THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PIOUS FRAUDS
 
 PIOUS FRAUDS 
 
 gobtl 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBANY DE FONBLANQUE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A TANGLED SKEIN," " FILTHY LUCRE," " BAD LUCK, 
 "CUT ADRIFT," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 
 li0{urs in rtrinarg to Hw UJajestg % <$nn 
 
 1880 
 [Rights of Translation Reserved}
 
 CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. IN THE STREAM ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. ON THE BANK 20 
 
 III. A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH 1 ... 39 
 
 IV. "I KNOW WHAT I KNOW " ... ... 60 
 
 V. "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER " ... 83 
 
 VI. " FAMILY HISTORY " 105 
 
 vii. "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE" ... 125 
 
 VIII. RES ANGUSTA DOMI ... ... ... 149 
 
 IX. "'HE WANTS ME TO MARRY" 169 
 
 x. "THE LAW ALLOWS IT," AND THE COURT 
 
 AWARDS IT 190 
 
 5735.S2
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PA OR 
 
 XI. ALWAYS WELCOME 212 
 
 XII. THE STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER 235 
 
 XIII. THE SINKING STONES OP GARCIN ... 260 
 
 xiv. " WE'RE GOING. TO LONDON " 288
 
 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 IN THE STREAM. 
 
 THE Assizes for Ridingshire had recently 
 been opened " with the usual formalities," 
 as the county papers had it. The Northern 
 Circuit was hard at work in the Castle 
 of Minsterton trying causes before my 
 Lord in black silk, and disposing of 
 criminals before my Lord in scarlet. Her 
 Majesty's th Hussars, who marched into 
 the city about a month ago when Her 
 Majesty's th Dragoons marched out of 
 
 it, to the tune of " The girl we left behind 
 i. 1
 
 2 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 us," were comfortably settled down in 
 their new quarters. Some of the younger 
 soldiers and some of the idler lawyers 
 had fraternized, played cricket, and dined 
 together. Thus it happened that Norman 
 Drummond, barrister -at -law, and Arthur 
 Bellmonte, full sub-lieutenant in the above- 
 named gallant regiment, were thrown to- 
 gether for the first time, though first 
 cousins, and made friends. 
 
 Drummond was the fourth son of a 
 Devonshire clergyman whose reputation was 
 greater than his living. Bellmonte was the 
 heir to a baronetcy, and to Garcin Hall, 
 one of the finest estates in Hopshire. The 
 Huzzar was born with a silver spoon, which 
 I am afraid will not pick up any extraneous 
 wealth. Providence had filled the lawyer's 
 wooden ladle with brains. The former just 
 scraped through his examination at the
 
 IN THE STREAM. 3 
 
 second trial ; the latter's career had been, 
 so far, a series of successes. An exhibition 
 from his school and a scholarship at his 
 college nearly paid for his University career. 
 A " Tancred " presentation helped him to 
 the bar. A handsome face and a pleasant 
 manner won him a fair position in society. 
 He was a rising man, and this being so, Sir 
 Alexander Bellmonte, though he refrained 
 from answering his son's question, why he 
 had never heard of his handsome cousin till 
 they met by chance at Minsterton, did not 
 disapprove of the young man's new-formed 
 acquaintance. It might throw some light 
 upon the characters of these two if I said 
 that Arthur sought Norman because he was 
 such an " awfully clever fellow, you know," 
 and that Norman made up to Arthur be- 
 cause he liked to be able to talk of " when 
 I was a guest of the th at Minsterton."
 
 4 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 Mr. Drummond never wasted his time or 
 his opportunities. 
 
 On Saturdays the courts rose early, and it- 
 did him no harm to be seen on the river with 
 his cousin. The silver spoon and the wooden 
 ladle were, for once, in the same boat, and 
 that a labour one. Ladle rowed stroke ; 
 Spoon had the bow oar. The water looked 
 delightfully cool, the wash of the distant weir 
 sounded cool, the next reach, where the 
 willows threw their shadows over the flowery 
 fringes of the bank's green mantle, promised 
 coolness ; but out in the stream where they 
 were, and rowing against it, the sun was 
 unmistakably hot. Ladle, as is often the 
 case, was out of condition, and puffed ; 
 Spoon, wirey little athlete, hadn't turned 
 a hair. Ladle, who had started with a 
 spirit, was ashamed to give in; Spoon, 
 like the thoroughbred he was, would go till
 
 IN THE STREAM. 
 
 he dropped. ' Ladle rose, equal to the occa- 
 sion, and found an excuse good enough to 
 satisfy honour and regain breath. 
 
 "If I had noticed," he panted, "what 
 a confounded old tub you had chosen I 
 wouldn't have come out rowing." 
 
 " Who asked you to row ? " enquired Bow 
 with provokingly measured articulation. 
 " I said come out for a paddle ! " 
 
 " I hate paddling," growled Stroke, wiping 
 his brows. 
 
 " "Well, put me ashore and I'll tow you up ; 
 we can float back," said Bow. " That's the 
 beauty of a big boat ; you can lay down 
 in the bottom and smoke, or anything." 
 
 "But it looks so so 
 
 " Jolly lazy ? that's just what it is," 
 laughed Bow, as he rigged the towing-mast 
 and cleared the line. " You ship the rudder 
 and steer."
 
 6 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Three strokes took them to the bank. 
 Arthur jumped out, threw the band round 
 his chest, the long line tightened, and 
 " swish, swash " went the big boat alongside 
 the reeds at a brisk foot pace. 
 
 " It's not nearly such hard work as 
 rowing," he shouted back over his shoulder ; 
 " but don't keep her out too far." 
 
