and talked till dinner-time, and then they dined 
 together. Miss Evans's talk was sharp, sarcastic, nearly boisterous, 
 all the time. She was in terror of what she was doing. And 
 immediately after dinner Allan Gray went off, and Aunt Eleanor 
 knew that she had gained her ohject. Allan Gray was entangled 
 with Ethel. 
 
 Ethel went across the valley home ; and she went home with a 
 vengeance. She caused visitors to come to Miss Evans that very 
 evening — no less than three of them. Aunt Eleanor seldom had 
 worse times than that evening. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 She sat by herself before the window, and as soon as she knew it 
 was quite too late, she began reflecting what an awful thing she 
 had done in a moment of spiteful triumph. It looked pleasant at 
 first. But it looked more terrible as the afternoon went on, and 
 she sat and pondered over it. 
 
 The first thing she said was, '' Now, young man, I have got a 
 rod for your back. You know nothing, I fancy, of her feeling for 
 Roland. The time will come, however, when you will. I do not 
 like you at all, when all is said and done ; and I have let you sit 
 at table with a lady. You quiet men, when you do get hit with a 
 woman, will go further after her than any others. And you are 
 hit. ' It may not have been wise, but I am not always wise. If 
 you come here, thrusting your claims in on county families, you 
 must take the penalties. You can't blame me. If you win this 
 suit, as they say you will, you would be forced to know ladies. I 
 have only introduced you to one ; and you seem to have taken 
 your choice." 
 
 Such was the iUogical nonsense with which this excellent woman 
 strove to excuse herself from the only siUy and spiteful action I 
 shall have to record of her at all. She was too sensible to believe 
 in her own logic for long. She began to look at her action from 
 another point of view. 
 
 " If he does turn out to be heir after all, and Roland only half- 
 brother, I have done a very silly thing, I doubt. I wish I had 
 not done it now. But he must have seen her some time or 
 another in that case, and so it would have been just the same ; 
 unless he had thought of ranging himself with some one else. In 
 
200 STEETTON. 
 
 which case it might have been different. Why, here is George 
 Mordaunt." 
 
 It was that ponderous squire indeed, who gave his horse to a 
 man, opened the door of the Grange, came straight into her room, 
 and, leaning against the chimney-piece, confronting her, said, 
 '' Eleanor ! Eleanor ! " 
 
 *' What is the matter, now ? " she asked, sharply. 
 
 '* You might have thought of our two poor hoys upon the wide 
 sea, of Roland and James — good lads as ever walked, good lads — 
 before you recognised that scoundrel publicly, and introduced him 
 to, and let him sit at meat with, my daughter." 
 
 ''What scoundrel?" 
 
 ''Allan Gray." 
 
 " He is no scoundrel. I brought him up. He is a very good 
 fellow." 
 
 " Well, then, that watchmaker's apprentice. I don't wish 
 Ethel to sit at table with watchmakers' apprentices, Eleanor." 
 
 *' Jeweller," said Aunt Eleanor, rubbing her nose and looking 
 straight at him. 
 
 " Or jewellers' either, then," said Squire Mordaunt. " Eleanor 
 my dear old friend, why did you do such a thing ? " 
 
 " Spite, mainly," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " Against whom? " 
 
 " Against him. I wanted him to fall in love with Ethel, and 
 he has done it. Now, then, what do you think of that ? " 
 
 Squire Mordaunt stamped his foot. " Eleanor, are you mad ? " 
 
 " I was when I did that. I fancy I am a little less mad now." 
 
 "It is time you were. It is not the least use talking to you. 
 You are in one of those strange downright moods, which I never 
 saw any woman in before or since ; when you will make a fool of 
 yourself, and confess it in the most exasperating way. How dare 
 you do such a thing ? How dare you even show my daughter to 
 an impostor like him ? Ethel comes here no more." 
 
 " You won't tell her ? " said Aunt Eleanor, thoughtfully, with 
 head on her hand. 
 
 " How could I dare ? " said Squire Mordaunt. " Do you think 
 I am mad ? But she comes here no more. Do you know that 
 the fellow may succeed in his suit, and that he is very handsome ? 
 Do you know that Ethel might lose her heart to him ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose, George," said Aunt Eleanor, quietly, "that 
 if I had not known Ethel's character perfectly, and had not been 
 aware that her heart was irretrievably gone already, I would 
 have done such a thing ? I tell you that I did it to plague the 
 man." 
 
STKETTON. 201 
 
 " I wish you would plague him with some one else than my 
 daughter. What is this that I hear ahout Ethel's heart heing 
 gone ? To whom has she given it then ? " 
 
 " To Roland." 
 
 " Good Heavens I He seems to have taken the matter rather 
 lightly. I thought that he was almost engaged to Miss May- 
 nard." 
 
 '* Sit down, George." 
 
 George sat down. 
 
 ** No one knew where Ethel had given her heart but myself and 
 James." 
 
 '' My James ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and James had given his heart elsewhere." 
 
 '* My poor Jim 1 Do you know where ? " 
 
 " To Mildred Evans— Mildred Maynard." 
 
 " Well, I pretty nearly knew that. That is nothing." 
 
 *' I don't know ahout that,'" said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " These details are nothing to me. I want to know why you 
 had young Gray here. If it is as you say, you have made him a 
 rival of Roland. Does Roland care for Ethel ? " 
 
 '' Ay, he loves her now." 
 
 " Confounded young prig ! I hope he will eat his heart out. 
 Like his impudence, not to say so before going to India." 
 
 " I am not sure that he did not. But see, George ; you knew 
 Mrs. Maynard, of the Barton, well enough to know that she lives 
 in mischief." 
 
 '^WeU?" 
 
 ** She has made mischief between Bob Maynard and his wife 
 about your boy. Poor furious Jim wrote her a letter from sea ; 
 and she cried over it — not once, nor twice, but three or four times. 
 
 And the old Lady contrived that she should be crying 
 
 over it about the fifth time, when her husband came and 
 demanded it from her ; and she had to give it up." 
 
 *' What was her object ? " 
 
 " To make that stupid ox, Maynard, jealous, and keep herself 
 and Mary in the house ; moreover, to make Maynard savage with 
 Sir Jasper Meredith, and keep him to book." 
 
 " What has that child been doing ? " 
 
 *' Well, he has proposed to Mary, and been accepted, and now 
 he wants to cry off." 
 
 '' Proposed to Mary ? " 
 
 ** Yes, he did it to save Roland, and the old woman is keeping 
 him to book ; and we shall have much fun out of it. Are you 
 satisfied with my explanation ? " 
 
202 STKETTON. 
 
 *' Not a bit," said Squire Mordaunt. " You have only confused 
 counsel, nigra loligine. Only until you chasse Gray, Ethel sees 
 you no more." 
 
 '' Well, well ! I agree. Come, are you angry still ? " 
 
 ** I think, Eleanor, that you have done a thing I should have 
 conceived you utterly incapable of. You have admitted into your 
 house the pretender to your nephew's fortune, and have intro- 
 duced him to my daughter, as you yourself confess, with a view to 
 his being attracted by her. If there was a woman in England, I 
 could have trusted you. But this is outrageous ! " 
 
 *' I know, I know. I am nearly out of my mind over my Eddy. 
 George, don't give me up. George, be my friend. I will do what 
 
 you tell me • Heavens ! here is my sister-in-law, full speed ! 
 
 George, stay by me." 
 
 There was, indeed, Mrs. Evans. Nimbly the widow dashed up 
 to the Grange in her pony- carriage, and in half a minute after 
 came swiftly into the room, and without any preparation of any 
 sort or kind whatever, denounced her : 
 
 ** It was not enough, Eleanor Evans, that you kept my hus- 
 band's guilty secret for so many years — you pretending to a saint- 
 like godliness of life. It was not enough that you persistently and 
 systematically set Ethel Mordaunt against my Eoland, until he 
 was driven to his death in India. It was not enough that your 
 changing your intention of not marrying again renewed old over- 
 tures to the Dean of St. Paul's, relinquished by him years ago, and 
 repenting of your intentions towards my Eddy, sent him abroad 
 after his unhappy brother : this was not enough — ^no " 
 
 ** I should have thought that was enough for anybody," said 
 Aunt Eleanor. '' What is the next thing ? " 
 
 *' You must receive the illegitimate rival of my son in your 
 house, pet him, and give him lunch. I wish to see no more of 
 you, Eleanor. You are a bad, false woman ; and if Charles rises 
 from his grave, I hope he will knock at your door ! " With which 
 singular conclusion Mrs. Evans departed swiftly : Eleanor saying 
 not one word. 
 
 *' Little pots are soon hot," said George Mordaunt. 
 
 " Not one solitary word," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' You seem to be in the way of catching it," said Squire Mor- 
 daunt. 
 
 " I shall catch it worse than this before all is over. Sit still. 
 Don't desert me." 
 
STKETTON. 203 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 "Here comes John," said Miss Evans. '*I suppose he will 
 begin on me next." 
 
 "I will stop him; you have had quite enough of it. But I 
 say, Eleanor, you'll let me have that right of way, won't you ? 
 Come ? " 
 
 " No, I won't," said Miss Evans. " I'll nail my colours to the 
 mast about it. I'll tell you what I'll do with you — I will let you 
 have it the very day that Eddy comes home from India." 
 
 *' That's a bargain, you obstinate woman. Mind that." 
 
 " Come in," said Miss Evans, and accordingly in came John 
 Mordaunt, grown even since we first knew him in size, good- 
 nature, good-humour, and quiet shrewdness. 
 
 '' Have you been catching it, Miss Evans ? " he said, laughing. 
 
 ** Bather," she said. " Mrs. Evans has been here and cast 
 me off for ever, and your father has damaged my feelings to that 
 extent that I feel ten years older than I did ten hours ago. But 
 we have made it up, your father and I." 
 
 *' Has he got the right of way ? " asked John Mordaunt. 
 
 *' No, and he just exactly has not," said Miss Evans. " He 
 has asked for it." 
 
 "Hey, sir — hey, sir," said John Mordaunt. "Have you 
 been taking advantage of a British lady in distress, sir? Oh, 
 father, this was most mean." 
 
 " I have as good as got it, though," said Squire Mordaunt, 
 triumphantly. " I am to have it the day Eddy comes home." 
 
 " Well, don't talk of it any more. Stay here and be comfort- 
 able. I wish you would talk to me about the claim." 
 
 " I should like to talk it through with you, very much indeed. 
 Let us do so. I have found out the crux of the whole business," 
 said Mordaunt. * ' I want you to tell me every word that you know. ' ' 
 
 "I will gladly do so," said Miss Evans. 
 
 " John, my boy, just step down and do exactly as I told you," 
 said Squire Mordaunt ; " be very civil and kind to her, and bring 
 her up here. Give her a glass of wine, or gin, or brimstone, or 
 something in Miss Evans's servants' hall to keep her tongue going 
 till we are ready for her. Don't let her get too drunk, or she may 
 get pot-valiant." 
 
 " Well, this is a singular order in a lone woman's house," said 
 Miss Evans. 
 
 " // is. You shall see why, my dear Eleanor. Now tell us the 
 whole business, from beginning to end." 
 
204 STEETTON. 
 
 *'You know you thought I deceived you when you got that 
 anonymous letter, and I told you that it was the old Cecil Evans' 
 claim." 
 
 ** Yes, yes, I beg your pardon. I want to see how much you 
 know about this Allan Gray." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor got up and walked slowly up and down, very 
 slowly, with her hands folded behind her back, and began speaking 
 slowly and methodically. 
 
 '' It was the eve of Waterloo," said Aunt Eleanor, " that my 
 new maid came to me : a girl we had brought up almost in the 
 family ; my own foster-sister indeed. I was like many other 
 British women, mad at that time, and I set all the doors open and 
 strode up and down the room ejaculating, for I did not mind 
 making a fool of myself before her. I was rampaging ; you know 
 my way ; when I turned round and saw that my sister-in-law was 
 crying hysterically." 
 
 ** Your what, did you say ? " 
 
 *'My sister-in-law, my brother Charles's wife, then acting for 
 me as my lady's-maid." 
 
 " Then it is true," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 *' All that is true," said Miss Evans. 
 
 '< The devil ! " said Mordaunt. 
 
 '* Don't interrupt. Late that night I found I could do nothing 
 with her. My mother went to her, found out the truth, and I 
 never saw her again. I had no conception of what was the matter, 
 but I knew afterwards that she and he were in love, in the honour- 
 able way customary in our family and in yours. 
 
 " My mother sent the girl to Carlisle, for she had relations 
 there, and it was far enough off. My mother believed Charles 
 was guilty. He was not ; he behaved nobly. He knew that no 
 consent could possibly be gained from his parents to such an 
 alliance. He knew that he had gained the girl's love ; and so 
 when he came home from Waterloo he went straight" to Carlisle 
 and married her ; after which he wrote to me and told me all the 
 truth, binding me to secrecy. 
 
 " The secret was not mine, but his, and I kept it. I told him 
 that he had acted like a man and a gentleman, but also like a fool 
 and a coward. You can't think how often I told him that last 
 piece of my mind." 
 
 *' Very often indeed, I doubt not," said Mordaunt. 
 
 "Don't be absurd, I beg. My father found out from a very 
 foolish servant of Charles's, who was the girl's brother, that 
 Charles was at Carlisle with her. He was furious. You know 
 the horror our houses have of such niattors, Charles was recalled 
 
STBETTON. 205 
 
 by his colonel, and ordered to Chatham, still keeping his secret. 
 In six months the poor girl was confined, and Charles was a 
 widower. He was ordered to India, thinking it still well to say 
 nothing, in spite of my remonstrances. He knew the horror my 
 father had of Scotch marriages, and he left the child to take its 
 chance, with only myself with a knowledge of the truth, and one 
 more." 
 
 " Phyllis Myrtle ? " said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 ''I see you know more than I thought," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' I am very much afraid that I know everything, Eleanor. But 
 I must know more from you. Did the girl's mother, this old hag 
 Gray, know about this marriage ? " 
 
 '* Certainly not. How is it possible ? Would she not have 
 made her claims if she had ? But to proceed, my dear George ; 
 this child of Charles's died, legitimate or illegitimate, it does not 
 matter much now. I saw it dead with my own eyes." 
 
 ^'Exactlv. Now we come to the soldier Gray. Tell us about 
 him." 
 
 '' Well, he got married to a girl in Donnington just about 
 the time that his master married his sister at Carlisle, and his 
 wife was sent home to his mother for her confinement. The child 
 which was born there was Allan Gray, whom I brought up, by my 
 mother's request, as being legitimately I knew, illegitimately as 
 she thought, my own nephew." 
 
 Squire Mordaunt uttered a terrible oath. Remember that 
 swearing had hardly gone out even twelve years ago among old- 
 fashioned people. He said his oath, apologised, and then went 
 on, very quietly, and very much ashamed of himself. 
 
 *' My dear Eleanor, I beg your pardon. I am very sorry 
 indeed. But answer me a few questions. You say that you saw 
 poor Charles's baby lying dead ? " 
 
 ''Idid.l' 
 
 ** Can you remember it? I want to know particularly." 
 
 '.'Yes. I am not likely to forget; for, George," she said, 
 laying her hand on his arm, and bursting suddenly out crying, 
 *' it was the first time I ever looked on death. Oh, Eddy, Eddy, 
 Eddy ! I shall never see you lying dead, my darling. Why did 
 I let him go ? Why did I* let him go ? " 
 
 Squire Mordaunt walked to the window for a Itttle time, and 
 then came quietly back and kissed her. '' Come, old girl, never 
 mind Eddy. I have sent a boy, and you have sent a boy. Be 
 quiet, we shall want all our wits about us directly. I want to 
 know about that baby of Charles's which you saw lying dead. 
 Was it dressed? " 
 
r 
 
 X 
 
 206 . STKETTON. 
 
 '' No, it was naked, with a cloth over it, and they raised the 
 cloth, and I cried a great deal ; and I looked at it closely, for it 
 was very beautiful, George." 
 
 " Now you are going to begin to whimper again," said Mor- 
 daunt, '' and I won't have it. Was there any mark on it ? " 
 
 *' Not one that I noticed." 
 
 ''No wart, no wen, no mark of any kind by which you could 
 swear ? " 
 
 " Not one, poor little thing." 
 
 " Then we will drop it, and go on to business. Do you know 
 what they have done ? " 
 
 "No." 
 , ^ Changed foxes — I should say babies ; that is it." 
 "^^ " Good Heavens ! give me time, George. What do you 
 mean? " 
 
 " Who showed you that baby, and under what circumstances ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Myrtle sent for me, or was it Mrs. Gray? It was one 
 of them — I know our secret began then — and asked me to come 
 down, and I went. And Mrs. Myrtle told me that my brother's 
 wife was dead. I think it was so. I am not certain. And I 
 asked to look at it, or they asked me, and I saw it, and I cried." 
 
 "That baby you saw was the soldier Gray's child, and not 
 Charles's at all. The heir of Stretton is Allan Gray, or, as they 
 venture to call him, Charles Evans. And these two old trots 
 have some strong proof of it also, or the solicitor's house which 
 they are employing would not look at their case for five minutes. 
 Hi, Johnny, bring in Mrs. Phillis Myrtle." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 John Moedaunt had so far fulfilled his father's injunctions as to 
 bring Mrs. Myrtle in sufficiently sober for business. Yet Mrs. 
 Myrtle was dimly conscious of requiring some sort of apology 
 for coming at all, or for coming as she was ; or for having done 
 what she had done ; or for venturing to exist at all, that she 
 appeared before Miss Evans and Squire Mordaunt in a deeply 
 apologetic frame of mind. Dickens would have made something 
 out of her: she has too few salient points for a slighter hand 
 at caricature. Possibly John Mordaunt described one phase of 
 her character better than any of us, by saying that she was a 
 
STEETTON. 207 
 
 persistently complacent liar. This was, however, only one phase 
 in her character. She had Quicklyisms other than that, some ot 
 which we cannot deal with ; one certainly which we may. For 
 example ; she was a perfect and absolute mistress of the art oi 
 sotting. Her knowledge of drinks was enormous and varied. 
 Her experience of different kinds of strong waters was absolutely 
 gigantic, yet to a certain extent limited. She would never on 
 any account touch a strange drink, such as champagne or Eau 
 des Carmes. Offer her gin ; she would take as much as she 
 wanted ; offer her Chambertin, a more innocent liquor, she would 
 stoutly refuse. She knew exactly how tipsy she wanted to be, 
 and she regarded Chambertin, green Chartreuse, champagne, as 
 unknown liquors, not to be trusted. She disliked being sober, 
 but she dreaded being drunk. She had too much to tell. 
 
 She is one of those women of whom doctors can tell you. A 
 woman of infinite good nature and immeasurable wickedness. 
 Mrs. Gray was no better than she should be — a bold, coarse, 
 handsome, grey-headed woman, with a rude, wild tongue. A 
 woman not of the best character. Put Phillis Myrtle beside her, 
 a gentle, good-natured, apple-faced little woman ; nay, an affec- 
 tionate little woman towards young people ; which was the better 
 of the two ? Mrs. Gray immeasurably. She had saved more 
 young girls from evil than even Phillis Myrtle had succeeded in 
 ruining. 
 
 Squire Mordaunt, an old, trained, diligent county magistrate, 
 knowing the world in which he lived, by having it brought before 
 him in its lowest aspect, knew this woman, and recoiled from her. 
 He looked at Aunt Eleanor, and she recoiled also. " Be gentle 
 and civil to this old hag, Eleanor," he said, in a whisper, leaning 
 over her chair. ''I will," said Aunt Eleanor, *'but you make 
 her tell. Stand where you are." 
 
 So Squire Mordaunt, leaning over Aunt Eleanor's chair, with 
 the power of whispering in her ear without being heard, brought 
 out Mrs. Myrtle's story in her own manner. 
 
 '' Sit down, Mrs. Myrtle. Will you have a glass of wine, Mrs. 
 Myrtle ? " 
 
 " Thank your honour's handsome face, no." 
 
 "Had enough, eh?" 
 
 " Quite enough, thank you, sir." 
 
 " You won't get any at all in prison, you know," said Squire 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 "I am equally aware of the fact, sir," said Mrs. Myrtle, 
 coolly. " But I don't mean to go there, if it is the same to 
 
 you." 
 
208 STUETTON. 
 
 " Conspiracy is a dangerous thing, Mrs. Myrtle." 
 
 '' As a general rule it is. But when such a lady as Miss 
 Evans has to go into the dock with an old woman like me, I 
 naturally feels comfortable." 
 
 '' What do you mean ? " 
 
 ** I only mean that Miss Evans knew as much as I did ; and 
 that where I go she shall go, if I am treated uncivil." 
 
 *' That is false," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *'It is good enough to swear to if I was drove to turn Queen's 
 evidence," said Mrs. Myrtle. "Conspiracy indeed I You told 
 all you knew, didn't you. Miss Evans ? " 
 
 " Woman ! woman ! " said Aunt Eleanor, " this will not serve 
 you." 
 
 "It will unless I am treated civil," said old Myrtle, crying. 
 "I came here from the best of motives, and Squire Mordaunt 
 (you are a sweet saint, a'n't you, to talk so to an old woman who 
 remembers you when you were a boy) he begins on me about 
 conspiracy." 
 
 " Well, and so you are going to be civil and tell us all you 
 know, Mrs. Myrtle ? " said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " Certainly, Miss," she said. And so she did. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 " Lucky beggar, he has got married, and hung Ms hat upJ* 
 
 That hanging up of the hat was in old times the facon de parler 
 by which naval and military men made one to understand that 
 Captain or Major So-and-so was utterly and entirely free from all 
 earthly cares of any sort whatever. Listen to them at the Naval, 
 Military, Marine, Militia, Volunteer, West Coast of Africa Club 
 in Pall Mall. " Where is Joe Buggins ? " said Captain Kimber- 
 ton, R.N. 
 
 "Lucky beggar," says Captain Bob Singleton, R.N. "He 
 has hung up his hat, got married, and gone ashore for good." 
 
 " Has she money ? " said Kimberton. 
 
 " 400Z. a year," says Singleton. 
 
 "Dash it, some men are always in luck," says Kimberton. 
 •' Well, I shaU be afloat till I die." 
 
 S?tys Toodle, of the 944th West India Regiment, to Teedle, 
 
STBETTON. 209 
 
 of Her Majesty's 80th, " I made a mess of it in leaving the best 
 regiment in the service. Boodle is over my head now, I 
 doubt." 
 
 '' Boodle has hung up his hat," says Teedle (or used to say). 
 '' Boodle has married a widow with 500/. a year, the least penny, 
 and has cut the service." 
 
 *' Lucky beggar ! " says Toodle, and thinks that Boodle has 
 arrived at the summit of all human happiness. 
 
 Now it so happens that I have lived alongside of both Bug- 
 gins and Boodle in my time, alongside of these men who have 
 left their professions to be married, and all I can say is, that 
 Buggins would give ten years of his life to be on the West 
 Coast of Africa, and Boodle would give twenty to have been in 
 Abyssinia. 
 
 These men had served so long that they began to know how to 
 serve ; and then they found themselves in a position to marry. 
 And they fell in love with two girls with money. And the pater- 
 familias of the period, finding that they could make no great 
 settlements, demanded of them that they should insure their lives, 
 and give up their profession. 
 
 I can point out a case now, of a girl without a farthing being 
 engaged to a man who might have done well at the bar, and who 
 was solely dependent on his father. She insisted that he should 
 give up his profession, and he, being in love, did so. Those 
 two lives are as good as lost. But to return to Buggins and 
 Boodle. 
 
 A great many women who marry men in the services stipulate"! 
 that the men should " hang up their hats," and cease to he men. 
 Should turn into spaniels, to dangle after their wives' heels to 
 balls and croquet parties. Now this is an intolerable thing, 
 although the virtuous and unattackable paterfamilias encourages 
 it. Look at the common sense of the matter. Fancy locking 
 up two entirely idle people together for their lives. Can love 
 stand it ? I fancy not. Man and wife will go to the world's 
 end, or farther, for one another any day of the week, as the end 
 of the world well sees, provided the wife sees that the husband is 
 working, and the husband sees that the wife is minding. A 
 couple such as that will pull through great things. But to lock 
 up two young peojDle alone, apparently for ever, she frivolous and 
 silly, he capable of better things, but bound either by his wife or 
 his father-in-law to forego them ; this, I say, is dangerous. \ 
 
 To go in for another moment about Buggins and Boodle. 
 Contrast the lives which these two excellent officers might liave 
 lived, with the lives which they were forced to lead, in consequence 
 
 15 
 
210 STEETTON. 
 
 of the foolish English notion, that marriage is to be a perpetual 
 honeymoon, with, after a time, babies superadded. 
 
 Take Buggins's case. Buggins was a man extremely 
 valuable to his profession. A man passed in steam, which all 
 were not in those days. A man who saw among the first, that 
 naval tactics would more than ever consist in rapidly turning on 
 an individual enemy, that the nation which could best imitate the 
 old Elizabethan tactics must win. A speaker of five languages, 
 a geologist, a botanist ; a man whose credit for personal amiability 
 could fill a ship in a week, while others stood empty for months, 
 or never filled at all. A man of pure and godly life, and a man 
 who could keep his head, as he had proved once or twice, under 
 the most desperate circumstances. A man in a dozen. Where 
 was he? With Lyons? With Peel? Not at all. Wasting 
 all his power and knowledge at the heels of his wife ; because his 
 wife's family had stipulated that he should not leave the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Take Mrs. Buggins again. She was one of the first to pray 
 and beseech that it should be rendered impossible for dear Joe 
 to go to those horrid wars. It was rendered impossible. When 
 she got a little less silly, she began to see that she had married a 
 ghost and a dead man. A ghost of a dead man, who scarcely 
 cared to read the telegrams to her. A ghost of a useless man, 
 who would come suddenly in with the limes in his hand, and say, 
 gloomily, *' Lyons has taken the 'Agamemnon ' in under Constan- 
 tine, with the ' Retribution ' on the larboard side. The Russians 
 have cut away the mainmast of the * Retribution.' Edmund 
 Lyons has done no good with all his bravery. Wood against 
 stone. I wish I was there." 
 
 And then, seeing that he was pacing up and down the room, 
 eating his heart out, she would show him baby, and jump baby up 
 and down till the poor little thing was sick. That was her remedy 
 for a man whose comrades were dying round Sebastopol. 
 
 Look again at Boodle, if you will have the goodness. The 
 private in the British army is not much given to sentimentalities 
 towards his officer ; as a general rule he values one officer much 
 the same as another. Privates don't discuss their officers much. 
 Corporals and sergeants do. Yet Boodle, when he left his 
 regiment to marry the rich widow, was followed by the lamenta- 
 tions of all the privates in his company. They would have 
 followed him to the ends of the earth, and farther. But the good 
 widow said she was not going to ride on a baggage-waggon, and 
 that he must give up his profession. They get on very well, 
 because the amiability and pluck which Oittracted the widow were 
 
STKETTON. 211 
 
 just the same qualities which attracted and bound the private 
 soldiers. But Boodle was sick of his life. 
 
 It could scarcely be pleasant for a well-preserved widow to 
 find her young husband walking wildly up and down the house, 
 saying, ** If I had been there at my place this would not have 
 happened." 
 
 '' What is the matter now ? " says Mrs. Boodle. 
 
 '* Willoughby has been forced to fire the magazine at Delhi. 
 My God ! my poor friend ! If I could only have died with him 
 instead of rotting here in inaction." 
 
 And Mrs. Boodle has not even a baby to dance before him ; 
 and when he is forty she will be fifty-two, paint she never so 
 wisely. And she brought him 600/. a year. And as a general 
 he would have had 1200^. I don't like to go into the old age of 
 the Boodles. 
 
 But Moral. My dear young lady, whenever you marry, make! 
 your husband work. The more he works, the better for him; 
 and for you also. Don't get too easily into the delusion that 
 ** dear George is overworked." Overwork means very oftenj 
 " Club " (and you should set your face against all clubs, save 
 the Athenaeum and the Garrick). Overwork means very often 
 sheer laziness. Think of the numbers of fine fellows hungering 
 for work up and doAvn England, but who cannot get it — in 
 the Church for want of opportunity, in the army for want of 
 money, in literature for the one fatal fault, the want of felicity of 
 expression. If your husband in any way finds work to his liandT^ 
 I beg you as a special favour, in return for any little pleasure I 
 have given you, keep Mm at it. No man ever worked himself to 
 death yet, except Pitt, and his four bottles of port wine a day had , 
 much more to do with it than the sheer work. —^ 
 
 846,000,000^. first and last. 
 
 A low remark you say. Well, but we extinguished France and 
 left her a third-rate Power for ever, with her navy quite destroyed. 
 The Spaniards know nothing at all of our immortal Peninsular 
 Campaign, though they did make the Duke of Wellington grandee 
 of the first order. But about young Maynard, who had nothing 
 to do with Pitt's war, or the wars which succeeded on Pitt's policy. 
 We had possibly better speak of him soon. 
 
 He had not much chance of being overworked, though he was 
 paying his share of the annual 26,000,000/. Mrs. Maynard had 
 insisted, and had got her daughter-in-law to back her in her 
 request, that Maynard should leave the University, leave his pro- 
 posed career at the bar, and come and live at home. And the 
 good-natured fellow, pressed by his bride's tender coaxings, his 
 
212 STKETTON. 
 
 mother's persistent clatter, and his sister's repetitions of his 
 mother's arguments, had consented. 
 
 There had ahvays heen an understanding between mother and 
 son, that the mother should leave the house when the son was 
 married. This was well enough, and Mrs. Maynard had always 
 spoken of it as a foregone conclusion. She had more than once 
 taken Mildred over the house, shown her the store -closets, asked 
 if she might carry away this or that trifle with her, when she 
 went ; and so on. But when they were married and had settled 
 down in their home, and had looked about them for a month or 
 so, they made the remark that Mrs. Maynard was not gone, and 
 had made no particular preparations for going. Likewise a still 
 greater discovery, that there was not any place for her to go to ; 
 at least no place in particular. 
 
 They never said one word about this at all, but submitted as 
 quietly and as dutifully as possible. They talked about it in bed 
 sometimes, but very slightly. It was no annoyance to them. Old 
 Mrs. Maynard took care that it should not be. 
 
 She had given up her comfortable rooms on the ground-floor, 
 and moved into three little rooms on the third, carrying Maiy with 
 her. They were good enough, she said, for them, during the 
 short time they were to stay. Maynard and his wife remonstrated 
 with her, and begged her to make herself quite comfortable. But 
 she was quite resolute. The understanding, she said, had always 
 been that she was to leave the house when her son was married, 
 and she only begged house-room and victuals till she could get a 
 home of her own. Nay, this high-spirited lady begged Mildred 
 to let her pay her own and Mary's board, which made Mildred cry. 
 
 *' That is an artful old toad," said young Mordaunt to his father 
 one evening. 
 
 *' What is the last move ? " said the Squire. 
 
 «« Why, she has bought a waggon-load of furniture at Old 
 Dempster's sale, and she has brought it home to the Barton, and 
 has begged the Big One as a special favour to let her store it 
 there for a week or so before she goes." 
 
 *'Law," said Aunt Eleanor, " why, the very bugs in the bed- 
 steads will be dead for want of their natural food before she ever 
 sleeps in one of them. And they live long, don't they, Ethel ? " 
 
 '' I call them ladybirds. Miss Evans," said Ethel. 
 
 " Ah ! but then I call them bugs, don't you see," said Miss 
 Evans, " which is quite a difi'erent matter. You might call them 
 what you liked, so long as some of them got hold of her and 
 dragged her out of her bed on to the key-cold floor on a frosty 
 night. The old trot^ she won't go." 
 
STKETTON. 2l3 
 
 " Well, it is not any business of ours, Eleanor," said Squire 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 *'I never said it was," said Miss Evans, "but I mean to talk 
 about it for all that, and so I don't deceive you. Fiddle-de-dee ; 
 everybody talks over my affairs and over Eddy's, and I shall talk 
 over everybody else's. I suppose yon never mention your 
 neighbours' affairs, eh ? " 
 
 " Well, I do sometimes," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " You never talk about anything else," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 *' For me, I love it. It is the only real amusement one has in the 
 country, or in town either. For example, George Mordaunt, and in 
 retuipi for your delicately expressed advice that I should mind my 
 own business, look here, — that woman is an artful old trot, and 
 she will stay on there, if she lives in the shoe-hole (I wish she 
 did), to keep the ear of her son, the Durham Ox, and make him 
 bring Sir Jasper Meredith to book, and marry Mary. When she 
 has done that she will go, not before." 
 
 ** Where will she go then ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 " To Sir Jasper Meredith," said Aunt Eleanor, '* and I wish 
 him joy of her. Now I have been talking sense so long that I 
 wish some of you would open your mouths. I don't mind non- 
 sense in season ; but I'd give fifty pounds to the man who would 
 set that house afire while that old trot was safe in the top story." 
 
 With this exaggerated statement of her sentiments. Miss Evans 
 concluded. Let us look with less prejudiced eyes on the real state 
 of things. 
 
 Of all mothers-in-law, living in the same house with their 
 daughters, Mrs. Maynard was the most perfectly discreet. Eleanor 
 Evans, who had the sense of ten ordinary men, saw why she stayed 
 there — too keep her son's ear. 
 
 A very common character in fiction is the rich mother, who 
 schemes and lies to get her daughter well married. She is 
 generally held up to ridicule and scorn. She should not scheme 
 and lie, of course, but what is the poor woman doing after all ? 
 only providing for her own flesh and blood, and very probably push- 
 ing with a great deal of actual money to get her girl well placed. 
 The scheming dowager of comedy seems to me the most unreal 
 character of all. In a vast majority of instances a mother only 
 wishes to see her daughter well married, for pure love for her 
 ctaughter, and for no selfish reason whatever. What benefit does 
 a woman in high society get by marrying her daughter to a noble- 
 man instead of another ? Very little. She has the entree to all 
 houses to which people go : she can gain nothing there. She has 
 as much money as she wants, and will have to part with some of 
 
214 STEETTON. 
 
 it when her daughter marries. Now it seems to me, and to others 
 also who know better, that the aims of a mother in making 
 frantic efforts to secure a husband for her daughter are almost 
 always sentimental, and rarely actually mercenary. 
 
 I like to see a good honest woman trying to get a rich, good- 
 humoured lad as a husband for her girl, at an expense of a couple 
 of thousand pounds or so to herself. I think that she is doing 
 her duty. I would give her every possible assistance. I would 
 go so' far as to take her into the tent or the supper-room, and give 
 her chicken and wine, and say to her: "You silly old woman, 
 why did you drive fifteen miles with your horses well tired last 
 
 night, at Mrs. X 's ball, in order that Eliza might meet 
 
 Ferdinand (let us be genteel) there ? You hunt him about too 
 much. I have been round to the stable-yard just now, to get 
 some friend's coachman to put my wife's pony to, and the very 
 grooms are talking about it ; and all the grooms and footmen in 
 the county are there ; the coachmen and butlers are in the ser- 
 vants' hall, and they will all laugh at you for the way you are 
 hunting this rich lad, who really loves your daughter, but whom 
 you, with the best intentions, are doing your best to disgust." 
 
 That is the way I should talk to her, but then, you see, she 
 wouldn't stand it. 
 
 Mrs. Maynard was no such mother as I have spoken about 
 above ; her objects were purely selfish. She cared little for an 
 establishment for her daughter, provided she had no share in it. 
 In fact, Mrs. Evans told her so, and Mrs. Maynard would not 
 stand it for an instant. 
 
 Creeping up to her great scheme of confounding Sir Jasper 
 Meredith, this good lady crept through many dirty ways. That 
 most wonderful and powerful fiction, " Melmoth," is written to 
 show, or to try to show, that no human being, under any circum- 
 stances, will make a compact with the Evil One and barter away 
 his salvation. The author proves it, or tries to prove it, by put- 
 ting various groups of people into situations which it is horror to 
 read, and nightmare to remember, always with the ofi'er before 
 them. He thinks that he has proved his thesis by making none 
 of them do it, even in the most frightful extremity. Of course 
 the idea of the book is great balderdash, though it is written with 
 a literary skill which makes one remember it after many years. Of 
 course no one ever gets the chance of selling himself to the devil ; 
 and the writer of that book has fortified his argument by making 
 his characters almost preternaturally good : yet, had he taken 
 characters of a lower order, I doubt if he would have proved his 
 case so well. There are some people who would do it. Do I mean 
 
STRETTON. 215 
 
 Mrs Maynard ? Of course not ; no gentleman would so far forget 
 himself as to say such a thing about a lady. 
 
 Still she would go a long way. Look at the splendid object 
 before her. 
 
 She, with her ox-like son, had been mistress and manager of a 
 noble house, — a house of plenty and of influence for many years. 
 She was called on to give up this, and she knew that she must 
 give it up, sooner or later. She was utterly vain, selfish, and 
 extremely fond of good living ; loving also poKer as well as 
 Chaucer's lady did in a story which is far too cool to name here. 
 All this was slipping away from her. Her son, though good- 
 natured among men, was a very determined bully among women ; 
 and being a good fellow enough, did not at all approve of all his 
 mother's ways and words. 
 
 In calculating the chances of the comet of 1858 hitting the 
 earth and burning us, the most sensational of the astronomers told 
 us that if it had come x^^ something nearer to us, we should have 
 been disagreeably warm. In calculating chance in the same 
 manner one may say, confining oneself to arithmetic, and leaving 
 mathematics alone as dangerous, that it was 'SSS against the tiny 
 residuum which goes up to make 1000, that if the devil had 
 appeared to Mrs. Maynard at this time she would have traded. 
 
 For look at what this worthless woman had before her. On the 
 one hand an entire loss of what she loved dearest, — power, 
 prestige, and good-living ; and on the other hand the chance of 
 being absolute and perfect mistress of Lawley Castle, the place 
 of Sir Jasper Meredith, with an almost incalculable number of 
 thousand pounds a year. The woman was dishonest moreover. 
 She calculated that if she could bring Sir Jasper Meredith to 
 book, and rule at Lawley for say six or seven years, she could 
 *' feather her nest." Meredith, good lad, was the best landlord 
 going, for he let his fai-mers do as they liked, on the sole con- 
 dition that the wages of the labourers should not fall below 13s. 
 The farmers would growl at that sometimes ; but Sir Jasper, that 
 honest little heap of bones, one day, in a fantastic mood, got one 
 of his gamekeepers to get him a crow, and he nailed it up outside 
 his porch. And he got the village painter to come and paint under 
 it the words of Anne of Brittany : — *' Qui quon grogne ainsi 
 sera. C'est mo7i jdaisir.'' And w^hen a farmer growled. Sir 
 Jasper would take him out and show him the crow, and translate 
 the French to him. And that farmer would go away and tell his 
 acquaintances that there weren't a more resolute bit of stuff 
 within sight of the Wrekin than that little cripple up at Lawley. 
 
 One farm only had fallen in since Sir Jasper's majority. There 
 
216 STRETTON. 
 
 were fifty applicants for it. Young Brereton got it, at a lower bid 
 than some others. Young Brereton met Aunt Eleanor at market 
 at Shrewsbury, and she sold him some seed oats. 
 
 *'Mind you cash up this day week, you know," said Aunt 
 Eleanor. '' I shall be here." 
 
 " Yes, Miss. I have a kind landlord to start life with." 
 
 " Law, you may revel in plenty, man, and die rich, if you give 
 him his own way. You leave his poor alone, and treat them well, 
 and he will do well by you. You just oppress Christ's poor, and 
 he'll smash you. Good morning. Don't forget the cash this day 
 week." 
 
 Such was Aunt Eleanor's judgment about Sir Jasper Meredith. 
 Mrs. Maynard's was far otherwise. 
 
 The man, if you could call him one, had to be carried about by 
 valets and grooms. He had brains and education, they said ; but 
 what were brains and education to a miserable anatomy like him ? 
 He was not a marriageable man at all. If it were not for his money, 
 he would not be worth looking after. He could not live. Mary 
 would do as she told her. It was one of the most splendid chances 
 ever seen. She, Mrs. Maynard, would be lady of Lawley to her 
 dying day, for the title being extinct, she could easily make that 
 heap of bones make over the whole property to her daughter, Lady 
 Meredith. She could arrange for the killing of every deer in the 
 park till she was eighty. She could arrange to have a haunch- 
 day once a fortnight, and a dinner-party. She could take fines 
 from the farmers under threats of raising their rents. She could 
 do anything. It was really a splendid prospect. One thing only 
 was in the way. Her son, young Maynard, was extremely reso- 
 lute ; and he distrusted his mother. She had shown him the letter 
 which Sir Jasper had written so sillily for Eoland's sake ; and his 
 only remark had been — " The little beggar ! How dare he talk 
 about marrying any woman, leave alone my sister ? " 
 
 This was by no means hopeful ; she had to try something 
 further. 
 
 I It is, I *am sure, disagreeable to me to write about disagree- 
 able things. I would be myself in favour of all sunshine. But 
 it is not so in life ; and in the slight caricature of life which we 
 call fiction, very disagreeable things must be handled, if you are 
 going to tell a story fairly out. 
 — And the dreadfully disagreeable thing is this. Jim Mordaunt 
 had not been so discreet with regard to Mildred Evans, as he 
 had represented himself to Sir Jasper Meredith at Bonn ; and, 
 unluckily, Mildred had not been so discreet as people believed her 
 to have been. More had passed between these two than should 
 
STRETTON. 217 
 
 have passed — a great deal more. Jim had written a frantic letter 
 to Mildred, and Mildred had answered it. Jim had sent her back 
 her letter, and she had not burnt it ; but, like a kindly little fool 
 as she was, had tied it up with Jim's letter. The child meant 
 no harm. The child was fond of her husband, and fond of Jim 
 also. She would have been glad if Jim had stayed in England, 
 and was sorry he was gone. Yet she tied up her own letter with 
 Jim's, and put them in her desk. 
 
 They were safe enough there ; the desk was an inviolable thing. 
 If she had only left them there, it would all have been well ; but 
 she would take them out ; and her mother-in-law, peering over 
 her shoulder one day, saw Jim's hand-writing. And the old lady 
 robbed the girl's desk. And when the poor innocent child went 
 to her desk next time, she found poor Jim's innocent letter to her 
 gone, and her equally innocent letter to him, which was tied up with 
 it, gone also. And it was so dreadful, that she just laid herself 
 down on the hearth-rug, and moaned, and her husband found her 
 there. 
 
 "What is the matter, my pretty one? " he said. *' Get up, 
 my darling, and let me carry you to bed. Pretty love ! pretty love ! " 
 
 "I want to lie down here and die," she said. *'I have done 
 no wrong, but I want to die." 
 
 What could he do ? It was a case which the mother-in-law 
 could understand far better than he. The . mother-in-law was 
 called in, and took the case in hand with a will. 
 
 There was a terrible handle for her here. They would not get 
 her out of this house in a hurry — not yet — not for ever, unless she 
 chose. She could stay here until she chose to move to Sir Jasper 
 Meredith's. However, this was the first thing in hand. She got 
 her daughter-in-law upstairs, and attended to her. Poor Mildred 
 was lost for a time ; but at last she said — 
 
 " Mrs. Maynard, you have two letters. If my brothers were 
 here they would burn you alive." 
 
 " I have the letters ; and I have not the least doubt that your 
 brothers would do so." 
 
 '' Are you going to show them to my husband ? " said Mildred. 
 
 ** Yes, my dear. I have no grievance against you ; but I mean 
 to show them to him, most certainly. I have purposes of my own 
 to carry out. And — I shall show these letters." 
 
 "You mean it?" 
 
 " I most certainly mean it." 
 
 The effect of these words was frightful. The girl dashed out 
 of her bed suddenly, and, opening the door, began crying for her 
 aunt. 
 
218 STEETTON. 
 
 ** Aunt Eleanor ! Aunt Eleanor ! they are all upon me. Come 
 and help me ! " 
 
 It was well for Mrs. Maynard that Aunt Eleanor was not by. 
 
 The poor little woman, you will understand, was as honest, and 
 pure, and good as any woman could he. She was as innocent as 
 Eddy, and very like him. But she was very fond of Jim, and she 
 had written a very kind sisterly reply to his grossly indiscreet 
 letter; and Mrs. Maynard had got hold of it, and, saving her 
 presence, Maynard was a fool. And so the poor little thing ran 
 out on the landing. Even now, if Mildred had got hold of her 
 husband, and told him the plain truth, all would have gone well, 
 I fancy ; but Mrs. Maynard only told her son that the girl was 
 hysterical, and kept them from an explanation. 
 
 It would have been better for him to have been at Oxford than 
 at home, now. 
 
 Poor Mildred moped and moaned to herself. She never knew 
 how much her mother-in-law had told her husband, and she 
 dreaded him. At one time she fancied that he must know 
 all ; at another time that he knew only a part. But she could 
 not trust him. That he knew something was evident ; for his 
 manner was altered. Though, kind as ever, he was more staid 
 and distant in his manner. And she, poor child, had no one 
 to turn to — not one soul ; for Miss Evans's visits to the Barton 
 were extremely few and far between, and, to tell the truth, were 
 far from successful when they did occur. Mrs. Maynard's very 
 presence had such an extremely exasperating effect on her, that 
 it made her show at her very worst. Ethel, her noble ally, begged 
 her not to go there at ^11. 
 