 The big boat had cushions and back rails, 
 and would carry four sitters easily. It is 
 an excellently comfortable craft to float back 
 
 in ; but to pull ! As a rowing man at 
 
 Oxford Drummond despised labour-boats ; 
 as a thinking man he asked himself, " Is 
 that little fool tugging me against the 
 stream for the pleasure of drifting back 
 in my company?" He placed one of the 
 cushions longways on the floor, doubled 
 up another for a back rest, lighted a 
 cigar, reclined at ease, and, with the one
 
 IN THE STREAM. 7 
 
 rudder line lie had to use in hand, 
 obeyed his orders not to keep her too 
 far out. 
 
 He found that it was indeed "jolly lazy ' 
 and something more. He looked round 
 now and then to see if any one he knew 
 could behold him Norman Drummond 
 being towed up the river by an actual 
 Huzzar, and prospective Baronet of the 
 United Kingdom! It was a pleasant fore- 
 taste of what he proposed should be done 
 on a larger scale, up a bigger stream, by 
 persons of more importance than Arthur 
 Bellmonte. Still, knowing full well, with- 
 out even thinking on the subject, that he 
 would not exert himself for any one's 
 pleasure unless he had a motive, the 
 question which arose before he took his 
 present easy posture, "Is that little fool 
 tugging me against the stream for the
 
 8 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 pleasure of drifting back in my company ? " 
 remained unanswered. 
 
 The "little fool" tugged on. About a 
 hundred yards ahead of him two girls were 
 seated on the bank under the shade of a 
 willow. Something told Drummond that 
 they were pretty girls ; and he changed his 
 position so as to get a good look at them in 
 passing. He knew no girl, pretty or plain, 
 thereabouts, yet he took off his hat with a 
 pretence of waving off flies, and ran his 
 fingers through his whiskers. He was a 
 good-looking man without his hat, and he 
 knew it. Short brown wavy hair, bright 
 steel- coloured eyes, and a very well cut 
 mouth, unshaded by moustache, upon which 
 he had cultivated a superior smile that seemed 
 to say, " Yes, I am Mr. Norman Drummond, 
 but I really cannot help it." He is quite 
 sure the girls will look at him. At his best
 
 IN THE STREAM. 9 
 
 as far as appearance goes Arthur was 
 only one of those fair, blue-eyed, round- 
 headed, red-necked, short-haired, healthy- 
 looking young fellows whom one meets at 
 every turn in a garrison town ; and with 
 his trowsers tucked up, his collar off, and his 
 shirt rumpled, he was deprived of that gloss 
 of neatness which distinguishes his order, 
 and of that peculiar hang of the clothes after 
 which the cad and his tailor may toil in 
 vain. Mr. Drummond could not see the 
 spell that shone for some out of the " little 
 fool's " manly, but unclassical features. No ; 
 the girls would not give him a second look. 
 Mr. Drummond was pleased with the pos- 
 sibility that they might know the "little 
 fool " by sight, and ask themselves, " What 
 distinguished person is that whom Mr. 
 Bellmonte is towing up the stream ? " 
 
 As Arthur approached them they rose,
 
 10 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 put down their parasols, and proceeded to 
 arrange their skirts. Yes, they did know 
 him, Drummond remarks, and by more than 
 sight. They shook hands; he threw off 
 the towing-band, and began to coil in the 
 line. When the boat came slowly up to the 
 bank he shouted, " Halloa, old man ! These 
 ladies will go a little way with us. Let me 
 introduce you, Mr. Drummond, Miss Fair- 
 fax Mr. Drummond, Miss Cowper. That's 
 right ; sit down where you are." 
 
 He led them towards the boat as he spoke, 
 and they took their places in her, as though 
 it were not the first time that they had so 
 embarked. Drummond thought he had got 
 on the scent of that motive. The spot 
 where this fair cargo was stored for ship- 
 ment was well out of sight of the city. 
 There was a favourable wind up the next 
 reach, just the place for a rendezvous ! Was
 
 IN THE STREAM. 11 
 
 it a rendezvous ? The girls had risen before 
 Arthur came up to where they sat. They 
 put down their parasols and lifted their 
 skirts before he could have got through 
 "how d'ye do ? " There was a " well ! here 
 we are " air about them, which did not 
 escape Mr. Drummond's keen observation. 
 
 " Here is the motive, sure enough," he 
 mused; "but which of them is it? The 
 little fair one or the other ? " At first he 
 concluded that it must be the little fair one, 
 and so he placed himself by her side, with 
 the other opposite, thinking, "If he (mean- 
 ing Arthur) imagines he is going to hum- 
 bug me into playing number four for his 
 amusement he makes a big mistake." He 
 put forth all his powers of fascination to 
 spite his friend in the second place, and to 
 assert himself in the first. He considered 
 this quite fair. He had been made to row
 
 12 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 a heavy boat, kept in the dark as to her 
 use ; a flirtation was on hand, and a trans- 
 parent plot laid to pair him off with the 
 gooseberry-picker. He let a grain of moral- 
 ity in too. These young ladies were not 
 gentlewomen, he thought, as gentlewomen 
 go in his world. They were neatly dressed, 
 certainly, and their manners were quiet. 
 They took care of their h's, and did not 
 giggle or call him " sir " ; but there was a 
 struggle against fate in their glove and boot 
 departments, and a rococo atmosphere about 
 their hats which struck even his man's eye. 
 There was also a sort of hunted look in their 
 faces as they entered the boat, which was 
 not lost upon him. Yes, it was his moral 
 duty to stand between that pretty fair 
 childish face and harm. He wished that 
 his conclusion were wrong, and that 
 "the other" were the motive, for she
 
 IN THE STREAM. 13 
 
 seemed so much more able to take care 
 of herself. 
 
 They sailed along dreamily under the 
 summer sun in the fitful summer breeze, 
 just beating the stream when they were 
 obliged to cross it, and slowly lapping 
 through the shot-green satin flood beyond. 
 Drummond had a good look at that " other 
 one," and began to mistrust her. Hers was 
 one of those faces which do not come into 
 focus at first sight. It was grave and pale, 
 with a chiseled mouth finely cut, sensitive 
 nostrils, and large steady hazel eye. Eather 
 a cold face, but one, he thought, that 
 love could light up and passion tear. He 
 concluded shortly that she looked capable of 
 taking care of herself and her friend. Why, 
 then, was she a party to this escapade ? 
 for escapade it evidently was. She must 
 have been at least three years older than her
 
 14 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 companion. Was it possible that she did 
 not know better than to let the poor little 
 baby beauty risk her happiness for a reck- 
 less young Huzzar's amusement ? He com- 
 pared the two faces : one beautiful as it 
 was, so fair, so tender, so steeped in the 
 glow of life's sunrise might have been 
 pressed in a mould which would turn out a 
 score of replicas equally lovely and loveable ; 
 the other bore the fire-marks of originality 
 all over. Long before the end of their sail 
 Norman Drummond had left off saying 
 pleasant nothings to the little lady at his 
 side, and was bending forward to catch 
 every word that passed from the proud lips 
 opposite. 
 
 He was fond of setting himself enigmas 
 and working them out. It was so good to 
 be able to say, " Exactly, yes ; I know all 
 about it," when your friend sought you
 
 IN THE STREAM. 15 
 
 charged with a mystery, and did not know 
 how to fire it off. This one which he 
 thought so simple at first puzzled him. 
 Miss Fairfax laughed, prattled, sent them 
 after water-lilies and wild flowers, ordered 
 voyages of exploration through shady wind- 
 ing back-waters, was the first to call, " Look, 
 look, look," in blithe notes, and seemed as 
 happy as a bird. Miss Cowper was always 
 on the watch, shrunk when a boat passed 
 them, and started if a boy shouted from the 
 bank. Was she anxious for her friend's 
 sake, or for her own ? When some oozy 
 floral spoil was brought on board, and she 
 had to take off her gloves they had 
 been cleaned, and the tops of many fingers 
 mended she displayed a somewhat rough 
 hand, on which a gipsy ring with four large 
 emeralds twinkled. 
 
 Arthur Bellmonte seemed quite at his ease
 
 16 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 with the pretty blonde, and she with him. 
 Could she be the gooseberry-picker after all ? 
 He was a fair man, and under the middle 
 height. As a rule small fair men fancy tall 
 dark women. Miss Cowper was not exactly 
 dark, her rich hair was shimmering hazel, 
 like her eyes ; but she was tall. She was 
 uneasy ; and she wore a twenty-guinea ring 
 under her darned gloves ! Now what would 
 he long-headed Norman Drummond do 
 under similar circumstances to hood-wink 
 his cousin ? chat lightly with the girl he 
 didn't care for in company, and go off 
 quietly with his sweetheart when occasion 
 served ? Exactly ! And what would the 
 sweetheart be about ? She would be silent, 
 pre-occupied, nervous, feel just a little 
 jealous perhaps ; behave, in short, pretty 
 much as Miss Cowper was behaving. As 
 Drummond put this and that together a
 
 IN THE STREAM. 17 
 
 feeling of irritation came over him. Was 
 he to be put off with Baby -face, whilst his 
 cousin wandered in the woods clasping the 
 hand which wore the emeralds, and soften- 
 ing the light in those grand hazel eyes ? 
 
 For now the plot was out. Happy 
 thought, like many others, long-matured ! 
 The wind was dying away it was not 
 nearly time to go back, Arthur declared 
 with suspicious volubility they could 
 land at Dunsdale Wood, have tea at the 
 Cat and Fiddle, and float home by moon- 
 light. Did Drummond mind ? Drummond 
 noticed that the ladies were not asked if 
 they minded, and that they opened their 
 eyes and gave each other a look of surprise 
 when that question was put to him. Mind ? 
 on the contrary, he would be delighted, 
 he said ; but he felt inclined to take 
 
 Arthur by the neck and shake him. The 
 i. 2
 
 18 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 programme was attractive enough, only it 
 had been composed without his assistance. 
 He had been " let in," and didn't like it. 
 
 A ferry adjoined the domain of the Cat 
 and Fiddle. They landed on the float, and 
 gave their boat in charge of the ferryman. 
 Miss Fairfax skipped up to the towing-path, 
 and issued her orders from this point of 
 vantage. Mr. Drummond was to carry in 
 the oars, Mr. Bellmonte the mast and sail. 
 If they brought her one of the cushions she 
 would carry it. " No ! well, then, make 
 haste," she said, when her labour was 
 declined, " for I am dying for a walk in the 
 wood. You two can go and order tea, and 
 we," indicating Drummond, " will meet 
 you at the stile. ' You know, Sibyl, where- 
 at the stile," she concluded abruptly. 
 
 Drummond bit his lip. "Well, there was 
 no help for it. Baby-face was his portion,
 
 IN THE STREAM. 19 
 
 so be it. He would make this pretty little 
 goose tell him all about the other girl, and 
 then he should know what to do. Arthur 
 took the other one's hand, slipped it through 
 his arm with a merry " come along then," 
 and away they went, followed by one pair 
 of angry, jealous eyes male ones.
 
 20 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE BANK. 
 
 THOUGH dying for a walk in the wood Miss 
 Fairfax was in no hurry to leave the bank. 
 " Let's sit down here," she said, when the 
 other pair were out of sight ; " it's so cool 
 by the water, and they have further to go 
 than we have." So down they sat, she on a 
 felled oak tree, he on the moss at her feet, 
 which she took care to hide, for there was a 
 patch she knew of on one of her boots, and 
 she was not quite sure if all the buttons 
 adorned the other. He had made up his 
 mind about the best system of pumping to 
 be pursued, and began,
 
 ON THE BANK. 21 
 
 " I hope we did not keep you waiting ? " 
 
 " No ; you were pretty punctual," she 
 replied ; " we had not been there more than 
 five minutes when you came up." 
 