 '' You are not yourself with that woman. Miss Evans, any more 
 than I am." 
 
 And so poor little Mildred was left alone. 
 
 What Mrs. Maynard had done was this. She had told her son 
 that Mildred was in communication with James Mordaunt, and 
 that she could prove it at any time. That she enclosed a letter 
 to him to Roland. Maynard had a terrible dispute with his 
 mother. He declared that, to begin with, Roland was utterly 
 incapable of such baseness, and that she was out of her mind. 
 The dispute was only ended by her showing him James's letter 
 and Mildred's reply. 
 
 The poor young fellow was dazed and scared. If at this 
 moment he had taken those two letters to his wife, and been 
 kind to her about them ; if he had taken them to young Mor- 
 daunt, to Aunt Eleanor, to any one, it would have been better for 
 him and for Mildred. But he was not a wise youth. He was 
 
STKETTON. 219 
 
 utterly inexperienced, and he brooded over it. To him it was 
 absolutely ghastly that Jim, his old college mate, one of the great 
 and famous four, had actually, as it seemed, tried to supplant him 
 in the good graces of the very girl he had been, as it were, brought 
 up to love. It was terrible. The wild side of poor Jim's character 
 was almost unknown to him, for he had been to Eton instead of 
 Gloucester, and he could not conceive it possible. Had it not 
 been for his mother, he would never have known it. And if he 
 in any way offended her, she would talk about it. And so there 
 she was. And from this ground she opened her trenches on Sir 
 Jasper Meredith, that very unhappy young gentleman. 
 
 She could not act against Sir Jasper. It must be Maynard, now 
 head of the house. So she drew her first parallel, and it was 
 about that unhappy expedition to Bonn. 
 
 Who was James Mordaunt's confidant ? Who went after Jim 
 to Bonn ? Sir Jasper. Why ? Ah ! That might be known 
 some day. Did Robert ever hear that horrible story of Jim's 
 nearly murdering Eddy Evans ? Heard something of it ? She 
 had the details. In short, her first parallel against the unhappy 
 Sir Jasper was that he was James's friend : it was Jim, Jim, Jim, 
 all day long. 
 
 Maynard was extremely kind to his wife, but they both saw 
 that mutual confidence was at an end, and their wills being of 
 about equal strength, they were afraid of one another. Yet one 
 gush of silly sentimentality at any moment might have brought 
 Mrs. Maynard's castle about her ears with an explanation. So I am 
 happy to say she was very uncomfortable. And besides there was 
 always that horrible Frankenstein, Miss Evans, in the background, 
 who might make inquiries if her niece looked peaked, and ruin 
 all. It was only Miss Evans's extreme dislike of her that 
 prevented this happening. Mrs. Maynard knew this. She 
 used to say, " That woman would take off her shoe in the mud, 
 if she could box my ears with it." And, upon my word, I should 
 be sorry to say that Mrs. Maynard was altogether wrong. 
 
 And Roland and Jim were standing on the bow of their ship, 
 and looking at fantastic palaces and temples. The sky was bright 
 overhead, and they were joyful with youth, friendship, and adven- 
 ture. The land was green, and bright overhead, but beyond the 
 foreground loomed a heavy, black, formless cloud, which the 
 captain said was the coming monsoon. 
 
320 STBETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Roland and James were safe at Belpore, sleepily wondering at 
 the wonderous temple which rises from the edge of the lake, 
 and Eddy was on the broad sea following them, when there 
 took place, at Pulverbatch Grange, a great corroborree, or 
 palaver, of which it now becomes necessary for me to give an 
 account. 
 
 Miss Evans usually was very sweet-tempered, and was accus- 
 tomed to sleep the sleep of the just, particularly after a good day's 
 market in Shrewsbury. She had had a good day's market that 
 day. She had watched the prices, had in the " steamer," 
 thrashed out three ricks, and sold at 60s., which, as she re- 
 marked, would do for those who had no rent to pay. ** Why ! " 
 she said, as she was riding home on her cob alone, rubbing her 
 nose, ** it was only 76s. in Berlin, in 1806 : and they did well by 
 it. I wish, though, that we had the prices of 1801 and 1812. 
 Fancy getting 140s. What cottages I'd build — what schools 
 I would have." She was a Radical, in her way, and a great 
 professed admirer of the late Mr. Cobden. Still, given a farm 
 of 700 acres, and 240, or thereabouts, of them in wheat every 
 year, 140s. becomes very tempting. Few farmers are free-traders 
 in corn in their hearts. They hanker after the flesh-pots of 
 Egypt. They have been out-talked and out-argued, and are glad 
 to hold their tongues ; but any one who fancies that love for pro- 
 tection is dead will be deceiving himself utterly. 
 
 She, however, had done very well, as Eddy found when he got 
 to Calcutta. For old Colonel Smith, H.E.I.C.S., now taken into 
 her deepest confidence, had told her about the frightful extortions 
 of the native money-lenders ; so she dismissed large sums out 
 of her income to Eddy. ** They may cut his throat, and no doubt 
 will," she said, *' but he shan't go in debt." Indeed, Eddy never 
 knew what to do with half the money she sent him. 
 
 The good bargain she had made for her wheat kept her in good 
 humour the whole of her way home ; but when she got home 
 things began to get wrong with her. When she got to her own 
 gate the cob wouldn't stand while she opened it. She had had 
 that cob for five years, and every time she came home on him she 
 had tried to open the gate from his back. He had ijever allowed 
 such a proceeding for a single moment ; he had nailed his colours 
 to the mast about that. Yet she, on her side, had always tried 
 with her usual resolution, and been beaten with her usual good 
 temper. You may reckon that a woman riding about as much alone 
 
STEETTON. 221 
 
 as she did, must have tried this matter, to be within bounds, say 
 once a day, one day with another, and 364 X 5 = 1820, or some- 
 thing near it. And the cob had never let her do it, and she had 
 never lost her temper, though she had failed every time ; but had 
 always slid off, opened the gate, and led him in. But on this 
 occasion, the 1821st, she decidedly lost her temper, when she 
 had to get off and lead the honest horse in. But she never showed 
 it. She never showed her temper with her horses. They could 
 not reply. 
 
 Again, with her oldest gardener. If she had told him once 
 to move away the roller out of the ride when he had done with it, 
 she had told him fifty times. But he was as obstinate as the cob, 
 and there was the roller on one side of the ride, and the old 
 gardener on the other ; and the cob being led, politely but firmly 
 refused to pass either the one or the other. She lost her temper 
 over this old man, but she never showed it, and he never knew it. 
 For he also had no reply. 
 
 Her groom was ready for her, with bright brown face and honest 
 eyes ; she would have liked to lose her temper with him, but he 
 gave her no opportunity, being ready ; but if she had he would 
 never have known it, for he also had no reply. 
 
 " I will not lose my temper any more to my people," she said 
 to herself. "It is cowardly. They can't answer you. I have 
 lost my temper too often with them, and they will cease loving me 
 if I do. Not even with my maids. I'll keep my temper for those 
 who can meet me on equal terms." And with this good resolution 
 she rang the front door bell. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 She rang again. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 '* Tiresome young hussies ! " she said ; when there was a noise 
 in the hall of scuffling, giggling, and kissing, and the umbrella- 
 stand was hurled headlong over. 
 
 ** Oh, my dear young people ! " said Aunt Eleanor, with an 
 emphasis which those inside would have little liked ; ''if you only 
 knew about Somes' letter. But I will compromise. Fll keep my 
 temper. You can't reply." 
 
 Immediately afterwards the door was opened by a very pretty 
 girl, who was not by any means prepared to see her mistress home 
 so soon from market, for, indeed, it was only half-past twelve. 
 She was touzled, and her cap was all awry ; as well it might be, 
 for she had just been kissed in the hall by the footman, to whom 
 she was engaged to be married. And if there is any harm in that, 
 I hope sincerely that we are all guilty. 
 
S22 STEETTON. 
 
 But Aunt Eleanor hated what she called scuffling. But she 
 kept her temper in reserve. 
 
 The girl said, "La I mum, I never thought it was you. I beg 
 your pardon." 
 
 ** Have you heard from your mother, Maria ? " said Miss Evans, 
 laying down her whip. 
 
 " Thank you, mum ; yes, mum." 
 
 ** And from your father ? " said Miss Evans. 
 
 *' Thank you, mum ; yes, mum." 
 
 '' Both well, I hope ? " said Miss Evans. 
 
 ** Quite well, thank you, mum," said the girl. 
 
 " Send my compliments to them, Maria, the next time you 
 write. And ask them, in addition, whether, before they were 
 married, they were in the habit of scuffling and kissing one 
 another in the hall while their master or mistress was waiting 
 to be let in. It is a mere matter of detail, but I should be glad 
 to collect their sentiments on the subject." 
 
 The girl departed, horrified and dumb. But nothing came 
 of it. Aunt Eleanor rang her bell twice, and it was answered 
 by the footman with singular alacrity. To say that that young 
 man shook in his shoes, is to understate his frame of mind. No 
 people are so terrible as those whom their inferiors know to be 
 possessed of firmness and resolution, and yet who never scold. 
 Their inferiors give them credit for a reserved power of scolding 
 which is terrible to them. I have heard a story of a great and 
 very quiet man, who once, after receiving an answer, turned on 
 the ofl*ending servant, and said Sir in such an awful manner, that 
 the young man was taken ill, and the family physician had to 
 remind his grace (I suppose it was the late Duke of Wellington) 
 that the nerves of indoor male servants, from their want of 
 physical exercise, were not so strong as those of a groom or 
 a gardener. His grace, we will hope, never behaved with such 
 want of consideration any more. Good John Leech's outrage- 
 ously ridiculous picture of *' Who dares kill Marius?" shows 
 pretty much the same idea. Aunt Eleanor's young footman 
 was thinking of Australia and California when he entered the 
 room. 
 
 " Ho ! " said Aunt Eleanor, " and so that is you, is it ? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss," said the terrified young man. 
 
 " I have four or five people coming to lunch," said Miss Evans. 
 *' Is everything ready? " 
 
 " Everything will be ready in twenty minutes. Miss." 
 
 ** That is good. Have you cleaned all the plate ? " 
 
 ** Yes, Miss, All as clean as you could possibly desire," 
 
STKETTON. 223 
 
 " Then,** said Aunt Eleanor, turning and looking at him, 
 " before the guests anive, just go into the hall, and pick up the 
 umbrella-stand ! " 
 
 He understood. He did it. And going to the kitchen told 
 cook to mind and be smart, for that "Miss Evans was in the 
 horfuUest wax ever he'd seen her." 
 
 Wiien he announced the first arrival, ** Mr. Somes," he did so 
 with such emphasis and empressement, that he got another stare, 
 and wished he was well out of it. Young Somes, the long- 
 whiskered, gentlemanly young barrister, whom we have seen 
 before, was left alone with Miss Evans, who received him in the 
 kindest manner, much to his surprise. 
 
 *' My dear soul," said Miss Evans, "you have broken my heart 
 altogether." 
 
 " My dear madam," said young Somes, " what could I do ? 
 Our house has been made by yours. We are under the deepest 
 obligations to your family. The whole case, as we have seen it, 
 was sent to me, and I got the highest advice on it. The result 
 was the letter you got the day before yesterday. I suppose that 
 that advice has cost my father, and consequently myself, some 
 8000/. Believe, madam, that there are honest lawyers." 
 
 " Your house were always the best of friends, and the best of 
 advisers," said Aunt Eleanor, fairly crying ; " but it breaks my 
 heart." 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " said the young fellow; " your heart is too big 
 a one to be broken. No, no ! " 
 
 " I thought your father would have fought," said Miss Evans. 
 
 "So he would, dear old gaby," said young Somes, laughing; 
 " but I wouldn't have it. It is all my doing. Are you very 
 angry with me ? " 
 
 " I am not at all angry with you. I think you an excellent 
 young man. Talk no more about it till the others come. What 
 is the news in London ? Come and sit by the fire." 
 
 " Well, madam, there is no great news. There has been news 
 enough and to spare lately. The peace will keep us talking for a 
 time." 
 
 " What says public opinion ? " said Miss Evans. 
 
 " Public opinion says that we were right in the last war, and 
 that we were ^vrong. That we never exhibited our utter prostra- 
 tion so signally as we have just done ; and that we never before 
 showed how infinitely stronger than ever we were before. That if 
 it hadn't been for the French we should have been thrashed in a 
 week ; and if it hadn't been for the French we should have con- 
 quered and annexed the Crimea in a month. That the French 
 
224 STEETTON. 
 
 did all the fighting; and that they ran away the moment they 
 caught sight of a Russian. That the Russians were the most 
 splendid troops we have ever met ; and that they never would 
 come near us unless their officers beat them on with the flat of 
 their words. That our commissariat broke down ; and that no 
 army was ever more magnificently furnished in the world " 
 
 ''Yes, yes!" said Miss Evans, laughing, "I know all that. 
 But what do you young wiseacres say ? You young barristers, 
 with Parliament before you. What are you saying ? " 
 
 Young Somes turned and looked at her. She was wonderfully 
 handsome, and one of those quaint fancies — incipient brain- waves, 
 I suppose — came into his head, and made him think that she 
 would have made a splendid sailor. To put it strictly, there teas 
 a combination of forethought and reckless audacity which justified, 
 to some extent, the young man's opinion. 
 
 "You are looking at me with pity," she said, sharply. " Tell 
 me — India now ? ' ' 
 
 " We are out of one mess only to fall into a greater," said 
 young Somes. " Why on earth, Miss Evans, did you ever let Mr. 
 Edward go to India ? Matters can't possibly go on as they are 
 going. There are plenty of people who know what is going to 
 happen." 
 
 " Reconquest," said Miss Evans. " Well, if he chooses to tie 
 a sword round his waist, he had better be somewhere where he 
 can use it. Here is Miss Mordaunt. Ethel, this is Mr. 
 Somes." 
 
 "Compromise Somes," said Ethel, laughing. "No, really. 
 You will catch it directly, sir ; the Mordaunts are coming." 
 
 She was so brave, so frank, and so free, that young Somes fell 
 in love with her on the spot, of which fact he informed his wife 
 that evening ; and his wife, after hearing his description of her, 
 what she said, and what she did, applauded him highly, and im- 
 mediately fell in love with Ethel herself by deputy. 
 
 The next arrivals were the elder and the younger Mordaunt. 
 
 " You are very late, you two," said Aunt Eleanor ; " why could 
 not you have come with Ethel ? " 
 
 " We did," said the Squire ; "we have been putting the horses 
 up. How do. Somes? " 
 
 " Always some excuse," said Aunt Eleanor. Young Mordaunt 
 rang the bell for lunch. " Twice 1 sold my corn, George Mor- 
 daunt, at sixty ; not bad, I take it. How much have you lost on 
 your farm this year ? " 
 
 " I have recouped," said the Squire. 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee ! " said Aunt Eleanor ; " you think you have. 
 
STRETTON. 225 
 
 I should like to see your books. It ought to ho written up over 
 the door of every great school in England, in large letters, ' No 
 gentleman can farm his own land, because he must send his 
 bailiff to market, being too fine a gentleman to go himself. ' " 
 
 ** What would you write up in the ladies' schools, then ? " said 
 Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " That a good woman is ten times as shrewd and twenty times 
 as courteous as the best man of the lot ; and that the remark 
 don't apply to them in any way ; for that they must be fools from 
 the mere fact of allowing themselves to be sent to a ladies' school, 
 as at present conducted, at all. A finishing establishment ! Bah ! 
 I'd finish some of them. Lunch (to the footman). There is 
 Ethel, now, knows nothing except what she has learnt from me ; 
 and who is there like Ethel, I would like to know ? Why, no- 
 body. She can play the piano, certainly, which I can't, and which 
 I hate. Why couldn't she have been taught to play the fiddle ? 
 I love the fiddle, and it is the real woman's instrument. There is 
 ten times the feminine delicacy of touch required in it which there 
 is in the piano. Why, a man can play a piano better than any 
 woman, in the same way as a man can fill a cart with gravel better 
 than a woman, by superior strength of wrist — though I doubt even 
 that, mind you." 
 
 " But what woman has ever been a great violin-player, 
 Eleanor ? " said George Mordaunt. 
 
 '' That is it. You men have voted it unladylike, and so they 
 have never been taught. Look at Ethel's fingers and at her 
 brother's, and tell me which is the likelier to make a good fiddle- 
 player. You voted it unladylike, because it is the instrument you 
 have chosen to dance to in pot-house brawls. I can conceive no 
 other reason." 
 
 ** My dear Eleanor," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 *' There, I have talked out my talk, and here is lunch. Com- 
 promise Somes, sit next Miss Mordaunt. George, come and sit 
 next to me. John," to the footman, '' remove the covers. Have 
 you picked up the umbrella-stand ? " 
 
 '' Yes, Miss Evans." 
 
 *' Then mind it stays up, will you ? " 
 
 *' Yes, Miss Evans." 
 
 Squire Mordaunt was very sorry to find Miss Evans in one of 
 her quaintest and most reckless moods ; but he consoled himself 
 by thinking that she had possibly " blown her steam ofi." A very 
 important discussion was about to come off", and he wished that 
 she would have been more cool. 
 
 But she was cool enough when, the lunch being removed, they 
 
 16 
 
226 STRETTON. 
 
 all sat together talking about weather, crops, fishing, grouse 
 chances, the new coal-pit at Longnor, and many other things, 
 each desiring that the other should begin. Squire Mordaunt was 
 one of the most resolute men in Shropshire ; but Aunt Eleanor 
 was the first who came to business. 
 
 '' Now, my dear people, we will talk business, and leave coal- 
 pits alone. If we fight this matter, I shall require a coal-pit 
 myself ; and I know there is coal on my property. Deacon Mac- 
 dingaway is of the same opinion. I was walking with him under 
 the south wall, by the moat, looking at the peaches, and I said, 
 * Deacon, there is coal under here ; ' and he said, ' Without doubt, 
 if it pleases your leddyship to think so.' Now, that, coming from 
 a long-headed Scotchman like him, amounts to a certainty. I'd 
 begin sinking to-morrow, only it would make such a mess in the 
 garden at this time of year." 
 
 '* Eleanor I Eleanor ! " said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " Well, you had better talk nonsense than sit dumb-founded 
 and say nothing at all, as you are doing. Will you begin ? " 
 
 "Mr. Somes," said Squire Mordaunt, " we have asked you, as 
 a well-tried friend of the Evans' family, to meet us, equally well- 
 tried friends of the family, to discuss the claim of this young 
 adventurer, Allan Gray." 
 
 '' I don't think he is an adventurer myself, sir," said young 
 Somes; ''I frankly confess that I believe his story." 
 
 " That looks bad," said old Mordaunt. " Will you lay the 
 case before us ? — not legally, or in legal language, but as you 
 would to a common jury, and to a common jury at quarter 
 sessions. I am, you know, chairman of quarter sessions ; and 
 you gentlemen put matters in one way before me, and quite in 
 another way when you have a keen, wise old judge sitting over 
 you. Let us have quarter sessions statements, not assizes. 
 Ethel, go and feed the chickens, old girl." 
 
 And Ethel went. Young Somes laughed, and proceeded — 
 
 " The late Captain Evans fell in love with Ellen, or Elsie 
 Gray, who was at that time lady's-maid to Miss Eleanor Evans, 
 and made his sentiments known to her, and those sentiments were 
 reciprocated." 
 
 " That is all true," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " Captain Evans went into the campaign of Waterloo, taking 
 two of Miss Gray's brothers with him ; one of whom was killed 
 in that last ghastly imbroglio with the Old Guard, and one of 
 whom returned." 
 
 A nod from Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 " On the eve of Waterloo, the late Mrs. Evans, the Captain's 
 
STRETTON. 227 
 
 mother, found the ghi in an hysterical state, and in that state got 
 the whole matter from her. Captain Evans had promised Miss 
 Gray marriage. I can say, now that Miss Mordaunt is not in the 
 room, that the late Mrs. Charles Evans was a model ^f virtue ; 
 and, even if she had not heen, Captain Charles would have sooner 
 cut off his right hand than have done her wrong." 
 
 "Yes, Charles was no rascal," said Aunt Eleanor, quietly; 
 *' we don't breed them in our family." 
 
 ''Mrs. Evans the elder," said Somes, continuing, " hy some 
 happy or unhappy fatality, sent the girl out of the way to Carlisle, 
 of all places in the world. The late Captain Evans, returning 
 home from Waterloo with the one remaining brother, followed 
 Miss Gray to Carlisle, taking her brother, a favourite and very 
 dearly-loved comrade, with him ; so that no scandal could ever 
 rest on his future wife's name. Brother and sister were alike 
 willing. The brother took the sister over the Scotch border, 
 where Captain Evans was married in Scotch fashion. After 
 which the brother was sent home, and Captain Evans ^YTote to 
 his sister to tell her of the marriage, but entreating her to say 
 nothing about it." 
 
 " Which, like a fool as she was," said Aunt Eleanor, " she did 
 not." 
 
 "But Gray the soldier came back," continued Somes, "and, 
 like a wooden-headed lad as he was, let out the fact that Captain 
 Charles was at Carlisle with his sister. Suspicions arose, and Miss 
 Evans's tongue was tied by what I very humbly think a mistaken 
 notion of honour. Captain Charles lost nerve, dared not face his 
 parents, and was sent to India under a cloud. 
 
 " Meanwhile the young soldier. Gray, seeing his betters making 
 indiscreet matches, thought that imitation was the finest form of 
 admiration. Ho came home, and made a singularly indiscreet 
 match himself. Marriage is very catching, Mr. Mordaunt. When 
 I married, five bosom friends of mine all went off in a heap." 
 
 " It did them credit, sir," said old Mordaunt. 
 
 " Well, young Gray had no earthly provision for his wife. And 
 Captain Charles Evans had none for his. The soldier sent his 
 wife to his mother, old Mrs. Gray, and the Captain's wife retreated 
 to her, to be under the protection of Miss Evans, who is sitting 
 with us now. And it so came about that both the innocent, 
 pretty little souls had their babies wailing at their breasts at one 
 and the same time." 
 
 " Quarter sessions ! quarter sessions ! " said Squire Mordaunt, 
 blowing his nose ; " you wouldn't try that before a judge, you 
 know." 
 
228 STEETTON. 
 
 " Wouldn't I ? " said young Somes. *' I'd put any piece of 
 real sentiment before any of our judges without being afraid for 
 a moment. They are only men. I have known one of them 
 lie awake crying all night after he had pronounced sentence of 
 death. 
 
 " Sir, we must get on. The facts of the case, as I make them 
 out, are these. The soldier's child died, and Captain Charles 
 Evans's child lived. These children were changed, the dead for 
 the living. Follow me, please, because probabilities are so ex- 
 tremely in favour of their case, that I confess I looked on it 
 favourably from the first. 
 
 ''We have two young women, both confined at the same, or 
 nearly the same time. 
 
 "Mrs. Charles Evans, what was her position? She was 
 deserted, lost, ruined, and degraded, on the very estate where she 
 had been brought up. Who was in the possession of her secret 
 — of the secret that she was actually married ? Only two people, 
 Eleanor Evans and Phillis Myrtle, and neither of them spoke. 
 The one from a chivalrous sense of honour towards her brother, 
 the other from a dim and distant chance of making money from 
 her secret." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor looked up deadly pale, and she said, '' You see 
 a lie is a lie, and brings its consequences. Go on, young Somes ; 
 you are a good young man. That lie of mine will be indirectly 
 my ruin. For if I had spoken out, don't you see, Koland's 
 position would have been different in some way, some inappreci- 
 able way, and he might not have gone to India. And so Eddy 
 would not have gone. I hope God will not deal too hardly with 
 Eddy for my fault." 
 
 Young Somes, with his solemn white face, looked steadily at 
 her, as at a fact to be respectfully studied, saying to himself, " I 
 don't mind a Sorites, but I don't like a dozen in a heap. That 
 woman's conclusions are logical enough, but how the deuce does 
 she get at them so quick ? Well, I must stick to my original 
 creed, that I am a thundering fool, but will try to be something 
 better. That old woman is cleverer than I am." 
 
 " Now, sir, not only Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Phillis Myi'tle are 
 prepared to swear that the child which died was the soldier's 
 child, and the child which lived was Captain Evans's, but they, 
 got a declaration from the mother that such was the case, and I 
 honestly believe it to be the case myself. Mrs. Gray knew 
 nothing whatever of her daughter's marriage ; had she, she would 
 have urged these claims before. She believed him to be the 
 illegitimate son of Captain Evans by her daughter. She con- 
 
STBETTON. 229 
 
 ceived, and I think rightly, that he would have a better chance of 
 good treatment from a family so extremely scrupulous as the 
 Evanses, if he came before the world as an honestly born child, 
 with an indirect claim on the family, in consequence of the wrong 
 that had been done her daughter, than if he came to them in the 
 shape of an illegitimate child, the disgrace of the house. For 
 there have been none such among the Evans 3S within human 
 memory. JVIrs. Gray persuaded the other two women to consent, 
 for she is a woman of great force of character ; and the thing was 
 done." 
 
 ** So you think j^* said Squire Mordaunt. " Are you going to 
 compromise an old woman's tale like this ? " 
 
 '* Wait, sir, if you please," said young Somes. **I have seen 
 the deposition of the soldier Gray's wife, and it is very awkward. 
 You can't tell what a jury would do with it. I now begin to 
 speak of Mrs. Phillis Myrtle. Mrs. Myrtle, who was in and 
 about during all this, was all the time in possession of the fact 
 that Captain Evans had honourably married Miss Gray in Scot- 
 land. The poor girl had given her time and place, and the 
 names of the witnesses, because " 
 
 '* Go on," said Aunt Eleanor ; *' I can stand it." 
 
 " Because she would like some one to know it besides Miss 
 Evans. It was utterly base and ungrateful of her, I know, but 
 she did it. She told Mrs. Myrtle." 
 
 '' I know she did," said Aunt Eleanor. " Poor little dear, we 
 loved one another well. She must have consented to this, 
 though." 
 
 " Of that I know nothing ; of the whole conspiracy we can 
 know but little. Still here remains the fact. These two women 
 are prepared to swear to their conspiracy and take the conse- 
 quences, and meanwhile, Mrs. Maynard, of the Barton, has known 
 the whole business from one end to another for a considerable 
 time, and is expressing a strong desire to unburden her mind of 
 its guilty secret." 
 
 " That woman ! " said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 *' The very same, madam. Do you remember who Mrs. Myrtle 
 was 1 " 
 
 *' Certainly," said Aunt Eleanor. ** Why, she was that woman's 
 nurse ! " 
 
 "^a;-actly," said young Somes; **and Mrs. Myrtle, totally 
 unable to keep a secret, yet loves having the power of one. Had 
 she let out her secret to Mrs. Gray, they would have moved years 
 ago. But she must tell the whole story to some one, and she told 
 it to Mrs. Maynard. Why did she not tell it to Mrs. Gray? 
 
230 STKETTON. 
 
 Because she hated Mrs. Gray. Mrs. Gray bullied her, and 
 annoyed her. They would no more mix than vinegar and oil. 
 This wretched, tipsy old woman, knew the whole truth. She 
 admitted one half of it to Miss Evans (that about the marriage), 
 and the other half to Mrs. Gray (that about changing the chil- 
 dren). So Mrs. Gray knew one half and Miss Evans the other. 
 But she went off and told the story in its entirety to Mrs. Maynard. 
 Mrs. Maynard has in her possession at this moment the declara- 
 tion of the woman Gray, and the names of the witnesses to Charles 
 Evans's marriage. That is the reason, Miss Evans, why she so 
 furiously opposed a match between her daughter and Mr. Roland. 
 That is why Mr. Roland is in India." 
 
 '' Ho ! " said Aunt Eleanor, '' and so that is the way the lie 
 has fallen from heaven on my head. So that is the reason why 
 Roland has gone to India, and Eddy has followed him. Fll just 
 ride over and see that woman to-morrow.'^ 
 
 Why did I put that in italics ? Because it was said in italics. 
 In italics so low, so fierce, and so threatening, that Squire Mor- 
 daunt said, ''Eleanor, he quiet ; " and she only folded her hands 
 and was dumb. 
 
 ** Well, sir," continued young Somes, "to be short: young 
 Gray, or we should rather say, if my advice is taken, Evans, took 
 his grandmother into his house in London, as a dutiful godson 
 should ; and she, a fierce, resolute, wild, godless old tiger, as she 
 is, led him a fearful life. His ways were not her ways, and she 
 hated him for his precise religionism, and still more because she 
 believed that he was the fruit of an action by which her daughter 
 had been unutterably wronged. He, as a man of the most true 
 and high nobility " 
 
 '* What did you say ? " asked Squire Mordaunt, aghast. 
 
 " He, as one of the most splendid and noble young fellows I 
 have ever met," continued Somes, '' bore with her and her ways, 
 though she was a thorn in the flesh to him. I can conceive of 
 no fate worse than his was. He, with every high and noble 
 instinct in his head and his heart, devoting himself to God and to 
 God's poor night and day, to be locked up in the same small 
 house with a godless old fury like that ! He is a Dissenter, sir — 
 I a very High Churchman ; but when I look at that man's life, 
 sir, I blush for my own." 
 
 He blushed certainly, but it was with warmth, not with shame. 
 Aunt Eleanor said, '' He is quite right, George. It is all true ; " 
 and young Somes went on. 
 
 " This old Mrs. Gray, bored to death in Camden Town ; no 
 seeking excitement in stimulants (she has too much vitality for 
 
STEETTON. 231 
 
 that — she is as sober as a Mussulman, but as fierce as an Arsas- 
 cicle), thought she would like to have Mrs. Myrtle to come and 
 gossip with her. And Mrs. Myrtle came, and in her drink let 
 the whole matter out to Mrs. Gray, from beginning to end. I 
 need not tell you that Allan Gray moved in the matter at once. 
 The good old house which backs his claim wavered about it for a 
 little, but took it up in the end. They have had more trouble 
 with him than ever we shall, if we treat him wisely and well. 
 What they know more than we do I can't say ; but they were 
 perfectly prepared to go on, until Allan Gray, against their 
 wishes, proposed a compromise, and I think that we should meet 
 him." 
 
 " It seems to me a mere old woman's story," said Squire 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 '' It does not seem so to others," said young Somes. 
 " The other house think it a very good one. 1 think it a good 
 one." . 
 
 " But we could smash these two old trots for conspiracy," said 
 Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " And Miss Evans with them, if they were vindictive, possibly. 
 Yes, you might get that satisfaction for about 8000/., if you 
 cared to do it." 
 
 " You are rather cool, young Somes," said the younger 
 Mordaunt. 
 
 " Some one must be, young Mordaunt," he replied. *' Look 
 here ; you would employ us, and the money is all out of my 
 father's pocket. The governor would fight : I won't let him. 
 Is that being disinterested or not ? " 
 
 '* It certainly is, sir," said old Mordaunt, emphatically. *' But 
 what compromise is proposed ? " 
 
 " Recognition as head of the house, and a rent-charge of lOOOL 
 a year for his lifetime. All further claims on the estate to be 
 abandoned. There." 
 
 Dead silence. 
 
 Old and young Mordaunt were debating wildly whether it 
 was too much or too little, and whether they ought to advise 
 compromise at all. But Aunt Eleanor, with her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief before her face, hit, un womanlike, the nail on the head. 
 
 " Supposing that this monstrous compromise was accepted, 
 Mr. Somes, there will, I suppose, be no future stipulation in it 
 in the case of his marriage ? " 
 
 Somes blushed up scarlet. " Madam, there is not the slightest 
 possibility of his marrying. I think you know that as well as I. 
 But there is no further stipulation." 
 
232 STRETTON. 
 
 " You have been seeing a good deal of him then," said Aunt 
 Eleanor. 
 
 '* Yes, madam, a good deal ; and the more I see of him 
 the more I like him. He might have made harder terms than 
 these." 
 
 "Well," said Squire Mordaunt, " all that remains to be done 
 is to send his terms to India to Roland. That will take nearly 
 four months. Meanwhile ? " 
 
 *' Meanwhile, are you going to advise Roland to compromise ? " 
 said young Somes. 
 
 *' Most certainly, on these terms," said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Then it is as good as settled," said Somes. *' Will you 
 receive him ? " 
 
 *' Not as an Evans. I will call him Evans, but I don't recog- 
 nise his right until Roland has done so." 
 
 " He is coming down here," said Somes, " to put you all to 
 rights. However, you will see him fast enough. Good-by." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 '' CoKNET MoKDAUNT is Ordered to attend on Colonel Cordery 
 immediately after to-morrow morning's parade." 
 
 <* What have you been up to, Jimmy ? " said Roland. 
 
 ''Well, I haven't been up to anything in particular," said 
 James. 
 
 '' Old boy, do be more careful. There is no better fellow in 
 the world than you, and you are a splendid officer. Cari't you 
 leave off this everlasting tomfoolery ? Will you ever be out of a 
 scrape ? What is the matter now ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Jim. '' Not in particular." 
 
 " What did you do to-day ? " asked Roland. 
 
 " Well, I got up and was at parade, and I was late ; and so 
 was the drummer. And I got on the drummer's horse in a 
 hurry, and told him to get on mine, which he wasn't fool enough 
 to do. And, being on his horse, I thought I would try to improve 
 my mind by drumming ; but I could not come it, and kicked up 
 a devil of a row. Then my syce brought my horse, and I was 
 in time ; but the drummer was late, and caught it. Do you think 
 it is that?" 
 
 Roland groaned. " What did you do next ? " 
 
STEETTON. 233 
 
 '' Well, I went to the bath ; and I ducked the doctor." 
 
 *' Did he get angry ? " asked Koland. 
 
 *' Didn't he I My eye I Such a wax. Wanted to know if 
 he was an officer and a gentleman, and I told him no ; and 
 sent his bald old head under again. I'll physic him." 
 
 *' What did you do then ? " said Roland, in despair. 
 
 *' Well, I looked in to see how the judge was getting on in his 
 court." 
 
 '' Did you make a fool of yourself there ? " said Roland. 
 
 " No ; I only went in to study the language, and I sat and 
 looked at him ; nothing more, I give you my word of honour. 
 But he got in a wax about it, and went so far as to ask me 
 whether he was to be insulted by military subalterns in his own 
 court." 
 
 *' AVliat did you say ? " 
 
 ** I don't exactly remember," said Jim ; '' but it was some- 
 thing that made him waxier than ever." 
 
 " Well, what did you do next? " asked Roland. 
 
 *' Well, I went and knocked up the Nawab." 
 
 '' Which Nawab?" 
 
 "Heof Belpore." 
 
 *' That is right," said Roland, eagerly. ''For Heaven's sake 
 havj nothing to do with the Rajah of Bethoor. Don't be seen 
 
 speaking to him. He is an utterly unsafe man. W never 
 
 lets him into his house. Will you be serious for a moment, 
 James? " 
 
 " Yes, if you a'n't more." 
 
 *' I know,'' said Roland, " that that man had the lines fired 
 
 the other night when W was dining at the Residency, with 
 
 a view of getting the keys of the magazine, where he pretended 
 
 to believe that the fire-engine was. Mrs. W (bless her 
 
 noble soul !) refused to give them up, and ran in the darkness, 
 mud, and rain, towards the Residency, and luckily met two of the 
 conductors, who informed her that the fire-engine was not kept in 
 the magazine at all. That man is a traitor and a scoundrel." * 
 
 *' The dirty sweep ! " said Jim. "I'll get a pea-shooter, and 
 the Nawab and I will give him a volley from the Nawab's drag 
 the next time we pass his barouche." 
 
 " On the other hand," continued Roland, " the Nawab is a 
 most respectable and excellent young man — a thoroughly noble 
 and excellent young Indian gentleman. He is absurd sometimes 
 in his imitation of English manners, but he is thoroughly good. 
 You should try to regulate his Anglo-mania, my dear Jim He 
 * This fact about Nana Sahib is actually true. 
 
234 STKETTON. 
 
 is apt to make himself absurd by it. I fear you encourage him to 
 be fooHsh. Have you and he been at any particular folly to- 
 day ? " 
 
 *' No," drawled Jim. " I found him going out in his drag, 
 Cutcherry's old coach, you know, with two Australians for 
 wheelers, and two imported black Flemish mares for leaders. 
 And, as Edie Ochiltree says, he behoved to drive. But I asked 
 him to let me drive, and he was pleased at the idea of getting 
 a lesson at it. And as we drove, I told him that he would never 
 feel the full pleasure of four-in-hand driving until he had had 
 a good spill, and he was perfectly game ; and so I told him that 
 his black Flemish leaders were in reality hearse-horses, used 
 only for funerals in England, and that they would always bolt 
 into a burial-ground. He is thoroughly plucky, and at once 
 proposed that we should cross the nullah and try them past the 
 cemetery. And when we came to the cemetery, I put the leaders 
 at the wall, and we came to everlasting grief, to his immense 
 delight." 
 
 "I wish you would not do such things," said Roland, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " My dear Roley, he liked it. I was shot on to a soft grave, 
 and he fell dexterously atop of me. I assure you he is charmed. 
 As soon as the fragments of the drag are got together, he will ask 
 me to do it again, which I certainly shall. He considers it as a 
 phase in our ruder national sports. He is going to get up a 
 prize-fight." 
 
 The interview with the Colonel was not quite so satisfactory. 
 
 *' Mordaunt," said the Colonel, very kindly, "we are all very 
 fond of you, and should be very loth to lose you." 
 
 '' Now, I know what is coming," thought Jim. "K all 
 
 over. I shall be head-mastered till I am dead, I believe. I wish 
 he would let me off with lines. The moonshee would do them. 
 I wonder what is up ! " 
 
 "About you, Mordaunt," said the Colonel, " I have to say that 
 a brighter, brisker, more promising young officer don't exist." 
 
 " This is getting worse and worse," thought Jim. "I know 
 this style of thing." 
 
 " I have a strong personal feeling towards you myself. You 
 are popular among your brother officers ; your men like you 
 extremely. You are learning your duty admirably, and I have no 
 fault to find in that way with you." 
 
 " This means expulsion from the British army, if I know any- 
 thing of being sent up to head-master, and I ought to," thought 
 Jim. 
 
STKETTON. 235 
 
 *' But,'' continued the Colonel, 'Hhere are parts of your 
 conduct which will most certainly entail your retirement from 
 the regiment, if not from the army altogether, unless they are 
 immediately mended. Court-martials have been held for half of 
 what you have done, sir. Do you suppose for a moment, sir, 
 that the British rule in India can be kept up, if officers in the 
 British army come out from balls at the Kesidency at four o'clock 
 in the morning, seize the palanquin of the Judge's lady, induce a 
 not very sober collector to get into it, run away with it into the 
 bottom of a nullah, and turn it upside down, with the collector 
 inside?" 
 
 ''Hang it all," thought Jim. Then aloud, — " I didn't know- 
 it was her palanquin, sir ; and Phipps and I apologised after- 
 wards." 
 
 " Then the other fellow ivas Phipps," said the Colonel. 
 "Whereupon Jim grew sulky, fierce, and silent, cursing his 
 tongue. 
 
 ^' Of this singular friendship of yours with the Nawab, I 
 decline to say anything. Such intimacy with native princes, 
 however estimable, is always considered highly indiscreet, more 
 especially in the case of King's officers. However, with regard 
 to that particular matter, I refuse to say one single word further 
 than I think you are utterly lowering yourself by it, and had I 
 ever dreamed that such a friendship would have taken place, I 
 would never have admitted you into the regiment." 
 
 '' I have sat out heavier wiggings than this, sir," said Jim, 
 suddenly, which made the Colonel think him a strange young 
 man, as indeed he was. But the Colonel had taken up his 
 ground, and was not to be diverted. 
 
 " I therefore say nothing of your friendship for the Nawab. I 
 even pass over your yesterday's extraordinary performances, 
 enough for several court-martials ; but on one point I particularly 
 request an explanation — the extraordinary familiarity which you 
 are showing to your moonshee." 
 
 Jim was utterly taken aback at this accusation. His tom- 
 fooleries were so innumerable that he felt guilty on all points. 
 But this one ! He stammered out, " What, old Baghobahar ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the Colonel. "Your behaviour to that old man 
 is reported to me as something I have never heard of out of 
 Bedlam. They say that you have him in your room for hours 
 together, and that you sit him up at one end, and lie in your 
 hammock and look at him." 
 
 "He is a most respectable old man, sir," said Jim, blushing 
 scarlet. " We study the language together." 
 
236 STEETTON. 
 
 '^ I have no doubt of it," said the Colonel, kindly. ** And 
 now to conclude, my dear lad. You are one of the best and 
 most honest lads that ever stepped, hut do try to curb this 
 fantastic behaviour. I, as a man of the world, and an old 
 officer, have seen plenty of it, and know that it is only the 
 outcome of the intense vitality and vivacity of our nation, a 
 handful of whom can keep these millions in order. But curb 
 it here. It does us ill-service among these solemn Asiatics, who 
 have nearly lost the art of laughter with their cruel ritualisms 
 and their life-long struggle to live. In the most successful of 
 your tomfooleries did you ever see a low-caste man laugh at 
 
 you?" 
 
 ''Why no, sir." 
 
 "Beheve me, no. I am young enough yet to go on a frolic 
 with you anywhere but here. Be more dignified, my boy. 
 Don't play the fool. There, cut away, you have had your 
 wigging. You are a good young man, and a good officer. Don't 
 play the fool any more ; and, if you continue your friendship 
 with the Nawab, upset his coach somewhere else than in a grave- 
 yard." 
 
 " Do you know, sir," said Jim, standing up erect and solemn 
 before him, *' that you are a very kind and good man, and that I 
 would go to the devil after you ? " 
 
 '' That presupposes my going to the devil first, my good lad," 
 said the Colonel, laughing ; " which is a thing I don't mean to 
 do. Come, are you going to be good ? " 
 
 *' I don't think so," said Jim. *' I never was. I'll be as good 
 as I can. Am I to cut the Nawab ? " 
 
 ** Certainly not," said the Colonel ; " but don't make a fool of 
 him." 
 
 '' Am I to cut my moonshee ? " asked the incorrigible Jim. 
 
 " There, get out of this, do," said the Colonel. ** I do believe 
 
 that K 's boys remain boys until they are eighty. All except 
 
 Evans, who seems to have been born when he was ninety," And 
 so Jim departed. 
 
 "I'd go to somewhere after that fellow," he said to Eoland. 
 "But I've caught it," and he offered no farther explanation. So 
 Roland left him alone. 
 
 The moonshee business, which the Colonel thought to be the 
 worst of all poor Jim's business, even including that of the Judge's 
 lady's palanquin and the collector, must be explained. 
 
 It was absolutely necessary that Jim, to go the way King 
 Roland wished him to go, towards staff promotion, must learn 
 Hindustani at least. And Jim admitted the fact. So Roland, 
 
STRETTON. 237 
 
 who had quickly the ear of every officer on the station, cast about 
 for the very cleverest moonshee procurable. And that moonshee 
 was old Baghobahar, and he was incontinently told to attend to 
 Jim, and instruct him in Hindustani. 
 
 And so this happened to Jim. He was lying on a sofa, singing, 
 *' Barbara Allen " at the top of his voice, and looking out at the 
 scalding sunshine beyond, when there entered to him an aged 
 man, who salaamed and came towards him. And Jim was stricken 
 dumb. 
 
 Out of that depth of humour, which the English and Scotch 
 have in common, came a voice which told him that this was the 
 old man. Jim had, like most young men of his fresh, wildish 
 constitution, and good disposition, loved old men, for their pretty 
 gentle ways, and their complacent politeness. But here, in India, 
 appeared to him the old man of all old men. The ideal of all 
 ideals. And Jim arose and took him to his bosom ; that is to 
 say, he salaamed to him again, and made him sit down. 
 
 From that moment the mere contemplation of this aged Hindoo 
 gave the profoundest satisfaction to Jim. He was content to lie 
 on his sofa and look at him. 
 
 He was a little old man, very old, with a very dark complexion, 
 snow-white hair and beard, and large spectacles ; whenever Jim 
 could get that old man cocked up before him, with his spectacles 
 on, his soul was satisfied. Roland called him a fool, but Eddy 
 was as great a fool about the old man as Jim. 
 
 There the old man used to sit, hour after hour, with his heels 
 tucked under him (not cross-legged), reading Hindustani to 
 Jim. And there Jim would lie, smoking and listening, never 
 weaiy in the contemplation of his old man. He would have 
 liked to buy that old man, had it been possible. He relieved 
 his mind by giving him handfuls of new rupees, which, however, 
 were generally declined by the quaint old Hindoo gentleman. 
 
 Roland looked into Jim's bungalow one day, and watched 
 them. The old man was cocked up at the end of the room, 
 reading sententiously. Jim lay smoking and contemplating his 
 idol. " Is he mad ? " said Roland. *' Not a bit, my dear Roland ; 
 but he has got what you have not, * humour.' " 
 
 The other object of contemplation in which Jim most de- 
 lighted, was the Nawab of Belpore, or of "Baal Peer," as Jim 
 delighted to call him, not knowing that he was merely reproduc- 
 ing exactly the same words. This grand young Indian prince 
 was a perpetual source of delight to Jim. And after Jim had 
 spilt him over the churchyard wall, given him fifty at billiards 
 and beaten him, pitched his best wrestler on the back of his 
 
238 STEETTON. 
 
 head, and ridden his worst buck -jumping Australian for him, the 
 kindly, honest young Nawab was as fond of contemplating Jim, as 
 Jim was of contemplating him. 
 
 These friendships are extremely rare. But this was a real 
 one. I believe that they will be as rare in future. Our people 
 have dropped the horrid word ''nigger," now. Fancy calling 
 Scindiah, for instance, a "nigger! " Can one wonder at what 
 happened ? 
 
 Do they love us yet ? It is hard to say. But we are doing 
 our duty, and we must hope that they will get as far as that 
 when they see what we have done for them. Social impertinence 
 had much to do with one phase of the Indian Mutiny. The 
 most courteous people in the world get sick in time of con- 
 tinual insults. To a certain kind of fantastically Radical mind, 
 like poor Jim's, social distinctions are impossible. His moonshee 
 and his Nawab were new and astounding facts to him, but he 
 considered them quite in the light of equals — a point of view 
 which his good Colonel or Roland could never be brought to. 
 
 Poor Jim had not the least discretion in speech, though a great 
 deal in judgment. He was lying one day with his book before 
 him, pretending to follow his moonshee, who was reading aloud 
 to him, but was in reality contemplating that great moonshee, 
 when there was a scuffling of runners, and a carriage drew up 
 opposite his door. 
 
 He was in hopes that it was his Nawab, but a native servant 
 came in, and said that it was the Rajah of Bethoor. 
 
 " Tell him to go to hell," said Jim, lying back on his sofa. 
 '* Go on, Baghobahar." 
 
 The frightened servant departed trembling. Immediately after 
 a sergeant of his own troop came in and said, " If you please, sir, 
 the Rajah of Bethoor is at the door." 
 
 "That rascal has not given my message, then," said Jim. 
 "Jones, you go out and give it. Tell him to go to hell." And 
 the sergeant went out and gave some sort of message, not 
 possibly the same as Jim's, but sufficiently strong to prevent his 
 ever coming again. 
 
 And the moonshee took off his spectacles, wiped them, looked 
 at Jim with supreme satisfaction, put them on again, and said : 
 "I have now to call the sahib's attention to the fact that there 
 are twelve months in the year, consisting on an average of 
 thirty-one days, each of twenty-four hours. We now enter the 
 ninth month of the contemplations of the Fakeer Dhalblat of 
 Ferosepore." 
 
 And Jim said, " Cut away, old man." 
 
STKETTON. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 So the Colonel and Roland let Jim go his own quaint way with 
 his Nawah and hi^s moonshee, and went their own. Before many 
 months were over, it became apparent that Jim was exercising an 
 immense influence over the Nawab. The drag was discontinued ; 
 he was taught to ride. His Royal Highness likewise left off 
 dressing himself in puce-coloured velvet and gold, white loose 
 trousers, and patent-leather pumps, and came out in a neat 
 costume, between English and Asiatic. He likewise smoked less, 
 and rode harder, and what is more, liked it. 
 
 '*I told you. Colonel," said Roland, " that there was good in 
 him. He will make a man of that Nawab." 
 
 *'He is a queer fellow," said the Colonel; *' as mad as a 
 hatter ; but I suppose we must leave him alone. He is certainly 
 making a gentleman out of the Nawab." 
 
 '' What are the Nawab's antecedents ? " asked Roland. 
 
 "Same as the rest of them," said the Colonel, yawning; 
 *' married when he was twelve, and four times since. Now 
 twenty- three. Spent all his time learning European languages 
 and manners, and flying kites for a recreation, till a couple of 
 years ago, when he took up with a kind of Orleans Anglo-mania. 
 I dare say Mordaunt will make something of him. What is this 
 building going on at his palace ? That is a new kick." 
 
 *' Jim and he are studying fortifications together," said Roland ; 
 " and they are reducing it to practice." 
 
 " Well, he is a safe man," said the Colonel. " He might spend 
 his money worse. I will go and have a look at these two fools. 
 By-the-bye, Evans " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You speak French ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 And the conversation, until Roland's departure, was carried on 
 in that language, which had the very strange effect of causing the 
 punkah over their heads to go faster, as though with exasperation. 
 The Colonel noticed it, and laughed. 
 
 " I wish you would go out and stick a pig for me, to-morrow." 
 
 The Colonel looked at him so very straight that Roland only 
 looked back again, and said — 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Between this and Delhi it is only a hundred and forty miles." 
 
 " And not a dozen pigs in the distance," said Roland. " Yes, 
 sir." 
 
240 STEETTON. 
 
 " And put this cyplier in your pocket, and let your horse run 
 away ; and let him run away as far as Jellapore, where they will 
 remount you ; and then let that horse run away as far as Buga- 
 pore, and they will give you a fresh horse there ; and let him run 
 
 away with you as far as Delhi ; and give that cypher into L 's 
 
 own hands." 
 
 " I see, sir." . 
 
 *' If you are assassinated I will see after your affairs. I don't 
 tliink you will be, if you can get safe to Jellapore. Don't come 
 back alone, but come with the 201st." 
 
 '' I will obey your instructions, sir. I am very much obliged 
 to you for this mark of confidence." 
 
 " Whoy ! for the matter of that, I always pick out the best 
 man for a dangerous and secret service, with no possible chance 
 of reward attaching to it. The compliment is quite mutual, I 
 assure you. Ride in the open as much as possible till you are 
 past Jellapore." 
 
 "Are our communications threatened already, sir?" asked 
 Roland. 
 
 *' I suppose that is more my business than yours, is it not ? " 
 said the Colonel, quietly. "What you have to do is to obey 
 orders. Go to bed now, and slip off before day with a hog- spear. 
 Do as you are told." 
 
 And Roland nodded, and turned to the door, when the Colonel 
 called him back. 
 
 " Come, young man, I will trust you as far as this. They 
 have learned our cypher, and you are the first bearer of a new 
 one." 
 
 " Are they going to move yet, sir ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? Who cares ? It will all be the same. What 
 was done before" can be done again. Be careful of yourself. You 
 are the best man I have, or I should not have sent you on this 
 dangerous errand. You know, of course, that you will get no 
 credit by it." 
 
 " Good evening, sir," said Roland, in English^ laughing. 
 
 " Good evening, Evans," said the Colonel, also in that 
 language. "Mind you are not late for parade." 
 
 And the Colonel went out into the verandah, and pleased him- 
 self by staring steadily at the punkah wallah, who had pulled the 
 string so violently when he and Roland began to talk French. 
 
 And Roland went away to his errand ; and before day broke, 
 on his best Australian, dressed in the old Shropshire hunting- 
 breeches, and boots, with a hog-spear in his hand, he had put a 
 good twenty miles between him and Belpore. 
 
STKETTON. 241 
 
 These were the first days of it, when those who warned were 
 not listened to. The end Avas not yet by any means. 
 
 On the very morning on which Roland had so innocently 
 cantered out of Belpore with a hog- spear, and two running 
 scyces, blown and distanced very soon by the pace of his Clarence 
 River bred Australian horse — on this very morning Jim was lying 
 on his sofa, contemplating his beloved moonshee with greater 
 satisfaction than ever. The moonshee had long before finished 
 the " Contemplations of Dhalblat," and indeed the modem 
 Hindustani comedy of ^'Rumsi Door, the Cloth -Merchant of 
 Jellalabad," a work of great art, directed against the Mahome- 
 dans, but which has fallen dead in England, in spite of Captain 
 RoUingstone's most spirited translation. The moonshee had 
 finished these two on Jim's head, and was beginning with the 
 " Dhollery-bagh ; or. Garden of Rupees" (a poor piece as to 
 plot, but admirable for its Anglicised Hindustani). He was 
 propped up on his haunches at one end of the room, and Jim was 
 lying on his sofa at the other, contemplating him and smoking. 
 
 The old moonshee' s knees were up to his nose, and his wise, 
 good old face looked at Jim from between them. He adjusted his 
 great round spectacles, and began — 
 
 '' It now becomes my duty to call the attention of the sahib to 
 the ravages and dacoitees which his language has committed on 
 mine," when a voice in the doorway said — 
 
 " Come, old man, don't talk about dacoitee. If we have not 
 altered your language for the better, we have at least rendered it 
 possible for you to know the finest literature which the world has 
 ever seen." 
 
 And Jim, rising in astonishment, saw the Colonel before him. 
 
 The moonshee got oft' his seat, shut up his book with his 
 spectacles in it, and salaamed. The Colonel said, hurriedly — 
 
 '* Sit still, Mordaunt. Moonshee, go out and send those men 
 away, and then come back to us." 
 
 And the old man did so with rapidity and dexterity. 
 
 Jim, sitting upon his sofa, in his shirt and trousers, was a little 
 dazed by these very sudden proceedings. Before he had time to 
 say a few commonplaces to the Colonel, the punkah was stopped, 
 and the Colonel was sitting on one side of him and the old 
 moonshee standing on the bther. 
 
 '* Sit down," said the Colonel, *'and speak low." And the 
 moonshee sat down with a bow. 
 
 ** James Mordaunt," said the Colonel, in French, "I am a 
 man who never refused the combat or the retractation where 
 I thought either the one or the other thing was in any way 
 
 17 
 
242 STEETTON. 
 
 necessary. I owe you the apology at the present. I owe 
 you the apology because I doubted, on a recent occasion, the 
 capability possessed by you of selecting acquaintances with 
 discrimination." 
 
 Jim said, in such French as he had got at Gloucester, that he 
 was profoundly penetrated with the sentiments of Colonel the 
 Commandant ; and he couldn't have done better if he had tried. 
 
 *' But you have shown — you — that you have power of selection 
 enormously. I believed for a long time that you were vain and 
 foolish ; that your old friend, the moonshee, was rascal ; and, 
 again, old babbler ; and, again, spy ; and, again, once more, 
 betrayer of deposed trusts ; but I have changed all these opinions. 
 I have disclosed the very bottom of my heart to you on this 
 business ; and now we will speak English^" 
 
 Jim, thinking it was the best thing they could do, if they 
 wanted to talk sense, acquiesced without a murmur. And he was 
 wondering idly how the French got through their business with 
 such extremely florid language, when the Colonel began in his 
 native tongue. 
 
 " That old man who sits beside you has rendered service to the 
 Queen's Government which shall not be forgotten." 
 
 ** Sahib," said the old man, " I desire nothing, take nothing, 
 and will accept nothing. I think British rule is good for India, 
 and my three boys have died for you. I have sown, and I will 
 reap. It would be strange, I think, that a father who has lost 
 three sons in a cause should turn against it at last." 
 
 *' There spoke a man," said Jim, suddenly and loudly. 
 *' There spoke a man, Colonel. / know a man when I see him. 
 You go into boat-racing, and you'll be able to do the same." 
 
 " Do you know what he has done ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 ** No," said Jim, "J don't know anything about him, except 
 that I spotted him for a gentleman, and that he sits at one end of 
 the room, and reads that balderdash, and I sit at the other and 
 look at him. Whatever he has done is no harm." 
 
 *' He has refused every offer of the Rajah of Bethoor, and has 
 discovered for us that our cypher was discovered, and our 
 despatches mutilated, and he refuses reward." 
 
 *'It was little enough to do, sir," said the old moonshee. 
 "Peace for India means merely a strong British Government. 
 Ah, you don't remember the old days. I take my leave," and he 
 went. 
 
 They watched him go. To Jim he had been a friend, and yet 
 he had been a subject of an almost absurd contemplation. An 
 abnormal, and consequently, to Jim's mind, in some sort an 
 
STEETTON. 243 
 
 absurd creature. He was absurd in Jim's eyes no longer now ; 
 Jim knew, after this story of the Colonel's, why he had loved 
 the old man instinctively, and without knowing it. The quaint, 
 fantastic old moonshee was a very noble person ; Jim was a judge 
 of men as far as his training went, and he had judged this good 
 old man as honest from the first moment he saw him. And as he 
 and the Colonel watched the good old man go fluttering down tho 
 sandy road towards the nullah and the patch of jungle beyond, 
 Jim said to the Colonel, '' There goes a good and honest man, 
 sir ; " and the Colonel said, " You are right. Now I want to go 
 with you to the Nawab." 
 
 Let us follow the old moonshee first. With his books at his 
 breast, in fluttering white robes, he went down the long broad 
 sandy road towards the nullah, towards the patch of dark green 
 jungle beyond, towards his poor little bungalow, now empty for 
 ever. 
 
 He had been married many times, this quaint old man, but all 
 his wives were dead, and he was all alone. Daughters he had 
 ahve, but dead to him in zenanas. He had thought and read, 
 this quaint old man, until he believed that he had thought through 
 all recorded knowledge, and his thoughts had always been towards 
 one solitary point — the good of India. He was old enough to 
 remember when he had resisted the British invasion in arms in 
 his own person. But afterwards he had seen more and more hope 
 in the British, and he had sent three sons to die for us. He saw 
 more chances for good, day after day, in the British rule, and day 
 by day he was strenuous to uphold it. Lastly there had come to 
 him a young man, also of the Indo-Germanic race, whom he chose 
 to believe was the image of one of his own sons, and that young 
 man was singularly enough Jim Mordaunt. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Jim and he entirely confined them- 
 selves to Hindustani. They had a few talks together, and James 
 had altered the old man's opinions with regard to the Nawab of 
 Belpore, whom he had always considered as a young man without 
 worth. Jim had altered his opinion somewhat. Jim thought 
 highly of the Nawab ; and the old moonshee was determined to 
 make a greater acquaintance with the Nawab, and see whether, 
 after all, there ivas anything to be made of an Indian gentleman. 
 
 He believed so far in the transmigration of souls as to believe 
 that our poor Jim from Shropshire was his own son. He had left 
 all his little wealth to him. But leaving alone this superstition, 
 there was more sense and reason under the turban of that old 
 moonshee than there is under ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 beaver hats in England. When he turned the corner and lost 
 
244 STEETTON. 
 
 sight of Jim's bungalow, he turned, and on his way gave his 
 blessing to Ji]n. Then he crossed the nullah, and came beside 
 the patch of jungle which lay between Jim's bungalow and his. 
 
 The good old man was turning all politics over in his head 
 when he arrived here. There were few passing on the road, and 
 the sand was heavy on his feet. At once within the jungle, he 
 heard the low wail of an infant. " It is a case of exposure," he 
 said. *' I will go and pick it up. I have none of my own ; it 
 may live to serve Hindustan." 
 
 And so the good old man, parting the thick, heavy, green leaves, 
 left the sandy track, and turned into the jungle on his errand of 
 mercy after the wailing infant. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 The Nawab was excessively fond of billiards, but did not play well 
 by any means. He had therefore looked round for a moonshee 
 for billiards, as it was not very agreeable to be always beaten by 
 Jim. And he had discovered one. Let us see who he was, and 
 how he found himself in this queer out-of-the-way business. 
 
 How quaint this bringing together of England and India is ! 
 The great Squire Todhunter, of Cambridgeshire, rode eighteen 
 stone, and consequently had to be horsed at the expense of nearly 
 500^. Now, the Squire was a saving and discreet man, and he 
 did not like his horses thrashed unnecessarily. Consequently, in 
 choosing a second horseman, he looked for the qualities of extreme 
 smallness and extreme cleverness. He was very particular about 
 this ; and one day he got a letter from Sir Gregory Dowes, to say 
 that he had found him a treasure. The treasure was sent over 
 for inspection, and into Squire Todhunter' s library came one of 
 the strangest little men the Squire had ever seen — a handsome 
 little lad, weighing six stone, and four feet high, very well dressed, 
 like a gentleman, who seemed perfectly cool and unconcerned. 
 
 " Hallo, my lad, you are a flat-race rider I That won't do, you 
 know." 
 
 ''Never rode a flat-race in my life, and never mean to, sir; 
 certainly not, at my time of life." 
 
 "How old are you, child ? " said Todhunter, liking the looks 
 of him, and thinking he might be licked into shape. 
 
 " Thirty -one," answered the child. ''Married; one son; no 
 
STKETTON. 245 
 
 other incumbrance. Wife takes washing when she can get it. 
 Talk French and German, but not Italian. In the stables of the 
 Pasha of Egypt ; but didn't like it. Sober ; honest. Eight 
 years' good character from the Pasha. Loves his horses as his 
 horses love him. Used to a gentleman's place, or wouldn't be 
 here." 
 
 ** Why, I thought you were a boy." 
 
 *' So has many ; but they found theirselves deceived." 
 
 '' Where are your wife and son ? " said Squire Todhunter. 
 
 The little man went and rang the bell, and waited in cool silence 
 till the footman came. 
 
 " Send up my wife and the boy, James," was all he said, after 
 which he drummed on his hat. 
 
 Then there came up a very tiny woman, and a strange mite of 
 a bright-eyed boy, about twelve, half the size of his father, who 
 stared persistently at Squire Todhunter until that gentleman was 
 uncomfortable, and the bargain was concluded. 
 
 '' Can that boy ride ? " said the Squire. '' He would make a 
 good feather-weight." 
 
 " He rides well enough, sir ; but he has took to flat-racing and 
 billiards ; and I am busted, sir, if you'll excuse the expression, if 
 the present turf business a'n't too much for my stomach. I'm 
 a-going to send him to the Pasha of Egypt's stables, to improve 
 his moral tone." 
 
 " That won't do the boy any good," said the Squire. 
 
 " Excusing me, sir, I know Cairo and I know Newmarket ; and 
 that boy's a-going to Grand Cairo." 
 
 The Squire gave some sensible advice, but it was not taken by 
 this wonderful, resolute, little cross-country rider ; and the boy 
 went East, and East again, for ten years, winning flat-races, on 
 sometimes hopeless horses, sending the large sums he earned home 
 to his father, to be invested in the funds (which was scrupulously 
 done for him), and paying his travelling expenses by billiards and 
 safe betting. He was at Bombay, and thought he would go to 
 Australia ; but then again thought he would go to Calcutta. And 
 at Calcutta he heard of the Rajah of Belpore and his horses ; and 
 so he went up and looked in on our Nawab.'*' 
 
 Our Nawab was immensely flattered at the visit of such a dis- 
 tinguished young man. He at once allotted him apartments and 
 money. When he found that Billy Lee could play billiards, he 
 instantly sent to the right-about a tipsy, cashiered old captain, his 
 previous instnictor, and installed Billy Lee in his place. 
 
 Jim Mordaunt had, of course, met Billy Lee, and disliked him 
 * All this is almost exactly true. 
 
246 STEETTON. 
 
 extremely. For Roland, he had never given two thoughts ahout 
 him ; only once called him a rascally little renegade. 
 
 The Colonel scarcely knew of his existence. It was, therefore, 
 not very pleasant when the Colonel, and Roland, and Jim rode 
 into the Nawah's courtyard, to hear this young man's voice in high 
 conversation with the Nawah, during the clicking of the billiard balls. 
 
 But they heard what he said before they went in at the window. 
 
 '' I tell your Royal Highness that it is horses, and all horses, 
 with them. Your horses should be brought inside this fortified 
 compound, or else, in what is going to happen, you will let 'em 
 go to the enemy. Did you ever hear me talk Hindustani ? " 
 
 *' No," said the Nawab ; '' you can't talk it." 
 
 At this moment our three friends entered the billiard-room. 
 They were confronted by the little jockey billiard -player, and 
 noticed him closely for the first time. 
 
 A bright, handsome, resolute little fellow enough, and not a bit 
 afraid of them. He struck out at them at once in French. 
 
 "His Highness says I cannot talk Hindustani. Me, who was 
 three years in Bombay. I can talk it fast enough ; and I lie in 
 my bed at night and hear them talking ; and their talk is mischief 
 and devilry, which things I hate. I am no renegade. Lieutenant 
 Evans, as you have called me. I am an Englishman to the back- 
 bone ; but nHmiJorte. Cornet Mordaunt, I have something very 
 particular to say to you." 
 
 Such a gallant little figure standing in front of such a strange 
 group ! The jockey was a little tiny dandy, whose head reached 
 to one of Jim's waistcoat-buttons. The Colonel was in scarlet 
 and white ; Roland, Jim, and the Nawab in simple close-fitting 
 white — a solemn group. But the little jockey was not a bit afraid 
 of them. 
 
 " Colonel," he said, " I have been giving advice to his Highness 
 which I think you will approve. You will hear what I have said 
 from him. Cornet Mordaunt, I was just coming over to your 
 bungalow, to say a word or two to your good old moonshee, if you 
 would allow it. You and I know a brick when we see one." 
 
 " I fear you will not find him there," said Jim, greatly pleased 
 by this mention of his old friend. " The Colonel came in, and I 
 sent him away." 
 
 " Not home. Don't say home," said the little jockey, sharply. 
 
 "Yes," said Jim, quietly. "We saw him walking down the 
 road homewards." 
 
 "But I thought he always stayed with you till late at night, 
 and often all night in your bedroom, reading to you when you were 
 restless?" 
 
STEETTON. 247 
 
 "He is gone home to-day, however," said Jim, still more 
 quietly. 
 
 The jockey uttered a great oath. " Get your horses, gentle- 
 men. I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pound. 
 And I playing hilliards there ! Come along, in God's name ! " 
 
 He was first on his horse, and sped away out of the Nawah's 
 compound. Jim was second, and rode as hard as he could to the 
 good old man's house. There was nothing there but a very old 
 woman, who was boiling rice in a pipkin, and stirring it round and 
 round with a stick. And when Jim brought his horse half-way 
 into the bungalow, and asked her if the old man had come home, 
 she said " No," and spat at him. For she was our moonshee's 
 mother, and most devoutly believed that the world was so governed 
 by the gi'eat God that her son would be sent to everlasting tor- 
 ment, by losing caste in consequence of sitting in the room while 
 Jim was eating bacon to his breakfast. But you must respect 
 their prejudices, such as suttee, for example, if you are consistent. 
 Jim rode off hard, and found the others on the sandy road, in front 
 of the patch of jungle which lay between Jim's bungalow and the 
 moonshee's. 
 
 Here there was a very old lean man in leg-irons, a convict, who 
 was pounding on the road with a rammer, and had nothing on but 
 a pair of drawers and a turban. When Jim rode up, the old 
 gentleman had got his rammer between his knees, and had his 
 withered old arms stretched out before him, with the palms of his 
 hands close together, after the Indian manner. Those withered 
 palms were stretched alternately from one sahib to another. 
 "Colonel Sahib, sir, he did not go by here; Jockey Sahib, sir, 
 I did not see him ; Lieutenant Sahib, sir, I will tell all I know ; 
 Nawab Sahib, plead for me ; " and so the poor ironed old convict 
 went on with helpless, hopeless lie after lie until Jim rode up, and 
 giving his bridle to the jockey, went up to the poor trembling old 
 man, and put his two hands on his shoulders. 
 
 " Old man," he said in Hindustani, looking down into his face, 
 "we have missed some one whom we love. Tell us all about 
 it." 
 
 It was strange beyond measure to see the splendid young 
 Englishman looking down into the face of the poor old lying 
 Indian convict. England and India face to face. That love 
 which the best of our men have for extremely old people told 
 here. There is a kind of royal arch-masonry between the very 
 young and prosperous and the very old and unfortunate. " I was 
 like you once, and you maybe as I am hereaiter." This thieving 
 and lying old Hindoo looked into Jim's honest face, and for the 
 
248 STKETTON. 
 
 1^ sake of what he saw there, undid all his lies and told the whole 
 truth. . 
 
 " Sahib, he did not come so far as this. But he turned into 
 the jungle there, and you can see his footprints in the sand. 
 Lieutenant Sahib, I will speak all the truth. Lieutenant Sahib, 
 the Kajah of Bethoor went by in his carriage, and he stood up 
 and looked into the jungle. And then, sir, your moonshee came 
 along with his book on his bosom, and there was the wailing as 
 of a child in the jungle, and I knew that it would turn him, for 
 he has a kind heart. And I would have called louder than I did, 
 but durst not. And he passed in there, and I heard two shots." 
 
 The party were awed enough now. The syces who had run 
 after them had their horses, and they moved together towards the 
 jungle, and passed into it, the little jockey first. 
 
 *'Is there any one here who is afraid of seeing death?" said 
 he, and looking round confronted the tall solemn Nawab. 
 
 " When you have seen the suttee of your own mother, as I did, 
 sir, you will not ask that question of me.'' And the sharp-tongued, 
 honest, clever little Cockney understood in his clear, good little 
 brain the whole matter, nodded to the Nawab, with his head on 
 one side, and went on. 
 
 Jim's poor old moonshee ! It was really very sad. He lay 
 straight in their path, shot stone dead, on his face, with the book 
 which he had last been reading to Jim crumpled up under his 
 honest old heart ; a heap of snowy white amidst the dark greenery 
 around. Jim did not mend matters by any means. He never 
 thought that the old man was dead. He called out, " Bagho- 
 bahar, most excellent and admirable of moonshees, sleeping in 
 the forest of golden delight, get up and come home. We thought 
 that we had lost thee, thou aged one." 
 
 Roland put his hands on his shoulders, and said suddenly, 
 *'Hush, Jim, he is dead." 
 
 ''Dead!" 
 
 ** Assassinated." 
 
 '' My moonshee ! Damnation ! Let me get at him. Assassinated 
 by whom? " 
 
 A very quiet voice said, " By the Rajah of Bethoor," and Jim 
 knew that it was the Nawab of Belpore who had spoken. These 
 two young men looked at one another for a moment, and saw that 
 they understood each other. 
 
 Jim was perfectly quiet after this one outbreak — far too quiet 
 to please Roland. They picked the old man up and laid him on 
 his back. His face was very quiet ; he had been shot twice 
 through the heart, while on his supposed errand of mercy. 
 
STEETTON. 249 
 
 The little jockey said, *' I knew they had a plot for his life, after 
 his giving information about the cypher. Why, I have laid in bed 
 and heard them talk it over. I'll tell you why it is, gentlemen, 
 that I never let out my knowing of Hindustani ; because I want 
 to hear what is going to be done about the nobbling of horses. 
 An unworthy motive. Let that pass. 1 knew that this would 
 happen if the old man came home, but I thought he was always 
 at the Cornet's bungalow." 
 
 Blurted out Jim, " The Colonel didn't like him at one time, and 
 so he turned out when the Colonel came." 
 
 And the Colonel said, '' That is perfectly true, in one respect. 
 But it is not a thing which should have been said, and I like you 
 the less for saying it just now, Mordaunt." 
 
 The jockey had picked up the moonshee's book, and had shaken 
 it. Nothing dropped from it but a few loose papers and a photo- 
 graph of Jim, which the jockey handed to him. The Colonel and 
 Roland walked away together, lamenting over the accident. The 
 Nawab and Jim remained behind, looking at one another over the 
 dead body. Unless history is altogether the Mississippi of lies 
 which Matthew Arnold says it is, you will find, I think, that when 
 two members of the Indo- Germanic race get scowling over the 
 dead body of one whom they have loved — it means mischief. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Jim and the Nawab looked steadily at one another over the corpse 
 for a little time, until the others were out of hearing. Then Jim 
 said, steadily, " Are you with me ? " 
 
 And the Nawab said, '* To the death." And the two young 
 men shook hands. *' What shall we do ? " said the Nawab. 
 *' You are of the conquering race, and should suggest. I will 
 follow." 
 
 *' Beat him up in his own quarters." 
 . **Who?" 
 
 '' The Rajah." 
 
 *' But how ? " said the Nawab. 
 
 *' Will you follow me, and let me do the talking ? " 
 
 " Of course I will. But it is terribly dangerous." 
 
 *' Tigers are. Yet we kill them." 
 
 "Yes, but armed," said the Nawab. "We are unarmed. 
 
250 STRETTON. 
 
 Nevertheless, I will go with you. It is horribly dangerous. The 
 crash is so near that we might precipitate it, and we have only 
 your regiment here, and the two companies of the 201st, which 
 came with Roland Evans, against five thousand native troops. 
 But I will go." 
 
 Jim only nodded. And the Nawab saw how India was con- 
 quered. 
 
 " Lee," said Jim, " my good-hearted little fellow, get this poor 
 body seen to for me." 
 
 And the jockey said, ** Yes, sir. But are you going to the 
 Rajah's palace ? " / 
 
 Jim said, "Yes." 
 
 ** I wouldn't ; but you know best. Here, you wallahs, all of 
 you, come here. And while you are about it, you had better go 
 and fetch half a hundred more. There is enough of you round 
 somewhere." And so Jim, giving one more look at his poor old 
 friend, mounted his horse and rode away with the Nawab. 
 
 I must for a few minutes follow Roland and the Colonel. 
 
 Roland said, " This is a sad business." 
 
 The Colonel said, ** That a good old man, whom I, God forgive 
 me, disliked, is gone to his God swiftly, with a smile on his face ? 
 I don't agree with you there." 
 
 '* Jim, Jim ! my dear sir," said Roland. " I am not one to 
 behowl myself over the swift death of a good man after a well- 
 spent life. But Jim. All the boys from our school are strange 
 and fantastic, but our Jim was the most fantastic of us all. I love 
 him, as you know. But I tell you that there is in Jim a vein of 
 cruelty and ferocity. He half killed my own brother, but he is 
 most unhappily in love with my sister, though he never opens his 
 mouth on the subject. He loved, in his quaint odd way, this old 
 man, and I think that he has never looked on death before. I 
 cannot be answerable for what he will do." 
 
 *' My good lad," said the Colonel, ** who ever said you could ? 
 We English are the oddest people on the face of the earth. 
 The French have a notion of that, but their caricatures of us 
 fail because we are utterly beyond any Celt who was ever born. 
 I have commanded this regiment for nine years, and I have 
 seen stranger fellows than your Jim. Have you tried religion 
 with him?" 
 
 ** He won't talk it," said Roland. 
 
 " I wish he would," said the Colonel. "I always know where 
 to have a religious man. I am not what you may call deeply 
 religious myself ; but if I could get a regiment of religious men 
 behind me — by Jove" — The Colonel was puzzled to go on. 
 
STRETTON. 251 
 
 Words failed him. What he could do with a regiment of the men 
 called in the service ** Methodists," was too much for his brain. 
 But he knew them, and so does English history. 
 
 "You tried him with High Church formulas?" said the 
 Colonel. 
 
 *' He was always used to them." 
 
 ** I wish Havelock was nearer. I wish Havelock would take 
 him in hand. Havelock has done wonders for some of our wildest 
 ones. There's Willoughby, again. By-the-bye, you saw Wil- 
 loughby last week. Did he say anything odd ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Roland. " He said something very odd indeed. 
 He scarcely spoke to me at all during the necessary business of 
 sending the company here ; but he never left off looking at me. 
 I did not know whether he liked me or not ; but when we parted 
 he laid his two hands on my shoulders, and said, * You are a man 
 who knows how to die.' " 
 
 " He said that, did he ? " said the Colonel. "And what did 
 you say ? " 
 
 " I said I was ready to die for England ; and he replied, ' For 
 India, India. God has given us a great trust here, and we must 
 cany it out.* " 
 
 " Just like him," said the Colonel. " That is the best young 
 man in Ind'a. Did he say anything else ? " 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 " Because what he says is generally worth hearing," said the 
 Colonel. " That is why. But about Jim Mordaunt. Can you 
 prevent his making a fool of himself? " 
 
 " I never know what he will do for five minutes together," said 
 Roland. " I had power over him once, but I have completely lost 
 it. At one time he would do what I told him. Now my only 
 way of influencing him is to ask him not to do the thing I want 
 done. Whereupon he does it at once. But he is getting up to 
 that now." 
 
 Roland and the Colonel would have been much more anxious 
 about Jim had they known of the strange errand on which he had 
 set himself, and into which he had induced the Nawab, a longer- 
 headed man than Jim, to follow him. Though the Nawab followed 
 Jim, he had opinions of his own, and after his return from this 
 ridiculous expedition, set all his people fortifying his palace under 
 the tropical moon. 
 
 They cantered away towards the Rajah's palace, which stood on 
 the summit of a rock, and they rode leisurely up to the gate, and 
 through the gate, and through other gates, as far as they could 
 go. Jim was the first European who had ever got so far. They 
 
252 STKETTON. 
 
 went through court after court, and cloister after cloister, swarming 
 with staring natives of all ages and sexes, diligently doing infini- 
 tesimally small things, and earning about three halfpence a day 
 on an average. 
 
 Then they jumped off their horses, and left them to the grooms. 
 And pushing on, the Nawab close to Jim, they came to a heavy 
 teak gate which entirely puzzled Jim. The Nawab put him 
 aside. 
 
 " We will get in here," said the Nawab : "we shall never get 
 out again, but I will go to the devil with you. Put your foot in 
 the wicket when it is ope;ned." And the Nawab knocked nine 
 times. 
 
 '' Why that number? " whispered Jim. 
 
 And the Nawab explained it to him hurriedly. And Jim pulled 
 a long face and said, "Well, this is Queer Street." And the 
 Nawab said, " It is." Said the Nawab, "You English fancy that 
 you know India. Ha ! " 
 
 The wicket was opened cautiously, which gave Jim the oppor- 
 tunity of pushing it wide open, and knocking the aged porter on 
 the flat of his back. In another moment they had shut it again, 
 and the Nawab and Jim stood alone and defenceless within the 
 court-yard of a palace more unutterably given to the devil than 
 possibly that of Heliogabalus. 
 
 One may distrust Suetonius, as one habitually does State 
 papers, as being ex parte. But no man out of Bedlam can 
 distrust the contemporary evidence about the state of Indian 
 courts. 
 
 Jim from Shrewsbury, and the Nawab of Belpore, stepped 
 swiftly on through a broad cloistered quadrangle, as nearly like a 
 college quadrangle or court as need be, surrounded by cloisters ; 
 but deluged with floods of water in square pools. 
 
 I must cease here ; I know too much to speak. Might we not, 
 however, allow a little more liberty in the working of fiction ? 
 
 Jim and the Nawab, however, held their heads in the air, and 
 passed along the broad path which runs between the baths towards 
 the awful, barbarous building which closed up the quadrangle on 
 the farther side. It was a building in which every idea of art (as 
 we know it ; there may be art of which we know nought) was pol- 
 luted and rendered abominable. I have no worse word to say 
 against the Cotsea Bhang at Delhi, or the Mosque at Benares, 
 than I have to say against the Mosque at Ispahan (probably the 
 greatest and purest thing in the world), or Contances Cathedral. 
 I say that they are all exquisitely beautiful, but this building was 
 an exception. It was like the great Temple at Pegu ; it was like 
 
STEETTON. 253 
 
 the Pagoda at Tanjore ; it was like the Pavilion at Brighton ; the 
 walls of Jericho with the gates of Gaza. 
 
 " But see what we can do," said the Nawab, laying his hand on 
 Jim's shoulder ; *' look there." 
 
 Certainly there was a mosque to the left, with two minarets 
 soaring into the summer air. Certainly Western art, called Gothic, 
 had seldom produced anything so perfect. Certainly the two tall 
 stalks of the minarets cast themselves aloft in the air, and branched 
 out at intervals, like the Equisetum. Certainly even dull Jim got 
 into his head that the builders of the present day were making 
 rather a mess of it. But equally certain was it that the other 
 building was before him, and that he was going to tell the Rajah 
 a piece of his mind. 
 
 They went in under the dark, low, barbaric doorway, the Nawab 
 keeping his left hand on Jim's shoulder and the right hand on his 
 dagger. Jim was the first British officer who had ever entered that 
 abode of sin and horror. The first long, cool corridor they entered 
 was perfectly empty ; but at the end of it, on a flight of marble 
 steps, was an old woman, who fled nimbly from them, in silence. 
 
 *' I will go first ; I have been here before," said the Nawab. 
 
 And they passed on up the staircase, and through corridor after 
 corridor of the building, now silent and deserted since the old 
 woman's alarm, until retreat became utterly impossible, as it 
 seemed to the Nawab. 
 
 "If he is ready," said he to Jim, *' we are dead men. Here 
 is the door. Shall we knock ? " 
 
 Jim gave no answer, but pushed it open. 
 
 Gilt looking-glasses, French china, Dresden china, Wedgwood, 
 Minton, old Chelsea, Giotto, and Grindling Gibbons ; an expensive 
 copy of the Madonna della Seggia, beside an evil photograph. Why 
 go on ? One is not writing a catalogue for Christie and Manson. No 
 method, no tone, anywhere ; ghastly barbaric brutality — namely, 
 scarlet and gold ; a brutal barbarism, beside which the half-toned 
 fantasticism of Ghengis, Baatu, and the gentle Kublia Khan, 
 relieved only by jewels and gold, look high art. Brutal, senseless, 
 godless I 
 
 In the centre of it lay the Rajah, reading the Euf/li.sh transla- 
 tion of a French novel, not by any means a Balzac or a Jules 
 Janin ; quite a diflerent sort of one. 
 
 He was quite alone, and had violated every rule of art in his 
 person as he had in his room. He was dressed in green velvet, 
 scarlet silk, and gold. He was a very handsome man, lighter in 
 complexion than the Nawab — lighter than many Englishmen — 
 somewhat fat for his age, with a black drooping moustache. 
 
254 STRETTON. 
 
 And before him, as he pretended, suddenly, came Jim and the 
 Nawab. 
 
 With pretended surprise, he turned over on his divan, turned 
 down his page, and lay looking at them. 
 
 *' The dog is ready, ' said the Nawab. 
 
 "I'll break his neck for fivepence, first," said Jim, in a 
 
 whisper. 
 
 " You are the Rajah of Bethoor ? " said Jim. 
 
 "I thoufjht I was till this moment," said the Rajah, in very 
 tolerable English. '' I have begun to doubt it this last few 
 moments. My agreement with the Company is well known, and 
 one part of it was that I was to be left in possession of my 
 domestic peace. I now find that I am to be insulted by the inva- 
 sions of drunken English subalterns and their miserable native 
 imitators." 
 
 ^^ Unrest pas pret," said the Nawab. " Allez voits en, jeime 
 Evans f" which w^as what he made of the oft-repeated Shrewsbury 
 slang. '^ Go it, young Evans." 
 
 ''I do not understand Italian," said the Rajah, *' and I know 
 not Evans. It is Mordaunt who is here. What do you want ? " 
 
 " I want to know about my moonshee," said Jim. 
 
 " I am not an impressor of moonshees ; ask your Colonel," 
 said the Rajah. " If you want a moonshee, ask him to find you 
 one." 
 
 " I believe that you have murdered mine," said Jim. 
 
 "What can I possibly care what a subaltern like you believes 
 or disbelieves?" said the R?jah. "If I had had him assassi- 
 nated, do you think I would confess it yet ? You can go — for the 
 present." 
 
 " I'll have the truth out of you if you were fifty Rajahs," said 
 Jim. 
 
 " Possibly," said the Rajah. " You can go for this once, how- 
 ever." 
 
 And as he said this he rose and advanced towards them, his 
 book in his left hand, and his right finger pointed, not at Jim, but 
 at the Nawab. 
 
 " For you," he said, in Hindustani, "you shall not die. You 
 shall pray for death, but I shall keep you alive. You shall roll 
 before my feet, praying me to kill you ; but you shall not die. 
 You English-lover, have you read 'The Curse of Kehama,' the 
 only thing worth reading the English ever produced ? You shall 
 not die ! No, you shall not die ! " 
 
 " You shall, though ! " shouted the Nawab ; and before our 
 poor Jim could collect his thoughts, the Nawab had dashed out 
 
STEETTON. 255 
 
 behind him, with a long gleaming knife in his hand, and was 
 preparing for a tiger spring on the Rajah. 
 
 Jim had just time to cast himself between them. He got the 
 knife through his deltoid muscle : it was as likely to have gone 
 through his heart. He forced the Nawab back, crying, " Con- 
 sider, old boy, consider. Before a British officer ! Old man, 
 you have stabbed me accidentally ; but I will throw you on your 
 back if you are not quiet." 
 
 The Nawab was quiet at once. 
 
 << Why did you not let me get to him ? It would have been 
 better. Come away." And turning to the Rajah, who stood 
 perfectly still, he said, '* If you have any gratitude in your 
 dog's heart, you will remember that Mordaunt saved your life 
 to-day." 
 
 *' I will remember Mordaunt and remember you," said the 
 Rajah. ''You are free to go." And they went — not having 
 gained much. 
 
 Jim was badly wounded, and the Nawab was in the deepest 
 distress, at which Jim chaffed him, telling him that he was not 
 half an Englishman yet. It was no worse than a bloody nose. 
 Still the blood was soaking in an ugly manner through Jim's 
 white sleeves, and the Nawab wanted him to stay on the outer 
 quadrangle and have it dressed. But Jim said, " No ; let us get 
 out of this hole. I can't stand this." And so they went out 
 through the great teak door once again. 
 
 So came one of the strangest surprises ever seen, yet one of 
 the most easily accounted for. Surprises do occur in the world, \y 
 but they always arise from the most natural causes. ^ 
 
 When they got out into the sunshine beyond the gate, there 
 stood before them a British officer in blue coat and white trousers, 
 with a sword hooked up to his side, and his shako on the side of 
 his head. A smallish officer, just up to regulation. A mar- 
 vellous neat, tight little officer, up to any amount of work. And 
 when Jim looked on the officer, he cried, " Heavens and earth ! 
 it is Eddy ! " 
 
 And it was Eddy. And Eddy said, *' I have exchanged into 
 the 201st Foot, in order to be with you and Roland." 
 
256 BTEETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's had long wearied of his Oxford work. 
 Eternal grinding at bad Greek, bad Latin, and bad logic, had 
 become deeply wearisome to him. Most of the men of his time, 
 too, had gone away, and the men he sat with in common were 
 bright, clever, hearty enough ; but they were too young for him. 
 He was getting a Fogy among Dons. 
 
 Why, he had often put it to himself, should he stay there 
 trying to live down the 6ld Provost, who was not so very old, and 
 become head of the house himself? It was a miserable life. 
 Certainly, Norway, in the long vacation, freshened him up a little ; 
 but then he was the only man in the college who ever went to 
 Nonvay. He could see that his salmon stories bored men at 
 dessert, and, like a wise man, he left off telling them. And, 
 indeed, for him, there was little left to talk about, save the 
 everlasting pettinesses of hebdomadal board, or something which 
 he hated still more. 
 
 When he had been young, there had been a great and brilliant 
 school at the university. A school of men who, in various ways, 
 have left their mark upon the generation, and whose names are 
 familiar in all men's mouths even now. He had been one of 
 them. But they were all gone. Some to Rome, some to 
 bishoprics, some to deaneries, one particularly to a school, 
 leaving his seal for a whole generation or more on the boys of 
 England, partly through his own genius, and partly through the 
 surprising genius of three or four of his pupils. They had split 
 off in opinion, this mighty old band of giants, and there were 
 only two left "up" now. Himself and one other. The Dean 
 and this last of the giants of the old time had extremely diverged 
 in opinion : though in gentle social intercourse, whenever they 
 met, there was no change. 
 
 In a pretty garden by the river walked the Dean all at ease, 
 looking at the silly deer under the overarching elms ; and towards 
 him, along the walk, came this old giant, with his head bowed 
 low, walking fast and steadily. 
 
 Their eyes met as the Professor raised his head, " Ah, 
 Dean!" he said, "we never see one another now; and we are 
 the only two left. Let us walk and talk together." And they 
 hooked arms, and walked and talked. 
 
 Over all the old ones who had fought and striven in the old 
 times. Gently, like elderly wise men, not like hot-headed boys, 
 they talked over their differences ; and as they walked and 
 
STEETTON. 257 
 
 talked the dear old times seemed to come back again in wave 
 after wave of reminiscence, mitil the tide of good-will was high. 
 Boys in your full high blood fight, squabble, and quarrel for your 
 principles. If a man won't use strong language in defence of his 
 principles, he is not much of a man. But let two old men, with 
 the Indian summer of recollection around them, talk over their 
 old quarrels with kindly good-will. 
 
 That is what the Professor and the Dean did. And the Pro- 
 fessor said, *' I daresay I am ' Laudator temporis acti," my dear 
 Dean. But we have not the same stamp of young men up now. 
 I partly attribute it, of course, to the atrocious opinions of you 
 and of your party, and in a still more extreme degree to boat- 
 racing." 
 
 '* My opinions are not so very atrocious," said the Dean. 
 And as for boat- racing, I always hated it. But, it is as 
 you say. I find it at our place. We have a lot of men who call 
 themselves of your party at our place now ; and we have a lot of 
 men who call themselves of mine. But there is scarcely one of 
 them who understands the questions between us. On both sides 
 shallow verbiage on details. The fight now is not the old grand 
 fight when you and I fought; there are not the men to fight 
 it." 
 
 And the Dean mentioned a string of names which I dare not 
 write down, one of the greatest in our time. Not of one party, 
 but of two great ones, but which were all so familiar to the Dean 
 and the Professor that they called them often by their Christian 
 names. Men who took two sides, yet could love and respect one 
 another. Men, both sides of them ** severe," yet with a liberality 
 which shames that of this day. Is there any one who has not 
 been astonished lately at Keble's opinions on the tests? The two 
 parties in those days were sure, and, therefore, bold and magna- 
 nimous. 
 
 "I wish you would come and dine with me to-night," said 
 the Dean; '* I should like to show you our new tutors of both 
 parties." 
 
 '* Thanks, rather not," said the Professor ; ** I dislike looking 
 on decadence. We have not had a fine team of boys up for a 
 long time." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said the Dean, with animation. 
 