 "Just time enough to rest after your 
 walk ? " he ventured. 
 
 " Yes ; it was very hot in the sun." 
 
 " If I had made the arrangements you 
 should have come on board with us where 
 we started. It was a shame to make you 
 walk all that way." 
 
 Drummond sank his voice, and was 
 tenderly reproachful. 
 
 " Oh, we don't complain," she replied, 
 picking at the bark of the fallen tree with 
 the point of her parasol, and for the first 
 time lowering the lids of her soft blue eyes. 
 
 " When one knows the amount of pleasure 
 in store," he resumed, " one does not hesi- 
 tate about the price to be paid for it. I
 
 22 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 was not aware what a charming trip I was 
 about to make." 
 
 " No ; I saw you were quite astonished. 
 Mr. Bellmonte promised us yesterday that 
 you would come, and I thought you knew 
 where we were going, and all about it. 
 Perhaps you have some engagement in the 
 city ; perhaps " she rose " it is incon- 
 venient " 
 
 " Not a bit. I would have given up any 
 engagement to join you. Please sit down. 
 I confess it was a surprise ; but I hope I did 
 nothing to show that it was not a pleasant 
 one. If I did, you must help me not to 
 belie my real feelings again." 
 
 " How can I ? " 
 
 " By giving me the carte de pays, I 
 mean." 
 
 " I know : telling you who we are, and 
 all about us."
 
 ON THE BANK. 23 
 
 He smiled and nodded. How nicely the 
 pump was working ! 
 
 " Very well. To begin at the beginning. 
 Mr. Bellmonte but you are his cousin, are 
 you not ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Oh, then you know all about him. He's 
 such a nice little fellow, and ever so rich, 
 and he's going to be a baronet some day, 
 isn't he?" 
 
 " He will be a baronet if he lives long 
 enough," said Drummond, after a long pause, 
 which he intended should give emphasis to 
 his reply ; " but I cannot say anything about 
 his present wealth." 
 
 " Of course you know his father ?" 
 
 " Very little. He is a gentleman of the old 
 school, Miss Fairfax ; very proud and aris- 
 tocratic in all his ideas." 
 
 " And so fond of his son, and so good to
 
 24 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 him ! What a dear old man he must be," 
 gushed Baby-face. 
 
 " Well, you see, he has everything his own 
 way, and Arthur would be an idiot if he 
 thwarted or disobeyed him, and indeed " 
 Mr. Drummond continued with a mysterious 
 air "I must do the young fellow the 
 justice to say that, so far, Sir Alexander 
 has reason to be proud of him. He is a 
 steady, good boy not very bright (this 
 is between ourselves, you know) ; but he 
 makes a good enough soldier, and I suppose 
 will go into Parliament some day, settle 
 down, marry, and be an excellent country 
 gentleman. That is, of course, if he goes 
 on as he has begun." 
 
 " And if he doesn't ? " 
 
 " He has no common vices, and is 
 a gentleman. There is only one way, 
 so far as I can see, in which he might
 
 ON THE BANK. 25 
 
 ruin himself, and that he is sure to 
 avoid." 
 
 " Betting ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " What then ? turning ' Radical ' ? " she 
 asked quickly. 
 
 " I think," Drummond replies, " that my 
 uncle would bitterly resent such an act of 
 treason, as he would consider it ; but I was 
 not thinking of that. Sir Alexander might 
 forgive his son for a change in politics 
 well, don't let us discuss vague possibilities. 
 The young fellow is, as I have said, a 
 gentleman born and bred, and he will behave 
 like one noblesse oblige. You understand 
 French, Miss Fairfax ? " 
 
 " A little. Sib does, well." 
 
 "And Sib is ?" 
 
 " My cousin. How funny that we are all 
 four cousins, isn't it ? "
 
 26 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Not quite all four I think," says Drum- 
 mond, a little stiffly. 
 
 " You know what I mean. Of course we 
 poor girls don't claim relationship with such 
 grand gentlemen as you and Mr. Bellmonte. 
 I mean it is curious that you two should be 
 cousins, and we two cousins. Poor people 
 can be cousins, so don't be haughty about 
 it." 
 
 " I assure you I was not." 
 
 " Oh yes, you were ; you curled that proud 
 lip of yours when you spoke ; but never 
 mind. Now let me get on with my carte 
 de pays. Sib that's short for Sibyl ; 
 isn't it a pretty name ? Sib is the best, 
 the dearest, and the truest woman under 
 the sun, and the handsomest too, / think 
 don't you ? But she doesn't get on with 
 her own people, and is staying with us. 
 She came to us when I was a child, and
 
 ON THE BANK. 27 
 
 has remained ever since. And oh, she 
 was so good to my mother all that weary 
 time." 
 
 "I thought that probably you had lost 
 your mother," says Drummond musingly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You won't be offended if I tell you ? ' 
 
 " No ; go on." 
 
 " Because if you had a mother I don't 
 think she would quite like your going out 
 on the river unescorted." 
 
 " Why, you took us ! " cried the rosy lips, 
 and the violet eyes opened wide to flash 
 merry astonishment. 
 
 " That's just it," Drummond replied. 
 
 " Well, are you going to ill-use us ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " God forbid ! but the world, my dear 
 child"- he was getting paternal now, but 
 none the less tender "does not approve
 
 28 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 of young ladies going out alone to tea with 
 young men at Cats and Fiddles" 
 
 " The Cat and Fiddle is a very respectable 
 place, Mr. Drummond," she retorted. " The 
 best families go there." 
 