 " K sent me up the year before last as fine a team of boys 
 
 as I would wish to see." 
 
 The Professor looked him full in the face and laughed at him. 
 The Dean could not think why. 
 
 ** A splendid team of lads. Wild as hawks, fantastic as 
 
 18 
 
258 STBETTON. 
 
 monkeys, I will allow. But splendid lads. I wish you had 
 known them." 
 
 ** Roland, Eddy, Jack, Jim, and, to make up a fifth, Maynard. 
 From Shropshire. Quite so." Said the Professor, laughing 
 again. 
 
 "Well, that is true," said the Dean, puzzled. " Could they 
 have come your way ? I warned them against you and your evil 
 ways very solemnly on many occasions." 
 
 Undergraduaies lounging ahout the High Street were utterly 
 and entirely dumbfounded at the spectacle of the Dean and the 
 Professor, known as deadly enemies, thirsting for one another's 
 blood, standing face to face with one another, laughing heartily. 
 Still more when they saw the Professor slap the Dean on the 
 shoulder and say, *' I am a conjuror ; I am a conjuror." 
 
 ** Upon my word I think you are, old friend," said the Dean, 
 merrily. 
 
 " What have you done with these boys ? " asked the Professor, 
 as they resumed their walk. 
 
 *'Well," replied the Dean, with a long face, ** three are 
 gone to India, one is married, and the other is doing nothing 
 at aU." 
 
 "A nice mess you have made of it," said the Professor. "I 
 should recommend you to try parish work after this." 
 
 " I wish I could get some. I wish I was away from here. I 
 am getting too old to have influence with the young men, for 
 I have not made a name like you." 
 
 *' But, your turn must have come in for a home." 
 
 *'I let it pass. It was only 260^. a year, and house and 
 glebe." 
 
 " It was not enough." 
 
 *'It was not then; but I would take it now. I am sick of 
 this. I have done no good with my life. I think you have done 
 much evil with yours. On certain points, dear old friend, there 
 must be no compromise between us. I would oppose you in 
 imhlic to-morrow, you know." 
 
 The only answer was a kindly squeeze of the arm, and a 
 golden silence on both sides. That is the way, as far as I 
 have seen, that good men, deeply in earnest, and in earnest 
 to the death, but on opposite sides, are getting to treat one 
 another. 
 
 At a certain garden-door at the end of a college, they parted, 
 and as the Professor opened his garden-door he chuckled, and 
 said, " He will never know of it. He will never dream." 
 
 For a somewhat strange thing had happened to the Professor 
 
STEETTON. 259 
 
 that morning. He had been sitting at his work when his servant 
 brought him a card, whereon was written, " Mr. George Mor- 
 damit." Whereupon he had risen, and gone quickly to greet a 
 stout, square-headed man with grizzled hair, about fifty years old, 
 who to do full honour to his old university, had dressed himself 
 in the dress of twenty-five years previously, the time when he 
 had been an undergraduate. A blue coat and gilt buttons, buff 
 waistcoat, and drab trousers. And the Professor, beholding him, 
 grasped his hand and said, *' My dear Mordaunt I After so 
 many years 1 " 
 
 *' The old place is not any stranger than your face, Pro- 
 fessor," said our stout good Squire, "though it makes me feeJ 
 a little old. It is a place that hangs about one's heart — does it 
 not ? " 
 
 ** I don't think I can stand to leave it now, Mordaunt. What 
 have you been doing that you look so young ? " 
 
 ** Shooting, hunting, fishing, farming, managing my estate and 
 the poor souls on it, by God's help : educating my boys ; and as 
 far as all other things cultivating an absolute vacuity of thought, 
 as you will find when I come to my business. That is what 
 makes me look so young." 
 
 " I have not worn so well as you," said the Professor, 
 smiling. 
 
 *'You look old enough to be my father," said Squire 
 Mordaunt. ** And as my father (though we are of the same age) 
 I have come to consult you : and what is more to take your 
 advice." 
 
 ''Prettily put," said the Professor; "I will try you, old 
 friend." 
 
 " But have you time at my disposal ? " said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 ** It is now ten," said the Professor, '' and from this until four 
 in the afternoon I am at your service, for I have no lectures." 
 
 " Till four ! Bless the man, I shan't be half an hour. Come, 
 hear my confession." 
 
 The Professor, folding his arms upon his breast, leant forward 
 with a smile, and George Mordaunt began. 
 
 He was longer than half an hour. He told the Professor 
 nearly all I have told you, about his boys and their various 
 relations. About Roland and Ethel, and how he hoped some time 
 or another that such a matter might come to pass. About Jim 
 and his fantastic foolishness ; about the good influence that the 
 Evanses had on him, and about the unhappy attachment of the 
 unhappy youth to his friend's wife. Nay, he even went so far 
 as to put him in possession of the comical duello between Sir 
 
260 STKETTON. 
 
 Jasper Meredith and Mrs. Maynard, of the Barton : iho farce of 
 the tale ; but when alluding to the differences which had arisen 
 between young Maynard and his wife, by Mrs. Maynard's 
 scheming for Sir Jasper, told him that that should be set right 
 by Eleanor Evans in time. '* In time, my dear Professor, for it 
 is a most delicate and painful subject, which will bear no handling 
 save by the han/1 of a woman of genius. And Miss Evans is a 
 woman of genius, if ever one lived." And so he brought her on 
 the carpet, and told the Professor all about her from beginning to 
 end. And the Professor only nodded his head from time to time, 
 and showed by his eyes that he understood the whole matter 
 from beginning to end. 
 
 " She had an attachment once for my brother, now General 
 Mordaunt, in India, but it was not a happy one at all. He 
 admired her, for she was very beautiful, but he was a dandy, and 
 her brusqueries palled on him after a time. The necessary words 
 were never said, and I think happily so, for they would never have 
 done together at all. 
 
 "But another man was attached to her also. And she liked 
 and respected him deeply. I think that she hankers for a 
 renewal of her acquaintance with him. They are both too old to 
 marry, that would be absurd, but I think it would please Eleanor 
 to have him near her, not perhaps so much on his own account as 
 on a sentimental ground, which will not seem to you, I am sure, 
 ridiculous." 
 
 The Professor withheld his opinion. 
 
 " She is of a very affectionate disposition. She is utterly 
 devoted to two people : firstly, and in a minor degree, to my 
 daughter Ethel ; and secondly, to the younger Evans, Edward, 
 the nephew. She has slaved for that boy (she is a farmer, as I 
 told you), she has toiled over fallow and down for him winter and 
 summer. She has laid awake planning for him ; and since he 
 has gone to India, she has lain awake weeping for him. I swear 
 to you," said the Squire, with a terrible thump on the table, 
 " tiiat her love for that pretty lad is the most beautiful thing I 
 have ever seen in my life." 
 
 The Professor said, nodding, " Ay, ay." 
 
 *'Now again, leaving alone the personal affection I have for 
 her, she has been the makiiifj of my daughter Ethel. (The finest 
 girl in all England, sir.) And I want to oblige her. And I am 
 certain that she has a hankering for the society of her old sweet- 
 heart." 
 
 The Professor sat up as if he did not exactly follow him. And 
 he followed him still worse, when Mordaunt continued — 
 
STKETTON. 261 
 
 **Now old Hesketli has dropped at last, and so Doddington is 
 in my gift, and I think that if the thing were done delicately — say 
 hy your recommendation — don't you see ? " 
 
 The Professor began to see once more. 
 
 " That it would do — you follow me ? I come to consult you. 
 I have no son or relation in the Church. What is more natural 
 than that I, living out of the world, should come to you, an old 
 friend I am sure, not actually to ask for a nomination ; no, no ; 
 but to ask you, is sucli a man fit for the post ? " 
 
 " My recommendation would be the very worst thing he could 
 possibly have. It would raise a wasps' nest about your ears." 
 
 Mordaunt sat silent for a minute. His old friend's name 
 certainly did suggest polemics. 
 
 '' Well, I wanted to ask you about another part of the business. 
 I am, I hope, a sound Churchman. This man has been called 
 unsound. I don't go with you, but I respect your judgment. 
 What is your opinion of the man?" 
 
 " I must know who he is, you know." 
 
 *' The Dean of St. Paul's. If you decide against him, I will 
 go no further." 
 
 The Professor gave a start. " He and I have had some battles- 
 royal." 
 
 " That is one of the reasons why I came to you as a Christian 
 English gentleman to decide for me." 
 
 " Then come in half an hour ; " and Mordaunt, nodding, went 
 away. 
 
 When the half hour was gone he came back, and got his 
 answer. 
 
 *' By all means do what you proposed. He is doing himself 
 no good here in any way." "He is excellent, virtuous, diligent, 
 admirable. He wants family life. He wants human ties. As an 
 adversary, I shall be glad to get rid of him," he went on, laughing. 
 " As a man and a Christian I shall always respect him. You are 
 lucky to catch such a man ; but are we sure he will come ? " 
 
 " The living is nearly 800/. a year," said Mordaunt. 
 
 "Foolish man," said the Professor, laughing, "you might in 
 these precious times have got 12,000/. for it. Good-by, and 
 God go with you." 
 
262 STEETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 I HOPE my readers will entirely dismiss from their minds the idea 
 that Ethel was in the least degree *' fast." She was only a 
 country young lady who was a consummate horsewoman, and fond 
 of riding long distances very fast. 
 
 Ahout this time it "behuved," as the Scotch say, her father 
 to fall in love with, and buy, a hunter which was not in any way 
 up to his weight, and what was more, ride it, against the advice 
 of his wife, son, and daughter. The horse did the best it could 
 for him, but the illimitable grief to which the Squire and this 
 horse came to " among them," as the stud-groom put it, was 
 perfectly illimitable. When, however, it came to the Squire's 
 trying the largest water- jump in the country, with ihe hounds 
 running, and the horse landing on the near side, and the Squire 
 swimming to the opposite one, he, heretofore obstinate, gave it up 
 as a bad job, and said the horse was a worthless beast. 
 
 Ethel and John did not think so, however. It was a beautiful 
 large slightish thing, perfectly up to ten stone, though he had 
 triumphantly proved he was not up to thirteen. Young Mordaunt 
 tried it one day with a horse-rug round his knees on a side-saddle, 
 and it went like a lamb. He and Ethel, secretly, one dewy 
 morning at sunrise, had a secret meeting in the stable-yard, and 
 he put Ethel on this horse, and the good brother and sister rode 
 away, talking, as brother and sister should, through the lanes, 
 which grew narrower, wilder, and more grassy as they went on, 
 until at the end of one turf lane, there was a five-barred gate 7iot 
 open. And young Mordaunt put his horse at it and topped it, 
 and Ethel, she put her horse at it and topped it like a bird, and 
 they were out on the wild breezy slopes of Longmynd together, 
 talking of Roland and Eddy and Jim, with the lazy valley 
 awakening to its toil in the clearing mist six hundred feet 
 below them. 
 
 That horse would do for Ethel. At breakfast they did so din 
 their wonderful ride, and the wonderful performances of that 
 horse, into their father's ears, that he, to save his intellect, as he 
 said, then and there gave it to Ethel, on the sole condition of its 
 never being named to him again. 
 
 This was the first good jumping horse that Ethel had ever 
 had. And if he did not improve in that art, it was not from want 
 of practice. Its name was " Cheery Bird." 
 
 "What is the matter with your face, Ethel?" asked the 
 Squire one morning. 
 
STEETTON. 263 
 
 " I have scratched it," said Ethel. 
 
 " So I see," said her father. *' Unless some one else scratched 
 it for you." 
 
 ** The fact of the matter is that I have heen out riding before 
 breakfast," said Ethel. 
 
 ** So I should have gathered from the fact that you have come 
 to breakfast in your riding-habit, that your complexion is like a 
 dairymaid's, and that you have apparently combed your hair with 
 a carving-fork." 
 
 '' Well, I will tell the truth," said Ethel. ''I went over to 
 see Mary Maynard on Cheery Bird at daybreak ; and I knew you 
 like me to be at home by breakfast, and I took a short-cut. And 
 I got pounded, and put Cheery Bird at a hedge which was thicker 
 than I thought, and got my face scratched." 
 
 "Why did you go to the Barton?" asked the Squire, as 
 "black as thunder." 
 
 " To tell them the news from India," said Ethel, ready to drop 
 into the earth, but incapable of lying. 
 
 " Leave Ijulia alone when you go theref Ethel. I expressly 
 desire you to do so. If any of them want to know about India, 
 they can ask your mother." 
 
 The Squire said no more, but he little dreamt how far poor 
 innocent Ethel had carried her indiscretion. That unhappy and 
 infatuated Jim had written again to Mildred Maynard, leaving 
 the letter open, and begging his sister to read it. It was all 
 about the Nawab and the moonshee, and Ethel had taken it. 
 Poor lad I he did not like to drop out of all communication 
 with her. 
 
 But I wonder what Ethel would have said, had she known that 
 Mildred Maynard was lying, a heap of clothes with a moan inside 
 it, while her mother-in-law stood over her with the letter — the 
 letter which Ethel had brought safe in her pocket. 
 
 Mrs. Maynard was not an early riser by any means. But she 
 was aroused very early by hearing a horse's hoofs on the gravel, 
 and looking out she saw Ethel dismounting, with a letter in her 
 hand. 
 
 She put on her dressing-gown, and going swiftly to her daughter 
 Mary's room, shook her by the shoulder, and said — 
 
 " Be ill, lie in bed." And the girl having realised her orders, 
 turned over and went to sleep again. 
 
 Ethel was not long with Mildred, and never dreamt any more 
 than poor Mildred did that " the Cobra " (which was the last 
 flower of speech Miss Evans had invented in favour of Mrs. 
 Maynard) was doing anything else but snoring. " That is the 
 
264 STBETTON. 
 
 way she ultimately finished and put an end to her husband," Aunt 
 Eleanor said. " She snored him into a better world. Fve heard 
 her." 
 
 But Mrs. Maynard was by no means snoring, but was watching, 
 in her dressing-gown, for Ethel to go. The instant Ethel was 
 gone, she had come swiftly into Mildred's dressing-room, snatched 
 the letter from her hand and stood staring at her. 
 
 Hence the heap of clothes with the moan inside it, which lay 
 on the floor. 
 
 Cheery Bird got quite as much work as he wanted. Take this 
 one day in that devoted and honest horse's existence, for instance. 
 After breakfast he must be saddled again, and away she must go 
 after Miss Evans. Miss Evans was not at home. Aunt Eleanor 
 would have scorned the action at eleven o'clock in the day. She 
 was on the farm, and at the farther end of it, of course. And 
 her farm being of 700 acres or more, with the Grange at one end 
 of it, she was a mile away. 
 
 Still Ethel was in no particular hurry ; in fact she rather 
 dreaded meeting Miss Evans, and that very keen lady's eye. Yet 
 when she heard that Miss Evans was with the late lambs, in the 
 forty-acre turnip-field, she must needs ride across country, taking 
 fence after fence, though there were plenty of lanes and byways, 
 leaving alone the immortal right of way, which was a Roman 
 road, and as she positively declared, part of Watling Street, which 
 however goes through Lebotwood three miles off. Perhaps it was 
 good health, and good humour. Perhaps it was that Aunt 
 Eleanor's fences, like those of all good farmers, were so very 
 easy ; but I regret to say that Ethel, wherever she could find 
 a bit of grass, ** larked " from one grass-field to another, until 
 she saw Aunt Eleanor, in a grey habit, on her obstinate cob, 
 standing in the middle of a partly folded turnip-field, scolding her 
 shepherd. 
 
 Ethel was just jumping the last fence into the turnip-field when 
 Aunt Eleanor saw her. ''Hi!" she cried out, ''don't ride 
 through my turnips. You must be out of your mind ! Come 
 down under the hedge and over the folded part," which Ethel 
 did, and met Miss Evans. 
 
 " I don't want my farm to be made a steeple-chase course of," 
 she said, in greeting Ethel. " If you can't ride round by the 
 lanes, you had better stay away. What do you mean by larking 
 over my farm like that ? " 
 
 " Your fences are so easy. Miss Evans." 
 
 " Ah, I have slashed them down to get rid of the small birds, 
 which are a plague and a curse. They are fifty times worse than 
 
STKETTON. 265 
 
 the game. The game preservation and the law of trespass pre- 
 serve more small birds than I want. Look at the sparrows in my 
 rick-yard ! Kill caterpillars, fiddle-de-dee ; not as long as they 
 can get grain, and very few afterwards. I am Lady Patroness of 
 the Pulverbatch Sparrow Club, and I mean to remain so. What 
 do you want ? Why do you come larking over my fences like 
 this?" 
 
 *' Are you very cross, Miss Evans ? " 
 
 ** Yes, my dear ; I don't think I ever was in such an abomin- 
 able temper in all my life." 
 
 ** Can I do anything to remove your ill-temper. Miss Evans ? " 
 
 ** Yes ; stay with an old lonely woman and bear it." 
 
 " You are not very old, Miss Evans, and I will stay with you 
 for ever, in good temper and in bad temper, if you will let me." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor gave Ethel a look, which she understood. A 
 look which meant worlds. Those two understood one another. 
 
 '* Come," said Ethel, sedately, for she knew her humours, ** I 
 will never lark over your fences again if you will tell me what is 
 the matter, and give me some broiled chicken for lunch." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor turned to the shepherd, and said — 
 
 *'Now, mind, I don't draw back from one word which I have 
 said. Your orders were to shift hurdles every day. I don't want 
 this piece of clay pounded as hard as iron, and my wethers half 
 starved, because your daughter is fool enough to marry young 
 Dickson. You ought to have shifted the hurdles, or the bride- 
 groom should have come and done it, or the bride should have 
 come and done it in her wedding-dress, so that it was done. 
 Still, at the same time, we did so well with our spring lambs 
 that I can afford to give you two shillings a week extra, making 
 eighteen shillings. And your wife can have the whole of the 
 washing now, which will be from nine shillings to twelve shillings 
 a week, provided she don't send the things home in that state 
 of pig and crock which the poor woman who is dead now did.*' 
 
 So, scattering blessings with the sound of curses, the reverse 
 of Boileau's bishop, she fared on her quaint way with the beautiful 
 Ethel. And as they rode quietly together Ethel said — 
 
 " Please, Miss Evans, why are you so cross ? " 
 
 ** Because people are such fools." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Everybody I know." 
 
 '<AmI?" asked Ethel. 
 
 " My dear," said Aunt Eleanor, *' I gave you my most emphatic 
 opinion on that point a long time ago." 
 
 '* So you did. Have you not changed it ? " 
 
2G6 STRETTON. 
 
 *' Not a bit." 
 
 ** Well, never mind me. Who else have been making fools of 
 themselves?" 
 
 "Eddy, to begin with." 
 
 ''Of course," said Ethel. 
 
 " I don't see why you should say of course," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 ** Eddy is exceptionally clever. I should, for example, rank Eddy's 
 intellect far higher than yours." 
 
 " Heaven help me then ! " said Ethel. '* But what has he done 
 last?" 
 
 ** Exchanged into the 201st, so as to be with Koland and your 
 brother Jim." 
 
 *' The best thing the boy ever did. Why, the very grooms say 
 that one boy requires two men to look after him." 
 
 ''Your brother Jim wants some looking after," said Miss 
 Evans. 
 
 " No, he does not," said Ethel, emphatically. " No one Imows 
 Jim but I. He comes of wild, fierce, fighting blood ; and he will 
 fight when the time comes. God save the man who stops his 
 way ! *Look here. Miss Evans, you leave Jim alone, and I'll 
 leave Eddy alone." 
 
 " Who is losing her temper now ? " said Miss Evans. 
 
 "I suppose I am," said Ethel, bursting into a furious passion 
 of tears, and bending her head down over her horse's neck. " Miss 
 Evans, the wise men say that there is to be wrath and war there 
 soon ; -wTath and war such as the world has never seen before. 
 And Jim, what can save him? Oh, my brother! Oh, my 
 brother ! " 
 
 It was well that this happened, for they were soon quiet again, 
 and more friendly than ever. Aunt Eleanor, of course, retained 
 a little causticity just to seem the more natural. 
 
 " Who has been making a fool of himself next ? " asked Ethel. 
 
 "Your father," she replied, with a whimsical smile. "He 
 has gone and given the living of Doddington to the Dean of 
 St. Paul's." 
 
 " I know, dear Miss Evans. Are you not glad of it ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I am glad of it. I am very fond of the man ; and 
 if I was a hundred years younger, and he asked me, I would marry 
 him. But I am not such a fool as to marry when I am nearly 
 fifty." 
 
 " Is he handsome. Miss Evans ? " 
 
 " No, child ; he is very ugly, and wears a wig." 
 
 "It would be rather nice if you were to marry him," urged 
 Ethel. 
 
STKETTON. 267 
 
 ** Well, nice or nasty, I am not going to do it, as your father 
 well knows. Therefore, I say, your father has made a fool of 
 himself in bringing the man here." 
 
 "Who next?" said Ethel. 
 
 "Your brother Jim. He has gone and married a moonshee, 
 as far as I can understand from Eddy's letter. It is possible that 
 it may be the best arrangement under the circumstances, but I 
 hate the kind of thing. Your father's uncle married a quadroon, 
 or a Creole, or something or another, and they went down in a 
 gale of wind in the Gulf of Mexico, with all hands, in the hurricane 
 of 1788." 
 
 " But, my dear Miss Evans " 
 
 " Oh, you may well say your dear Miss Evans. Of course, you 
 will speak up for your brother. I spoke up for my brother at one 
 time, and a pretty mess I have made of it. I only know that if 
 Eddy comes home with a puce-coloured wife she shall attend 
 church, or I'll know the reason why." 
 
 "But, Miss Evans " 
 
 " And then your brother must go horsing the mail-coach, and 
 upsetting it into the graveyard. I know he has been horsing the 
 long stages. I am assured of that ; he would not be your brother 
 if he did not. Very likely with Eddy's money. Think of an 
 officer and a gentleman marrying a moonshee, horsing long stages, 
 driving his own cattle, and upsetting Her Majesty's mail in the 
 churchyard ! There is one comfort — the Nabob, or as Eddy 
 foolishly spells it, the Nawab, was on the box-seat, and broke 
 his neck." 
 
 It took a long time for Ethel to explain the real state of the 
 case, which the reader is in possession of. All she got, after all, 
 was a loud and incredulous sniff. It was explained to her by 
 Ethel, the Dean, old Mordaunt, and young Mordaunt, that the 
 moonshee was an aged gentleman and scholar of the Brahmin 
 religion. But she nailed her colours to the mast, and kept them 
 there still. She is more than ever persuaded, she says, that 
 mixed marriages and friendships between different races are a 
 mistake. And if pressed she points to the Nawab of Belpore, 
 and requests to know what became of Jim's friendship for 
 
 "Then, there is this Allan (she never would say "Evans") 
 coming down here and establishing a conventicle, under the rector's 
 own nose, with the money he has robbed from Koland. He says 
 he must worship according to his own conscience. He has got a 
 fine conscience to take lOOOZ. a year, rent-charge, from Eoland. 
 What is good enough for me ought to be good enough for him, 
 
268 STRETTON. 
 
 one would fancy. Well, I have told him my mind pretty often, 
 which is a comfort." 
 
 It may have been to her. It was little enough to him, poor 
 young fellow. 
 
 *' Well, he will die. And what is more, die of heart-disease 
 and over-work amongst Christ's poor ; and what is more, go to 
 heaven," resumed Aunt Eleanor. ''Iwish I didn't dislike him 
 so very, very much. I never could keep my wicked old tongue 
 away from that young man. I have been a most wicked old 
 woman to him." 
 
 '' He loved Eddy," said Ethel, quietly. 
 
 There was a very long pause. 
 
 ** It was good of you to say that, child. You are a good child. 
 But when I committed the great and irretrievable wickedness of 
 my life, I had not thought of that. I had ruined him before I 
 thought of that. Had I thought of it I would have stayed my 
 hand. It is too late now. Good actions, child, live for ever, and 
 bring forth fruit a thousandfold. Evil, thoughtless, spiteful 
 actions, like mine towards him, bring down a heavy retribution 
 even in this world. The Papists say, that they can release you 
 from the consequences of your own actions, by certain formulas. 
 I am sure I wish they could ; but then, on the other hand, they 
 can't, don't you see. If I was gaby enough to believe in it, and 
 the Pope of Rome were to send me on a pilgrimage to Mecca — I 
 should say, Compostella, I'd go, to undo the wickedness and wrong 
 I have done to that young man in a moment of folly and spite." 
 
 Ethel did not understand her ; but she knew her well enough 
 to know that, under her quaint fantastic language, there was a 
 meaning, and a deep one. 
 
 ''Here has been Sir Jasper Meredith again; a pretty fool he 
 has made of himself. That little heap of bones, to save Roland 
 from ruining his life by marrying Mary Maynard, wrote a letter, 
 proposing to her. And that old trot, her mother, is determined 
 to bring him to book, and to make that sleepy ox, young Maynard, 
 bring him to book likewise. She knows that he would not stand 
 her in his house long, fool as he is ; and so she wants to move to 
 Sir Jasper Meredith's. She knows that he would not move in 
 such a matter, unless she had a hold over him, stronger than ever 
 she had before. And what has she done ? Made up a case of 
 jealousy between our innocent little Mildred (another fool) and her 
 honest ox-like son. She has done that. I beg your pardon, 
 child, for talking of such things ; but the world wags as it wags ; 
 and I don't hold with keeping a girl till she is five-and-twenty in 
 a Puritanical fictitious ignorance of evil. Fiddle-de-dee." 
 
STRETTON. 269 
 
 ** But, Miss Evans, Eobert Maynard has no one to be jealous 
 about, I should think." 
 
 " Of course he has not. But your brother Jim (as I previously 
 remarked) is a fool, and has written her letters. Who has taken 
 them to her I don't know. But old Myrtle knows she has got 
 them, and that her husband has been shown some. And there's 
 a pretty kettle offish." 
 
 She did not notice that poor Ethel gave a low groan, and bent 
 down on her saddle ; but she went on. 
 
 " That is what reconciles me to this unhappy marriage of Jim's 
 with the moonshee. What place she is moonshee of, I don't know ; 
 she seems to take no territorial title. I daresay slij will make him 
 a good wife, and she no doubt brings him money. How on earth 
 she is to go in to dinner, or what rank she will take in the county, 
 I can't conceive. Lady Caradoc must go in first, I suppose, unless 
 I send the moonshee in as bride ; but that wouldn't do for long, 
 you know, and I don't want to disoblige Lady Caradoc. I want 
 her to buy my clover hay ; I could let her have it five shillings a 
 ton cheaper than I could any one else, because I shouldn't have 
 to deliver it." 
 
 *' Dear Miss Evans," said Ethel, *' all this is perfect nonsense." 
 
 " My dear, I assure you that if you bring Lady Caradoc to me 
 to-morrow, she shall have the hay at dl. 15s." 
 
 " I do not mean about that. I mean about this moonshee. His 
 moonshee is an old man who teaches him Hindustani." 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Evans, loftily, ^* I do not for a moment 
 dispute that you are quite right in believing everything which is 
 told you. But at the same time, I must point out to you that 
 I am much older than you ; that viy brother was more years in 
 India than yours has been months, and that I frequently heard him 
 mention these very moonshees, as being the most thimderiiig 
 humbugs going. That was his expression. He may have been 
 right, or he may have been wrong. He Avas not, according to my 
 standard, a wise man ; but he was not entirely deprived of under- 
 standing. I think we had better change the conversation, because 
 really I am certain about nothing, since you have told me that 
 Jim's young wife was an aged Brahmin gentleman of scholastic 
 habits. Live and learn. I am only certain of one thing at this 
 present moment, and that is, that spring lamb does not pay for 
 rearing so far from London. The loss in the transit is too great. 
 And the pretty little beasts do sufter so horribly if they are sent 
 alive. Good-by, child." 
 
 When Ethel got home her father and brother were standing in 
 
270 STEETTOK. 
 
 the porch. Her brother took her in his mighty arms and lifted 
 her off her horse. 
 
 He knew her ways. And she said to him, '' You must kiss me 
 twice more ; for Jim is in India." And he did so, laughing, and 
 held his arm round her waist the while. For there was between 
 those two the strange unfathomable love of brother and sister. A 
 love which rivals that between mother and son — a love which is 
 mysterious and incalculable ; and so we will not say anything more 
 about it. 
 
 "Lead her horse away," said the Squire. 
 
 '* Yes, sir," said young Mordaunt, laughing at his father. 
 
 '* And keep away," said the Squire. Young Mordaunt departed 
 with the horse. And the Squire began on Ethel. 
 
 *' Come here, girl." 
 
 ''I have come." 
 
 " I was very angry with you this morning." 
 
 "You were." 
 
 " John says that I had no reason to be. I am very sorry for 
 it, and I ask your pardon." 
 
 "You will break my heart among you," sobbed poor Ethel. 
 " You are all so good to me ; and what can I do in return ? " 
 
 " Why, you can come here," said the sturdy old Squire, opening 
 his arms ; and she went there. And for my part, looking at the 
 matter in a practical way, I think that it was the best place she 
 could go to, seeing that Roland was drumming and trumpeting 
 away at Belpore, making Indian night hideous, and rousing the 
 jackals by this process, which the service calls, I beUeve, changing 
 guard. 
 
 Calculating English and Indian time, the Rajah of Bethoor just 
 then looked out of a window, and he said in Hindustani, "There 
 go the cavalry bugles ; Cordery has moved them into the north 
 lines. Hang him ! but I will sort him." 
 
 And Squire Mordaunt said to Ethel, " Pretty bird, what has she 
 told you?" 
 
 "She has told me everything. And I will do so no more. I 
 did not know, father ; indeed I did not know. I carried that 
 letter from Jim this morning in sheer innocence. I knew nothing, 
 father. Our poor Jim ! our poor Jim ! " 
 
 The Rajah of Bethoor said, pretty nearly at the same time, " I 
 hear your bugle, you scamp. Curse you, there you go, with your 
 precious Nawab beside you. Oh ! my dear young friends. You 
 James Mordaunt, you have insulted me once, and you are a very 
 dangerous and determined hound. I'll have your life one way or 
 another. You, Nawab, can live." 
 
STEETTON. 271 
 
 Said Squire Mordaunt to his daughter, '' There is one thing we 
 have never spoken ahout, child. Do you love Roland ? " 
 
 And she said *' Yes." — ^ 
 
 Said the Rajah of Bethoor, ** There goes the worst and most ' 
 dangerous man of the whole corps : that Roland Evans. That 
 young wretch has the cunning of a jackal, the courage of a tiger, 
 and the intellect of a Clive. You must die, my dear young man." 
 
 Said Squire Mordaunt to Ethel, " It is very well. He is noBle 
 and good. I am glad he has escaped the Maynard entanglement. 
 We shall have him home covered with glory soon. And to keep 
 him in memory of us he has our good Jim, and good little Eddy." 
 
 Drums and fifes now. A sub-division of the 201st infantry 
 stepping quickly on under the Indian moonlight, with their swift 
 inexorable Roman-like march, to pick up stragglers, see all safe, 
 and generally to do the work of a sergeant's guard ; for things 
 were getting so wild and dangerous now, that we must have a com- 
 missioned officer at this work ; a gentleman responsible, by the 
 risk of social ruin, for anything going wrong ; which, in a country 
 like ours, is a terribly strong guarantee. 
 
 And, by the side of the sub-division, marches our little Eddy ; 
 going swift and direct, well from the hips, with his sword close up 
 to his side in the swivels, in white trousers, white helmet, and 
 blue tunic. A gallant little officer, as self-possessed as when he 
 used to steer the old four-oar, but liking this work better, seeing, 
 as he said, that it led to something. 
 
 By a most remarkable circumstance, when he was exactly under 
 that particular window of the Rajah's enormous palace which 
 looked upon the town, and out of which the Rajah himself was 
 stealthily looking, he cried ''Halt!" And they halted, and 
 ordered arms according to Eddy's direction. 
 
 ''You little devil!" said the Rajah to himself, "you know 
 I am here." 
 
 " Sergeant," said Eddy in his airiest tone. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Akers was not come in when we marched ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " I am afraid he is lying drunk in the jungle somewhere. 
 What a pity it is he does such things ! I will just go round 
 that bit of jungle before we go to quarters, what do you say? " 
 
 " The very best thing possible, sir. There are tigers about." 
 
 "Ball cartridge, load" shouted Eddy, and that having been 
 done, " Quick March ! " and this little part of the arrangement 
 caUed military organisation (which has conquered India, Silesia, 
 Poland, the Southern States, and which is, like brandy or fire, 
 
272 STKETTON. 
 
 a good servant but a bad master), went swiftly off up the road 
 past the jungle. 
 
 The Rajah, who had drawn in his head at the word "Ball 
 cartridge," put it out again, and looked after Eddy, swinging 
 along in the moonlight beside his men. 
 
 *' You little devil ! " said he, " I will broil you alive on hot coals 
 for this insult, and your beloved James Mordaunt, sahib, shall sit 
 and look on." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor said to a young man who had come down on 
 agricultural business, and who was going over the farm with her, 
 " Tell Mr. Sutton that I shall not preserve my own seed any 
 more. Mine never comes true. I shall buy of you in future. 
 I want to do the best by this farm, because my nephew, Mr. 
 Edward Evans, is coming home from India soon, and he will take 
 the management of it." 
 
 And so the young man departed to Reading, just as the Rajah 
 of Bethoor had settled down, to smoke himself into a state of 
 contemplative ferocity against Eddy, who, as the last, was the 
 most deeply hated of the men who had insulted him. 
 
 Do you say that this is fantastic ? If you do, I entirely agree 
 with you. Things tvere fantastic at that time. The most fantastic 
 thing I know is Hollar's Dance of Death. I doubt that few know 
 that book. To me it is godless, religionless, hopeless. But it is 
 a great book. Nearly the grimmest of all grim forms of Teutonic 
 thought, which is saying something, comes nowhere near it. In 
 that book. Death is Lord and Master, the beginning and the 
 end. 
 
 In this book of Hollar's, Death comes to every one at the finish 
 and end of all things — from the Emperor to the Nun. Hopeless, 
 ghastly, abominable, to one who believes in a future state and the 
 beneficence of God. But fantastic and quaint ? undoubtedly so ; 
 in these times we might make some fun out of the devils which 
 danced before St. Anthony. 
 
 I can make no fun out of it for you. My heart is too sick 
 over it, as the hearts of the best Americans are over their war. 
 I only assert that it was fantastic. That two styles of civilisa- 
 tion came in contact, like the two poles of a battery. But 
 fantastic it was. Why our good Nawab loaded his guns with 
 Eddy's empty jam-pots and the brassheaded nails which Aunt 
 Eleanor had sent him to hang up his pictures ! 'That is fantastic 
 I fancy. 
 
 Was it terrible ? Ask the widow with the broad white forehead 
 and the grey hair. She has often told grief to leave that forehead 
 of hers, and not wrinkle it between her eyebrows ! but grief sits 
 
STRETTON. 273 
 
 there on its throne still. Ask her. She turns her face to the 
 wall, and weeps afresh. Ask the gentle suhdued old Colonel, 
 from whose face, by one dim dark week of horror, every expression 
 has been banished, save that of an illimitable capacity of under- 
 going suffering. 
 
 It is bright Enghsh sunshine, in a beautiful old English garden, 
 and all the county is here, shooting bow -arrow, and playing 
 croquet. That is young Lord Thingaby, who is wearing shoes 
 one remarks, and one thinks of shoes one-self, for one likes to 
 look nice. The Poet is here, in his best of humours, and the 
 Beauty lights us all up like a torch, for folks stop conversation 
 to look and admire. That very tall gentleman is Lord Whosee 
 (I notice that his lordship's stature is not mentioned either in 
 Debrett's, Burke's, or Walford's Peerages, an omission which 
 I hope will be immediately remedied). In these days of Athletics 
 it is not much to ask ; we really ought to have the height, weight, 
 and pace per mile, of every member of the British Peerage, or we 
 shall drift into anarchy. Turn to the name *' Jersey " for instance. 
 I have not, because I don't happen to see the books, but I will bet 
 a halfpenny that you get no information on the subject. 
 
 There is the Beauty going into the kitchen garden, to show 
 Lord Bobalink (who married Miss Whippoorwill, second cousin, 
 as you will remember, doubtless, to Miss Bluebird, in America) 
 the peaches. Lord Bobalink is a rising man, and a good states- 
 man. Lord Bobalink generally knows which way the cat will 
 jump, though he invariably jumps the other way. He might 
 do wonders if he would be dishonest. So one goes into the 
 kitchen garden, to see Lord Bobalink, under the peaches on the 
 south wall. But between us and Lord BobaHnk, I meet an old 
 man. A man with a smitten face, as if destiny herself had smote 
 him, and it puts Lord Bobalink out of my head. " Colonel," 
 I say, "I want to have a long talk with you about the Indian 
 Mutiny." 
 
 '' Ally other subject," says the bowed-down old Colonel ; ** you 
 are young and happy, I am old and broken. I will speak to you 
 on any other subject but that. Did you not know my two girls 
 before I sent for them ? " 
 
 I had forgotten that unutterable horror for one instant. One 
 does forget. But the bright English summer day was turned 
 into dark night, as I walked along behind the Colonel's elbow. 
 The southeiT. sun was shining on the peaches, and threw our 
 shadow on them. And as he gave me details, leaving out his 
 o^vn family, our shadow fell upon them and seemed as though 
 it would blight them. 
 
 19 
 
274 STRETTON. 
 
 ''Fantastic?" Yes. Horrible? Yes. But the Colonel 
 was very quiet over it. " It was dacoitee on our part, you know. 
 We had not any business there by the law of nations. Yet if 
 it had not been for sheer dacoitee, where would have been the 
 English, French, Prussian, Austrian, or American nation now? " 
 
 I couldn't answer the Colonel, and what is more, I cannot now. 
 Dacoitee is undefinable. The removing of the Choctaws from 
 Florida to Dacotah would be considered a pretty strong example 
 of dacoitee, by some folks, if it had not been done by a Nation of 
 Angels, whose founder, George Washington, was a slave-owner, 
 and whose Poet-Laureate takes every opportunity of snubbing us 
 on such points, the removal of the Acadians for instance. N'im- 
 porte. My say is only this, that the Indian Mutiny, bringing 
 together, as it did, two very different civilisations, was a very 
 fantastic business. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 It so happened, in the course of accidents, that Squire Mordaunt 
 should be riding along a Shropshire lane, abutting on his own 
 property, and thinking ; a not very improbable incident. It more- 
 over happened that it was Thursday afternoon, which, again, on 
 the face of it, is not absolutely impossible. Furthermore, he was 
 thinking whether it would not be better for him to give up the 
 home farm, which, considering he was losing a cool 500Z. a year 
 on it, is not one of those incidents in fiction which, all things 
 considered, can be classed as sensational. 
 
 He was aroused from his reverie, the result of which was that 
 he wondered how old Eleanor did it, by hearing a hymn sung by 
 a few women ; and finding himself in front of a red brick Dissent- 
 ing chapel, he with a bull-dog promptitude, which was part of his 
 nature, drew up, and said, *' Oh, here you are ! " 
 
 There was a stony-looking, hammer-headed cob, of a colour 
 so quaint that it would take fifty Burne Joneses to reproduce it, 
 tied to the rails — a cob as utterly unlike the article known at 
 Aldridge's as a bishop's cob as it was possible to conceive. Any 
 bishop who had been seen riding on such a hammer-headed, 
 straight-shouldered, low-fetlocked, low-crested beast, would have 
 had a brotherly admonition from certainly the late Archbishop 
 of York, who knew a cob when he saw one, and who knew how 
 
STKETTON. 275 
 
 to do his Christian work among the Yorkshire wolds on one 
 also. 
 
 Squire Mordaunt got off and tied his horse to the rails of the 
 Dissenting Chapel, as far from this fearful dun-grey coloured 
 " pony " (as he called it) as possible. Then with his whip behind 
 his back, he stood and looked at him for a few minutes, and at 
 the end said, 
 
 " You are a ramshackle brute. But you have a kindly eye, 
 and get through, I don't doubt, a deal of work. I am going 
 to hear your master." 
 
 The horse made no remark whatever. 
 
 Big, burly Squire Mordaunt, dressed in grey, with breeches 
 and gaiters, a sturdy inexorable figure, stepped into the door, and 
 stood beside an old woman. There were only a few old men, 
 nearly past work, and labourers' wives in there. His old trained 
 eye told him why. A mere Popish priest in a hard-worked neigh- 
 bourhood will tell you why labouring men are so difficult to get to 
 church. 
 
 The hymn was not half over, and the Squire nudging the old 
 woman next him, took a half of her trembling hymn-book, and 
 what is more, sang out lustily, like a good old Briton as he was. 
 The old woman owed him thirteen weeks' rent, and he told her 
 that he would turn her out if she didn't come to church. Now 
 he found her here, and she trembled in her shoes. And she and 
 the Squire finished the hymn together. 
 
 Talking in places of public worship is most objectionable. 
 But when the Squire and this old woman sat down after the hymn, 
 they began to talk ; let us hope it will be forgiven them. 
 
 The Squire said, in a whisper behind his hand, " I am glad 
 to see you here. I thought you went nowhere." 
 
 She whispered, '' I am two miles from church, and look at my 
 shoes." And she pulled up her old petticoats to show them. 
 
 The Squire whispered, " All right. Never mind about the rent, 
 I don't want it. And come up to Macdingaway, he shall give you 
 your seed potatoes. You shall have York regents, old girl. Don't 
 cut them, plant 'em whole." 
 
 This scandalous and indecent conversation was brought to a 
 stop by a dead silence on the part of the whole congregation. 
 Squire Mordaunt scarcely improved his scandalous position by 
 saying, in a loud voice, to the officiating minister 
 
 " I beg pardon, sir. Pray go on." 
 
 The officiating minister went on. It was Allan Gray, looking 
 more like a bloodhound than ever, with the deep loving eyes, yet 
 with the potential ferocity of the bloodhound also. He began his 
 
276 STKETTON. 
 
 sermon. And from the first moment he began, Squire Mordaunt 
 began to hsten. 
 
 His text was, ''I have other sheep not of this fold." And 
 he began to handle that. Did it mean the Seven Churches ? It 
 appeared to mean more than that to him. And while he was on 
 the subject of the Seven Churches, he took the opportunity to go 
 in for a furious, wild attack on the Church of Thyatira, which he 
 said had never existed until fifty years after Saint John's death. 
 
 Whereupon the Squire said to himself: *' You are cutting your 
 Scriptures to pieces, are you. Young man, did you ever hear of 
 such a place as Rome ? With your craving for dogmatism, and 
 your distrust of revelation, you'll be a Papist in two years, if you 
 don't mind." 
 
 He was not a Papist at present, however. He enlarged on 
 his theme. Other sheep. Which? Dissenters of all kinds, 
 doubtless. Men who, like Professor X and Professor Y, were 
 trying to find out God by their own lights. Doubtless these 
 also. Inhabitants of other planets ? There was little doubt, 
 but that they were meant by the sheep of the other fold. The 
 moon, as had been so well proved by the late Mr. Copeland, now 
 dead thirty years, but uncontradicted, was the Hell, Hell, the 
 concealed place, the place of departed spirits, before their final 
 judgment 
 
 '• Purgatory," growled the Squire. 
 
 He could not agree with the late Mr. Copeland, advocate, 
 that the sun was the place of eternal torture for 729,000,000, 
 out of 800,000,000, on the face of the globe. He was, however, 
 perfectly certain that the 120,000,000 of Papists and Anglicans 
 who imitated Rome, would be either in the sun or farther, very 
 soon. 
 
 This was a hit out at Squire Mordaunt, who had given his 
 living to a well-known Broad Churchman. Who had furthermore 
 increased his sins by having (as churchwarden) encouraged 
 decorations in the church. The Dean of St. Paul's was well 
 known as a learned man, of lax views, in one point declaring that 
 he in his way believed in the Real Presence, with a strong tendency 
 to ceremonialism. The women and the old men did not under- 
 stand it at all. It was Greek to them. 
 
 " That man will be at Rome in a year. He is unable to see 
 the points of the question. I wonder what the efl'ect on the 
 estate would be if I sent him to Rome. I have a good mind to 
 send for old Father Jones. That man is hungering after dogmas. 
 Upon my word and honour I have a good mind to do it." 
 
 But at this time the sermon was concluded, and the old woman 
 
STEETTON. 277 
 
 to whom Mordaunt had forgiven her rent, woke up and dropped 
 her reticule, her pattens, and her umhrella. "After all," said 
 Squire Mordaunt, ** we are hoth of us only talking to old women." 
 Which was, in one sense, certainly true. 
 
 The service was over, and the Squire went out, waiting for the 
 man we will call Allan Gray. He joined the Squire in the road. 
 And the Squire said, *' South-east? " 
 
 Allan Gray said, *' Why, my good sir ? " 
 
 *' Kome ? " said the Squire. 
 
 ** No," said Allan, so quietly and good-naturedly, that the 
 Squire was disarmed at once. " I do not think it will come to 
 that. I see that you understand me, hut it will not come to that. 
 I grope in the dark. You are wise there, Mr. Mordaunt, but it 
 will never come to that with me. I have a guider who never errs." 
 
 " His name ? " said Squire Mordaunt. 
 
 " Love," said Allan. ** Love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 This was rather Greek to the good Squire, shrewd as he was. 
 He said, ** Do you mean ? " 
 
 ** I mean Eddy Evans, my half-brother. In all history, I think 
 there was never any one like him. I am bound to believe in 
 original sin, but that boy never committed it. That is the ques- 
 tion between myself and God. That boy Eddy has to suffer for 
 original sin, in everlasting torment, but he never committed it." 
 
 "My good young man," said Squire Mordaunt, "do go to 
 Rome. Their formulas are far less horrible than yours. I can't 
 understand why the deuce you fellows do7i't go to Rome." 
 
 Allan treated the square Squire with lofty scorn. He did not 
 take up the argument. He continued : 
 
 "These attorneys, these Somes, have arranged all the details 
 of the compromise between myself and my father's estate. I 
 mention this fact to you as my father's trustee. They will pay 
 me money in two months' time. That will enable me to sail by 
 the Burrumpooter, May I ask, as a special favour, that you will 
 receive me whilst I am here ? " 
 
 " Receive you ? Certainly. You are a good young man. Sail 
 by the Burrumpooter. What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I am going to India in two months, sir. Eddy Evans wants 
 guidance, and there is much to do there. Eddy Evans, whom I 
 now know as my brother, I always wondered why I loved him so 
 well, has been through many religious experiences with me. I am 
 going after him." 
 
 " Well, don't turn him Papist, young man," said the Squire, 
 " because that is the way you are going just now." 
 
27a STKETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 Miss Evans had, indeed, done far more than she ever meant by 
 her one act of thoughtless spite. Poor Allan Gray was terribly 
 smitten with our good friend Ethel ; and at the same time, being 
 neither wanting in brains nor fine feeling, he was aware that it 
 was in the highest degree improbable that he would ever make 
 the least impression upon her. 
 
 They were so utterly different in ways of life and in ways of 
 thought. She a lady of an old house, he not used to the rank of 
 life in which she had always lived ; she a Churchwoman of the 
 highest, he a Dissenter of the lowest; she trained in all field 
 exercises, he a thorough Cockney as ever was bred, considering 
 foxhunting and horseracing sinful. He was perfectly determined 
 never to palter with any one of his principles, but to remain 
 exactly as he was then. He knew, therefore, that he had no hope 
 of Ethel. 
 
 Yet he met her very often indeed, and talked very much with 
 her. He was so very respectful, and so very distant, that she 
 never guessed the state of the poor youth's heart, and by degrees 
 got to like him. 
 
 How came they to be thrown together ? One of the first 
 people who took up Allan with the greatest empressement was 
 Mrs. Maynard. She begged him to come to see them, and he 
 did so. 
 
 She was as sharp and as keen a woman as any in broad Shrop- 
 shire. She had not seen Ethel and Allan together twice, before 
 she knew his secret. 
 
 Such an opportunity of annoying Miss Evans, and possibly of 
 getting Miss Ethel well talked about, was not to be lost for a 
 moment. She acted perfectly ; begging Ethel to come as often as 
 she could, and sit with Mildred, who was now getting very ailing 
 indeed. Ethel could not have helped it even had she wanted ; 
 but indeed she liked very much to have pretty little Mildred with 
 her, and see her brighten up while she prattled by the hour about 
 Roland, a theme on which poor Ethel never tired. So it came 
 that Allan and Ethel saw a great deal of one another, and that 
 Miss Evans knew nothing about it, as she avoided Mrs. Maynard 
 like poison, and left her to accumulate more atrocities for the day 
 of reckoning, which Miss Evans dimly saw would come between 
 her and '' that woman " some time or another. 
 
 The household there seemed outwardly happy, but there was 
 still a sad cloud between Mildred and her good-natured husband. 
 
STKETTON. 279 
 
 He was devotedly kind to her — kinder than ever now that she 
 was getting near to be a mother. Besides, before Ethel or Allan, 
 it was quite impossible to hint at any domestic trouble. The 
 household was a very pleasant one to Allan, and, you may depend 
 upon it, Mrs. Maynard was civil enough. Allan thought her the 
 nicest lady he had ever known, and showed it so very plainly, that 
 Mrs. Maynard once, for a single instant, thought whether she had 
 not been rather precipitate in shelving herself as an old widow, 
 and whether it would still be worth while to get converted by 
 Allan, with a view to matrimony. He was six-and-twenty to 
 thirty, and she was forty to five-and-forty, without a grey hair in 
 her head. It was in her mind and out of it again, and although 
 she never exactly acted on it, she became extremely Low Church 
 and started a Mary Stuart cap, which, as being the cap which 
 has played more mischief in the minds of men in all history, 
 than another cap, she argued, was the proper thing under the 
 circumstances. She might as well have worn Elizabeth's best 
 ruff, for all the effect she was likely to produce at present. At 
 the same time, her John Knox might meet with a heart accident, 
 and might want consoling some day, and that would be easier 
 done in the Mary Stuart cap after all. 
 
 All hints and allusions of any tenderness between Roland and 
 Ethel, she, of course, very carefully suppressed. Miss Evans she 
 kept at a safe distance by continually sending her falsomely loving 
 and flattering messages. She well knew that good lady's humour. 
 *'I don't mind her so much when she shows fight," said Aunt 
 Eleanor ; " but when she takes to soft-soaping, I cannot bear the 
 sight of her," which Mrs. Maynard unhappily well knew. 
 
 I said Ethel got to like him. She did so very much, and found 
 him a most intelligent and agreeable companion. His settled 
 intention of going to India, so frequently expressed, combined 
 with her perfect unconsciousness, and his almost haughtily careful 
 reserve towards her, enabled her to be very good friends with him, 
 without her even suspecting how he felt towards her. And when 
 all was said and done, was he not Roland's elder brother ? 
 
 She praised very highly his project of going to India, and 
 sketched for him her brother Jim's character, in which he was 
 represented as being as brave as Picton, and as good as CoUing- 
 wood. Allan promised to cultivate that gentleman's acquaint- 
 ance, but said nothing whatever about the extremely unfavourable 
 opinion he had conceived of him on board the transport ship and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Mrs. Maynard's other great scheme did not seem to prosper at 
 all. Sir Jasper Meredith having taken counsel with young Somes, 
 
280 STEETTON. 
 
 proceeded immediately to the second Cataract of the River Nile, 
 and would probably have pushed up as far as Debonos, or even 
 Kamrasis, had not the management of his affairs imperatively called 
 him back to England. Considerable additional wealth had fallen 
 to him by the death of a very largely dowered aunt, and he had 
 not been at Lawley a week before Mrs. Maynard was upon him. 
 
 He was utterly alone, and unprotected. Even the elder Mor- 
 daunt must be at Shrewsbury races. She came over in her son's 
 carriage, and when the door was opened she merely walked in, 
 and, with her pocket-handkerchief in her hand, requested to see 
 Sir Jasper Meredith. 
 
 " How d'ye do, my dear Jasper ? " she began. " We have 
 been nearly out of our senses with worry and anxiety about you. 
 Never to write one word I I tell you the truth, I gave you up for 
 lost. I said, *He is drowned.' Those where my very words, 
 ' He is drowned.' Poor Mary instantly fainted away, and then 
 I had seen what a foolish thing I had done in yielding to my con- 
 victions, and breaking them to her without preparation." 
 
 *' I am sorry Miss Maynard was so very much upset," croaked 
 Sir Jasper, in his most raven-like tone. 
 
 *'AhI You don't know what that child's feelings are. She 
 will give you a deal of trouble if you don't mind." 
 
 ''Confound her, she is doing it already," thought Sir Jasper. 
 ** How the deuce am I to get out of this ? We had a very 
 pleasant tour, Mrs. Maynard. I am sony I was not longer, but 
 the river got low, and I came into Pleachmore and Spinsterwood, 
 and I came home by Paris. I spent some money there." 
 
 '' Ah, you young men 1 You young men I You will be gay. 
 Yes! yes!" 
 
 Sir Jasper caught her eye, and looked down on his withered, 
 wasted, ruined body with an indignation akin to fury, but well 
 concealed. She saw she had gone too far. 
 
 " I was not very gay," he said. *' A miserable heap of ruined 
 hopes like myself, much better dead, is not likely to be gay. I 
 spent some money in some jewels which I fancied, and I thought 
 
 " He rang the bell, and gave his servant a key and a 
 
 direction, and the man, opening a bureau, took out a large 
 morocco case, and went away. 
 
 ''I rather thought that they would suit your complexion, my 
 dear madam. Pray try them, and if they suit you, keep 
 them." 
 
 Oh, she was so dehghted. It was so kind, so thoughtful, so 
 good, to think of the poor old woman. She thought of gushingly 
 kissing him, but he looked so exceedingly dangerous, and shortly 
 
STEETTON. 281 
 
 aftenvards took her leave, insisting that slio could not give liiin 
 one day more without coming to see Mary. 
 
 She opened her jewel-case in the carriage once more. ** If you 
 are going to pay this price eveiy time you wish to avoid a dis- 
 agreeable conversation, my little friend, I shall not trouble you 
 much for a very long time. I will work you, my friend." 
 
 And the moment she was gone, young Somes, the lawyer, came 
 into the room, and said — '' Did she take the jewels. Sir Jasper ? " 
 
 ** Like a trout takes a May-fly." 
 
 " That is well. We have a hold on her now. She will deny 
 the bribe now. I am afraid they were real." 
 
 '* Four thousand francs worth." 
 
 "Hang it," said Somes, "I wish you had got Palais Koyal. 
 She'd never have kno^vn it. One hundred and sixty pounds on 
 her. Never mind. We are all right. We have bribed her far 
 enough if she gives us trouble to tell her son. Here is my father 
 with the leases." And in toddled old Mr. Somes, the attorney, 
 with the leases. 
 
 "Leases; you may well say leases, you two," said the gentle 
 old man. " You have been * leasing,' I doubt. My boy, Sir 
 Jasper," continued the old attorney, looking affectionately at his 
 son, "would not have his health if he did not keep business out 
 of his father's office. I might have made 6000Z. or 8000L out 
 of the Evans' succession business, but he stopped it. And now 
 he is doing his best to put an end to the best breach of promise 
 case I have seen for years." 
 
 " I have a good mind to marry the girl," said Sir Jasper. " I 
 can't live long, and, to tell the truth, don't want to. She is a 
 fool, and I don't like her ; but if her being my nominal wife, with 
 a large settlement, would get her out the hands of that woman, I 
 am not at all sure that it would not be right to do so. She would 
 expand and develop into something better and nobler if she was 
 rich and free ; and she is good-looking, and good-natured." 
 
 But the Somes would not hear of that for a moment, and 
 hoisted up the poor little anatomy to sign his leases. Somes the 
 elder suggesting to him that one way out of the business would 
 be to marry the mother, which made Sir Jasper laugh till all his 
 bones ached worse than usual. 
 
 " After all," he said, " seriously, between us all, is it not 
 shameful and ghastly beyond measure, for that woman to propose 
 to sell her daughter to such an awful object as myself? " 
 
 " Shameful ! " said young Somes, sitting down suddenly beside 
 him, putting his arm round his neck, and stroking his hair. " Yet 
 if women were all they pretended to be, I can conceive of a cer- 
 
28^ BTHETTON. 
 
 tain kind of woman being as happy as the day is long as Jasper 
 Meredith's wife." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Sir Jasper Meredith, with a deep sigh and a catch 
 in his breath ; '* I would make a good woman so happy." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 The elder Somes was seized with an irritation of the mucous 
 membrane which required him to blow his nose, but he was quite 
 up to the occasion. ''Ah! " he said, ''you have lost a good 
 chance. Sir Jasper. There is a lady riding up the avenue now 
 who would have had you if you had thrown into her settlements 
 the pasture on Lawley liill. Miss Evans. But you are out of the 
 market there, sir ; here is the late Dean of St. Paul's, our new 
 Rector, your old master, riding with her. She seems to be blow- 
 ing him up, which with her means a dangerous degree of affection. 
 When she gets cool to you, you may always know that you are on 
 her bad books." 
 
 "Lift me up and let me see them," said Sir Jasper, eagerly. 
 " I wish she had come when Mrs. Maynard was here. What fun 
 it would have been." 
 
 " We shall oblige her, before you are out of this scrape," said 
 young Somes. " Here she comes." 
 
 In front of the terrace at Lawley there was an iron gate, and 
 as no servant happened to be looking out of the window at that 
 moment, none of the men went down to open it. 
 
 Our three friends who were looking out of window were con- 
 siderably amused. The Dean (as we will still call him) came 
 forward to open it as a matter of course, but Aunt Eleanor waved 
 him back, saying that she made a point of opening gates for herself, 
 which, in a way, she did. She was on the cob which during seven 
 years had never allowed her to open one single gate from his back, 
 but she recommenced the seven years' war without one moment's 
 hesitation. The iron gate was Silesia and she was Marie Therese. 
 She went into the seventh year of the war without an instant's 
 liesitation, and hooked at the latch with the hooked end of her 
 riding whip. As soon as she had got tight hold of it, the cob 
 (representing, let us say, the King of Prussia) backed across the 
 grass to the left (into Saxony, shall we say ?) and it became evi- 
 dent that she must either be pulled off her horse, or let go her 
 
STRETTON. 283 
 
 whip. She did the latter alternative, and as usual, dismounted, 
 opened the gate and let her cob through. 
 
 But the gate went to right against the nose of the Dean's horse 
 (who may be said with somewhat singular felicity to have repre- 
 sented the nation of France, so admirably represented in all its 
 aspirations, as it turned out a few years after, by Louis XV.). 
 However, the Dean's cob, being an ecclesiastical cob, used to the 
 bufietings of this wicked world, took no exception to having three 
 hundred-weight of iron sent slam against his nose, and allowed 
 the Dean to open the gate. In a very short time Miss Evans and 
 the Dean were shown into Sir Jasper Meredith's library. 
 
 ** How d'ye do, Jasper ? " she said. *' My dear child, you don't 
 look a bit better for your Nile trip. You look as if you had been 
 half swallowed by a crocodile. I will tell you what I shall have 
 to do with you, young man. I shall have to take you over to 
 Pulverbatch and nurse you up. I shall also have to look after 
 your property for you ; if you go on trusting to the advice of 
 these two Somes, they will rob you to that extent that you will die 
 a miserable out-lawed old exile at Boulogne. How are you two ? " 
 
 They said, smiling, that they were quite well. 
 
 " That's a comfort," said Aunt Eleanor. *' I am glad that some 
 good people are flourishing ; you never come near me. If I was 
 the dirt under your feet you couldn't treat me worse than you do. 
 Why you. Somes the elder, you are as old as I am." 
 
 ** I am old enough to be your grandfather, Miss Evans," said 
 the old man. 
 
 " That only makes it worse," said Aunt Eleanor. " You, old 
 Somes, respected and loved in the valley so many years : the father 
 of the valley, the healer of dissensions when you might make money 
 by them ; a man I have known all my life, never come near me 
 now. Don't you know that when there is not welcome for you at 
 Pulverbatch, I wish that Pulverbatch may come down and crush 
 me. As for you, young sir, I don't understand you. You have 
 let your whiskers grow long, and turned barrister. However, you 
 come of a good stock, and we will try to hope for the best." 
 
 The Dean remarked that he was at a loss to conceive what on 
 earth Mr. Somes' s whiskers had to do with the argument in hand ; 
 and that the talking of sheer nonsense *' was like the letting out 
 of waters." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor stopped directly, with a glance at him. His 
 pertinent caustic impertinence (impertinence in the second inten- 
 tion he chose to call it) had pulled her up in her most fantastic 
 moods more than once since they had been together. She instantly 
 ranged into a subject which she conceived foreign to him. 
 
284 STEETTON. 
 
 '* I came here on rather an unpleasant errrand to-day, Jasper," 
 she said. *' Your bailiff offered me two hundred and fifty bushels 
 of fluke kidney potatoes, and one half of them are York regents." 
 
 ** I'll hang him on the day after to-morrow," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 " Thanks very much," said Aunt Eleanor. " I will ride over 
 and see the execution. Send over the fresh two hundred and fifty 
 bushels to night, and I will not prosecute you for swindling. As 
 a matter of course I am letting you down easy, and shall pay you 
 nothing. Now, Eector, if you will get my horse I will go." 
 
 The Dean and she rode away, and the three looked at them out 
 of window. 
 
 " Why did she come here ? " said old Somes. 
 
 ** She had something to say, Sir Jasper, which she wouldn't say 
 before us," said young Somes. 
 
 *' I wonder what it was ? " said old Somes. 
 
 " I don't," said young Somes. "It is about Maynard and his 
 wife and young James Mordaunt. That old woman Maynard 
 ought to be put a stop to. She has been making mischief there, 
 to keep a hold in the house. I never heard of such a persistent 
 evil as that old woman exhibits. Evil speaking, lying, and 
 slandering. There is no good about her at all." 
 
 They stood watching Aunt Eleanor down the avenue beside the 
 late Dean of St. Paul's. 
 
 " Will those two make a match of it ? " remarked old Somes. 
 
 "You are a better judge than I," said young Somes. " They 
 are very old, but I don't see why they should not." 
 
 " They quarrel a deal," said old Somes. 
 
 " No, father, they don't. She is dead afraid of him. He lets 
 her talk her nonsense to a certain point, and then he drops in and 
 shuts her up. She has met her master." 
 
 " That," said Sir Jasper, moving himself, " is very singular. 
 The Dean of St. Paul's is a man of the cloister, of the lecture 
 room, of the common room. He can know nothing of women." 
 
 " He has been used to manage boys of from eighteen to twenty, 
 however," replied young Somes, " and they are pretty much like 
 average women." 
 
 " But Miss Evans is not an average woman," said Sir Jasper. 
 " She is wiser than most men. Wiser than the Dean in the ways 
 of the world." 
 
 " Possibly," said young Somes. " But then, don't you see, the 
 Dean has learnt logic and she hasn't. So he can leave her to 
 make a fool of herself and then pick her up sharp and sudden, 
 and that so to speak flabbergasts her. Besides, he is a strong 
 man on all points. He is master : and if she marries him, she 
 
STKETTON. 285 
 
 will find it out. He will be master. Tongue is not strength. See 
 what a fool that woman makes of herself about young Eddy Evans. 
 And then, again, see what a fool she makes of herself about Ethel 
 Mordaunt. If Miss Mordaunt were to cry for anytliing to-morrow, 
 she would sell a hundred acres to give it to her. That woman is 
 not a strong woman, her heart is too good." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Maynard a ' strong ' woman ? " asked Sir Jasper, 
 laughing. ** I mean stronger than Miss Evans." 
 
 " The Maynard has the most brains. But she is a coward and 
 a liar," repHed young Somes. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 So Allan spent the two months with Ethel. Mrs. Maynard grow- 
 ing more and more certain every day that he was going to make a 
 fool of himself, and Allan getting more and more certain that he 
 was not. 
 
 I doubt whether a man of good disposition and high character 
 like Allan Gray, is very unhappy under a hopeless passion. Men 
 with a craze in their brain will go as far as to hang themselves, 
 but in those cases I doubt the man's being in love at all in the 
 sense I speak of. Such admiration is more physical than mental, I 
 suspect. I have heard of more than one Colonel Dobbin. 
 
 Allan had never been on such good terms with a highly educated, 
 high-spirited lady before, and he found it, like the rest of the world, 
 extremely charming. Thrown together more and more by Mrs. 
 Maynard's plotting, and their growing liking for one another, they 
 became very fast friends, and very confidential indeed, save on two 
 points ; Ethel seldom named Roland, and Allan never for an 
 instant, by word or look, let Ethel think that he admired her. 
 
 Miss Evans's dislike for this young man was so well known to 
 Ethel, that she scarcely ever mentioned his name. And conse- 
 quently their intimacy was quite unknown. 
 
 Ethel talked much with him about his plan of going to India. 
 He was connected it seemed with some missionary society, whose 
 speciality was India — I believe a German Society. He had ofl'ered 
 to go out and see how they were doing, but he did not conceal from 
 her that now it was definitely allowed, and he had settled in his 
 mind that Eddy was his brother, he had felt an absolute craving 
 
286 STRETTON 
 
 to see more of him. He told her that he never could conceive 
 what attracted him so much towards that young man. 
 
 " You had not the same feeling towards his brother, had you ? " 
 said Ethel. 
 
 He was thoughtful for a time. " Why, no, I cannot say that I 
 had. I cannot tell in the least degree why. He is, I believe, 
 everything which is noble, but he is so very — I don't know — 
 handsome, elegant, accomplished, successful." 
 
 ''Are those faults?" 
 
 " They jar upon me. It is a fault in my nature, I know, but 
 they do jar upon me. It is painful for a man of somewhat high 
 aspirations to feel his inferiority. Just think too how my brother 
 Eoland is employed. It is terrible to think of talents and gifts so 
 wasted." 
 
 " Civilising India ; stopping suttee and other abominations ; 
 training himself to be a governor of men, a satrap of the greatest 
 power on earth ; defending the outposts of advancing railways and 
 canals, making tanks and other low dirty work of the kind. Yes, 
 miserable work indeed." 
 
 This was rather sharp, but there was a good deal of truth in it 
 after all said and done. One of the finest things done in the 
 Indian mutiny, was that fight which Mr. G. 0. Trevelyan tells us 
 of. On a railway emhankment. 
 
 Ethel having got her advantage, pursued it for her own low 
 ends. " Dear Mr. Evans," she said, '' I want to ask one thing of 
 you as a very great favour." 
 
 " Anything in reason ? " Miss Mordaunt. 
 
 *• Don't on my account use your influence to induce Edward to 
 leave the army. It would give fatal offence to every one." 
 
 *' I never dreamt of doing such a thing for an instant," said 
 Allan. " Many godly men have carried arms before now." 
 
 Ethel ran over a few, beginning with the Centurion, and ending 
 with Cromwell, and then pursuing her advantage, got him to 
 promise that he would be gentle and friendly with all three, and 
 not obtrude his opinions on them too strongly. On behalf of her 
 brother, she made a special appeal. 
 
 *' If you knew what a noble creature he was," she said, '' you 
 would love him as I do : you will not suit one another, I fear. But, 
 dear Mr. Evans, for my sake be kind and gentle to him ; he is 
 wild and fantastic, but try to bear with that ; and above all, do not 
 interfere in his friendship with Eddy ; it is the thing which keeps 
 him from evil more than any other. I pray you, as the last 
 prayer I shall make you, not to come between those two." 
 
 Allan said not one word, but he took her hand and kissed it ; 
 
STEETTON. 287 
 
 one of the deepest and best kept vows ever registered, was sworn 
 by Allan Evans at that instant. 
 
 Not another word was said between them. Ethel tried to speak, 
 but broke down, and he went away, for it was to be their last 
 meeting. And he went at noon the next day. 
 
 As he passed through the hall, Mrs. Maynard slipped out, and 
 said, " You look low ; you have surely not been asking a question 
 and had a refusal. Surely " 
 
 *' No," said Allan. 
 
 *' Give my love to Roland," she said, " and tell him that his 
 love is true and constant." 
 
 *' Who is his true love ? " said Allan. 
 
 " Did you not know he was engaged to be married to Ethel 
 Mordaunt, and that she worships the ground he treads on ? 
 Good-by. Dear me. Good-by." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 Allan having long known that it was not himself, was not very 
 terribly put out of the way when he found who it was ; never 
 having had a thought for himself, but having merely fallen in love 
 haphazard, he could not in the least degree see why he, so utterly 
 nnsuited for her, should take her from Roland, who seemed to him 
 exactly suited for her. But he was desperately in love with her 
 nevertheless. 
 
 He was to go to Shrewsbury by the twelve o'clock train, and 
 he had got a cart to take his luggage for him, and would himself 
 walk. He was on the road, with Caradoc, Lawley, and Longmynd 
 getting dim behind him, when he was aware of a young lady 
 scouring swiftly on horseback across a grass field towards him. 
 This young lady looked for a gap in the hedge (there was one, it 
 being off Aunt Eleanor's farm), but she did not see it, and leaning 
 back, topped her horse across it on to the footpath, about forty 
 yards before him. Then she dismounted and waited for him, and 
 when he came up, she said, '^ I have caught you." 
 
 *' I am so glad to see you once more. Miss Mordaunt," he said, 
 " so very, very glad. You are the last made of all my friends, 
 and really I think the dearest." 
 
 "I am so glad of that. I was in hopes you would like me. 
 
288 STRETTON. 
 
 See here — see how I am going to trust you," and she looped up 
 her habit under her arm and walked beside him, leading her horse. 
 
 " I want you to give this letter into my brother Jim's own hand. 
 It is heavy, you see," she said, looking at him. " There is 
 another letter inside. You will give it him safe, will you 
 not?" 
 
 " Through fire and water. Through hell and beyond," was 
 the singular, quiet reply. 
 
 '* My dear sir, what are you saying? " said Ethel, startled. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I mope too much, I doubt, and forget 
 the value of words. Those words had meaning to me." 
 
 Ethel said good-by ! and he said good-by, and taking the letter, 
 walked away down the bright white road, leaving Ethel standing 
 on the path holding her horse, and looking after him. 
 
 He turned once and looked back, waving his hand. She stood 
 there still like a statue, and waved her hand to him ; then a turn 
 in the road hid him from her, and he was gone. 
 
 This happened to be a difficult day with Aunt Eleanor. She 
 was making up her accounts, which always exasperated her, and 
 the Dean had not come, as he said he would. The figures refused 
 point-blank to add up, or multiply, or do anything else ; except 
 exhibit new properties in numbers utterly unknown to those effete 
 sciohsts at Cambridge. She was very cross, and had inked her 
 nose. She had foolishly sold her mangold, tempted by very high 
 prices that year, but the season had been so bad that prices had 
 risen, and she had to buy for her own beasts at a loss. Mean- 
 while, the original man who had bought the mangold had never 
 paid her. And she wanted her money without selling out of the 
 funds, for every sixpence she made, not sent to Eddy, was bought 
 in at any price. She wanted that sixty-eight pounds because she 
 had got it into her head — goodness knows how — that Eddy ought 
 to give Jim's friend the Nawab a present of jewellery (he could 
 have fitted out Mr. Harry Emmanuel). "Those heathens love 
 that kind of thing," was all the explanation she chose to give to 
 the Dean. 
 
 She was looking out of window with an inky nose, when she saw 
 Ethel come up to the door leading her horse by the bridle. She 
 rang the bell three times for her groom, and ran to the door herself. 
 
 ''What is the matter, child? has he been down with you? 
 Are you hurt ? " 
 
 **No," she said, ''but I did not think of getting on him. I 
 quite forgot him." And she followed Aunt Eleanor into the 
 sitting-room, and casting herself down on the sofa, hid her face. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor went on with her accounts with a scared face. 
 
STEETTON. 289 
 
 Two and two had persistently made five before, but now they made 
 X -\- 5^^^ . There was an unknown quantity in the room certainly. 
 Ethel looked old and harried ; she looked pale, wan, wild, and — 
 come, out with the word — fierce. She looked like her brother 
 Jim at his worst ; and if ever sheer absolute terror was in the 
 heart of an honest, brave old woman, it was in the heart of Aunt 
 Eleanor at that time. 
 
 "Ethel!" 
 
 " Leave me alone ! Leave me alone ! " 
 
 " But Ethel dear ! " 
 
 " Why do I not die ? Why did God gift me with this splendid 
 beauty, of which I am so perfectly conscious, that I might only 
 work misery ? Let me alone ? " 
 
 There was a very short pause, after which Aunt Eleanor rose, 
 and, in a loud voice, said — 
 
 "Ethel, you must speak. If you and I lived alone together, 
 we should madden one another with our reticence. We have both 
 the same horrible habit. In Heaven's name, girl, tell me what 
 is the matter. I will confess my sin to you, and you shall make 
 me kiss the floor for it." 
 
 "I have no charge against you, Miss Evans," said Ethel. 
 "You have always been my best and most dearly loved friend. 
 My story is soon told. I have won the heart of a noble man, and 
 I have broken his." 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 " Allan Evans's." 
 
 "Has he spoken to you?" said Miss Evans, almost in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " No ; he is too leal, too loyal, too noble, too gallant for that,'' 
 replied Ethel. " He was gentleman enough to see that I gave 
 him no reason to speak to me ; but when he left me this morning, 
 I saw it all." 
 
 " How did you see it ? " 
 
 " By an expression in his face, only for one instant. You, with 
 your beauty, must have seen that more than once ; and an expres- 
 sion in his mouth so unlike his usual religiousness that I rebuked 
 him for it." 
 
 "Go on," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 Ethel sat up, pale and wild, on the sofa. 
 
 " I will tell you everything. Don't desert me. I know that 
 Roland loves me ; but he has not written to me anything more 
 than formalities. He thinks that his change from elder to younger 
 son should make a difi'erence. And I wi'ote him a letter, contain- 
 ing a great deal more than mere formalities. And I gave it to 
 
290 STEETTON. 
 
 Allan Evans to take to him. And he knew what he was doing. 
 Allan looked me in the face, and showed me that he knew for 
 whom the letter was. But he will deliver it. If all the handed 
 fiends which you make me read ahout in Milton were to oppose 
 him, he would carry that letter safe through. He promised in 
 words strange to him." 
 
 *' What were* his words ? " 
 
 ** I cannot repeat them." 
 
 " Will you write them down ? " 
 
 ' ' I dare do as much as that for you ; but you must leave me 
 alone afterwards." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor took the sheet of note-paper which Ethel gave 
 her, and read — 
 
 '' Through fire and water ; through hell and beyond it." 
 
 She was very serious and deeply grieved. She never thought 
 it would have gone as far as this. She said to Ethel — 
 
 *' Sit here, my dear, comfortable and quiet. I am going out on 
 the farm." 
 
 Now this was a statement which, had it been uttered by Mrs. 
 Maynard, Aunt Eleanor would have called ''another of them," 
 meaning another outrageous story ; for she was not going on the 
 farm at all, but just rode over to tell the whole story to the Dean 
 of St. Paul's, the Rector. 
 
 He merely nodded his head until he came to the fact that she 
 had introduced Allan and Ethel to one another, with a distinct 
 view of plaguing Allan. Then he rose and gave it to her. 
 
 "You must have been out of your mind. That is one of the 
 wickedest things I ever heard of in my life. You ought to be 
 entirely and utterly ashamed of yourself. If a man were to do 
 such a thing, he would be chased from society." 
 
 " I have confessed my sin." 
 
 " What is the use of confessing your particular sin, after doing 
 your best to ruin two lives, and having succeeded in ruining one ? 
 Why did you do so ? " 
 
 " It pleased me," said Aunt Eleanor, sulkily. 
 
 " Yes ; I have pricked your conscience too deep, and you retire 
 on your womanhood. Go home and look after that girl ; the boy 
 is past looking after." 
 
 The agricultural labourers said that " The new Rector were 
 a-courtin' Miss Evans, and they would soon make a match of it." 
 
 Squire Mordaunt said that " the new Rector and old Eleanor 
 had had such a violent squabble, that he expected the announce- 
 ment of their wedding would come off in a fortnight." 
 
 The Rajah of Bethoor said, " Curse the young fools ! they never 
 
STEETTON. 291 
 
 sleep. But, sleep or wake, I am a match for tliem. I will have 
 the two Evanses and that Mordaunt." 
 
 And our Nawab said, '^ He has no real claim against you ; he 
 was but an adopted Mameluke. Jim, my dear, why did you 
 prevent my cutting his throat when I had the chance? Never 
 mind, child, we will have a fight together before we die." 
 
 And the Dean wrote a sixty-guinea article in the great half- 
 yearly review, giving a history of the settlement of India by the 
 English, and wound up by pointing out that in the remotest end 
 of further contingencies, it was possible that the conquered race 
 might attempt to assert their superiority. 
 
 And keen-eyed little Eddy noted all things. And one night, 
 there being many native attendants about, he took it into his head 
 to raise his brother's mosquito curtains, and slip into bed beside 
 Roland. And Roland heard many things, in a night's whispering, 
 which he had never heard before, gotten from the Nawab to Jim, 
 and from Jim to Eddy. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 The arrival of our young friend, Edward, did not make much 
 difference at the station at Belpore. Roland's men had seen him 
 at Chatham, and he was welcomed by them as a great accession. 
 Add to this, that everything was perfectly quiet again. There had 
 been dreadful jangling at one time among the native troops about 
 the cartridges, but Colonel Cordery had got together the havildars 
 of the free native regiments, both Mussulman and Brahmin, and 
 had had a great talk with them. He pointed out to them that he 
 was not in command, and that this was entirely an unofficial 
 meeting. He would give them his word of honour, as an English 
 gentleman, that there was nothing worse than bees' -wax on the 
 cartridges, and that the idea that the Enghsh wished to insult the 
 Mussulmans, and degrade the caste of the Brahmins, by making 
 them bite cartridges greased with pork fat or beef fat, was the 
 wildest moonshine which ever entered into the mind of man. The 
 Brigadier Sahib had told them so, but they would not believe him. 
 He appealed to all our former policy in India, and begged them 
 not to make fools of themselves. 
 
 When Colonel Cordery had done speaking, a tall man who had 
 been leaning over his chair as he sat, began to speak. It was the 
 Nawab. 
 
292 STEETTON. 
 
 ''Listen to me," he said. "Am I a high-class Brahmin? 
 Have I in any way ever broken my caste?" 
 
 There were salaams, and a universal murmur of assent and 
 admiration from the havildars, for our Nawab was known not only 
 for his strict religion, but also for his vast charity and good nature.''' 
 
 " Here is one of those very cartridges. Look at me. I believe 
 as you do : is there one who dares say I do not ? " and he put the 
 cartridge in his mouth. 
 
 It seems to us now a slight act. It was a very important one, 
 however. The Mussulmans thought they were being insulted, and 
 the Brahmins thought they were incurring everlasting damnation, 
 by biting these cartridges. Here was a well-known Brahmin 
 staking, as the Brahmins thought, his soul by biting one. They 
 were satisfied for the time. 
 r Was it midsummer madness ? Undoubtedly so. But have not 
 nations more often maddened themselves on the subject of religion 
 than on any other? Sheer folly! Why no. A nation, or a 
 portion of a people, who will fight for their faith, say in efi'ect, 
 " We believe in a future state, under conditions, and our life here 
 is not half so valuable as our life there. Consequently, we prefer 
 to die, sooner than forego certain conditions, which we believe to 
 be necessary to the life everlasting." Jews have said so ; witness 
 Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Papists have said 
 so ; witness Capuchins and Jesuits, innumerable. Anglicans have 
 said so ; witness the little cross on the pavement before Balliol 
 College, where Cranmer, Eidley, and Latimer were burnt. Ultra- 
 Protestants have said so ; what Claverhouse saw and heard when 
 he came crushing tln-ough the heather under Wardlaw will tell you 
 that. Yes ! a people, a section of which will not die for their 
 faith, are but dead dogs, and should die as such. 
 
 * Of course my readers will see that the relations between the Nawab 
 of Belpore and the Kajah of Bethoor are a dim shadow of those between 
 the Nawab of Cawnpore and the would-be Jaghire of Bithoor, who lives 
 in men's mouths as Nana Sahib — verily his deeds live after him. To 
 refresh some memories, allow me to mention that, even after the rejection 
 of his claim to the Kajahship by the British Government, he still retained 
 the money left by Bajee Eao, amounting to above four millions sterling. 
 He had no claim to the title. He was an adopted son of the Pishwa — a 
 Mameluke. Belpore is situated at the junction of the Indus and the 
 Ganges, close to the ancient Mogul capital of Caracorum. It is to be 
 noticed that Gibbon spells the name of this last-mentioned city with a C, 
 but most later authorities with a K, Why? While we are at useful 
 information, it is worthy of remark, that the old King of Delhi, whom 
 Dr. Eussell saw being sick into a brass basin, and who told the doctor 
 the thundering lie that he had filled eleven others of the same size that 
 morning, was the descendant of that most noble gentleman KubJai Khan, 
 the friend of the Poli. I wish Marco Polo could have seen him. 
 
STRETTON. 293 
 
 It is a matter very dim and very hard to get at, this feeling of 
 the Brahmins towards us. Liars were abroad, like the Rajah of 
 Bethoor, who told them that these cartridges were purposely 
 invented to make them lose caste and incur damnation. It was 
 a lie, an outrageous and wicked lie, but they believed it. Conceive 
 any man, confessing any form of Christianity, being asked to insult 
 the sacred elements to save his life. Yet it came to that with them. 
 
 I find none like my Shakespeare. He makes Nym (Nehmen, 
 the man who takes) steal everything he can lay his hands upon, 
 until at last he rises to the summit and head of stealing, by taking 
 what ? — a pyx. He could not even keep his hands off that, and 
 was hung. These men believed, through such rascals as Nana 
 Sahib, that we had stolen their pyx, and they desired to hang us. 
 Now that blood is cool, one dares say so much. 
 
 But the effect of the Nawab's biting the cartridge was very 
 great. Such perfect peace and harmony was restored that all 
 went merry as a marriage bell, until Allan Gray's — I beg his 
 pardon, Allan Evans's — arrival. There was a great lull. The 
 men were reassured, and the best of them contrasted the lives of 
 the Brigadier Sahib and the Nawab with that of the Rajah, not by 
 any means to the Rajah's advantage. 
 
 The Major, extremely Low Church, continued his Bible classes 
 and his churches among the Pariahs, and those whom he could 
 influence, and the Roman Catholic missionary and the German- 
 Lutheran missionary worked away with a will. The Major told 
 the Nawab, the Havildars, the Subadhars, the Brigadier, Colonel 
 Cordery of Her Majesty's army, Jim Mordaunt, Eddy Evans, the 
 Roman Catholic missionary, in fact every one who would listen to 
 him, that they were all in a fair way for eternal destruction, par- 
 ticularly Eddy, who had fallen asleep in church, dropped his sword 
 with a rattle, and, on awakening, had exclaimed in a loud voice, 
 '* Right half-face. March!" 
 
 Not a soul minded the good Major, his denunciations were too 
 general, and every one saw that he was doing good, and raising 
 the tone of all. The native Hindoos had heard what he had said 
 about caste. 
 
 ''Caste! Who wants to meddle with their caste ? I want them 
 to read this book ; there is no loss of caste in that. Let any touch 
 my caste. Let any man try to take this Bible, God's own book, 
 from me. But let him make his peace with his Maker first, for 
 his wife will be a widow." 
 
 So spoke our stout old Major, and all went pleasantly, for 
 Meerut was not as yet, nor had Allan come to the confusion 
 of counsel. 
 
294 STEETTON. 
 
 But there was a great change now in the pleasant little garrison. 
 Lord Canning sent orders for the whole of the 201st to be with- 
 drawn from Belpore except one company, and for the whole of the 
 cavalry to be withdrawn except one troop. On which Colonel 
 Cordery, Brigadier Sahib, and the Major had a consultation. 
 
 The Brigadier was not by any means what Colonel Cordery con- 
 sidered a wise man ; but he found himself surprised on this occasion, 
 as most men do, who fancy that silent men are necessarily fools. 
 
 ''We are to leave a company and a troop," said the Colonel. 
 " Which shall we leave ? there is no roster. You can do exactly 
 as you like, you know." 
 
 " Lord bless you ! " said the Brigadier, "as if there was any 
 hesitation. Leave the young 'uns." 
 
 " Which young ones ? " asked the Colonel. 
 
 " Why the three. Leave Roland Evans, for that fellow has a 
 prime minister's head on his shoulders. Leave James Mordaunt 
 (they are in the same troop), for he is a tom-cat that fellow ; and 
 we shall want tom-cats in what is coming, as you know as well as 
 I, old man. And leave little Evans, for he is a little devil ; leave 
 his company." 
 
 *' You are master here," said Colonel Cordery; "but come, I 
 never gave you credit for such sagacity." 
 
 Said the Major, suddenly, "A man who has made so many 
 messes of it as Brigadier Hancock is the very man I could trust." 
 
 "Now don't begin chaff, you two," said the Brigadier. "I 
 know you can beat me at that ; I ain't clever." 
 
 " You are wise,'' said the Major. 
 
 " Thanks, old Truepenny. But look here. How could we do 
 better than leave these three boys here ? They are only lieutenant, 
 cornet, and ensign, but look at them, could we do better? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said the Colonel. 
 
 " Look," said the Brigadier, " at what would come in case of a 
 row-royal (which is coming). Why, the Nawab can't exist without 
 Jim Mordaunt, and Roland Evans and Edward manage Jim Mor- 
 daunt, and Jim Mordaunt can manage the Nawab. Bless you, 
 politically speaking, it is the very best thing we could do." 
 
 "You know Ridia, old man," said Colonel Cordery. 
 
 "Should do," said the Brigadier. "I have wasted the best 
 part of my life here." 
 
 " Not wasted," said the Major. 
 
 "You mean that I have earned a good pension, and shall be 
 able to live at Cheltenham. That is wasting your life, is it not ? 
 But if it is any satisfaction to you, I beg to state that I am not 
 going to live at Cheltenham among broken-down collectors. I am 
 
STEETTON. 295 
 
 going to see my time out here ; and Lord help Rajah or Nawab 
 who meddles with me. I would like to go to England and see 
 cowslips and trout, but I don't see Cheltenham. You mind what 
 I say, and keep those three boys here." 
 
 So there were no Europeans left at Belpore, except one company 
 of the 201st, and one troop of the cavalry regiment in which 
 Roland and Jim were. The troops marched off down the river, 
 by the patch of jungle where Jim's moonshee was murdered ; and 
 the company and troop marched with them to that point, and then 
 halted. 
 
 " Good-by, you two, Evans and Mordaunt," said the Colonel. 
 
 '' Good-by for ever," said that dreadful Major. 
 
 " Remember that your cause is the right one, and that God will 
 back you," said that irrepressible Major. 
 
 And so they were gone, with the drums and trumpets, and the 
 colours, and our three fellows were left alone, with 160 men all 
 told, on the dusty road, opposite the place where the moonshee 
 had been murdered. 
 
 Roland, it so happened, in consequence of invalids, young as 
 he was, was actually in command of the cavalry. The infantry 
 had a captain left them ; a solemn young man, with a wall-sided 
 head, who had two desires in life, to educate himself decently, and 
 to do his duty. He had left Harrow five years now, but he had 
 got on badly with his education. He was naturally heavy-headed 
 and stupid, and he had consulted in succession Jim (who confessed 
 himself an ass), Roland, and Eddy, as to the means by which 
 fellows got to be clever. He used to sit with them and listen to 
 their talk, apparently under the impression that cleverness was 
 catching, like measles. But he found that it was not. His najne 
 was Captain Claverhouse, and on the way back to the now lonely 
 station, dominated by the great white palace of the Rajah, he 
 ranged alongside of Roland, and said — 
 
 " What a quaint selection the Brigadier and the Colonel have 
 made ! I expected they would leave me, for I am notoriously 
 wooden-headed, though a good fighter ; but it seems so strange 
 to leave you and your brother, and Mordaunt. You fellows would 
 do better alive than dead, one would fancy." 
 
 ''Than dead, Claverhouse! I do not understand you," said 
 Roland. 
 
 "Do you not know," said Captain Claverhouse, "that we are 
 left behind here to die ; do you not know that we were carefully 
 selected as men who could die best, and leave the deepest mark 
 behind us?" 
 
 " No 1 is that the case ? Ethel ! Ethel ! " 
 
296 STKETTON. 
 
 '' You may well say ' Ethel ! ' I say Emily." 
 " Shall we lose India? " asked Roland, suddenly. 
 ''No; hut over our graves will rush a wave of re-conquest, 
 nohler in its aim, greater in its results, than the first one. We 
 shall hear their footsteps as they pass over us, and — 
 
 ♦ Our hearts would hear them and beat, 
 Though we lay for a century dead.' 
 
 as your brother sung last night. I thought you knew this." 
 
 Roland rode silent for a little time, thinking deeply. At the 
 end of that time he bent from his horse, laid his hand on his 
 commanding officer's shoulder, and said — 
 
 " My friend ! the thing you speak of shall not be.'' 
 
 ''Who will prevent it?" said Captain Claverhouse, sadly. 
 " Evans, I have so much to live for that I am loath to die. If 
 you knew Emily, you would understand me. I could die, or you 
 could die, but to leave Emily all alone — her aunt is not kind to 
 her, sir, she wanted her to marry another man instead of me. 
 But she will marry no one but myself. And to leave her 
 all alone ! — Evans, God has given you brains, can you help me 
 with them? " 
 
 "I will do my best, Claverhouse. See you here, we must 
 concentrate in the Nawab's palace, that is certain." 
 
 " Can we trust the Nawab ? " 
 
 "Can I trust my brother, Eddy?" said Roland. "The 
 Nawab is one of us. I would go to the deuce for the Nawab 
 now. I know him. What a pity it is that Jim's moonshee was 
 murdered, he would have been worth 100,000/. I say, Claver- 
 house, all orders must come from you." 
 
 " Yes, but give me the office." 
 
 " Give the order for infantry to follow cavalry, and see where 
 I will lead you." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Through the natives lines," said Roland. " What are the 
 odds against us? " 
 
 " Two thousand to one hundred, as far as I can make out," 
 said Captain Claverhouse. " Better not, had you ? " 
 
 " Cornet Mordaunt ! shouted Roland, and up came our old 
 Jim, jingle -jangle, who saluted. 
 