 "Don't get angry. You promised you 
 would not. With the activity of argument 
 peculiar to your sex, you have jumped clean 
 over the principle of what I was saying, and 
 lighted on a trivial matter of detail. I have 
 nothing against your Cat and Fiddle in the 
 abstract ; what I want to impress upon you 
 is, that the world does not approve of young 
 ladies going any where in the company of 
 young men, without a chaperone." 
 
 " Sib is three years older than I am," said 
 baby-face, with something between a sob 
 and a sigh, and looking so meek and penitent 
 that Drummond took her little hand and 
 patted it approvingly.
 
 ON THE BANK. 29 
 
 " You are a dear, innocent child," he went 
 on, and the small warm hand rested con- 
 fidingly between his palms. "Your cousin 
 is not old enough to be a chaperone for you, 
 and too old to be excused for leading you 
 into mischief." 
 
 " But she is not leading me into mischief. 
 Oh, you have made me so miserable 
 you've quite spoilt my day's pleasure," she 
 murmured, with her handkerchief to her 
 eyes. " You said you would not ill-use us, 
 and I'm sure we won't do anything wicked 
 to you. Are you afraid ? " 
 
 He could not help laughing at this ques- 
 tion, which was put with the utmost gravity. 
 He laughed it off, and recapturing the small 
 hand which had been snatched away during 
 the upbraiding portion of her speech, he 
 patted good counsel into her as before. 
 
 "Nonsense, child! I have said nothing
 
 30 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 to make you miserable. Enjoy yourself to 
 the top of your bent ; only " more gravely 
 " don't you put your fingers in the fire to 
 pull out other people's chestnuts." 
 
 She took the warning literally ; pouted, 
 and pleaded 
 
 " But I like roasted chestnuts." 
 
 " What a little idiot it is," thought Drum- 
 inond. " Hadn't we better be moving ? " he 
 said aloud. 
 
 " Tired of me already ? " she asked. " No, 
 don't tell a fib; I saw you yawn. Well, 
 it's about time to go to our trysting-place ; 
 so come along. Of course you won't have 
 a word for poor little me when Sib comes 
 no one does." 
 
 Drummond had made up his mind to 
 shake off this " little idiot " as soon as 
 possible, and therefore rose at her "come 
 along," and did not notice the concluding
 
 'ON THE BANK. 31 
 
 words. Side by side they walked slowly 
 and silently through the chequered paths of 
 the wood, he measuring mentally what he 
 had pumped already, in order to see what 
 else might be made to flow from the same 
 pure and facile source. 
 
 " Have you known my cousin long ? " 
 he began, when his calculations were 
 made. 
 
 " About three weeks." 
 
 " Since the regiment came ? " 
 
 " Why, how silly of you ! How could I 
 know him before he came ? " 
 
 ''It is possible that he might have been 
 introduced to you somewhere else," Drum- 
 mond replied stiffly. He did not like to be 
 called silly even by those pretty, foolish 
 lips. 
 
 " So it is," she said. " It's I that am 
 silly not to have thought of that. But I
 
 32 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 don't think before I speak. Sib often scolds 
 me for it that is, I do think, but not in 
 the right way. I think that I'm clever, and 
 have caught some one out in something 
 stupid, and I'm so pleased, and then it turns 
 out that I'm the stupid one after all ! Don't 
 you see ? " 
 
 " Well, well ; never mind. So you have 
 no mother ? " 
 
 " Or father. Sib has both parents alive, 
 but they're no use to her. Her mother 
 hates her, and her father makes her a bone 
 of contention, so she came to us for the sake 
 of peace. I'd sooner be an orphan as I 
 am than be like poor old Sib." 
 
 " You say of your cousin that she came to 
 us. Whom do you mean by ' us ' ? " 
 
 " Why, uncle and I, to be sure." 
 
 "I understand. Have I ever met your 
 uncle at the barracks ? "
 
 ON THE BANK. 33 
 
 " Gracious, no ! He hates soldiers. Why 
 do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because I've met several of Arthur's 
 friends there at mess, and thought he might 
 have been amongst them. Did you tell me 
 his name ? " 
 
 "I don't think I did." 
 
 "Will you?" 
 
 " Why shouldn't I ? Do you think there 
 is any mystery about it ? Uncle never was 
 at the barracks in his life ; he hates the 
 barracks. He is queer in his likes and 
 dislikes. Do you know that he does not 
 like Sib." 
 
 " Indeed." 
 
 " Yes; I'm his pet, and that is quite wrong. 
 Sib's little finger is worth my head. She is 
 so clever. Do you know she once went out 
 as a governess, and I had charge of the 
 
 house ? " 
 
 i. 3
 
 34 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " I did not ; but about your uncle, he " 
 
 " Was so cross all the time, you have no 
 idea. Things would not go right. Once I 
 prayed I really did pray on my knees in 
 my real prayers that she might have a row 
 Sib I mean with her employers, and get 
 sent away. And do you know (solemnly) 
 she was sent away too, but not for any fault 
 of hers. Oh no ! They were odious vulgar 
 people, and she was too good for them." 
 
 " Is your uncle a widower ? " 
 
 " The idea ! as though he ever would 
 have married, or got any one to marry him ! 
 He hates women." 
 
 " Let me see," Drummond observes. "He 
 hates soldiers, and barracks, and women ; . 
 what else does he hate *? " 
 
 " Lawyers," said baby- face, with a merry 
 laugh. " Oh ! he cannot bear you lawyers." 
 
 " Perhaps he has reason for this dislike."
 
 ON THE BANK. 35 
 
 " Lots. They're always worrying him, 
 and he is always beating them." 
 