 " I say, Jimmit, old boy — hang it ! I beg your pardon, 
 Cornet Mordaunt, we are going to march through the native 
 lines." 
 
 " All right, Roley Foley — I beg your pardon, Lieutenant 
 Evans," replied Jim. 
 
STKETTON. 297 
 
 " I wish, sir, that you would be more respectful." 
 
 *' That is the great fault in my character, you know," said 
 Jim. 
 
 *' But, Jim, I am going to take the men through the lines ; 
 and if you see any signs of insubordination, report it to me." 
 
 And so they marched. The native lines seemed quiet. These 
 petted subsidiaries were at their usual avocations, lying in the 
 shade and watching their wives cook their dinners. Our little 
 band passed through them with a dead silence on the part of the 
 Sepoys, till they were nearly at the end of the lines. At that 
 point Sepoy ferocity expressed itself, as did likewise old Shrews- 
 bury training. 
 
 A young man, dressed only in dhoties, got himself incensed by 
 the appearance of Jim (who really had an exasperating look) ; he 
 rose from his dinner and confronted Jim. 
 
 *' Puckah, Budah, Pudwallah," said that misguided young 
 man to Jim, of all people. Jim, in spite of his old moonshee's 
 lessons, was bad at Hindustani, but he understood that. He put 
 spurs to his horse, and drawing his sabre, chased that young 
 Sepoy into the desert, hunting him and turning him as a grey- 
 hound does a hare, and spanking him with the flat of his sword. 
 The other Sepoys looked on, and made the nearest approach to 
 laughing which they ever do. And if it had not been for Allan 
 Evans, it is extremely possible that Belpore would not have seen 
 what Belpore did see. 
 
 "I say," said Jim, riding up and ramming his sword home, 
 **I am not much of a politician myself, having had my brains 
 addled at an early age by strong alternate doses of cricket, foot- 
 ball, and Buttman's Greek Grammar, but I should like to Imow 
 which party is going to begin." 
 
 '' What do you mean ? " said Roland. 
 
 "I mean which side is going to have the drop kick. We 
 are in for a scrimmage, let us have it over. There lies the ball." 
 
 " We may avoid the scrimmage after all," said Captain 
 Claverhouse. 
 
 " The Nawab does not think so," said Jim ; " the odds are 
 long against us, two thousand to one hundred all told. We are 
 now utterly isolated from Europe, selected to die. Why should 
 not we kick the ball ? We can die game, of course. For me I 
 have nothing left to live for. A man, I take it, only lives for a 
 woman, and some one else has married the woman I wanted. Die 
 game — yes, rats can do that. Give us the word, Claverhouse, or 
 Roland, and we will kick the ball so far towards the goal that our 
 name will never be lost." 
 
298 STKETTON. 
 
 " What do you propose ? " said Claverhouse. 
 
 " Going now, one hundi'ed and sixty strong, to the Rajah's 
 
 palace, cutting his d d throat, and burning his palace down. 
 
 You will have to do it sooner or later, why not now ? " 
 
 " We have no authority." 
 
 ** Make it. India was not conquered by authority, was it ? 
 and won't be saved by it. Clive is dead, it seems." 
 
 '' By his own hand," said Roland. 
 
 ** There you go, with your Frenchism," said Jim. "But 
 epigram is not argument, old man," and Jim rather sulkily 
 dropped back to the rear. 
 
 " That young 'un seems to me to have brains," said Claver- 
 house. 
 
 "He is not clever," said Roland, "but he is thoroughly 
 honest. His advice is sensible enough, but you see that we 
 could not act on it. We should not be backed up. I suppose 
 we had better send our magnificent army to their quarters, and go 
 about among our people to warn them — that will be the best 
 thing, will it not?" 
 
 "If you think so." 
 
 Roland, from this moment, naturally took the command. How 
 fit for it he was, we shall see soon. Good Claverhouse always 
 spoke of him as his brains. Action was not yet in activity, but 
 it was beginning. Through everything which came. Captain 
 Claverhouse, who gave the orders, was followed by Roland like a 
 shadow ; the defence of Belpore was Roland's. 
 
 This was the first night on which they had realised their 
 danger and isolation. The first thing which Roland did, when 
 the troops were dispersed, was to send Jim with a particular 
 letter to the Nawab, begging him to come to him at once. 
 
 Jim was as free at the Nawab 's palace as any Pariah, a section 
 of the Indian population very dear to this radical Nawab. 
 "For God," he said to Jim, "exalts some, like the Rajah of 
 Bethoor, and keeps down others. But not for their sins, 
 friend. For my part, I look with respect on a man whom 
 the good God has taken the trouble to smite." Jim ran in 
 through court after court, and found the Nawab making a kite 
 very diligently. 
 
 "I am making a fine kite," said the Nawab. " Come and 
 help me. It is a Franklin kite, with a wire in the string. And, 
 oh, my dear, we shall fly it in the next thunderstorm, and we 
 shaU have the lightning in our own hands. And we shall have 
 shocks, so that our elbows shall go together, or we shall be kill, 
 like Oersted, but we shall have games and fun." 
 
STKETTON. 299 
 
 " Come down to European head -quarters, old boy," said Jim, 
 *' and never mind your kite." 
 
 '' Oh, never mind his kite, his Franklin kite, his electrical kite. 
 Jim, my dear, let us go, we two, and fly it ; and hang the string 
 to the Rajah's palace, and make lightning dawk into that hell, 
 and blast it off the face of the earth." 
 
 " What ! you are savage, too, are you, boy ? " said Jim. " So 
 am I. But I want you. Will you come with me ? " 
 
 The Nawab rose at once and said, '' Do you think that I would 
 not go to the devil with you ? Shall we fly our kite together ? 
 Oh, yes. Shall we bring lightning dawk into GomoiTah ? Oh, 
 sir ! where is my jockey ? " 
 
 Little Wilson soon appeared. *' If you will have the good- 
 ness," said the Nawab, "to order my stud-groom, to order my 
 pad-groom, to order my head syce to say to some of my people in 
 general, that if my cob is not round in ten minutes, I will at once 
 have the whole of them broiled with cayenne pepper on a sIoav 
 fire, I should feel obliged to you," and so the little fellow departed 
 to do his errand. 
 
 The Nawab' s " cob," which he prided himself on, as being an 
 episcopal and entirely orthodox cob, was a blaze-faced chestnut of 
 fifteen hands, from Australia, by Romeo out of Wimmera (she by 
 Macknight's Premier out of Mitchel's Avoca). He showed his 
 breeding in the most unmistakable way. He was by no means 
 light in his heels like his mother, but he had to a slight extent 
 learnt the art of bucking. The Nawab's syces were not in the 
 least degree afraid of getting behind him, though not one of 
 them dare get on his back. 
 
 In about three-quarters of an hour the Nawab appeared, dressed 
 on this occasion in the dress of his Mahratta forefathers, with a 
 spear in his hand ; and an uncommonly fine gentleman he looked 
 too, all in white, bare-legged from the knee, with a white turban 
 and plume. He looked paler and more serious than he looked 
 three-quarters of an hour before, altogether a different man ; he 
 caught the reins from little Wilson, and vaulted into the saddle, 
 disdaining the stirrups, but sitting back and letting his legs hang. 
 
 The Romeo colt began bucking at once, and the Nawab sat 
 back in his saddle until it really looked as if he would be thrown. 
 But Jim and little Wilson saw him shortening the boar-spear in 
 his hand, and after the horse had bucked about three times, the 
 battle between man and beast began. 
 
 The Nawab, sitting easily with dangling stirrups, with the 
 shortened end of his boar-spear began beating the horse over the 
 head and ears ; not one blow, or two, but an immense number, 
 
300 STEETTON. 
 
 given right and left with the rapidity of lightning. The unhappy 
 horse, stunned and dazed with the blows, kept under his rider 
 with a terrible bit, succumbed very soon, bent his knees and lay 
 on his side, the Nawab alighting on his feet. 
 
 Little Wilson was going to the Nawab' s assistance, but Jim 
 said, " Leave him alone, you fool, unless you want to be raddled 
 about the ears with the butt-end of a boar-spear. This is good. 
 I have got his monkey up." 
 
 " By golly you have," said the Newmarket man. 
 
 The Nawab kicked the horse up and vaulted on his back again, 
 taking three or four turns round the square of the palace, with the 
 boar-spear down between the Australian horse's ears. The fight 
 was over, the man had won ; then he rode up to Jim, put his feet 
 in the stirrups, and said, " Now I am ready." 
 
 He was perfectly cool and calm, but very pale. Jim said, 
 laughing, " I did not think that Master Slender had been a man 
 of this mettle." 
 
 "Did you not?" said the Nawab. ''I suppose you never 
 heard of the Mahratta cavalry ? " 
 
 Jim was obliged to confess that he had. 
 
 *'Gar! I am a Mahratta, and so is that dog-devil the Rajah. 
 I am devilish. Made lazy, idle, useless, by your British rule, in 
 which you have only employed our lower classes in your wars, I 
 had got sleepy. What was it you told me about those men from 
 the land of ice, who stripped themselves naked, and smote and 
 slew ? " 
 
 " The Berserkers." 
 
 "I am a Berserker, I am a Mahratta Berserker. I will 
 come and do all that you wish me ; but let me ride and cool 
 myself." 
 
 Jim assented. 
 
 '' We are alone and imarmed. What say you to riding quietly 
 through the native lines, and then up to the Rajah's palace, 
 insulting him, and then going down to Queen's head-quarters to 
 make arrangement ? " 
 
 Jim was perfectly agreeable. " It will Jo all the good in the 
 world,' ^ he said. And so it did. 
 
 Jim and the Nawab set off at full speed, and were soon in the 
 native lines ; the Nawab only with his boar-spear, Jim only with 
 a sword. When they reached the lines Jim found his sword 
 troublesome, it seemed, for he called up a grass-cutter, and un- 
 hooking it from the scabbard, gave it to the man to cany up to 
 his quarters, wrangling with the man whether he should give him 
 two pice or three. He called upon some of the sulking Sepoys 
 
STKETTON. 801 
 
 about, and bade them say what was fair for carrying an officer's 
 sword up to the Queen's head-quarters. They decided three pice. 
 So Jim, with the vexed air of a man who has had a verdict given 
 against him, gave the grass-cutter two rupees, a thing not un- 
 noticed by the Sepoys. After this the Nawab and Jim traversed 
 the lines in the most careless manner, leading their horses, 
 perfectly unarmed. 
 
 At one point a little brown child, perfectly naked, was lying in 
 front of a hut, with its stomach in the sand right in front of Jim's 
 horse. Jim took it up, kissed it, and set on his saddle ; the child 
 laughed and crowed, and Jim laughed again, for he was very fond 
 of children. But the child's father, a havildar Mussulman, came 
 swiftly from his hut and tore the child away ; while an ominous 
 growl arose from both the Brahmin and Mussulman Sepoys around. 
 
 " You must be out of your mind," said the Nawab. 
 
 " What have I done ? " said Jim. " I only wanted to be kind 
 to the poor little beggar." 
 
 " You have done a thing which you had better have cut your 
 throat than do," replied the Nawab. " You have put that child 
 on a pigskin saddle, and insulted every Mussulman in the lines, 
 that is all." 
 
 '' Have I made the child lose caste ? " 
 
 '' Caste ! He has nothing to do with caste ; you have merely 
 insulted the Mussulmans.' 
 
 " ;;< 
 
 * A regiment of the native infantry of Bengal, previous to the mutiny, 
 might, I beheve, be analysed pretty correctly as follows. It is the roll of 
 the 34th. I beg my readers' pardon for boring them with details in a 
 novel : 
 
 Brahmins, who will not work in any way for fear of losing caste 335 
 Chettyars and Bajpoots, Brahmins who have laid down their 
 
 caste for a time 237 
 
 Lower-class Hindoos 231 
 
 Christians 12 
 
 Mussulmans 200 
 
 Sikhs 74 
 
 Total 1089 
 
 Your high-class Brahmin appears, from collected and collated evidence, 
 to be on the whole the most intolerable and unmanageabl prig which this 
 groaning earth has ever produced. One of the jolly old Jesuit or Capuchin 
 missionaries represents a profligate laxity of religious opinion when com- 
 pared to Jiiin. However, he wanted what he has got, and he has got 
 what he wanted. Chettyars and Rajpoots represent in the Hindoo faith 
 the Christians who sat in the Galilee of the Cathedral. Lower-class 
 Hindoos are what, in my sciolism, I call tag-rag-and-bobbery. Chris- 
 tians, I believe mostly Lutheran (12 amoug 1081) to confess Christ — long 
 odds, if you look at it, gentlemen). Mussulmans — an ill lot of Mussul- 
 mans, and who never would have been Mussulmans at all, but Christians, 
 
302 STEETTON. 
 
 "lam merely a clumsy beggar," said Jim, "but I did not 
 mean any harm. Now for the Rajah." 
 
 They rode swiftly into the Rajah's courtyard — very swiftly 
 indeed — and dismounted, watering their thirsty horses at one of 
 his fountains ; then they came slowly out again, leading their 
 horses by the bridle, talking in English, and laughing very loudly. 
 Of all the means which they could have conceived for insulting 
 the Rajah, this was the most contemptuous. After having done 
 this, they rode down to the head-quarters of the Queen's troops, 
 and joined in a council of war which was going on there. 
 
 There was, in addition to the military, the judge, the magistrate, 
 the collector, the doctor, the joint magistrate, the parson. The 
 parson was speaking as they came in. 
 
 "What I have always tried to avoid," said the Padre, "is 
 insulting them on the score of caste. It is perfectly untrue to say 
 that I have ever done so." 
 
 " No one ever said you had," said the judge, laughing. " You 
 have been easy enough with them. The question is this. Which 
 is the safest place for us in case of a row (which is coming). 
 Hah ! here come the Nawab and Cornet Mordaunt. Gentlemen, 
 there is thunder in the air, and we wish to put up a lightning 
 conductor ; where have you been ? " 
 
 " Cornet Mordaunt," replied the Nawab, " has been amusing 
 himself by insulting the Mussulmans. I, on my part, have 
 amused myself by insulting the Rajah." 
 
 " Reckless ! reckless ! " said the doctor. 
 
 "You think so, do you?" said the Nawab, carelessly lolling 
 into an empty chair. "I can't say I agree with you. We are 
 ready, and they are not. Cornet Mordaunt here has done a silly 
 thing in placing a naked Mussulman child on a pig-skin saddle, 
 but that only affects the Mussulmans. I called him a fool for 
 doing it at the time, but I have thought over it since, and I am 
 not sure that he has not been rather lucky." 
 
 Roland asked why. 
 
 " Because, Lieutenant, he has made a very distinct quarrel with 
 the Mussulmans in my presence. He has spread dissension 
 among their ranks. The Mussulmans will be at present for 
 cutting his throat and mine. Now, on the other hand, I am a 
 most excellent Brahmin, well known and well liked, and the 
 
 had various Popes sent any one but idiotic friars to Ajuk and Kublai 
 Khan. Sikhs— your Sikh is a sad fellow. The rascal will actually eat 
 pork and drink rum. But he can fight. Let the dim, confused fury of 
 the great day of Sobraon speak for that, even if John Lawrence, saviour 
 of India, is silent. 
 
STKETTON. 303 
 
 Brahmins will not have my throat cut if they can help it. I tell 
 you, gentlemen, that if we can keep, even at this time, from 
 insulting the castes of the Brahmins we may get through. It all 
 depends on that. 
 
 " The quarrel," he continued, " between myself and the Rajah 
 is nothing at all. We always squabbled from the time we were 
 boys. I have always insulted him, because it is my habit to 
 insult those I hate. He is an ill-born, ill-bred, ill-educated, ill- 
 living, ill-looking, ill-speaking, ill-thinking son of a female Pariah 
 dog. But it makes nothing, our quarrels. Mordaunt has saved 
 his life from my knife once, and if the dog felt gratitude, he would 
 feel it for that. But he knows nothing but evil, and he will ruin 
 us if he has a chance. For the men in these regiments, as many 
 would be for me as for him, providing their caste is not insulted. 
 I have never broken my caste, and they know it, and can trust 
 me. Bah ! the dog would cut pork to-morrow, if he liked it." 
 
 " I had cold pork for tiffin, Nawab," said the Doctor. 
 
 " What a nasty beast you must be," said the Nawab, with 
 perfect good humour. " Bah ! and in this climate, too. You 
 will want something stronger than taraxacum for your own liver, 
 if you don't mind. You have tinkered up so many livers that I 
 dare say you understand me." 
 
 " We shall want * Dent de lion ' here soon," remarked Eddy. 
 
 '' I wouldn't waste my time in making silly puns, if I were in 
 your place," said Jim. " You may think it fine, but we don't. 
 No one laughed." 
 
 "Now, gentlemen," said the Nawab, "I think we may assume 
 this : that these men will not rise, or will, at the worst, rise some 
 for me and some for the Rajah, if their case is let alone. Padre 
 Sahib, who is of high caste, has told me that his brother Padres 
 have been found willing to be burnt alive sooner than lose caste. 
 The place, I think, he mentioned, was Smithfieldpoor." 
 
 Assent from the Padre. The Nawab had now gathered his legs 
 under him in his chair, and had broken his boar- spear, first into 
 two, then into four lengths, across his knee. But he was quite 
 quiet. 
 
 *' Then it all comes to the same thing, gentlemen. It all comes 
 inexorably, and quite eternally, and never-ending fortuitously, to 
 the same exactly devilish thing : all fiends in the seventh depth of 
 Hell, gnawing at his bones with red-hot iron teeth. It all comes 
 to this, gentlemen. We shall pull through if we keep these men's 
 caste respected. That last wife of mine — my only wife now. 
 Padre — I got her and saved her from him ; and he hates me for 
 it. And curse him, by all gods e\ev invented, let him pome after 
 
.304 STEETTON. 
 
 her. Let him come after her, with ten thousand flaming devils. 
 
 Let him bring the Sheitan himself. Let him I want his 
 
 heart's blood, and I will have it," and he leaped on his legs, and 
 rammed the head of his boar- spear deep into the table. 
 
 "I say, draw it mild, old chap," said Jim, quietly. '* You are 
 cutting it a deal too fat, you know." 
 
 '' I ask pardon," said the Nawab. " I forgot myself." 
 
 '' You did, rather,'" said Jim. '' Cutting a man's throat is one 
 thing, but caterwauling about it beforehand is another. I am 
 ashamed of you. Look at the pains I have taken with your 
 education, and see my return." 
 
 *'Ibeg a hundred pardons; I forgot myself. Jim, my dear 
 soul, pull that boar-spear out of the table." 
 
 It is a singlar thing, but this lazy Hindoo, in his intense fury, 
 had struck the clumsy spike so deep into the table that no one 
 could move it. The Nawab laughed : ''An emblem of my deter- 
 mination. When a child of a year old can pull that spear-head 
 from the table, I will desert you, and those I have got to love 
 among you, — Jim, and one whom he forbids me to name, and 
 Roland, and Ethel, and Miss Eleanor Evans (I wish we had her 
 here), and Squire Mordaunt, and John Mordaunt, and Eddy, 
 and his Allan Gray. I am sorry that I was devilish, but it is in 
 our blood. You understand me about the caste : it must not be 
 interfered with. Now, again, dear Judge, should you not shift to 
 my quarters? " 
 
 "Not at once, surely," said the Judge. "Let us keep the 
 white feather in our pockets." 
 
 "Yes, you are right," said the Nawab, " but let it be under- 
 stood that if these fellows go mad, your home is with me." 
 
 " That was well said," said Captain Claverhouse. 
 
 " I love the English rule," said the Nawab. " It has debarred 
 me from military exercise, which was perhaps wise, because I 
 might have been an infernal devil, like " 
 
 " Leave it alone, old man — stow it," said Jim. 
 
 " But I can strike a blow. I am a Mahratta, and I will strike 
 it for you. Bless your hearts, all of you, we shall be perfectly 
 safe there for six months. These fellows have no leaders. Where 
 is John Lawrence ? " 
 
 " In the Punjaub," said Roland. 
 
 " I know that — but where ? " 
 
 Roland did not know. 
 
 "It does not matter much. We can hold out in case of the 
 worst. The Chupatties are round, but I can make a stalemate of 
 it with the Rajah, if you don't make the men jealous. On our 
 
STKETTON. 305 
 
 next meeting we will decide about the retreat to my palace in case 
 of a crush. Roland Evans, Edward Evans, and James Mordaunt, 
 would you come home with me ? " 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 Roland, Jim, and Eddy went home with the Nawab, and he told 
 them why he wanted them. *' I made a fool of myself to-day," 
 he said, " and I wanted you to see why. I want you to see my 
 wife." 
 
 It was such a strangely difficult subject that Roland himself 
 would not tackle it. Eddy did. "I thought you had many 
 wives, sir — as many as the Jewish patriarchs ? " 
 
 " I have but one now, sir," said the Nawab. 
 
 ** I should think you must be glad of that," said Eddy. *' If 
 I was going to marry anybody I should die of fright the day 
 before the ceremony. One would be enough to frighten me to 
 death. Solomon apparently retained his intellect to the last with 
 over six hundred." 
 
 *' Lor," said Jim, " if I was ever to marry anybody, I would 
 have it all my own way for six months, about which time she 
 would get the upper hand." 
 
 So they laughed oflf a very delicate subject, and went along to 
 the heavy gate of the Nawab's palace, which was slowly swung 
 open to admit them. Roland now, for the first time, saw the 
 Nawab's plan of fortification. There was no show of guns from 
 the outside walls ; they could easily have been battered into ruin 
 by artillery, though that would have taken some time. But the 
 inside wall, built recently, was fit to defy almost any artillery 
 likely to be brought against it. It was a zigzag wall, of very 
 heavy construction, mounted in casemates, or the best imitation 
 of them that Jim, the Nawab, and a tipsy discharged artilleryman 
 could make. The plan of these two bright young men was this, 
 to put the outer wall, built by the Nawab's father in the good old 
 times, between themselves and the new wall, and to arm that so 
 well that, even supposing it half-destroyed, human existence would 
 become impossible between the two walls, and an assault would 
 be impossible. The palace itself, and the grounds around it, were 
 on an impregnable cliff, on three sides, and the Nawab pointed 
 
 21 • 
 
806 STEETTON. 
 
 out with great glee that he commanded from his highest point the 
 palace of the Rajah. '' Let him misbehave, my dears, and we 
 will have his pretty house about his ears in a very short time." 
 
 " I see no protection from vertical fire," said Roland at once. 
 
 " Even if they tried it," said the Nawab, dismounting, '' we 
 have casemates. Please come with me, and, in the name of 
 British rule, never say what you have seen this day." 
 
 He led Roland through many courts, which got more and more 
 solitary as they went on. Then he unlocked a door in a high 
 white wall with a key ; he locked it after him, and began descend- 
 ing many steps into what had once been a garden, but which was 
 now tangled and wild, and seemed to have been so for many 
 years. At the end of this way a sculptured rock, into which went 
 a deep, black archway, sculptured with the images of devils, as it 
 seemed to Roland — of gods, as it seemed to the Nawab. 
 
 They passed into the silence and gloom, monstrous figures 
 loomed all around them, and the light was dim. ^' Take my 
 hand," said the Nawab ; and Roland took it, and spoke in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " I never heard of these caves." 
 
 " Of course you did not," said the Nawab ; "I should be very 
 much surprised if you had. My people are not talkative. These 
 are the temples of Belpore, the existence of which the Judge 
 stoutly denied in a learned antiquarian pamphlet, when Hauss- 
 mann, the German archaeologist, asserted their existence, and got 
 leave from Government to examine them. Haussmann may rum- 
 mage in Indian manuscripts, and may find out their existence ; 
 but there is nothing to prevent my entirely denying their exist- 
 ence. Haussmann may come to me and say, * Show me the temples 
 of Belpore, HeiT Nawab ; ' and there is nothing to prevent my 
 saying, ' Herr Haussmann, I see what you have been reading. 
 You have been reading the words of Naraballah. What does that 
 word mean in Hindustani, Herr Antiquarian ? ' " 
 
 ** * Well, it certainly does not mean anything at all,' " says the 
 German. 
 
 <« < Why,' I say, * you with your learning — you to be so grossly 
 deceived by a book like that ! The names mean nothing, the 
 book means nothing but " Gulliver's Voyages." My father pulled 
 down the temples.' And I got Haussmann up an old moonshee, 
 and the moonshee confirmed me, for my father has pulled down 
 one pagoda which his uncle built, out of spite. 
 
 '' That moonshee was put up to lie, but he lie too well. 
 Haussmann says, ' What was the date of the pagoda pulled down 
 by the late Nawab ? ' And he reply, * Twenty-five years ; I saw 
 
STRETTON. 807 
 
 him build.' * But how old are you ? ' says Haussmann. * Four 
 hundred years,' says the moonshee. And the lie counteracted the 
 truth, and I got the Judge to put down the impudent German in 
 a conclusive pamphlet, where he prove they were not temples at 
 all ; and here we are in them, you and I." 
 
 " But does the Rajah know of them ? " 
 
 ** Not he. What does he know about devilry ? There are but 
 three or four who do know. The secret has been an heirloom 
 with us. Our old enemies found out that this was an ugly place 
 to attack. The power which these caves give me is enormous. 
 You have doubtless seen Pelissier, Marshal of France ? " 
 
 Eoland said, laughing, that he had heard of him. 
 
 '' Did he find that caves and Arabs would be too much for him ? 
 Did he build them up with the Arabs inside ? Was he a good 
 general ? Hah ! We know the value of well-provisioned caves ; 
 we will call them, in future, casemates. Will you see them for 
 curiosity ? " 
 
 They were curious enough, without doubt ; but Roland cared 
 little about them. The Nawab led him on through arcade after 
 arcade, until a glimmer of light was before them. 
 
 It was a little slit in the limestone rock, covered on the outside 
 with creeping shrubs. Peeping out he saw the whole town of 
 Belpore laid out below him, and the native lines about four 
 hundred yards away at their feet. 
 
 He did what he very seldom did ; he uttered a loud oath. 
 ** Why," Roland said, '' you might make the lines and the town 
 impossible of occupation here by one solitary gun." 
 
 The Nawab was amused immensely. " Were my forefathers 
 fools," he said, " or did they build Attock ? Did they give you 
 trouble in your conquest of India ? I think they gave you some. 
 Your life is utterly in my hands at this moment, Roland Evans. 
 Here is a loaded revolver, and I could shoot you down like a dog. 
 I could leave your body here, and by a word have your brother 
 and your friend murdered, and the whole game begun with an 
 immense chance of success. I could outbid the Rajah, or make 
 friends with him, leaving the responsibility on him, and securing 
 myself a freedom in case of failure. Why do I not do it ? " 
 
 '^ Ah, why ? " said Roland ; '' your reason ? " 
 
 " Because I am with you — because I am with you, body and 
 soul. Why did you and the Colonel speak of me as you did when 
 your brother began to make friends with me ? Treat us like 
 gentlemen ; we are, in our way, as fine gentlemen as you are." 
 
 *' Well, there has been a great mistake about that," said 
 Roland ; '' but at the present moment I beg to remark that Dean 
 
303 STRETTON. 
 
 and Adams' revolvers, used theatrically for oratorical purposes, 
 are uncommonly likely to go off ; so if you will be kind enough 
 to hand me that one, I shall he m.uch obliged." 
 
 The Nawab laughed again, and by passage after passage they 
 came to the upper air, in another little garden, an alumbagh, and 
 the Nawab, turning to Roland, said, ''What do you think of me 
 now ? " meaning with regard to his defences. 
 
 Roland understood him to mean, what did he think of him 
 personally, and he answered, " I think you a very good fellow, 
 but weak in your intellect." 
 
 *' That certainly," said the Nawab, with ready good-nature. 
 *' If we had not been weak in our intellects, you never would have 
 had India. We fight as well as you do, or nearly as well ; but we 
 have no brains. Yet you are our lords and masters. And to tell 
 you the truth, I wish you to continue so. Now come on and see 
 my wife." 
 
 *' Is she Hindoo ? " asked Roland. 
 
 **No, she is French — Christian — Papists, I think you call her 
 sect. From Algeria. She has been trying to point out to me the 
 differences between your sect of Christianity and hers. But being, 
 as you just said, as one deprived of understanding, I have not 
 made it out at all. If we both live to the age of Fatoor (who, you 
 will remember, was the Fakir of Dinosapore, and who lived to the 
 age of 840 years, and is, consequently, confounded with the Jew's 
 Methuselah), she may possibly make me understand the differences 
 between the Christian sects ; for the present I am in the dark. I 
 sit and make electrical kites while she explains." 
 
 *' You are a quaint fellow, Nawab," said Roland, laughing. 
 
 ** Not so quaint as you, though," said the Naw^ab. '* You are 
 what my wife would call ' Devil's-own-quaint.' You English, she 
 says, are all mad, and there's no doubt about it." 
 
 <' Why are we mad ? " 
 
 <« Why are you here ? Could you not let us go to the devil our 
 own way ? What brought you here ? You are all mad, and I am 
 the maddest of all madmen because I love you. Depart, you 
 English, and leave me and the Rajah to settle scores. I will found 
 a dynasty which shall last my lifetime, and I will build a city and 
 a tower whose top shall reach to heaven." And then he made a 
 low and vulgar remark about a great living potentate, which any 
 gentleman would die sooner than repeat. 
 
 " Never mind him, or the Tower of Babel, or the confusion of 
 tongues. You leave French politics alone. The French Emperor 
 •will not trouble you. If he discounts his bills at a high premium, 
 and leaves his son to pay the principal, it is no business of ours. 
 
STEETTON. 309 
 
 What I want to know is this — have you lost caste in any way by 
 marrying this French lady ? " 
 
 "Not a hit," said the Nawab. **Not in the slightest degree. 
 I will tell you the truth. This lady was courted, spoken to, what 
 you call it, by the Kajah, and she hates the Rajah. I, loving 
 European manners, fall in love with her, and propose. She 
 insists at once that all the other ladies he banished. I consent 
 at once. I say to her, * Madame, you are worth all the women in 
 all the world ; I want a trusted friend, in you I found her ; ' and 
 she consents, but the priest of her faith could not marry her to 
 me. 
 
 *' I represent to him that he should. That Madame (a religious 
 woman) desires it. I tell you, my dear Roland, that he would not 
 have one word to say to us. He says I must be baptize, I dare 
 him to attempt it. I am not Christian, my Roland, though I love 
 Christians. She rebel and I rebel, and she quotes the example of 
 Ajuk Khan married to a Nubian Christian, which marriage was 
 allowed by the Pope's emissaries. Of that of course you know. 
 [Roland did not.] So in the end my wife had in a German 
 Lutheran missionary, * for he is a Christian,' she said, and we 
 were marry. And she what you call Papist, insisted on what she 
 call the Anglican ritual, for he would not use the Papist, and he 
 said in his ritual, ' For richer, for poorer, till God does us part.' 
 And I thought that good. And it shall be so between me and my 
 wife. The poor girls are provided for. It is past. It is gone. 
 There is no more of them. I have a wife now, * For richer, for 
 poorer, till death does us part.' You fools, you English, you 
 have abolished the suttee of the wife for the husband, you have 
 only introduced the suttee of the husband for the wife. You have 
 given us a great gift, my friend." 
 
 Roland bowed his head. Singularly enough, he of all people 
 broke down and got hysterical. Climate one will suppose. He 
 said, " God knows I am doing suttee now." 
 
 " 1 know," said the Nawab. '* But tell us, is it Mary Maynard 
 or Ethel?" 
 
 " Why how could you doubt ? " said Roland. " How did you 
 know ? " 
 
 " Never mind," said the Nawab ; " is it Ethel ? " 
 
 " Of course it is," said Roland. '' But " 
 
 ** Never mind that little word," said the Nawab. " She is 
 Jim Sahib's sister. I said so. See here. My wife reads the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, and she reads of a love surpassing that of 
 woman. That love I have for James Mordaunt. And all this 
 Indian hell shall rise from its depths against us ; but if you 
 
310 STRETTON. 
 
 will be my friend, we will beat it. And you shall have the 
 honour. And you shall go home to Jim's sister, and say, ' Jim 
 is kill, and Eddy is kill, and the poor silly Nawab is kill, but I 
 am come home with my glory to marry Ethel ; ' you shall see 
 all that. But you must be secret. Now we will come and visit 
 my wife." 
 
 Mrs. Nawab, as Eddy and Jim persisted in calling her, was a 
 nice, quiet, clever little Frenchwoman. She declined to sit cross- 
 legged, but sat on a rocking-chair. I beg to remark that I am 
 back in my narrative, and at the point where we take her up she 
 was merely gossiping with Eddy and Jim Mordaunt, while Roland 
 and the Nawab were in the caverns. 
 
 She could talk English, this Mrs. Nawab ; talk it a little too 
 plainly, not measuring the value of her words. 
 
 "I am glad to receive you two Englishmen. Mr. Evans 
 [to Eddy] , you are very ugly, but your face is good. Mr. 
 Mordaunt, you are very handsome, but you look cruel. Did 
 you ever murder any one, for example ? " 
 
 " Heaps and heaps," said Jim, '' in imagination." 
 
 And so they talked, laughing at the mistakes in one another's 
 language for an hour or two in the cool white piazza, and they had 
 coffee, which Madame herself brewed, and they had pipes, and 
 enjoyed themselves immensely, and were very innocent, amusing, 
 and talkative indeed. 
 
 Now, be it remembered, that I am not in any way defending 
 these good people's doings. I am only trying to say how things 
 went. Among his Anglicanisms, the Nawab had started a low, 
 disreputable, long, English clay pipe, such as you see laid in 
 heaps on the table in the smoking-room of English pot-houses, 
 what we used to call, as young men, a long churchwarden. This 
 he had smoked so long that he had coloured the bowl all up one 
 side ; and it now occurred to Madame, who was an old Algerian 
 campaigner, that she must put aside her own hookah, and smoke 
 her husband's pipe. 
 
 He objected, but she pleaded for it, and so prettily that they all 
 laughed, and at last he gave way. He filled it lor her, and she 
 lit it and smoked, while the others smoked cheroots, and they all 
 sat cross-legged, chatting. 
 
 Allan Gray, arriving at the Captain's compound and asking for 
 Eddy, was directed that Sahib Edward Evans was at that same 
 time of speaking in the palace of the Nawab of Belpore. Pur- 
 suing him to that abode of heathenesse, and finding his way 
 
STEETTON. 311 
 
 through nearly innumerable servants, he discovered his pet sitting 
 cross-legged in a row with a heathen gentleman. Rather objec- 
 tionable Roland, intensely objectionable Jim, and a French lady, 
 sitting cross-legged on a carpet on the ground, smoking away at a 
 long churchwarden pipe. 
 
 He was so unutterably horrified that he was stricken dumb. He 
 could say nothing at all. He was received with a very noisy hail, 
 and every symptom of welcome ; as for Eddy, he fairly ran into 
 his arms, and was rather surprised at the coldness of his recep- 
 tion. James and Roland were also most friendly. 
 
 As for the Nawab, there was nothing he would not have done 
 for him ; but Allan was like a dog at a fair. Being for the first 
 time in his life brought face to face with a real heathen, and 
 finding him a most affectionate gentleman, he was exceedingly 
 gawky and lost. Madame tried a little badinage on him, and 
 would have had him take her pipe : but she only horrified him the 
 more. 
 
 He seemed at last to have got into a land utterly forgotten of 
 God, and given over to the devil— a land which seemed to him to 
 have corrupted, lowered, nay, even blackguardised, such very pure 
 and kindly people as Roland and Eddy. It was an intolerable 
 matter. 
 
 To find an intolerable thing, with Allan, was the very same 
 thing as setting to work to mend it. The odds were enormous 
 against him. He could not speak the language, but his duty 
 was to him singularly clear. He must preach the Gospel in this 
 land in any language. Through want of faith we had lost the 
 gift of tongues ; through faith we might regain it. He would 
 preach the pure Gospel in English, be the consequences what 
 they may. 
 
 Alas, poor lad ! There are various ways of doing God's work, 
 and yours was one. Some cursed you for their ruin, and curse 
 you yet. You yourself thought that you had failed. Yet as my 
 brother says, 
 
 *' Not all who seem to fail, have failed indeed, 
 What though the seed be cast by the wayside, 
 And the birds take it — Yet the birds are fed." 
 
 Perhaps there is a Pariah or two at Belpore who remembers the 
 kindly, gentle, young enthusiast. At any rate he brought on the 
 cataclysm, which was well avenged, that any one may preach the 
 Gospel now at Belpore. 
 
312 BTEETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 There was perfect silence still, and the dawk came most regularly. 
 The Parsees had gone round to every one instantly, after the 
 departure of the European troops, and persuaded them to make 
 their wills, and send them to Europe ; and no one laughed at 
 them. A Calcutta paper, however, got hold of the fact, and wrote 
 a screaming leader on it, a real slasher, the sort of thing which 
 would make you split your sides with laughing. Everything was 
 quite quiet ; there was no danger at all. 
 
 Allan seemed to speak very little to any of his compatriots 
 except Eddy. With the others it was merely good-day, and good- 
 by. To Eddy he talked a good deal, and they cross-examined 
 Eddy, but Eddy said that Allan only talked to him about his soul, 
 so they forebore. And in reality Eddy spoke merely the plain 
 truth. Allan merely talked to him about the state of his soul, 
 which he thought immensely unsatisfactory. He was perfectly 
 silent to everyone about his great scheme. He had got a rascally 
 old Brahmin for a moonshee, and he was learning all about caste. 
 Eddy's soul could wait until he had done his best to blow the 
 British Empire to pieces. 
 
 Our friends had their little mess still, and talked over their 
 neighbours. 
 
 " That is a queer fellow, that half-brother of yours," said the 
 Doctor. " Does he drink ? " 
 
 '' Drink ! " said Roland, *' he is a teetotaller ! " 
 
 *' The pupil of his eye is very much enlarged," said the Doctor. 
 " Did you ever hear of a place called Hanwell ? " 
 
 Roland had heard of it. 
 
 "Ah!" said the Doctor, *'it is a nice easy distance from 
 London, and extremely well-conducted. Claverhouse, the claret 
 is with you." 
 
 ''Why did he come here?" asked Claverhouse, pointedly to 
 Eddy. 
 
 Eddy blushed scarlet, and said that he did not know. Whereas 
 he knew perfectly well, for Allan had told him that very morning 
 something which gave him the clue to Allan's behaviour. Allan, 
 in his self -justifying way, had put all sorts of reasons before Eddy 
 for his extraordinary expedition to India. The state of the 
 Hindoos, the state of Eddy's soul, tanks, railways, everything. 
 But at last he had let out the very real truth that he did not care 
 for life without Ethel, and that he had discovered that Ethel did 
 not care for life without Roland. 
 
STEETTON. 313 
 
 The little fellow dared not speak. There was danger and wrath 
 abroad, and anything might happen. Koland and Allan were 
 rivals. It was terrible. But a curious thing is that the honest 
 little lad trusted Allan as well as he did Roland, only he dared not 
 speak. 
 
 " I wish," said the Judge, ''that he had gone anywhere else. 
 You will forgive me saying, my dear Evans, that the man is a 
 dreadful bore." 
 
 *' He cannot have bored you much, Judge," said Eddy. 
 
 *' Child ! child ! " said the Judge, " he has shortened my very 
 worthless life. What have I done that he should look up all my 
 decisions in important cases, and tell me that I am an unjust 
 judge ? I am nothing of the kind. He says to me also, that the 
 conquest of India was the grossest act of piracy ever committed, 
 and that if I loved myself so far as to partake of the spoils, I 
 might at least give just judgments. I always thought I was so 
 very just." 
 
 *' He has been at me too," said Captain Claverhouse. *' He said 
 that we had no right whatever to annex this territory. The only 
 object of war, he argued, was to spread Christianity. Whereupon 
 I referred him to the history of Japan, where a few ships would 
 have saved the missionaries. He shifted then, for he has no 
 education or little, and said that he meant Protestant Christianity ; 
 the Protestants were never aggressive. I mentioned Silesia to him, 
 and with most singular honesty he confessed that he knew nothing 
 of that small piece of annexation. He is a good fellow, but he 
 wants grinding." 
 
 *' But he is a sort of tuniip-ghost at a christening," argued the 
 Doctor. *' Why did he come here ? He will play the deuce with 
 us before he has done with us. Of all times in all creation, for 
 such a dissociated radical to appear. Never mind, my dears, I 
 have seen death too often to fear him." 
 
 "Now look you here. Doctor," said the Captain, "we shall 
 pull through this, only it is a great pity that there is not one with 
 influence over this turnip-ghost missionary of a man, to restrain 
 him." 
 
 At this moment the Nawab, who was sitting at the lower end of 
 the table, broke out into a roar of laughter. Jim had been telling 
 the Nawab, in a stifled whisper, how they had beaten the London 
 Rowing Club at Shrewsbury regatta ; and the joke hit the Nawab. 
 It was impossible, of course, for Captain Claverhouse to be angry 
 with a royal prince who had all their lives in his hand, still he 
 might scold Jim. 
 
 *' Mr. Mordaunt, I wish you would not make the Nawab laugh 
 
314 STRETTON. 
 
 just as I was speaking — I really " but he said no more, for 
 
 Roland's white hand was laid suddenly on his chest, meaning 
 '' silence," and Roland walked softly down the room, and sitting 
 beside the Nawab, put his arm affectionately over his shoulder, in 
 schoolboy fashion. 
 
 As for Captain Claverhouse, he was so paralysed by what he saw 
 at the door immediately behind the Nawab, that I go at once to 
 other authors to say how scared he was. But I have no author 
 who will help me in any way. For extreme fantasticisms the best 
 authorities I know are Rabelais and the late Artemus Ward. But 
 Rabelais can seldom be quoted (having lived before the time when 
 men found out that you could have humour without dirt — that is to 
 say, 300 years before Dickens and Thackeray), and Artemus Ward 
 is at times feeble and inconsecutive. Artemus Ward may talk of 
 sky-blue fits (which, by the way, is Dickens'), but he could not 
 rise to the level of the American Revolution, any more than 
 Dampmartin could rise to the level of the French. Captain 
 Claverhouse, had he found his tongue, would have scolded like 
 Dampmartin. But he was simply stunned and held his peace. 
 While Roland kept his strong arm tightly round the Nawab 's 
 neck. 
 
 This was the eve of the Indian mutiny. The most reckless, 
 causeless, stupidest revolution ever planned. Like all ill-considered 
 and causeless revolutions, it failed. It was evil against good, and 
 good won. Think, sir, what India would be now, had the revolution 
 succeeded. Come, sir, think of that. 
 
 In revolutions — I am young, but I have watched many — you 
 raise the devil. For example, June, 1848. The devil was raised 
 here at Belpore in 1857. The devil was the Rajah of Bethoor. 
 The man who raised him was the young religionist, Allan Evans. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 For behind the back of the unconscious Nawab, who had Roland's 
 strong arm round his shoulder, stood the Rajah himself, and Allan 
 Gray behind him. 
 
 The astonishment of the whole room was expressed by a 
 profound silence. No one was in the least degree up to the occa- 
 sion, or able in any way to form an idea of what had happened. 
 The Nawab was the last to see him, and only saw him after he 
 heard his voice, and then he rose and confronted him. 
 
STBETTON. 315 
 
 The Rajah and the Nawab were both fine and handsome men, 
 though the Rajah was puffy with vice and high-feeding : had there 
 been one of those sudden and swift Asiatic encounters, either man 
 might have gone down in an instant. James Mordaunt was 
 standing partly between them, with a view of stopping hostilities, 
 when the Doctor pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered, ** You 
 are hampering your man ; " on which Jim removed. 
 
 In reality, the Doctor saw most plainly that, in case of a fracas 
 between the two Indians, the Rajah would most certainly put his 
 sword through James's body, and apologise for it afterwards. 
 But it was not to the Nawab that the Rajah spoke, he addressed 
 the whole company : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, there seems to be some misunderstanding and 
 mistrust about me. I have come quietly, an Indian gentleman 
 among English gentlemen, to give explanations, to remove all 
 doubts and difficulties, and to reassure myself about our friendly 
 relations. This gentleman has consulted much with me, and we 
 have exchanged opinions, and are agreed. Gentlemen, you are in 
 danger here." 
 
 " We are perfectly aware of it. Rajah," said Captain Claver- 
 house. "Who is that behind you? not Mr. Evans, whom God 
 seems to have misguided, but that attendant of yours, who has sat 
 down in that chair by the door. Mordaunt, go and collar that 
 fellow, and kick him out. What the devil does the fellow mean 
 by sitting down in the presence of a British officer without leave ? 
 Are you come here to insult us. Rajah ? " 
 
 Jim proceeded on his errand instantly, but the young man had 
 vanishedr The Rajah, turning to see the result, only saw Jim, 
 coolly standing with his back against the door, and he turned very 
 pale, but retained his self-possession entirely. His race knows no 
 fear of death. He thought that his time was come, and, beast, 
 liar, treacherous, cruel hound as he was, he knew from the tradi- 
 tions of his forefathers how to die. We, of all people, should 
 allow that to the Brahmins. 
 
 He looked quietly at Claverhouse and Roland, and laid his 
 hand quickly upon his sword — a pretty, dangerous, little Liege 
 toy. Roland understood him at once. '' You are as safe as if 
 you were in your own zenana, sir. James, come away from that 
 door." 
 