 " Then I presume Law is not one of his 
 dislikes. He is your late father's brother, 
 this litigious Mr. Fairfax ? " 
 
 " Father didn't have any brothers ; uncle 
 had, though." She stated this as a 
 curious fact which must have escaped her 
 questioner. 
 
 "And do you know," she continued, 
 " when Uncle Fred was young he was so 
 wild and bad did all sorts of dreadful 
 things, and ran away to sea, and they all 
 thought he was lost, and all the time he was 
 in America steadied down, and making lots 
 of money ; and when he came home they 
 didn't know him, and he used to chew 
 tobacco and spit about. But he was so 
 good." 
 
 " Now I begin to understand," says Drum-
 
 36 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 mond. "You and your cousin live with 
 Uncle Fred." 
 
 " With Uncle Fred ! Now it must be you 
 that are silly," she cried, putting up a small 
 forefinger and shaking it at him. 
 
 " Uncle Fred died when I was a baby." 
 
 This was too much for Drummond's 
 patience. 
 
 "Miss Fairfax, will you tell me what is 
 your guardian's name and where you live ? " 
 He put it point-blank and faced her. 
 
 " If you want to know." 
 
 " I do want to know." 
 
 "Then why didn't you ask politely in- 
 stead of snapping my nose off like that ? 
 You gave me quite a start. Let me get on 
 to the stile and sit down. What an odd 
 man you are so sudden ! Do you ever 
 have palpitations of the heart ? I have. 
 You've given me one. I declare I feel quite
 
 ON THE BANK. 37 
 
 faint. Oh ! there's Sib ; I'm so glad. Let 
 me go to Sib." 
 
 Sib and Arthur were at the rendezvous 
 sure enough. Miss Fairfax threw herself 
 into the former's arms and began to sob. 
 Arthur stepped forward flushed and angry. 
 
 " What's the matter ? What have you 
 been saying to her ? " he demanded rather 
 sharply of Drummond. 
 
 " Oh, nothing nothing," sobbed the little 
 blonde. " It's the sun and the walk and 
 oh ! he has been so nice and kind. It's not 
 his fault a bit; I shall be all right in a 
 minute. And I've been so awfully stupid. 
 Let him have Sib to walk with now, or he 
 will be so bored." 
 
 So Mr. Drummond finished that day with 
 Sibyl Cowper as his companion, and was 
 not bored at all. He laid himself out to be 
 agreeable ; he did his best, and he had his
 
 38 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 reward. Sib's face came into focus for him, 
 softened, and ran over with smiles. Moon- 
 light and the wash of water are not provoca- 
 tives to conversation, but when a man looks 
 at a woman and she smiles before he speaks, 
 it is a good sign that previous talk has made 
 its mark. Drifting home in the moonlight, 
 Mr. Drummond was on excellent terms with 
 himself particularly as he observed that 
 Bellmonte was not in his usual good spirits. 
 He was silent and as his cousin fondly 
 hoped jealous.
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH? * 
 
 THE young ladies did not allow their 
 cavaliers to see them home. They were 
 landed much nearer the city than the point 
 at which they had embarked, but still at a 
 distance from the boat-house. Their good- 
 nights were hurried, and a flutter of muslin 
 in the distance caught Drummond's eye and 
 showed that they were running. The church 
 clocks struck nine as the " confounded tub " 
 of the afternoon the tub which had 
 floated all too quickly in the moonlight 
 was restored to its owner, and the cousins 
 made their way to the Barracks, where
 
 40 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Drummond was to pass the night and 
 Sunday. It suited him to be able to talk 
 about "when I was staying with those 
 fellows of the th." There was a shrewd 
 suspicion in his mind that one of those 
 fellows would have a good deal to say to 
 him that night. 
 
 The mess supplied Polli and B. ; there 
 were plenty of good cigars on hand. The 
 night was warm and still just the very 
 night to lean back in an easy-chair and 
 think. Arthur Bellmonte was evidently 
 thinking hard, but bodily repose appeared 
 to be quite out of the question, though he 
 had as large and choice a collection of lazy 
 lounges as an army outfitter can cram into 
 a subaltern's quarters. He walked up and 
 down the room ; he leaned by the open 
 window ; he stood with his back to where 
 the fire might have been; he fidgetted
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 41 
 
 with the lamp ; he took things up, and 
 laid them down ; sometimes puffing volumes 
 of smoke from his cigar, as though he had a 
 heavy bet upon how soon he could finish it, 
 and sometimes letting it go out, and sucking 
 away unconsciously at the charred and fire- 
 less stump. 
 
 Drummond had taken the best chair in 
 the room, and reclining thereon at full 
 length, watched him with cat-like eyes, and 
 a very superior human smile. 
 
 At last the uneasy one took heart of 
 grace, plunged his hands in his pockets, 
 faced round suddenly, and began : 
 
 "You've guessed something I suppose 
 -to-day?" 
 
 "Guessed is hardly the word, Arthur. 
 I've seen you going it pretty fast on 
 the road to a scrape of the first magni- 
 tude."
 
 42 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "And you think me either a fool or a 
 villain which ? " 
 
 " As you put it so emphatically, I should 
 say the former," replied the elder cousin 
 drily. 
 
 " I am going to marry that girl, Norman." 
 
 "You are.!"' 
 
 " I am. What have you to say against 
 it?" 
 
 " I ? Nothing, my dear fellow. It's no 
 business of mine. This is a free country, 
 and a man may make an ass of himself if 
 he likes ; only " 
 
 "I can stand a good deal from you just 
 now, Norman ; only don't you think it's 
 hardly good form to call names." 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but a man who voluntarily 
 gives one the choice to think him a fool or 
 a villain, should not complain when he's 
 only called an ass."
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 43 
 
 *' I see how it is," said Arthur ; " you're 
 cross because I did not confide in you at 
 the commencement. I own that I got you 
 into the boat on false pretences. I thought 
 perhaps you wouldn't come if I told you 
 why. I wanted you to judge for yourself, 
 what a dear, sweet, lovable girl she is, before 
 you found out that I had that I loved her. 
 That's why we managed that you should be 
 alone together all that time." 
 
 "I suppose it did seem a long time to 
 you?" 
 
 "Well, tell me frankly what do you 
 think of her?" Here the lover at last 
 seated himself, and prepared to breathe that 
 sweetest of incense praise of his beloved. 
 
 "She is handsome," said Drummond, 
 flicking off the ash of his cigar, "and 
 tolerably well educated for a woman. 
 And she's clever, no doubt of that. So
 
 44 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 much I could judge for myself. What 
 else she is, who she is, and all that, you 
 have yet to tell me, if you choose." 
 
 " Well, she comes of a respectable family, 
 and has a good name." 
 
 "That's nothing. There are plenty of 
 good names at the hulks. I know she lives 
 with an uncle who is he, and what ? " 
 
 " That's the rub," said the lover, studying 
 the pattern of the hearth-rug, with his 
 elbows on his knees. " I'm afraid he is an 
 awful cad. But then " brightening 
 " he's only her uncle." 
 
 " But evidently her guardian ; go on." 
 
 "HisnameisTyrell." 
 
 "Not the man who is known as Tom 
 Tyrell?" 
 
 " I'm sorry to say he is." 
 
 " Why, good God ! a Kadical ! a trade 
 union rattener ! a seditious, levelling, ras-
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 45 
 
 cally demagogue ! a fellow who has been in 
 trouble of some sort or another at every 
 assize since I joined the circuit." 
 
 " But he has always won his case, old man. 
 You mustn't forget that. He has beaten 
 the best of you." 
 
 " Granted ; but how ? By miserable 
 quibbles ; by subornation of perjury ; by 
 intimidating witnesses ; and, in the last case, 
 through the incompetence of the prosecuting 
 counsel. That's how. He ought to be in 
 jail at this moment." 
 
 " When a man is found not guilty " 
 
 " Oh, that'll do in court. We're on the 
 social, not the legal, question. What do you 
 suppose your father would think of such a 
 connection ? " 
 
 "There will be a row, of course," Arthur 
 admitted ruefully; "but when my father 
 sees the girl "
 
 46 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Pshaw ! He's not in love with her." 
 
 "Nor am I with her uncle. I'm not 
 going to marry him. I don't even know 
 him." 
 
 " Indeed ! May I inquire how you made 
 the young lady's acquaintance ? " 
 
 " Saw her at the Band." 
 
 " And spoke without an introduction ? " 
 
 "Well, yes I did." 
 
 "A mighty respectable beginning ; I gave 
 her credit for more self-respect." 
 
 "There's not a more virtuous, retiring 
 girl in the county; so stop that," said 
 Arthur warmly. "You can slang me as 
 you like, but I won't stand any slight on 
 her" 
 
 "Of course not. Well, my dear fellow, 
 you're two-and-twenty, and think yourself 
 in love. It's not a bit of use talking to you 
 now. You wouldn't listen to an angel
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH? 47 
 
 from heaven, if he did not say exactly what 
 you wanted." 
 
 Here the speaker resumed his easy pos- 
 ture, from which the name of Tom Tyrell 
 had aroused him, and lighted a fresh 
 cigar. 
 
 " So you guessed it from the first ? " 
 Arthur asked, loth to leave the subject. 
 
 " Not quite from the first, but as soon as 
 I saw that ring on her finger." 
 
 " She did not wear her ring." 
 
 " Excuse me; I noticed it particularly, and 
 thought how out of keeping it was with 
 other parts of her toilette. Emeralds " 
 Here Bellmonte looked up with a broad 
 grin of wonder, and then exploded into 
 hearty laughter. 
 
 " Why, old man, what are you dreaming 
 about ? " he cried. " You've got hold of the 
 wrong woman. It isn't Sib ; Lord, no !
 
 48 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 To -day is her birthday, and I gave May 
 that ring to give her for a present. That's 
 why she wore it. Poor little May daren't 
 wear hers," he added dejectedly. 
 
 " Let us have no half-confidences now," 
 said Drummond, picking up the weed which 
 had fallen from his lips at this second sur- 
 prise. " Are you married ? " 
 
 " No ; upon my honour, no. It isn't 
 that sort of ring ; only an engagement one, 
 you know ; but if the uncle saw it, all the 
 fat would be in the fire. She wears it round 
 her neck, poor darling. And you thought 
 it was Sib ? Ha, ha ! Sib wouldn't have 
 a stupid fellow like me." 
 
 It is better to admit a mistake which has 
 been hastily made than to confess one has 
 deliberated, been right, and then gone 
 wrong ; so Mr. Drummond allowed himself 
 to be laughed at without explanation. He
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 49 
 
 felt a little sore, however. It began to 
 dawn upon him that baby-face had got the 
 best of him in their jumping match, and 
 that, perhaps, she was a clever woman too. 
 Was it idle chatter with which she had 
 baulked his questions about her uncle ? or 
 skilful evasion ? He felt a little sore, as a 
 man of his temper always does feel when he 
 thinks he has been taken in ; but a salve of 
 consolation came with the thought that Sib 
 Sib of the grand, pale face, which had 
 softened was free. 
 
 "It makes little difference," he said at 
 last, " which of them it is. The objection- 
 able features of the case apply to either, and 
 to both, alike. They are not gentlewomen ; 
 they have a disreputable relation ; and they 
 allowed you to make their acquaintance in 
 a manner which is considered, to say the 
 least of it, objectionable, by the class in
 
 50 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 which a man of your position should seek a 
 wife." 
 
 "She was very angry, I tell you," Arthur 
 broke in ; " she would not speak to me at 
 all for a long time." 
 