 He knew that he was safe now. *' By " (some of his gods), he 
 thought, ** these fools ! If I had one of them up at my palace, he 
 should not get off like this. Let me try them on their own 
 ground." 
 
 " You teach us Asiatics a good lesson," he said boldly. " We 
 
316 STEETTON. 
 
 are enemies. If at this moment, I had one of you in my palace, 
 he should never leave it alive. You are pirates, dacoits, and 
 villains. You had no right in India. Your wrongs and your 
 robberies here would make hell move. Your Hastings was a 
 robber, whom you acquitted ; your Clive was a robber, who, 
 utterly unable to bear the burden of his sins, killed himself. 
 I am your bitter enemy, but I am safe, because I am among 
 English gentlemen. I am in your power ! will any one raise a 
 hand against me ? Not one. I know you. 
 
 " I have trusted myself among you, because I wish to make 
 friends with you, and to save you. I desire my rights, which are 
 entirely incontestable, no more. I have' explained my case to this 
 English gentleman, and he agrees with me." 
 
 Eddy ran quickly up to Allan Gray, and caught his hand. 
 ''Allan! Allan!" he said, "you have not been listening to 
 this man ? " 
 
 "You are a fool," said Allan. "He is prepared to hear the 
 truths of Christianity ; what is more, allow them to be preached, 
 in a bold and free manner, as they should have been preached 
 before." 
 
 The Padre bounced up, and cried out, " Have you been preach- 
 ing against caste in the native lines, under the protection of this 
 man ? ' ' 
 
 " I have, sir," said Allan ; " and I glory in it." 
 
 " Then may the good God forgive you our blood. I am an old 
 man, and it does not matter. But these bonny, innocent boys ! 
 Well, well. I stayed here and lost my wife, and I said to myself, 
 ' I will make rupees for the little ones ' ; but they all died ; and I 
 said, ' I will stay on here, and do what I can among these heathen, 
 for Christ's sake, that I may meet my wife and my little ones in 
 heaven.' A selfish motive. Has any poor native wanted a rupee 
 while I had one ? Am I not poor ? Have I not tried to rival 
 the Jews and Parsees in their charities without their means ? Am 
 I not a broken old man? Have not Hemmetz, the Lutheran, 
 Faoli, the Papist, and I, worked together here for years, trying 
 to bring them to the dogmas of Christianity by the example of 
 our lives ? Have we not agreed to leave caste alone ? and now 
 here is a new-comer, who has brought the house of so many years' 
 building about our ears ! " 
 
 " Don't preach. Padre," said the Doctor, quietly. " Mr. Allan 
 Evans, have you any idea of what you have been doing ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. I have been carrying Christ's banner into quarters 
 where it should have been carried before." 
 
 "You have been carrying the devil's banner, sir. That man 
 
STKETTON. 317 
 
 has instigated you to do the only one thing you should have left 
 alone. He has fooled you to the top of your hent, sir. He has 
 advised you to do what he wants done. Our hlood is on your 
 head. You had better never have been born than have come 
 here." 
 
 '' What did I tell you ? " said the Rajah. 
 
 *' You were right, sir," said Allan. *' We will come away." 
 And they turned away. 
 
 '' One moment, Allan," cried Eddy. •' Do not go with that 
 man. I beg of you, by your old love for me, do not go with that 
 man." 
 
 *'I came here for love, and I find a brothel. Those I loved 
 and trusted gone from their faith, their purity, their religion. 
 Ministers ashamed of the Gospel they vowed to preach ; men 
 educated as Roland and you have been, sitting with heathens and 
 Papist women, with the surroundings of a low English pot-house. 
 [Alas, for Madame Nawab's pipe !] I have done with my country- 
 men, my relations, and life. I shall die, but I shall die preaching 
 God's o^vn Gospel. Good-by, for ever, Eddy." 
 
 That leal little fellow, whom Ethel would never appreciate, was 
 not going to let him go like this. He dashed at him, and cried, 
 '* Allan, you are utterly deluded," and cast himself between Allan 
 and the door. 
 
 Not one of the others moved. Eddy got his back against the 
 door, but Allan scornfully moved towards it, and laid his hand on 
 Eddy's shoulder. 
 
 ''Allan, by the old Shrewsbury days, by our old Field Lane 
 days, by every pleasant hour we have had together, stay with your 
 countrymen in this dark hour. Let race prevail with you, Allan ; 
 let blood prevail with you. Do not leave our brother 7iow. You 
 are misguided ; you are mad. That man is a dog and a villain. 
 Ask Roland " 
 
 Ask Roland ! the favoured lover of Ethel. Oh, Eddy ! what 
 evil spirit caused j^ou to raise the devil into that powerful, up- 
 looking, bloodhound face, and those bloodhound eyes ? 
 
 The dykes which Allan had raised round the furious tide of 
 passion which was in him, by religion, by order, by rule, broke 
 down here at once. The man was never a sotmd man. There 
 had always been depths of potential ferocity in him, deeper and 
 fiercer than ever were in Jim Mordaunt ; and he had had wit 
 enough to know it, and like a fine and wise fellow as he was he 
 had kept them in order. But at this moment, at Eddy's unhappy 
 allusion to Roland, added to the excitement of the situation and 
 climate, his habits of life broke down suddenly. He seized Eddy, 
 
318 STEETTON. 
 
 and with the strength of a lion cast him against the Rajah, utter- 
 ing a loud and furious curse against Roland. 
 
 If Aunt Eleanor could have seen her work now, she would be 
 inclined to drown herself. Her one folly, that of throwing Allan 
 against Ethel to plague him, caused this. That Allan, at the 
 mere mention of Roland's name, had gone mad, and had cast poor 
 Eddy against the Rajah. **Be sure thy sin will find thee out." 
 Poor lady, she had to dree her weird. 
 
 Eddy was sent staggering against the Rajah, and the Rajah 
 was sent staggering against the stone door-post, against which he 
 fell, cutting his forehead deeply. The last seen by any European 
 eye, save two, of that Rajah was seen now. A tall, very handsome 
 man, in green velvet and gold, with white trousers. Deadly pale, 
 with the blood dripping over his face, which he wiped with a 
 French cambric pocket-handkerchief, bordered with lace. Before 
 he followed out Allan Gray, he turned to the party, and said, very 
 quietly — 
 
 **I am sorry that this interview, meant so well on my part, 
 should have terminated so abruptly. It was entirely my clumsi- 
 ness. I hope that Ensign Evans has not been hurt. You know 
 as well as I do that a struggle is coming, and you know on which 
 side I am. My claim to be Jaghire of Bethoor has been refused 
 by your parliament, and I am going to test the power of the British 
 empire. I am the guest of Englishmen, and I am safe. I there- 
 fore warn you that the lines will be fired to-morrow night." 
 
 So, with the bloody cambric handkerchief in his hand, he bowed 
 himself out into the dark Indian night, never to be seen again by 
 any European eye, save Allan Gray's, and another.* 
 
 Eddy was standing against the door, in blue and gold, and 
 white trousers, with his sword-belt looped up, ready for evening 
 parade. The others had risen, and were looking at the doorway, 
 but they could not see Eddy. The image left on their eye was 
 that of a tall man, in green and gold, who had passed out at the 
 door, waving a bloody cambric handkerchief behind him. 
 
 r 
 
 Vll 
 
 * I must beg my readers to remember that this is fiction — that is to 
 say, a dramatic accumulation of probabilities. The Kajah of Bethoor is 
 not Nana Sahib, any more than the Nawab is Scindiah. Perhaps there 
 never was such a nice Nawab as my Nawab. Yet Scindiah is wiser than 
 he. The quasi facts about the Eajah, his works and his ways, have been 
 taken, as I acknowledge, from papers of Lieutenant Willoughby — the 
 young man who served God from his youth, and who never was ashamed 
 of it, even at Addiscombe. Praying and fighting go uncommonly well 
 together, my friends. There was once a man called Cromwell, as there 
 was also a man called Louis IX. 
 
STEETTON. 319 
 
 Dramatic and fantastic. Well, as I said before, if the Indian 
 Mutiny was not that, it was nothing. 
 
 CHAPTER LIU. 
 
 The Rajah was gone. " Shut the door, Eddy, and come here," 
 said Roland, sharply. *' Claverhouse, here is the devil to pay 
 sooner than I thought. Do you really believe that that rascal has 
 egged my unhappily ignorant brother on to preach against caste ? " 
 
 " Of course he has," said the Padre. " How can you, so clever, 
 ask such a question? " 
 
 *' Will they be up to-morrow night, then ? " said Roland. 
 
 " No, they won't be up to-morrow night," said Captain Claver- 
 house. " Were you ass enough to believe that that fellow would 
 give us warning ? They will be up to-night, man. The moon 
 will be up in two hours ; they will therefore move in one hour and 
 a half." 
 
 " Why not before ? " asked Roland. 
 
 " Because they will want to distinguish Indians from Euro- 
 peans ; and the lines will not burn brightly for above half an 
 hour." 
 
 " What are we to do, sir ? " said Roland. 
 
 " I will give you my experience now, if you will give me your 
 brains afterwards. Your troopers are in bed by now, for it has 
 been hot. Go down, Mordaunt and you, to quarters and awaken 
 them silently in the dark." 
 
 " Yes, sir, but the native servants ? " 
 
 **Ah, that is a bother. Sham drunk and sing a loud song. 
 Make believe that you are drunk, and are going to — (a part of the 
 English establishment in India which I will call 999, Queer-street), 
 and sing * ''' '" " 
 
 *' I am afraid we could not do that, sir," said Roland. 
 
 " Law, I thought that you University fellows were up to any- 
 thing," said Captain Claverhouse. 
 
 "Jim and I, sir," said Roland, "are two of Doctor K 's 
 
 boys, and I don't tliink we could do that. The Doctor might hear 
 of it. We will sham drunk and be noisy, if you please." 
 
 " Well, that will do. Tell the men to be ready to saddle at a 
 moment's notice. Our object is to get the English officers to the 
 Nawab's palace in time. Your duty in future will be to give me 
 
320 STEETTON. 
 
 your brains, of which I have few. At present it is to protect the 
 Europeans to the Nawab's palace. You and Mordaunt go to the 
 men in their beds, and get them ready. I trust nearly all to you, 
 for cavalry in the dark is what no man dare face." 
 
 *' What will be the signal, sir ? " 
 
 *' Oh, our bugles. We shall be down amongst you directly. 
 But we must clear the bungalows of the women and children. 
 Your troop must protect our rear. How soon can you get your 
 men in the saddle? " 
 
 *'In three or four minutes, I think," said Roland. "It is a 
 great pity that the command of the troop has fallen on such a 
 subaltern as myself." 
 
 "It is a piece of God's good mercy," said Claverhouse, "that 
 Lummers and Rounders fell sick. Why I would go to the devil 
 after you. You come of the breed which conquered India. Now 
 Mordaunt and you go to your sleeping troopers, and wake them in 
 this way. Put your hand on their foreheads, and they will awaken 
 silently. If you shake them by the shoulder, some one of them 
 will cry out. Go off, you two boys, and do as I tell you." 
 
 " Where did you learn these details ? " said Roland. 
 
 " In the Khyber Pass." 
 
 " But you could not have been in the army then." 
 
 " As a drummer I was. Never mind my antecedents. I rose 
 from the ranks. This is not a time for long stories. Cut away. 
 At the sound of our fifes and drums look after our rear. Cut 
 away, Mordaunt. God go with you." And so they went to the 
 dark night's work. 
 
 " You are quite ready for us, Nawab ? " said Claverhouse. 
 
 " I have been ready 250,000 years," said the Nawab. 
 
 " Then would you mind going home ? " 
 
 No. It appeared that the Nawab emphatically declined to do 
 anything of the kind. " He be devil, they all be devil ; by devil 
 I shall not go home. I have provide everything, and I have no 
 fight. I want fight, and I shall not go home, by dam." 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 Measures well taken, but too late for some. Eddy, Claverhouse, 
 and two other officers were just following Roland out of the door, 
 to gel their men hurriedly together, and get their women and 
 children out of the bungalows, when a Company's officer, a young 
 
STEETTON. 321 
 
 man of great promise— ^,]ust married — ran into them, and hm-riedly 
 asked for a pistol. 
 
 " Are they up so soon ? " said Claverhouse. 
 
 *' Yes, yes ; lend me your revolver." 
 
 Claverhouse did so. The young officer put it to his own ear, 
 fired it otf, and fell dead across the mess-table. 
 
 Eddy drew back shuddering and deadly white, but Claverhouse 
 said loud and firmly to him, ''Evans ! Steady ! " and Eddy was 
 perfectly steady at once. 
 
 " Why has he done that? " whispered Eddy, aghast. 
 
 *' I suspect they have murdered his bride while he was away 
 from her on duty," said Claverhouse. " Blow up, bugles ! a 
 hundred and sixty Englishmen against all hell ! " 
 
 The bugles woke the strange, ominous stillness of the night, 
 with the assembly. Roland's trumpet was heard in reply, a sheet 
 of flame shot up from the native lines, and nearly the most ghastly 
 and fearful thing in the history of our empire was begun. 
 
 Roland and Jim had got their men together and mounted, and 
 went at a sling trot do\wia. the long dusty road, past the piece of 
 jungle where the moonshee was murdered. The fire before them 
 blazed brighter and brighter, lighting up the road clearly. The 
 moon was down as yet, but there was light enough for them. 
 
 Roland was particularly anxious not to get this jungle in his 
 rear without support. He halted there for one instant, and but 
 for one, for he heard Claverhouse's jolly roar behind him, '' Go 
 on, Evans, we are here." 
 
 They slung on again, it was light enough now, but they went 
 cautiously. The first person they met was an English lady, 
 hurrying on a child by the hand, and carrying another. She 
 stopped for a moment and explained hurriedly to Roland that the 
 child she carried was dead, but that the Sikhs had saved the one 
 she was leading, and that the Sikhs were close behind her. She 
 was barefooted, simply clothed in a long white night-dress, spotted 
 with the blood of the dead child, and she had thrown round her 
 neck, in her unutterable confusion and horror, the strap of an old 
 Scotch fishing-creel, which bumped against her shoulders as she 
 ran barefooted along the sandy road. 
 
 Next they met three officers' wives coming as fast as they 
 could, two were leading a third along. One of the leaders was 
 Peggy O'Dowd, the other Mrs. Kirk. The young woman they 
 led was the bride of the man who had shot himself on the mess- 
 table. And she was laughing, and singing her part in Acis and 
 Galatea, which she had learnt two years before in the Philhar- 
 monic Society ot Dublin. 
 
 22 
 
322 STRETTON. 
 
 They had met a little child in its bedgown, all alone. And it 
 said that the men had beaten its ayah, but that the halvidar Ben 
 Allar had sent it down the road to ask its way to the house of the 
 Nawab. He told Koland also, that he had lost his puppy, and 
 would doubtless have entered into other details, but Koland had 
 the opportunity of giving him into the hands of two native women 
 flying along the road, who brought him to the Nawab's. 
 
 You may thus, if you are a man with the ordinary feelings of an 
 Englishman, guess what was the temper of Roland as he ap- 
 proached the lines of those pampered mercenaries. But before 
 he got dangerously near them, he found a little army approaching 
 him, and he halted and challenged. 
 
 A cheery EngHsh voice cried out, ''Don't charge, Evans, if 
 that is you, we are the Sikhs, Christians, Eurasians, and Euro- 
 peans. We have all the women and children which we can 
 
 It was a captain of a Native regiment who spoke. 
 
 " My dear soul," said Roland, '* we left you there too long." 
 
 ** Well," said Captain Morton, '' we could not have come away 
 before," which may sound prosaic, but which was perfectly true. 
 
 " Are there any left we can rescue ? " asked Roland. 
 
 ** I think not," said the E.I.C.S. Captain. " We were not pre- 
 pared for this business to-night ; we were very carefully put oflf 
 our guard. All we can save I believe we have got here. Can we 
 pass them on to your infantry ? " 
 
 *' We can escort them back," said Roland. '' I suppose it is 
 no use going on." 
 
 *' Well," said Morton, '* it is no use certainly, our officers are 
 all killed. But yet, but still " 
 
 ** I do not understand you," said Roland. 
 
 " Well, we shall all be dead soon, and a week or two sooner or 
 later does not much matter. Could not you detach a King's 
 officer to convoy these people to the rear, to your head-quarters, 
 or even to the infantry, which you say is in your rear ? I have 
 twenty Sikhs who will follow me to the devil, and that, with your 
 men, will make up eighty. We may die now ; on the other hand, 
 we may not. But it seems to me that we cavalry shall be of 
 small use in the defence of the Nawab's palace. Is not now the 
 time to sacrifice ourselves ? " 
 
 ** Would you explain further ? " said Roland. 
 
 ** Certainly," said Morton. *' I have been long in India, and I 
 think this is the beginning of a great crisis. Now is the time for 
 a lesson to them. The odds against us are not great. We are 
 eighty men to their two thousand. Come, sir, I tell you plainly, 
 
STRETTON. 323 
 
 it rests in your hands to assist in the saving of India, or to assist 
 in sending back her history for a hundred years." 
 
 ** I quite think so," said Roland, quietly. *' But I wish to 
 know our chances of administering chastisement." 
 
 '* Bring your troop and the Sikhs round this hit of jungle in the 
 darkness, tall on them, and then ride home." 
 
 "But," said Roland, ''I am bound to take care of these poor 
 lads who follow me. We must pass this piece of jungle again, 
 and we can be cut to pieces by a flank fire of musketry. Any 
 officer could point that out." 
 
 *' Yes," said Morton, '' but can't you see that the Sepoys have 
 cut all their officers' throats, and that they have not got any 
 officers ? It is to my mind extremely possible that we shall live 
 through it. And just think of the lesson." 
 
 *' You speak wisely," said Roland. *'Iwill do it. You can 
 depend on your Sikhs." 
 
 *' They have eaten our salt," said Morton, proudly. '* Remem- 
 ber Chillianwallah." 
 
 Yes, it was all well enough, Ethel would love him better than 
 ever now. She would tear her hair a little perhaps, and she 
 would be cross to Aunt Eleanor, and time would go on, but she 
 would know that he loved her, and that he died worthy of her. 
 Morton was right. This was the beginning, and a lesson was 
 wanted. One thing he could do : he could save her brother. All 
 hopes of getting alive out of the hell before him were dead. Yet 
 Jim might be saved. 
 
 *' Cornet Mordaunt." 
 
 Jim came up and saluted. 
 
 '' Cornet Mordaunt, the troop is about to advance rapidly to the 
 front, into the native lines. You are ordered to escort the 
 stragglers back to the rear of the infantry, and put yourself under 
 the orders of the Captain commanding." 
 
 To which Jim, God bless him, poor fellow, said, '* I will see 
 you first." 
 
 '' This is flat insubordination, sir, in the face of a mutiny about 
 to grow to a revolution." 
 
 " Never mind those long words," said Jim. " Come, Roley, 
 don't be a fool. Think of the old four-oar, the Unconquerables. 
 What would the Doctor say, what would Aunt Eleanor say, if after 
 so long I left you now ? Roley, don't be a fool. Do you mean to 
 say that you propose to send back to Ethel a disgraced and dis- 
 honoured brother ? Why, my good Roley, I would sooner die 
 than face Ethel, Meredith, and my brother, if I went back. Come, 
 sharp is the word, old fellow. They will see us directly. Cut away." 
 
BU STEETTON. 
 
 Roland gave the word of command, and they rode away round 
 the jungle in fours. Roland and Morton heading the troop, and 
 Jim riding on the flank, between the junction of our men and the 
 Sikhs. They went ofi' at a sling trot, and they never altered their 
 pace till the end. 
 
 What those unutterable devils, our pampered mercenaries, had 
 been doing that night under the advice and guidance of the Rajah, 
 is not to be told here. Causeless, aimless, brutish, shameless. 
 They thought they had won. The bungalows were sacked, the 
 fire of the lines was dying out, the late waning moon was rising 
 over the town as if to see the end of it all ; when in the ears of 
 the brutalised and drunken revellers there arose the sound of the 
 clanking of the British cavalry. 
 
 In the midst of the sin, and the smoke, and the din, came 
 Roland, riding calmly, with sixty young Englishmen behind him, 
 and twenty good Sikhs behind them. 
 
 Roland gauged the pov/er of the Indian mutiny from this 
 moment. He saw that they had no leader. He had conceived 
 that it was death to come here. So it would have been had there 
 been one solitary Orsini among them. In the midst of all their 
 amorphous fury and wickedness, the sight of the old scarlet, gold 
 and red, was enough to paralyse them. A more desperate deed 
 of valour than Roland's was seldom done. He had eighty men, 
 and he rode deliberately into the midst of two thousand infuriated 
 mercenary mutineers, and not one man of them dared show his 
 musket. 
 
 '' Don't stop," said Morton, eagerly. " We shall get out of 
 this without bloodshed. Who would have thought it ! " 
 
 '* I think I will stop once," said Roland. '' The fellows would 
 not miss their lesson." 
 
 " I beg you not, Evans. I beg and pray you not. I urged 
 you to come here to-night because I thought that the end would 
 be death. I never dreamt, with all my experience, that the day 
 would be so demoralised. Man, man, at this very moment you 
 are half way between heaven and hell. Heaven ! look at that. I 
 thought they would not let us go. Charge at the gallop, man ! " 
 
 *' We shall do it very well at the trot," said Roland. *' It is 
 only a rallying square, and the men are not loaded — they are only 
 loading now." '•' 
 
 * The unutterable imbecility of the beginning of the Indian mutiny is 
 almost incredible. The defence of Delhi had elements of splendour 
 about it. The Indians have a curious word for international law — the 
 word is " dacoitee." A friend of mine (in the Hanwell Asylum, but very 
 clever) translates the word as " The devil take the hindmost." 
 
STRETTON. 3^5 
 
 They trotted steadily up to the square, and, as Roland said, 
 the men were not loaded ; but these few fouj^ht, and fought well, 
 but were ridden down. Morton's horse was killed under him by 
 a bayonet thrust, but Morton himself was uninjured, and hung on 
 to Roland's right stirrup while Roland cut at the bayonets with 
 his sword. The few men who had formed the rallying square had 
 done their work, however, and dispersed. 
 
 The troop were trotting, and the men were thrown into confu- 
 sion by this very slight opposition. The Sikhs got mixed with 
 the Europeans, and though perfectly brave, were very glad to get 
 out of a dangerous embroglio. 
 
 *'Well," said Roland, when they were opposite the patch of 
 jungle where Jim's moonshee was killed, " who ever would have 
 believed that ? I never thought to have got out of tliat alive. I 
 say, Jim. Where is Jim Mordaunt? Jim ! Jim ! " 
 
 He might have Jim-Jimmed till he was hoarse. The troop 
 were all right, the Sikhs were all right ; but there was no Jim. 
 
 And between Roland and Jim had arisen suddenly a barricade 
 of half- burned rafters, with two thousand men behind it, impass- 
 able for cavalry. And the Rajah, in green, gold, and white, stood 
 at the top of it for a moment, and saluted Roland courteously. 
 
 But Roland Evans was on one side of the barricade and Ethel's 
 brother Jim on the other. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 " Well done, Evans ! " cried Claverhouse, running up. '* Splen- 
 didly done, sir. The very thing to have done under any circum- 
 stances. You are a hero ! " 
 
 " The idea was not mine, and it has been carried out so ill that 
 I have lost my right arm. I have lost James Mordaunt." 
 
 There was dead silence. No one knew what to say. It was a 
 supreme time. 
 
 " This is a very sad mishap. Can we do anything ? " 
 
 *' Dare you attack the lines with the infantry ? " asked Roland. 
 
 Claverhouse said emphatically, " No ! " and Morton said 
 emphatically, " No ! " 
 
 " Then," said Roland, *' I suppose we had better move back on 
 the palace, and prepare for defence." Sotheyfonned the infantry, 
 and Eddy and the Nawab were quietly told of what had happened. 
 Neither of them said one word. 
 
326 STEETTOH. 
 
 Nothing further occurred worthy of remark that night; but 
 when the Europeans were collected in the palace and were counted, 
 thirty-four were missing, men, women, and children all told, and 
 among them were James Mordaunt and Allan Evans. 
 
 The great outer gates were shut, and so began the siege of 
 Belpore, now, with a dozen others, a matter of history. Our very 
 first duty, however, is to follow James Mordaunt, who is in harder 
 case than any of the others. 
 
 He had been looking quite carelessly, amused by the whole 
 scene of the sulky rebels, when suddenly he saw a European face 
 beside him, and saw that it was Allan Evans. 
 
 Jim was now only parallel with the advanced four of the Sikhs, 
 and at a trot the slightest halt throws one behind. " Take my 
 stirrup leather. Gray," he whispered to Allan, pausing for an 
 instant. '' Not like that, man ; behind my knee, not before — so ! 
 I will get you out of the mess you have got us all into. Run, 
 man, and never leave go of me." 
 
 " Run as quick as you can," whispered Jim. '* We must 
 catch up the Sikhs. By golly, we are too late ! Good-by, Allan 
 Gray. All is forgiven between us, but hold on like grim death, 
 old boy. I won't leave you." 
 
 The Sepoys were between them and the Sikhs fifty deep, with 
 bayonets in their hands. Jim, crying out once more, " Hold on, 
 old boy, and let us go at them," put spurs to his horse, and Allan, 
 quite unused to such rough play, let go and was swept down in the 
 rush against them. Jim saw what had happened, and, after a 
 glance behind, felt that he could do no more for poor Allan. 
 
 " So this is death," he said. ** But they will be very sorry at 
 Stretton for a time," and he rode straight and hard at the crowd 
 before him. 
 
 His maddened horse, a furious young Romeo Australian colt, 
 took him fairly and bravely into the melee. Bayonet squares have 
 been broken certainly once or twice ; notably at Herat the year 
 before this ; but in two seconds poor Jim's horse was dead with 
 bayonet thrusts, never to see the long grey plains of Australia any 
 more, and poor Jim was down, overpowered, but quite unwounded, 
 never apparently to see the long brown sheets of heather on Long- 
 mynd any more. 
 
 His arms were tightly bound behind his back, and he had 
 fought with such terrible ferocity that it was some time before 
 he got breath to speak. When he had regained it, he saw a 
 halvidar before him, and he said, " Halvidar, have my poor horse 
 buried." 
 
 The halvidar only bowed his head, but Jim saw that it would be 
 
STRETTON. 327 
 
 done. And catching the halvidar's eye for an infinitesimal part 
 of a second, from that moment he began to think that there were 
 certain men in the mutiny who were not there of their own accord. 
 In another minute he was led hound before the Rajah. 
 
 Jim began the conversation instantly. ** I beg, sir, that our 
 interview may be private. I have something very particular to 
 say to you. See, I am bound hand and foot, and I know that I 
 must die. I am not going to upbraid or insult you in any way, as 
 I have done before. Your revenge is perfectly complete. I submit. 
 I only ask one favour as a dying man." 
 
 " If you can tell me how, in asking it, I can make your end more 
 bitter, you will do me such a favour, that I will have you shot, 
 instead of burning you alive," said the Rajah. 
 
 "What is the good of talking tiger like that?" said Jim. 
 " You would not go so far as that. I know I must die, and if you 
 bum me (which will be a bad precedent) I pray that I may be 
 burnt without being stripped. Will you grant that ? " 
 
 The Rajah, curling his moustache, said, after nearly a minute, 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' And if you shoot me, which, as a gentleman, you ought to 
 do, you know, I hope that you will bury me at once, just as I stand." 
 
 The Rajah demurred at this, and began to ask why. 
 
 " Because I have letters on me — letters which will make wrath 
 with people who have never ofi'ended you." 
 
 ** Let me see them," said the Rajah. 
 
 **Dare you come near a bound and disaimed man?" said 
 James. ** If so, come and open my tunic, and look at them. 
 You can read English enough to know that they are not political ; 
 but only compromise a woman. The mere postmarks will show 
 you that." 
 
 The Rajah undid Jim's tunic, and then his shirt, disclosing 
 his brave white breast. Round his neck hung a slight chain, and 
 on it were two letters, the first postmark of which was " Church 
 Stretton." 
 
 He put them back again. I cannot say that I know enough of 
 the Indian mind to say why he did so ; but he looked at him 
 steadily for a few moments, and then Jim said — 
 
 ** If I pledge you my honour that those letters only compromise 
 a woman you never heard of, will you let them die with me ? " 
 
 ** Yes," said the Rajah ; *' you people of proper forms of civi- 
 lisation have not learnt the great art of lying yet. Some are 
 getting to understand its value. Yes, I will believe you." 
 
 "And you will have me shot, old fellow, won't you? Don't 
 bum me. It is so exceedingly nasty." 
 
328 STEETTON. 
 
 " You shall be shot, assuredly," said the Rajah. And Jim 
 said — 
 
 ''Thankee. You are a better fellow than I took you for. I 
 say " ^ 
 
 The Rajah turned. 
 
 " Allan Evans, whom you have In your hands, I want to speak 
 about him. Don't hurt him — he is mad. I say, sir, every nation 
 spares mad people." 
 
 '' I will not hurt a hair of his head," said the Rajah. 
 
 " I say. Rajah," bawled Jim, " when am I to be worked off ? " 
 
 " To-morrow morning," said the Rajah, waving his hand. *' I 
 have no priest for you. Stay, is not Allan a priest ? " 
 
 " Yes, he will do," said Jim. '* Send him to me. Good-by ! " 
 And the Rajah was gone. And Jim was put on horseback, and 
 led off, and found himself soon in a dungeon of the Rajah's 
 palace, thinking of his mother entirely now, and not of Mildred, 
 and wondering very much whether the Doctor would be sorry, and 
 thinking very deeply of all that he had heard in lecture about the 
 necessity of Communion for sinners, and wishing very deeply that 
 he could communicate now. We must leave our Jim in ill case, 
 only to find him in worse. 
 
 The Rajah walked away with the halvidar who had looked on 
 Jim. And the Rajah said to the halvidar, who was one of his 
 nearly innumerable brothers, but the favourite, ** I hope we shall 
 not make a bad business of this. Why did not the men close on 
 those cavalry to-night? " 
 
 " Because they were afraid." 
 
 << Why were they afraid ? " 
 
 *' Because their officers were not with them.'* 
 
 " Did you give the word of command ?" 
 
 "Yes, and was laughed at in the face of the conquerors of 
 India." 
 
 " Why will they not follow native officers as well as these 
 cursed English? " 
 
 " Because we have no native officers who are capable of handling 
 even a battalion with decency. Instruct native officers in Euro- 
 pean tactics required for moving large bodies of men, and India 
 would be lost to them in two years." 
 
 '* I wish they would do it," said the Rajah. 
 
 ** They are not such fools," said the halvidar. 
 
 *' Suppose we make a mess of it, after all? " said the Rajah. 
 
 " We shall certainly do so," said the halvidar. " I told you so 
 from the first." 
 
 " But we are safe in the rear," said tho Rajah. 
 
STKETTON. 329 
 
 " With Lawrence, and 80,000 to 180,000 Sikhs ready for a 
 burst on Bengal. Oh, yes, doubtless." 
 
 *' They will not fight for them," said the Eajah. 
 
 ** They held pretty close to them to-night," said the halvidar. 
 
 ** What would you do ? " said the Eajah. 
 
 ** Blow my brains out with a pistol," said the halvidar. 
 
 *' I suppose it will come to that ; but I will have the lives of the 
 Nawab and those English first. If the worst comes to the w^orst, 
 you and I can get northward, into Nepaul, with the jewels. On 
 our own bodies we can easily carry forty lacs. The sapphire and 
 the emerald are worth forty lacs." 
 
 *' And where is the market? " said the halvidar. 
 
 *' Oh, with the Russians," said the Rajah. " They will buy 
 an\jthing. Alexandrofski would give double its price for the 
 emerald, if he could only have the pleasure of saying at St. Peters- 
 burg that it had been bought from a Rajah, a rebel against the 
 English, who had sent it through the hostile territory of Bokhara ; 
 which, by the way, I don't mean to do, because, if he buys it, he 
 must send the money for it, and take it away on his own responsi- 
 bility, I am not going to trust my jewels with either Khan or 
 Ameer. You and I have a strong share of Mogul blood in us, 
 you know, and that is what makes us such thundering thieves." 
 
 *' What shall we do to-morrow morning, your highness ? " said 
 the halvidar. 
 
 ** I thought you said we were to blow our brains out." 
 
 "I have altered my opinion." 
 
 " Well, then, if I might hazard a remark, I should say, attack 
 the Nawab at day-dawn. I am sick of afi"airs, and shall go to bed. 
 I doubt we have made a mess of it." 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 He most certainly had. 
 
 I must explain once more that the Nawab' s palace was built on 
 the farther side of a tall rock, overgrown with creepers and tropical 
 vegetation, entirely obscured from the Rajah's palace, but com- 
 municating in every direction with the great caves of Belpore, for- 
 gotten by all but moonshees. There was, if you remember, one 
 opening out of these caves towards the palace of the Rajah, the 
 one which Roland had seen with the Nawab. The Rajah knew 
 
330 STEETTON. 
 
 that the rock dominated his palace, but with that sleepy stupidity 
 and ignorance of tactics which beat the mutineers, he had cared 
 nothing for it. 
 
 He approached his palace at the head of a long cavalcade of 
 torch-bearers, well watched, though he little dreamt it. As the 
 blazing procession neared the palace-gate, there was a flash and a 
 report about six hundred yards away, and looking up, a moving 
 circle of light was seen to pause in the sky overhead, the corona 
 round some saint's head, and then to drop rapidly on to the very 
 roof of his palace. He had scarcely time to scream out an oath, 
 when there was the roar of an explosion inside, mixed with the 
 crash of broken glass, and the yells of wounded or terrified ser- 
 vants. They were shelling his palace from the temples of Belpore. 
 From the sacred strongholds of the gods which he had worshipped 
 so truly and so well, they were destroying the home of his delight, 
 and the gods themselves sat, with their hands upon their knees, 
 looking down upon the beauty and fury of Roland, and spake not 
 one word, though he cried aloud to them, and cursed them and 
 flattered them alternately. 
 
 One more shell, then another before day-dawn ; they had guessed 
 the angle well in the bright moon,, and a hundred English hands 
 were hard at work making new embrasures, which would be 
 through the rock by morning. He could hear a blast go as he 
 sat there dumbfounded. His palace was ruined. From this 
 moment pity left the man's heart. From that moment he was a 
 madman. He knew that in a few hours his palace would for the 
 most part be untenable, unless he could storm the Nawab. He 
 determined to begin the counter-siege the very next day. 
 
 They were not very long in their preparations. It would seem 
 that they must win. There was nothing between two thousand 
 good Indian soldiers with ten guns, and the British garrison, with 
 the assistance of four hundred and fifty faithful native men, but 
 the old high wall of the Nawab' s palace. Even with eighteen- 
 pounders they could make a breach in that, for there was not a 
 gun mounted on it ; they were fools, these English. They might 
 shell our palace, but we would batter theirs. 
 
 Some said that there were earthworks inside the wall, which 
 would have to be carried afterwards. There was a council of war 
 over this matter, which came roughly to this. Who had seen 
 them ? Nobody of any consequence, it would seem. It now 
 turned out that not one soul, as far as could be ascertained, of the 
 general population, had been admitted within the back-gates for 
 above six months. Certain Nautch-girls deposed and made oath, 
 that a certain Jew, their impressario, had told them, when in good 
 
STEETTON. 331 
 
 humour, that there was an earthwork inside there as big as the 
 railway embankment at Behxsapore. But their words seemed as 
 idle tales. And even if there were ? 
 
 They skirmished up to the old wall and tempted the besieged. 
 Result, the silence of death in a lone place. The silence of the 
 Australian desert round the solitary Wills was not deeper than the 
 silence about that deep-arched teak-gate, when the bugle sounded 
 the two long-drawn breves " Cease firing." 
 
 It was ghastly. There was some devilish scheme in the minds 
 of these English — they had ceased firing till then. But now once 
 more, bang ; crash the well-elevated mortars went on hurling the 
 live vertical shells into that unutterable abomination, the palace of 
 all delights of the Rajah ; and it stands a draught-house to this 
 day, with the cobra basking where the Nautch-girl had slept. 
 
 They maddened once more at the sound, and brought up their 
 guns, mostly eighteen-pounders as it happened, and concentrated 
 them on the gate. The roar and din of their own guns prevented 
 them from hearing the other party firing, and when the gate was 
 destroyed, after three hours, and they heard the guns of the 
 besieged going still, they took heart, and fancied they dare not 
 face them here, but would make their stand in an inner court. 
 
 There was a sudden, furious, and tumultuous rush through the 
 gateway, their folly in attacking which ruined them more eff'ectually 
 than they would have been ruined otherwise. They poured in 
 pell-mell and broke to right and left against an inner line of 
 gabions and fascines, eight feet high, and perpendicular. 
 
 A few in the front saw what had happened, and cried out that 
 they must retreat. The crowd of disorganised Sepoys poured in 
 still, a scarlet flood, through the black arch, spreading themselves 
 right and left, and filling the space between the old wall and the 
 earthworks. Native officers began to make it understood that 
 they were in a trap, but it was utterly too late. Some few 
 in the front, in sheer desperation, tried to get up the earth- 
 work before them — did so, and fell dead by well-directed revolver 
 shots. 
 
 On this little space, between the two lines, Roland and the 
 Nawab had trained five nine-pounders in embrasure. It had 
 been done some time now, but the Nawab had managed so well 
 that no one had known it. At the very height of all the confusion 
 Eddy stood on the top of tlie battery, and looking down on the 
 stmggling mass of men, the front of whom saw the danger, and 
 the rear of which kept pushing on, he cast his shako down 
 amongst them, crying out, *' Now, gentlemen, if you are ready, 
 we are going to begm." 
 
332 STEETTON. 
 
 Of the ghastly slaughter which followed it would be ill to 
 speak. The guns immediately in front of the mutineers were 
 loaded with nails and fragments of horse-shoes, made handily 
 into cartridges and served rapidly. Those two which enfiladed 
 the crowded mass of men were served with grape, and crossed fire 
 with the others. Existence became impossible, and retreat 
 nearly so ; for forty picked marksmen with Enfields (dear old 
 arm ! how well we have loved thee), shattered in on the confused 
 crowd thronging the gateway in the almost hopeless efi"ort to 
 escape. 
 
 It was a ghastly business. Above fifty were smothered, as 
 people are smothered in the rush out of a burning theatre, in 
 their attempt to escape by the gate. Three hundred others 
 lay about ; two hundred and eighty dead in the narrow space 
 between them and the old wall. About eighty were groaning and 
 screaming horribly. A rapid council of war was held. 
 
 Claverhouse said, " In God's name, Koland, let the men fire on 
 them, and put them out of their misery." 
 
 Roland said, *' The men would not do it, mad as they are. I 
 could not stand that. It would not do to tell in Europe." 
 
 " Well, it is not La Guerre," said Claverhouse, ** but what 
 can we do? " 
 
 Eddy had taken a man's ramrod, and carefully tied a white 
 pocket-handkerchief on to it. He now waved it about between 
 Roland and Claverhouse. 
 
 '' The boy is right," said Claverhouse , '' but who is to carry 
 it among these treacherous devils ? " 
 
 *' Why I, of course," said Eddy. 
 
 "Dare you? " said Claverhouse. 
 
 "Dare I? " said Eddy. " Come, you shall give no word of 
 command. Ensign Evans absent without leave. That is your 
 report to the Horse Guards. It is all right, I tell you." 
 
 Without waiting for another word, Eddy slipped down the 
 bastion, and ran towards the now deserted gate. 
 
 They watched him go, a bright, pretty figure ; blue, gold, and 
 in white trousers, with his sword girt close up at his side ; bare- 
 headed, for he had thrown away his shako. He stepped lightly 
 over dying and dead, and passed fearlessly out of the black gate- 
 way into the sunlight beyond for i\\e first time. 
 
 "He is fearfully incautious," said Roland, emphatically. 
 
 " He is all right," said Claverhouse ; " they won't harm /tm." 
 
 It would seem as if Claverhouse was right. Eddy returned in 
 a few minutes, with the Rajah beside him, followed by a crowd of 
 unarmed natives, who began to remove not only the wounded, but 
 
STRETTON. 333 
 
 the dead. The Rajah had also an improvised white flag, a 
 puggery tied on a cane covered with beads, and they stood as 
 representatives while the work went on. 
 
 Eddy bowed and scraped, with the pocket-handkerchief on his 
 ramrod. The Rajah salaamed, and was very polite. Claverhouse 
 and Roland watched him. 
 
 He counted the dead and the wounded until the very last of the 
 wounded ; then, as this man was being carried out, he spoke a 
 few words to Eddy, and Eddy followed him to the gate. The 
 Rajah uncovered the face of the dying man, and looked at it ; and 
 in the next instant a dozen men had overpowered Eddy, and 
 carried him, struggling, out into the sunlight, beyond the gate for 
 the second time. 
 
 There was no time to think even. Eddy was gone, and gone 
 behind eight hundred ranged muskets. Double fortifications may 
 tell in two ways. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 Stketton was not the less beautiful and quiet, however, than 
 heretofore. Not the less quiet, until one week when two catas- 
 trophes came together. Monday morning and Saturday night 
 were between them, but the Mordaunts and Evanses always speak 
 of them now as happening on the same day. 
 
 While the Nawab and Roland were shelling the Rajah's palace, 
 and while the Rajah was doing the best he could, certain things 
 had happened in Shropshire worthy of remark. 
 
 The Dean had proposed to Aunt Eleanor, on the grounds that 
 they were very fond of one another, and that if they did not 
 marry now they would soon be too old. And I regret to say that 
 Aunt Eleanor returned for answer that *' she had seen enough of 
 that kind of thing, and was not going to make a fool of herself at 
 her time of life." 
 
 After this Ethel had a very hard time of it with her. Of course 
 she could not know what had happened ; but even Deacon Mac- 
 dingaway told her, in confidence, that she had been to him about 
 some geranium cuttings, and that she so snifi'ed and squified at 
 him that he was certain something had gone wrong between her 
 and the Dean. 
 
 Sunday morning, however, they aU went to church to hear the 
 Dean preach, even Deacon Macdingaway. For it got about that 
 
334 STEETTON. 
 
 the native troops in Bengal were up and murdering their officers. 
 And the Dean preached on it, and preached well. He thought, 
 in conclusion, that it was the duty of every person capable of 
 thinking, to consider whether or no we had done our duty by 
 India. That it was our duty to pray for the widows and orphans 
 of British officers and soldiers, and so on. A sermon of good 
 common-places, excellent in their way. In the end of his ser- 
 mon the man broke out, and he left some of his congregation 
 sobbing. 
 
 *' In the very depth of the darkness of this furious imbroglio, 
 the extent of which no man can measure, the end of which no 
 man can see, I, who preach to you, have three boys, more deeply 
 dear to me than my own life. They were committed to me by a 
 man I respect and reverence beyond most men, and I did my best 
 by them. Clever, petulant, furious, fantastic, you know them ; 
 you can all say that of them. Innocent, kindly, brave ; you can 
 all say that of them. The dark cloud which has been hanging 
 over India for so long has settled down now, and in the deepest, 
 blackest night of it are Roland and Edward Evans and James 
 Mor daunt. 
 
 " There is a dark night of deep, dim darkness which is coming 
 in this land. A night in which a man shall feel for his fellow, 
 and say, ' Where is he ? ' Our boys are in the midnight of it. I 
 cannot ask you to pray for their souls, but I ask you to pray that 
 their hands may be strengthened, and that they may die so that 
 the heathen may say, ' Behold how these Christians love one 
 another ! ' " 
 
 There are landowners and landowners. For centuries these 
 Evanses and Mordaunts had been living among their people and 
 doing their duty. One house was Whig and the other Tory ; but 
 they had minded the poor and done their duty by the land so 
 long that the very cadets of the two houses were to them as their 
 own flesh and blood. I express no opinions, but facts. It was 
 so, and what is more, for good or for evil, it is so. You must 
 make the best of it. 
 
 I never in my life heard any expression of opinion in an 
 English church. There was one on this occasion in the church- 
 yard, however. The Dean was mobbed for information ; he 
 had none. There were the great facts — that the Bengal Sepoys 
 had risen, and that the garrison of India consisted of two 
 cavalry and eighteen infantry regiments of Europeans, among 
 a population of 180,000,000, and that these three boys, 
 Roland, Jim, and Eddy, were in the thickest of the whole 
 business. 
 
STBETTON. 335 
 
 It would have been ill for the Rajah had he been in the quiet 
 English churchyard that evening, among the graves of the men 
 of Trafalgar and Waterloo, of Seriugapatam, Laswaree, and 
 Sobraon. Give a people a history, statesmen, and they are 
 unconquerable for three generations. A " cry " is what one 
 wants to keep a nation alive. As a political cry, *' Reform " 
 means just nothing. As a war-cry, *' Eylau," " Waterloo," or 
 ''Island No. 10," means less. Yet many things have been put 
 through by the power of those cries. 
 
 We put through the Indian mutiny with no definite cry at 
 all. It was amorphous, hideous, fantastic, not reducible to 
 words. The poor folks in the Shropshire churchyard only 
 swarmed after the Rector, and getting what information they 
 could, waved their hands wildly, and wished they had been 
 there. For not only Roland, Eddy, and Jim were there, but 
 BiU, and Tom, and Harry, and the young man, whose name was 
 disputed, who had married Stokes's girl Jane, and left her in the 
 family-way. 
 
 But the Rajah of Bethoor did not know of all this. He had 
 got Jim and Eddy, and his jewels, and in addition, a most tre- 
 mendous licking. But the Rector and Aunt Eleanor could not 
 know of this. 
 
 They separated from the villagers as soon as they could. Ethel 
 and John Mordaunt were following them, but Aunt Eleanor turned 
 to them and said — 
 
 ** Go home, you two." 
 
 She said nothing but that ; but they went. 
 
 When they were alone, she said — 
 
 " Why don't you put your whole heart into your sermon ? You 
 are as bald as can possibly be for twenty minutes, and then you 
 burst out and speak like a man." 
 
 " One must spin it out in these country places," said the Dean 
 (Rector). 
 
 " I don't see that," said Aunt Eleanor. " I hope, however, 
 talking of spinning things out, that you have duly considered the 
 foolish nonsense you spoke to me last week." 
 
 ''Why?" 
 
 " Because if you were to repeat it, you would have a different 
 answer." 
 
 " Eleanor, will you have me ? " 
 
 " Yes, my beloved ; my only hope ; so dearly loved, and truly, 
 for so many years. We have lost most of our lives, dear, yet 
 some remains. Take me to thee, good kind heart, and we will 
 weep for Eddy together. Oh, my darling Eddy ! oh, my pretty 
 
336 STRETTON. 
 
 boy ! I have none left but you now, dear. Don't leave a poor 
 old woman like me." 
 
 So, after so many years, these two hearty souls drew together 
 over what they thought was the grave of a boy they had both 
 loved well. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor, I f.^ar, lay awake weeping the most of that night. , 
 She was like the — 
 
 '* Old yew that graspeth at the stones 
 That name the underlying dead ; " 
 
 the fibres of her heart were coarse, but they were very strong, and 
 they had wrapped themselves round Eddy as they had never 
 wrapped themselves about any one before, and she must entirely 
 believe that Eddy was dead. She called herself an old fool, but 
 that was not much good ; and on the Monday morning something 
 occurred so very terrible that she scarcely thought, more than 
 eight hours a day, of Eddy at all. 
 
 Mildred Maynard had been confined, and her mother-in-law 
 had been very tender with her, and had nursed her well. Not 
 one word had been said for weeks about the old letters of poor 
 Jim, or about Jasper Meredith. Her schemes were quite in 
 abeyance, but ready for new motion. But if the girl, in the 
 terror of her first confinement, was glad to receive the attentions 
 of Mrs. Maynard, it was most undoubted that when she had nearly 
 recovered, and had her baby by her side, those attentions got 
 more and more repugnant day by day. 
 
 They grew at last perfectly unbearable. Mrs. Maynard's very 
 way of coming in and out of the room was perfectly unbearable 
 to Mildred. Women have some very strange instincts. I know 
 a man, a hard-working man, a very good man, a man whom I do 
 not mind : and I know also three refined ladies who hate his 
 presence in the room where they are. And I do not know why, 
 and never shall know. Mildred's instincts against Mrs. Maynard 
 had been pretty strong before her boy was born, but then she had 
 been a silly puling coward. Since this young gentleman had 
 begun to study the great arts of kicking and yelling, Mrs. Maynard 
 the younger was quite a difi'erent person, to Mrs. Maynard the 
 elder's great astonishment. 
 
STKETTON. 337 
 
 Mrs. Maynard the elder had felt the storge herself, but like a 
 fool as she was, had never calculated upon its appearing in her 
 daughter-in-law. She was very fond of fowls, and would kick a 
 layinf) hen any day, but was too wise, wearing dainty silk stock- 
 ings, to kick a hen with chickens. She knew from experience 
 that she would be pecked. She never had brains enough to think 
 that Mildred Evans, the sister of Koland and Edward, worth ten 
 of her, would dare to peck her now she had a boy : she all the 
 time having those letters in her possession. She never thought 
 of that. 
 
 Mildred lay and thought of it in her bed, however, with her 
 baby beside her. She of course would have liked to consult Aunt 
 Eleanor, but Eleanor, dearly as she loved her, was a terror to 
 her. She had come to see her once or twice, and the only efi'ect 
 which it had on her nerves was the same as if a baiTel of gun- 
 powder was in the room and Aunt Eleanor was sitting on it 
 smoking a short pipe, her hatred for Mrs. Maynard was so great. 
 Ethel of course could not be consulted, and so Mildred, like a true 
 and worthy Evans, thought out the matter for herself and con- 
 sulted her baby : who apparently agreed. 
 
 Her husband, good old Maynard of the four-oar, used to come 
 and sit with her many times a day. And he was very kind, and 
 good, and gentle, and most enormously delighted with her baby ; 
 and one day, when he and Mildred were playing with the baby, 
 she got the baby to sleep between them and said, *' Husband 
 dear, lay your head on the pillow beside me. I am going to 
 speak in whispers to you." 
 
 *' Why so ? " said Maynard. 
 
 " Because your mother is listening at the door," she said, with 
 a smile. 
 
 Maynard walked swiftly to the door, and Mrs, Maynard was not 
 nimble enough to get way before he saw her. Even bulls get ill- 
 tempered at times, and he said — 
 
 ** Mother, mind your own business." 
 
 He was still cross when he went back to his wife, but she 
 positively refused to speak to him while he had a cloud between 
 his eyebrows. His brow was soon clear, and she began. 
 
 "Dear husband, I have to talk to you about one thing very 
 particularly. Jim Mordaunt, dear, good, innocent Jim Mordaunt, 
 loved me better than a brother loves his sister, and he has behaved 
 so well about it." 
 
 " Yes, I knew he loved you," said her husband, in a whisper. 
 "I have had deep grief over it, wife." 
 
 "What need? Except that I was a silly coward and your 
 
338 STEETTON. 
 
 mother was wicked, what need ? We were brought up boy and 
 girl together, and I thought he loved me only as a sister : but I 
 found it was otherwise, and he went." 
 
 *' But Jim must have been untrue to me for you to find it out, 
 my love, my darling." 
 
 " Never ! — never for one instant by look or word. James 
 Mordaunt is a gentleman, and he loves you." 
 
 ''But do you love him, wife?" said Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Love him ! Love poor wild Jim ! Of course I do. Is there 
 any one who knoAvs his true worth who does not ? If my tongue 
 refused to say that I loved Jim, I hope it may drop out of my 
 head. But not as I do you. There is no one like you in the 
 whole world, dear." 
 
 " God bless you, sweetheart," said Maynard. 
 
 ** Now," said Mildred, " Jim has written to me three times. I 
 have concealed this fact from you, not because I distrusted your 
 noble nature, but because since we were married I have been 
 nervous and hysterical. I am so no longer. This little fellow 
 has cured me of nervousness : and a wife who could not trust a 
 man like you may drown herself in the Severn for me. I cannot 
 show you my letters to poor Jim ; you must trust me for them. 
 But with regard to Jim's letters to me I require you to read 
 them." 
 
 " Why should I ? " 
 
 *' To prove how innocent he is." 
 
 " I do not care to read them," said Maynard. 
 
 '' Ay, but I insist that you should," she rephed. 
 
 " Where are they ? " 
 
 " Your mother has got them. She has taken them from me, 
 and during my nervous time has been holding them over me in 
 terror. — Don't swear, dear — don't swear. Be quiet with her and 
 request her to show them to you. I will give you from memory, 
 if you care, my letters to Jim. I have told him I loved him, you 
 know, and so do you. Go to your mother and fetch those letters." 
 
 He left her with a kiss. He was not very long gone : and he 
 came back with the letters in his hand. The whole trouble was 
 over and done now, and the verdict pronounced. 
 
 " Poor old Jim I " 
 
 There was peace and entire reconciliation. Till they be under 
 the grass together there will be no difference between those two 
 any more. 
 
 What passed between Maynard and his mother no man knows 
 exactly. He told Roland that he gently and kindly asked her 
 for those letters of Jim's, and that she at once gave them to him. 
 
STRETTON. 339 
 
 And then he says that she began to gibber and fume at him, as 
 he thought, angrily. That is all he knows. The Dean is of 
 opinion that she was trying to say something to him, but that her 
 tongue refused its office. Whether it was anger, scorn, or for- 
 giveness none can say, for he had scarcely been with his wife and 
 baby again five minutes, laughing over poor Jim's letters, when a 
 scared maid came in, and called him out. " His mother was ill," 
 she said. She was not only ill but dead. 
 
 Now, it so happened that at this very time Aunt Eleanor was 
 determined to go over and face " that woman," and on the Monday 
 morning Ethel came to her and said — • 
 
 " Miss Evans, you are not going to the Barton to-day ? " 
 
 " Of course I am, child. I am going to have it out with that 
 woman. She is making mischief between husband and wife ; and 
 if the husband was a chimney-sweep and the wife a ballet-dancer, 
 any one who made mischief between them ought to be hung, and 
 I am going over to tell her that she ought to be hung." 
 
 " My dear Miss Evans, one moment," said Ethel, kneeling 
 down; "you must not go." 
 
 *' Why not ? That woman, indeed ! Why not ? " 
 
 *' Because she is dead," said Ethel. 
 
 ''What did she die of?" said Aunt Eleanor, puzzled and 
 scared. 
 
 " I don't know," said Ethel. 
 
 "I don't believe that the woman knows herself what she did 
 die of," said Aunt Eleanor. "If she did, she would say it was 
 something else." 
 
 " But she is dead. Miss Evans." 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee," said Aunt Eleanor. " You take my cob. 
 He will let you open the gates, you know, and ride across the 
 country to Shrewsbury, and get Watson. The woman is in a fit. 
 I will go over and nurse her." 
 
 But, in spite of Aunt Eleanor's unbelief, Ethel succeeded in 
 showing her that Mrs. Maynard, of Maynard's Barton, was dead. 
 And Miss Evans walked up and down the room, rubbing her nose. 
 
 Not for long. She sat down and began to cry. 
 
 " She was a very good woman, my dear," she said to Ethel, 
 through her tears. " I should have liked to have given her a 
 piece of my mind before she went, but it is too late now. I know 
 that she said I was a grumpy old toad — Myrtle and Gray told me 
 that. But it is all forgiven now. Think of the things I have 
 said of her, my dear." 
 
 And, indeed, they were many ; and the week went on. 
 
 She talked every day to the Dean, her old lover, soon to be her 
 
340 STKETTON. 
 
 husband. She talked very pleasantly. *' Sir, we are too old to be 
 married. They will laugh at us. But I love you, my dear, very 
 much indeed, in spite of your wig, which must have grey let into 
 it until it matches my hair. Grey as I am, I am not going to the 
 altar with a man in a chestnut wig. Have you any objection to 
 Eddy as your son and heir ? If he comes home — if he comes home. ' ' 
 
 " The boy will come home right enough," said the Dean, " and 
 he shall be our son and heir." 
 
 And so the week went on. Mrs. Maynard was buried on Satur- 
 day, and the Dean read the service. That was over. And he 
 came over to tea with Miss Evans and Ethel at the Grange, and 
 on the table lay a newspaper — the Shropshire Chronicle. 
 
 They had no daily newspaper. The Shroijshire Chronicle gave 
 them their latest news, and all three tried to get hold of it, but 
 the Dean got it, and read it. He turned ghastly pale and looked 
 at the two women. 
 
 " Eleanor," he said, " sit there ; and Ethel, you sit there, and 
 do not move one inch." 
 
 '* Is there disaster ? " said Ethel. 
 
 "Yes," said the Dean. "Sit still, and listen, wdthout cries 
 and without tears. Lord, if I were there ! " and he began to 
 read : — 
 
 "'Belpore is utterly lost, following Delhi and Meerut. A 
 young moonshee has arrived at Barrackpore, who tells us that the 
 native troops rose on the night of the 14th, and murdered most 
 of their officers, and many of the English ladies. The rest of 
 our fellow-countrymen, including the judge, collector, assistant- 
 magistrate, and about 160 European troops, with such of the 
 women and children not brutally murdered, have taken refuge in- 
 the Palace of the Nawab of Belpore. He spells badly the names 
 of the officers actually murdered in the first onslaught, but we 
 make them to be Rossiter, Street, Murray, Jones, and Towsey. 
 An attack on the native lines was made that evening by Captain 
 Claverhouse and Lieutenant Evans, which seemed to have been 
 perfectly successful.' Ethel, sit still. Do not make my task too 
 bitter." 
 
 " I only crushed my hands together." 
 
 " Listen, and be quiet," said the Dean. 
 
 a ( ^e regret to say, however, that in this demonstration of 
 the native line Comet Mordaunt got separated from his troop, and 
 was cut to pieces.' " 
 
 Ethel rose with a wild moan which would have broken your 
 heart, but the Dean was before her, with his hands spread out, as 
 though he were going to mesmerise her. 
 
STRETTON. 341 
 
 ** Ethel I Ethel ! I want every nerve in your body. There is a 
 grief greater than yours. Sit down." And she sat down, rocking 
 herself to and fro, and saying, '* Jim ! Jim ! Jim ! " 
 
 "Now go on," said Aunt Eleanor, "and let us have it over. 
 How did my boy die? That is what I want to know." 
 
 The Dean read out from the paper : " * An attack was made in 
 the morning on the Palace of the Nawab. It was repulsed with 
 triumphant success. But we are sorry to say that Ensign Evans, 
 another of our bomiy Shropshire boys, coxswain of the Shropshire 
 crew, who beat the London Rowing Club, was seized by the Rajah Y 
 of Bethoor, and murdered while he was carrying a flag of truce to 
 make arrangements for the rebel wounded.' " 
 
 " If that is true, as no doubt it is," said Aunt Eleanor, sharply,, 
 " it is just as I wished it. I knew my boy would die game. Just 
 read out that passage again, will you, my good soul? " 
 
 He did so. 
 
 ** Carried a flag of truce to remove the rebel wounded. Yes, y 
 just like him. Now if Ethel and you will go and behowl your- ' 
 selves, I will do it alone. Go." 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 At Belpore men were mad, as men are in revolutions. As mad 
 as they were when they shot my hero, the Archbishop of Paris, 
 on the barricades. If St. Paul himself had stood between the 
 British and the Rajah's people, St. Paul would have been shot 
 down. 
 
 Little bro^vn youths, nearly naked, lest any trace of Europeanism 
 should be found about them, were sent out as scouts and spies, to 
 find some intelligence of Jim, Eddy, and Allan. Not one was 
 unfaithful, for they were relations of the Nawab ; but only one 
 came back. 
 
 He reported that he could find out nothing more than this : Jim 
 and Eddy were both alive, and Allan was apparently at liberty, 
 though not allowed to join the European garrison. Jim was in 
 the Rajah's dungeon ; there was no doubt about that. Where 
 Eddy was he could not in any way tell. 
 
 Roland, the Nawab, and Claverhouse cross-questioned him on 
 the subject, but the young man stuck to his text. He was per- 
 fectly and absolutely certain that Eddy was not killed. They had 
 
342 STKETTON. 
 
 to be contented with it. Tliey gave this young man ghee, rice, 
 fresh-killed chicken, and all kinds of nasty things, in which his 
 soul delighted. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Nawab had a job in hand to which he took 
 more kindly than the making of kites on the Franklin plan, kites 
 with a wire in the string. He had flown those kites several times 
 in dangerous weather, and neglecting the necessity of communica- 
 tion with the earth, had twice been Imocked head over heels ; 
 which will ultimately be the fate of Pepper with his mammoth 
 Saxton battery. His new employment was making embrasures in 
 a rock, and dropping live shells on to the top of his beloved 
 Rajah's palace. 
 
 He was intensely delighted with this amusement. His French 
 wife said that he had acquired a nouvelle jeunesse since he had 
 taken to this amusement. She brought her work down into the 
 cave, and superintended. 
 
 When they let off one of their mortars, she said " Piflf," and 
 putting down her work, looked where it dropped, and would occa- 
 sionally say " Bon ! " but only occasionally ; you must remember 
 that her nation had burnt more gunpowder than any nation in the 
 world ever did. And moreover, when the Americans talk about 
 tlteir war being the most tremendous ever seen on the face of the 
 earth, they are talking terrible balderdash ; which, however, is no 
 business of mine. 
 
 Madame Nawab brought her work down into the caves and 
 superintended. Her father had been an officer of artillery. 
 
 Roland came upon her with her eye to the sight of a newly- 
 trained mortar, and her needlework in her hand. 
 
 ** Crac flan," said Madame. " Fire hims off, Roland. Creve- 
 coeur, make to tell them to fire hims off'. We shall now see 
 explosions in his palace." 
 
 Bang went the gun, and certainly the French lady was right. 
 In the confused mass of buildings there was a sudden light, and 
 the roar of the explosion reached them half a minute afterwards. 
 « Why did you call me Creve-coeur, Madame ? " asked Roland. 
 *' Broke heart. Why did I call you so ? If you have heart, is 
 it not broke ? She you love be gone for all, lost for ever, for you 
 shall never see her no more. Her brother lost and left for torture, 
 you shall never see him no more ; and your own brother Edie 
 gone to torture, him whom you was to love so well. Ask me why 
 I call you Creve-cceur ! " 
 
 *' Madame," said Roland, " you cannot possibly conceive that I 
 do not feel the dreadful position of my dearest friends." 
 
 <' That is what I say," said Madame, ** You have heart enough 
 
STRETTON. 843 
 
 to have it broken. Next to the French there are none like the 
 English. But you suppress your fury ; we demonstrate it, as you 
 know." 
 
 And Madame went on with her needlework, looking out from 
 time to time to see if the shells dropped well. 
 
 And Roland went for a walk round to look at things, and the 
 result of his thoughts was — 
 
 " Fancy there being only eighteen miles of salt water between 
 the two nations, and not one thought in common. Even in senti- 
 ment, for which her nation is so famous, she misses her point with 
 me, a typical EngHshman. We must go beyond France for all 
 true allies. I would that the good God had sent me Hans and 
 Gottfried here. It is all very well to argue and jaw, but if any 
 man doubts that the next row-royal will not be between the Teu- 
 tonics (with the Slavonics) against the Latins (with some of the 
 Celts), he had better take his needlework down and sit beside 
 Madame." 
 
 That is what Roland thought. I am never answerable for my 
 characters. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 Jim was an affectionate fellow, who could love more than most 
 men ; but, on the other hand, he never throughout his life got on 
 ten minutes without an enemy. He never had more than one 
 enemy at a time certainly, but that enemy was, for that time, an 
 enemy with a vengeance. His enemy just now was the Rajah ; 
 and the Rajah was perfectly aware of the fact, and kept away from 
 him. He did not know exactly what that young man might do. 
 He had all the intelligence of an Asiatic. 
 
 Jim was tightly ironed, hand and foot, with a kind of iron or 
 ** darby," introduced into the station by his friend the assistant- 
 magistrate, and at once adopted by the Rajah. He was in utter 
 and complete darkness, and knew that he could only see the light 
 to die. So he said his prayers four times over ; and every time 
 he thought of Mildred, he prayed to God to forgive him. And at 
 last he never thought of her at all. 
 
 How time went in this utter darkness he could not make out. 
 He got hungry, and reached about in the darkness to find food, 
 and he found rice, ghee, and water, and when he had eaten he fell 
 
344 STEETTON. 
 
 asleep and dreamt of the old four-oar, and the Greek prose lecture, 
 and the Dean, and the Doctor, mdiscriminately. 
 
 He awoke, and he lay awake in the darkness for a long time. 
 The hoy's faith was simple and pure — not a had one to face death 
 with. The Doctor was to him the incarnation of human wisdom, 
 and the Doctor had always impressed on them, that those who 
 believed in the great sacrifice, and repented them truly of their 
 sins, and were in charity with all msn, would he after death re- 
 ceived into and educated for higher things than they could possibly 
 be educated for here. Consequently, this young man, having learnt 
 logic, came to the conclusion that he must forgive the Rajah, who 
 was going to shoot him. 
 
 And he did it. The process of mind which he crawled through 
 in doing it, was crab-like, wild, and fantastic beyond measure — 
 yet he did it. His ultimate result was that when all was said and 
 done, the Rajah had not behaved much worse to him than he had 
 to Eddy at school in old times. That if he had been in the Rajah's 
 place, he would have done much as the Rajah had, and that the 
 Rajah having him shot and buried at once, with the letters upon 
 him, and not burnt, was decidedly gentlemanly on the part of the 
 Rajah. 
 
 So the Rajah was forgiven, and Jim was ready to die. He 
 would have liked to communicate before death — only once — but it 
 was not to be. That was a little hard to the poor lad. It was 
 Sunday, if he could calculate, and when at this moment the boys 
 might be kneeling at the altar-rails, and the Doctor and the second 
 master coming solemnly round and giving them that to eat and 
 drink, which he should eat and drink no more, save with his 
 Father in the kingdom of Heaven. The thought of the old chapel 
 broke the boy down. He moaned *' Oro, ploro, adoro," and felt in 
 the hideous black night for the wall that he might turn his face to 
 it. The Rajah was safe enough with him now. 
 
 Through the dim arches of the great dungeon in which he lay 
 bound there came a light, two natives bearing torches, the Rajah 
 following them, and Allan with his hand on the Rajah's shoulder. 
 They did not come near him, but passed on ia close conversation, 
 and the light died out again. 
 
 ''By Jove," said Jim, "what a clever fellow that is ! I see 
 what he is at. He is deluding the Rajah, and keeping his life in 
 his hand to save the British. What a fool the Rajah must be to 
 play at chess with him ! Eddy says he has the head of a prime 
 minister." 
 
 Three hours before, Jim would have taken a very different view 
 of Allan's conduct — called him thief, dog, renegade, everything 
 
STKETTON. 345 
 
 that was bad. But now that he had said to his God the three 
 great words, he only saw in the darkness the handkerchief of St. 
 Veronica, and in front the figure of the Doctor, in simple white 
 surplice, preaching with uplifted hand the sermon which made 
 them so silent. *' Speak not evil one of another." 
 
 He was right. After an hour's sleep he was awakened by a 
 candle-light upon his eyes. He looked up and saw Allan, dressed 
 like a native Indian, all in white, who laughed at him, and said — 
 
 " Get up and let me undo your irons. Be quick, silent, and 
 swift. Eddy's life depends on your doing exactly as I tell you. 
 He risked his life once for you when you were bathing at 
 Gloucester ; if you are a man born of woman, risk yours for him 
 now. I say nothing of the saving of your own life, for you come 
 of a family not accustomed to fear. Now your irons are off, strip 
 quickly, and put on my clothes." 
 
 Jim obeyed once more. '^ What am I to do ? " 
 
 " Get do^vn to the nullah in these clothes ; I have been seen in 
 them, and they will not know you from me. I am in the Rajah's 
 confidence ; I have turned him round my finger. Go straight 
 down to the old moonshee's house, and you will find Eddy there, 
 his son-in-law is protecting him. Don't try to get to the Nawab's, 
 but tiy to get to the river. Bro\vn yourselves, your moonshee's 
 son-in-law will show you how, and go in dhoties, as nearly bare as 
 possible, for you may have to swim. Scarcely any of the native 
 troops know the person of any king's officer. I have everything 
 perfectly arranged ; pray be quick." 
 
 *' But you?" said Jim. 
 
 *' Oh, I am perfectly comfortable. I shall sit here till you are 
 safe, and then I shall go to him and tell him what I have done. 
 He will be cross, I know, but he loves a joke." 
 
 ** I say, old man," said Jim, standing with his trousers off, 
 "just think twice about this job. Is there no danger in it. You 
 are fitter to die than me, being a religious fellow, given to all 
 kinds of good works, and I am only a worthless bullying ass. In 
 the eternal fitness of things, if there is any danger, I ought to 
 incur it, not you." 
 
 ''I am perfectly safe," said Allan, quietly going on with his 
 toilet. " By-the-bye, I made the acquaintance of your sister (Miss 
 Mordaunt) in Shropshire the other day ; if you are at Stretton 
 before me, would you kindly take a message ? " 
 
 " With all pleasure." 
 
 ** Tell her that I did the very best I could for hei-j and tell her 
 to tell Miss Evans that I did the best I possibly could for Eddy. 
 You will give that message. Go — hurry — time is very short." 
 
346 STEETTON. 
 
 Stupid dear old Jim did not see that Allan was dying for him 
 because he was Ethel's brother. 
 
 "Are you quite sure that you will not come to grief for this 
 matter?" said he. 
 
 ''Perfectly sure," said Allan, smilingly; "the Rock of Ages 
 was not cleft in vain. Go, hurry. This is the first time I have 
 worn the dress you have on now. The password to-night is 
 * Vishnu.' I kept a handkerchief over my face as I came, keep 
 one over yours as you go. Go straight to the old moonshee's 
 house, and the love which you gave there once shall be returned 
 seven- fold." 
 
 '* You are a thundering brick," said Jim ; and he went. 
 
 No European eye ever saw Allan again. The last ever heard 
 of him was this. Of course those who told it knew more, but 
 being concerned in the crime, the tellers said as little as they could. 
 
 The palace of the Rajah had now been diligently shelled for two 
 days, and was scarcely habitable. The native troops had departed 
 for the main wasps' nest at Delhi ; the Rajah felt the ground slip- 
 ping under his feet, for, like the unmistakable hum of the earth- 
 quake before it heaves and shatters, there had come to him the 
 news that the Sikhs were true to their salt, and he heard the iramp 
 of 120,000 of them, heavy as the moan of distant thunder, precise 
 and terrifying as the death-watch. The man saw his game was 
 lost, went mad, and knew no pity. 
 
 It is perfect folly, in times of peace and security, to judge 
 people's actions in times of danger and ferocity. Breaking the ice 
 by cannon-shot under the feet of the camp-followers at the passage 
 of the Beresina, seems to us now a horrible thing ; but let us not 
 be too sure that any one of us would not have done it under the 
 circumstances. If your soldiery are not ferocious and determined 
 to put the thing through, you had better cash up, and remain at 
 peace. Ferocity is necessary in the field. Certain matters, how- 
 ever, which had happened that night at Belpore cannot be called 
 war in any way. 
 
 Hanging rebels is a very old institution. If I was a rebel and 
 was unsuccessful, the last words I should write would be to tell my 
 wife instantly to prosecute the Westminster Insurance Office if 
 they hesitated for an instant to pay up. Poor Maximilian knew 
 his chances and took them. If a revolutionist will not carry his 
 heart in his hand, he had better stay at home. 
 
 But things w^ere done with women and children that night at 
 Belpore, of which there is no need to speak. If there were, one 
 would speak. The Indians have learnt their lesson, and we can 
 leave them alone until they misbehave again. 
 
STEETTON. 347 
 
 And the Rajah had been seeing to it all. And he had a bonne 
 louche left for the end. Eddy had escajDed. But there was Jim. 
 
 The man never touched stimulants from one year's end to 
 another, any more than does the goat, the ram, the bull, or the 
 tiger. Yet for lust or ferocity he would have matched the worst 
 man in any of our great towns. 
 
 He had the lust of blood on him to-night. Matters which shall 
 be nameless had gone on. He must fly that very night ; and 
 there was none left but Jim Mordaunt. The shells so diligently 
 plied by Roland and the Nawab were shattering his palace of delight 
 to pieces, and he must go that night. He and his brother the 
 havildar had the jewels sewn safe, and the horses ready. There 
 was only Jim Mordaunt. 
 
 Sitting there drinking coffee and smoking, with his brother 
 leaning against him, came the figure of a British officer, hurriedly 
 attired, with his tunic unbuttoned and his white breast bare. He 
 started up and was utterly astonished to find that it was Allan. 
 
 In Jim's clothes. *' Where is Mordaunt? " asked the Rajah, 
 *' have you prepared him for death ? " 
 
 ** No, for life," cried Allan. "He was the brother of her I 
 loved beyond all the world ; and I have given my life for his. He 
 is beyond your power now. Dog, villain, pirate, hound, thief, I 
 have given him my life. Take it. You think that you will have 
 vengeance. Idiot, ass, Ethel will know that I died for her brother, 
 and that is enough for me." 
 
 One dare go no further. Some say that his body was the last 
 thrown into the well. Some say that his body was never thrown 
 in at all, but that he underwent a very different fate. However, 
 no one ever saw him any more. 
 
 But that night the Rajah set fire to his palace and rode away, 
 carrying, with the assistance of his brother, 200,000/. worth of 
 jewellery. Some say he is in Cabool, some in Nepaul, but no man 
 knows where he is. He cast the dice, and they went wrong. 
 
 The die rang sideway as it fell, 
 
 Bang sharp and keen, 
 Like a man's laughter heard in hell, 
 
 Far down Faustine. 
 
348 STEETTON. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 The main body of the mutineers had gone to Delhi, but quite 
 enough were left to keep our little garrison on the alert. A sortie 
 was quite impossible, and Claverhouse and Roland gave up Jim 
 and Eddy as lost boys. 
 
 After the burning of the Rajah's palace (which they believe to 
 this day they did themselves), they tried a sortie or two, but it 
 was no good whatever. The rebels had been reinforced by others, 
 and were in a strong position on the river, between them and 
 Delhi. 
 
 Meanwhile the Sikhs were coming, though they knew nothing of 
 that, and Cordery had so far misrepresented matters, as to persuade 
 the General that it would be better to put a European regiment 
 between Delhi and the rebel regiments at Belpore. There was not 
 the least necessity for it, but Cordery got his way, and got leave to 
 advance with one troop of his own regiment, four companies of the 
 201st, a company of native artillery, in the direction of Belpore, to 
 see if the garrison were alive. 
 
 Of course it was very wi'ong of Cordery, he has been often told 
 so. He however had such a strong feeling for our Shrewsbury 
 boys, that he could not help it. Our fellows advanced to the 
 river, through the jungle, and on showing themselves had fire 
 opened on them by the rebels. 
 
 Upon which Roland and Claverhouse, now silent for a long 
 time, sent a shell, bang into the air, which came down, whiz, into 
 the middle of the river, and on bursting, sent up a column of water 
 six feet high. 
 
 " Signal + 2° to him," said Jones, R.E. '' He has his eleva- 
 tion too low. He will be dropping his shells among us directly. 
 What a pity it is that cavalry officers should be trusted with 
 mortars." 
 
 The next shell went better, and dropped on the right side of the 
 river. Still it did no harm. 
 
 The rebels were laughing at both parties. The newly arrived 
 Europeans seemed to decline to fire, and as for the shells from the 
 palace, if they got troublesome, they could shift. They were 
 rather astonished, however, after an hour, by the newly arrived 
 Europeans opening on them with a fury and ferocity which made 
 them move with a vengeance. 
 
 Every man among the newly arrived Europeans was loading and 
 firing at them as fast as it was possible. The guns were being 
 served with parade rapidity ; in one moment, this apparently 
 
STEETTON. 349 
 
 causeless din began. In one minute they saw the cause of it, and 
 as well as they could opened fire ; but not on the European troops 
 — on Jim and on Eddy, swimming across the river, as they had 
 swum together at Gloucester, in the old times. 
 
 The Europeans maddened. From their naked bodies they could 
 see that the two swimmers were British,, they plied their work fast 
 and furiously ; still the river was two hundred yards across, and 
 the water was dashed into little jets of foam by the rebel bullets. 
 
 The wrath, rage, and noise of that three minutes was forgotten 
 by none who saw it. At last, just as the two swimmers were 
 nearing the shore, Jim sailing in Eddy's wake like a convoy, a 
 bullet hit something else than the water, and Eddy put up his two 
 hands and cried out, " Jim ! Jim ! I am wounded." 
 
 The bullet had gone into the boy's shoulder-blade, but Jim had 
 his left arm round him in one instant, and swimming with his 
 right, brought him ashore. The old bathing catastrophe was well 
 avenged now. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 The siege of Belpore got more and more in favour of the besieged 
 as time went on. The flight of the Rajah was enormously in their 
 favour. The fire upon them, slight and inefi'ectual as it always 
 had been, now ceased entirely. Madame Nawab, who had seen, 
 during her Algerian campaigns, pretty nearly as much of this sort 
 of work as any one, announced her intention of going to church 
 the very next Sunday but four, down past the lines, and, indeed, 
 she accomplished that feat successfully, without the slightest 
 danger. While troop-ship after troop-ship was crowding sail 
 and steam from England, the back of the thing was nearly 
 broken. 
 
 The besieged at Belpore heard, for a time, hot and fierce firing 
 across the river, and guessed rightly that the 201st had come after 
 them. One glorious day, towards evening, they heard the British 
 bugles under their walls, and knew that they were free. The 
 rebels, finding themselves in a perfectly untenable position, had 
 retreated. The 201st, having searched their position with shell, 
 now cautiously crossed the river, and marched in under the old 
 gateway, in front of the new earthworks, which had saved the 
 Nawab's palace, Eddy and Jim leading the way. 
 
 To say what extreme extravagances were committed, would take 
 
350 . STEETTON. 
 
 a volume. The Nawab executed a solemn dance composed for the 
 occasion. His wife never rebuked him at all, but sat on the top 
 of a gabion, and stitched away. '' He has the Orleans Anglo- 
 mania," she said. "It aiSects some minds. For me, I am 
 Tricoteuse. It arrives to me to knit and stitch through revolu- 
 tions. Twice in Algeria, February in Paris, June in Paris, and 
 now once more, regard you, in India. Tiens ! perhaps I shall sit 
 and sew in Paris when the devil comes for that dog." For Madame 
 was of the Democratic. 
 
 The end came soon after ; there is but little to tell of it but 
 what you know. Enough to say that the 201st were behind Peel 
 in the attack on Delhi, and that Roland volunteered and took part 
 in some of the most terrible street-fighting ever seen. 
 
 But as ship -load after ship -load of the maimed came back ; as 
 ships came back not bringing wounded men, but news of dead, we 
 began, if you remember, to calm down. It had been our greatest 
 and most fearful disaster, and we all looked a little older and more 
 worn. 
 
 There had scarcely been a family not in mourning over our 
 quarrel with the Russians. But in front of these glorious Russians, 
 who are doing well by the world, we had been loyally backed by 
 the French ; the war had been a man's war, and we had lost only 
 men. But here we had lost women and children. Few nations 
 have ever gone through a darker hour than the earlier part of 
 1858. 
 
 I hear the ringing words in my ears now, given by a pilot from 
 a leaping whale-boat, just as the great ship was beginning to move 
 upon her 14,000 miles' course — " They have got Delhi ! " 
 
 One lived in those times. We were dull, sickened, disheartened, 
 and captious, so we never truly roused to the American war, which 
 was extremely lucky, for more than one half of this nation was in 
 favour of the South. The French insulted us, and we insulted 
 them in return, and set the volunteers in motion. But we wanted 
 rest, and, thank God, we have had it. 
 
 CHAPTER LXm. 
 
 Eight months passed. liongmynd, Lawley, and Caradoc, towering 
 up into the summer sun, and Pulverbatch Grange swept and 
 garnished. Aunt Eleanor dressed in purple and pearl-grey, with 
 
BTEETTON. 361 
 
 a grand kind of lace cap, looking magnificent. No Ethel here 
 to-day. All by herself, alone. 
 
 ''Bother George Mordaunt ! " she said. *' "Why on earth he 
 could not let an old woman like me be married without public 
 Hpectaclc I can't think. And the Dean is a goose about it, also. 
 I shall look like a perfect fool beside Ethel. However, I have not 
 submitted to have bridesmaids. That is a comfort. I certainly 
 am a fool to have dressed two hours before the time. Who is 
 that, Ehza? I can see no one." 
 
 A maid came in and said that Sir Jasper Meredith was coming 
 in, and what is more Sir Jasper Meredith came in, with only one 
 stick, and a large bunch of Cape jasmine in his button-hole. 
 
 "You look mighty fine, Jasper," said Aunt Eleanor. ''Do 
 you know that I am going to be married in public this morning ? " 
 
 " I know," said Sir Jasper. " Do you know that I am going 
 to be married in public this morning ? " 
 
 " The man is out of his mind," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 "Indeed, I think he is. But I have as much right to get 
 married as " 
 
 " Well, my dear Jasper, I will agree with you that we are a pair 
 of fools." 
 
 " Then don't bother," said Sir Jasper. " I tell you that I have 
 put it all before Mary Maynard, and she is perfectly willing ; as 
 willing as a girl could be. I am very fond of her, and she is very 
 fond of me. If it had not been for the poor woman who is dead, 
 I would have married her before. I pointed out to Mary Maynard 
 the great advantages of the match, and the fact that I could not 
 possibly live long. Whereupon, to my intense delight, she burst 
 into a fury of tears, and said that I was not what she had thought 
 me, but a wicked, cold-hearted little villain. The girl's heart is 
 in the right place. Miss Evans, after all. I got her quieted, and 
 had a special licence from the Archbishop at once. Come along, 
 you and I together. We are both going to make fools of our- 
 selves." 
 
 " I am not sure about that," said Aunt Eleanor. 
 
 There was a great crowd in Stretton churchyard. It had got 
 about first that Captain Roland Evans was to be married to Miss 
 Mordaunt, and that Major Edwardes, their old friend and neigh- 
 bour, one of the greatest of Indian heroes, was to be his best man, 
 along with Mr. Edward Evans and Captain James Mordaunt. Then 
 it got about that Miss Evans was to be married to the Rector on 
 the same day ; and lastly, that Sir Jasper Meredith was to marry 
 Miss Mary Maynard, of the Barton. 
 
352 STilETTOK. 
 
 There was a great crowd. Tliey hired omnibuses from Shrews- 
 bury, and stood in rows on the grave-turf of the silent dead 
 beneath them, to look at these three boys, Roland, Eddy-, and Jim, 
 whom they had seen winning a foolish boat-raco, as it were but 
 yesterday, but had since, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 
 been into the fiery furnace of the Indian Mutiny, and had come out 
 unscathed. 
 
 They all met in the church, coming from the Rectory, without 
 seeing the populace, but the people knew that they were coming 
 their way, for the carriages of half the county were at the lych- 
 gate, and the Shropshire county gentry, a thing which will pass 
 one supposes in time, which is a good thing as it stands, were 
 crowding the churchyard, and making for the church. 
 
 The Dean and Aunt Eleanor were married first. Then came 
 Roland and Ethel. Lastly, Sir Jasper and Mary Maynard. And 
 if any bride ever looked happy, it was Mary Maynard. The only 
 unhappy time she has had since she was married was when she 
 lost her first boy, but she has another now. 
 
 Then they all went into the vestry to sign the register, and 
 Aunt Eleanor, leaving the Dean, took possession of Roland and 
 Eddy, and bade them follow her. " Not you, Jim," she said, as 
 he prepared to come with them. And she took Roland and Eddy 
 to a quiet place on the north side of the church, and showed them 
 a well-executed brass, let in the wall, on which was written : — 
 
 |jt Pemorg of 
 ALLAN EVANS, 
 
 Eldest Son of the late Captain Charles Evans, 
 of this parish. 
 
 No man knows his grave, but one may believe that, 
 
 beiug a soldier in Christ's Army from his youth, 
 
 he rests with Christ's soldiers. 
 
 All his life long he fought for Christ's poor ; 
 
 all his life long he wrestled with God in prayer, and in 
 
 the end, he gave his own life for a life he believed 
 
 to be more precious than his own. 
 
STEETTON. 353 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Now the registers were signed, and they began coming out, 
 Edwardes, of Moultan, came first, and was received by the crowd 
 in the churchyard with a murmur of familiar welcome. For he 
 was a feather in their caps, and they loved him. To think that he 
 is dead. 
 
 Then came Squire Mordaunt and his son Jim, with young Somes. 
 They were instantly mobbed. Every one wanted, on a sudden, 
 as it seemed, to shake hands with these three. The Squire was 
 resplendent and glorious, and shook as many hands as he could 
 get hold of, but kept saying " Room for the couples, men ; room 
 for the couples ! " And so they got through. 
 
 Then came Roland and Ethel. So wonderfully splendid in 
 their beauty that the spectators down the churchyard kept a dead 
 silence. It had pleased Roland to be married in his full-dress 
 uniform, and he was resplendent in scarlet and gold. Ethel had 
 on the same arrangement of rich lace which I saw on a great 
 banker's lady the other day, arranged somehow in her hair, and 
 falling down all over her. The people were simply dumb with i 
 admiration. — ' 
 
 Next came the Dean and Aunt Eleanor. They were certainly 
 an old couple, but a very fine one, though the Dean was not 
 handsome, and wore an innocent wig, without any concealment 
 about it. There was a perfect roar of welcome for aunt Eleanor. 
 *' God give you long days in the land. Madam Eleanor! " cried 
 one. " God do to you, as you have done to us ! " cried another. 
 " You have the best wife in all England, sir," said another. And 
 the Dean replied that he agreed with him entirely, and had known 
 it all his life. 
 
 There came next Sir Jasper Meredith and Mary Maynard. Sir 
 Jasper walked very well, and Mary looked very happy, the good 
 Shropshire folks cheering them very heartily. 
 
 Before the last group came out of the church, Major Edwardes 
 and young Somes, known to every one, had been about among the 
 crowd, and explained to them who was coming. Jasper Meredith 
 and his wife were easily passed over. All eyes were turned to the 
 church, to the most interesting group of the day. 
 
 First, Eddy and Jim, in full uniform, like Roland, side by side ; 
 there was no cheering now. The people wanted to get near them 
 and see them closer ; and at that moment, had such a thing been 
 necessary, Jim and Eddy could have raised a battalion out of that 
 churchyard. But they held up their hands for silence. The valley 
 
 24 
 
354 STEETTON. 
 
 was mad about the Mordaunt hero and the Evans hero ; but their 
 curiosity overpowered their love, and they let their two heroes pass 
 nearly in silence. 
 
 After them came a French lady, most beautifully dressed, on the 
 arm of Maynard, explaining matters to him in a very voluble 
 manner. But they only said, " Go it, young Maynard," and let 
 them pass on ; for they noticed that Major Edwardes had gone 
 back, that young Somes was standing in the centre of the path ; 
 that Jim and Eddy were waiting by the lych-gate, and they knew 
 that the man of the day was to come. 
 
 He came out of the church with Major Edwardes. A tall, 
 handsome gentleman, with a face a little browner than even " the 
 Evans " and Mordaunt's, who had just passed by. A gentleman, 
 clothed in snow-white from head to foot, wearing a small turban. 
 About his breast and shoulders he had developed innumerable 
 diamonds — diamonds worth enough to pay for a province, which 
 made them shade their eyes as they flashed in the sun. It was the 
 Nawab of Belpore. 
 
 He was instantly stopped. Young Somes was terrified about 
 his diamonds, as a lawyer should be ; but not a soul in that Shrop- 
 shire churchyard that morning would have touched one of them 
 had it lay at his feet. Edwardes, Somes, Eddy, and Jim kept the 
 crowd away from him. And Major Edwardes said — 
 
 ** Gentlemen, this is the Nawab of Belpore. Faithful to us in 
 prosperity, faithful to us in adversity, faithful to us in despair. 
 When we believed that all was lost, he was true. Look on a true, 
 loyal Indian gentleman for once. He goes away to work at the 
 greatest work ever undertaken by any nation yet, to carry out 
 among the one hundred and eighty millions of India this new 
 civilisation, originated by the revolutionary wars : epitomised by 
 us. There is a work before us in India more vastly important than 
 the work of Hun or Mogul. The Nawab will help us. Now let 
 us go." 
 
 So ended the pageant, and so ends my seventh story. My boys 
 were very dear to me, but they are passed into Shadowland for 
 ever: the two Mordaunts, the two Evanses, and Maynard. Of 
 all the ghosts of old friends which I have called up in this quaint 
 trade, called the wiiting of fiction, only two remain with me, and 
 never quit me. The others come and go, and I love them well 
 enough ; but the two who are with me always are the peaked-faced 
 man Charles Ravenshoe, and the lame French girl Mathilde. 
 
 THE END. 
 VTXVrUI BBOTHBRS, THE OSESBAM PBESS, CBXLWOBTB AND LONDON. 
 
Warwick House 
 
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 A LIST OF 
 
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 Everything from the pen of Mr. Georg-e Meredith is 
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 By the same Author 
 
 The Tragic Comedians : A Study in a 
 
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 " Meredithians owe a debt of gratitude to the publishers 
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 ARTHUR MORRISON 
 
 Martin Hewitt, Investigator. By 
 
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 R. Caton Woodville and Fred Barnard. Crown 
 
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 BERTRAM MITFORD 
 
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 4. Silcote of Silcotes. 
 
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 ETHEL S. TURNER 
 
 Seven Little Atistralia7is, With 
 
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POPULAR THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS 7 
 
 HENRY HERMAN 
 
 His Angel : A Romance of the Far West. 
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 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
 In Ole Virginia ; or, '' Marse Chan," and 
 
 other Stories. By Thos. Nelson Page. With Intro- 
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 A Dead Mans Diary, Fifth Edition. 
 
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 of Reviews. 
 
 Sorrow and Song. Second Edition. 
 
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NOVELS BY POPULAR AUTHORS 9 
 
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 The Story of Sylvia. By Hamilton 
 
 Rowan. With Frontispiece by Walter S. Stagey. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
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 consistent character study." — Bristol Mercury. 
 
 CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 In the Clouds. By Charles Egbert 
 
 Craddock, Author of " The Prophet of the Great 
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 Ail American Politician. A Novel. 
 
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