 " But ended by making your acquaintance, 
 and accepting your proposal. Now look 
 here, Arthur. My father was a gentleman 
 by birth, by education, by profession. He 
 was a tutor to Lord Satby's son the present 
 Earl when he fell in love with my mother, 
 and he married her against the consent of 
 your grandfather. If he had not been a 
 clergyman, your father's elder brother, who 
 had old-fashioned ideas about duelling, 
 would have shot him. He was poor 
 that was all they could say against him, and 
 they left him so. Not that he wanted their 
 help. He has done without that. They 
 turned their backs upon daughter and sister,
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH \ 51 
 
 and they do so still. Our intimacy is a 
 mere accident. They left my poor mother, 
 daintily nurtured, delicate as she was, to 
 all the sordid cares of want ; and worse 
 still, to the repinings which would have 
 cankered in the breast of a less good woman, 
 and undermined her wifely duty. Think of 
 it ; and if this were the measure meted to a 
 daughter for marrying a gentleman and a 
 clergyman, what would be done about an 
 only son who took Tom Tyrell's niece to 
 wife?" 
 
 "Well, it all came right. Your mother 
 was happy. Your father pulled through. 
 Why shouldn't I ? " asked young Bellmonte. 
 
 " Have you his powers to pull with ? 
 What can you do ? " Here the proud lip 
 went up again. 
 
 " I shall have Garcin." 
 
 " Are you quite sure of that ? "
 
 52 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " A nice question from a lawyer ! Am I 
 not the only son ? " 
 
 " There is an entail, then." 
 
 "Why, of course!" 
 
 " There's no ' of course ' about it. Your 
 father succeeded his elder brother what 
 was his name ? " 
 
 " George." 
 
 " Didn't he leave a will ? " 
 
 " Yes, but he had nothing to leave. My 
 father had to pay the legacies out of his own 
 money. He wasn't obliged to do so, but he 
 did. He told me all about it when I came 
 of age. I have nothing but what he allows 
 me now, but he cannot, if he would, cut me 
 out of Garcin. 
 
 " Oh ! if you're going to wait for 
 that," said Drummond, "I have nothing 
 more to remark. Your father may live 
 twenty years probably will. In twenty
 
 A FOOL Ofl A VILLAIN WHICH ? 53 
 
 weeks you will have got tired of this 
 folly." 
 
 " I don't grudge my father an hour of 
 his life, and I will not waste the best years 
 of mine and hers waiting for dead men's 
 shoes. I shall try and get Sir Alexander's 
 consent. I hope he will give it. If he does 
 not we shall marry without it, and get on 
 as well as we can. 
 
 " Do I understand that you have no inde- 
 pendent means whatever till you come in 
 for Garcin ? " 
 
 " That is so." 
 
 " Then how do you hope to get on at all ? 
 Live on post obits at three hundred per cent., 
 and let the Jews eat your cake before you 
 get it ? " 
 
 " I detest the idea of post obits," said the 
 Huzzar heartily. 
 
 " Well, I respect you for that ; but how
 
 54 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 else are you to get on, eh ? Can you keep 
 a wife on the pay of a sub-lieutenant of 
 Huzzars ? You can't keep yourself upon it. 
 Will you exchange into a West India 
 regiment, and see her die of yellow fever ? 
 How about the children ? Get on as well as 
 you can, indeed ! I don't say you haven't 
 the will, Arthur, but where's the way ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I am not quite such an idiot as 
 you think," said the downcast lover. "If 
 the worst came to the worst I could do lots 
 of things." 
 
 "Yes, you can play a good game at 
 billiards, and might get a marker's place 
 somewhere, in a club. And you can shoot. 
 There are people who keep shooting game- 
 keepers, and you would soon learn to set 
 traps for vermin, and not mind, watching 
 out at night. With your military connec- 
 tion you might even set up as a commission
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH ? 55 
 
 agent in wine and cigars. Don't look fierce. 
 I'm talking sense. It is easy to say ' I could 
 do lots of things.' What are they ? " 
 
 " I can keep my word to the girl I love 
 Drummond that's one of them." 
 
 (Drummond shrugged his shoulders.) 
 
 " I have told May that I am dependent 
 upon my father as long as he lives ; and if 
 she runs the risk I should be a cur to shirk 
 it." 
 
 " She has nothing to risk that I can see," 
 Drummond retorted. " She can't be worse 
 off than she is, otherwise I should say 
 you have no right to let her brave any 
 risk." 
 
 " Now I have you. What did your own 
 father do ? " 
 
 " I will not judge my father." 
 
 " No ; but you don't hesitate to set mine 
 down as a brute."
 
 56 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " I am stating as an abstract proposition 
 that no man has the right to make any 
 woman run the risk of poverty, and all that 
 poverty implies, because she loves him. I 
 am surmising what may be, by the light of 
 what has been." 
 
 " Talking like a book." 
 
 " You can sneer as much as you like, 
 Arthur, but when a fellow's only answer is 
 a scoff, it is time to shut up the discussion. 
 The girl is very pretty, very fascinating, 
 and I daresay thinks herself very deeply 
 in love. You are about as likely to take 
 advice either of you as a canary bird is 
 to smoke a pipe. Still I will advise, for I 
 think it is my duty. Get leave ; come up 
 to town ; look about you ; get from under 
 the spell ; and you will come to me before 
 this day year, and thank me for what I have 
 said to-night."
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH? 57 
 
 " I thank you for it now, old man, because 
 you mean well, but " 
 
 " Come up to town, Arthur," Drummond 
 repeated. "Have a fling like others, and 
 cool your young blood. There are lots 
 of girls just as pretty as Miss Fairfax 
 who" 
 
 " Hush ! d it, Drummond, stop that, or 
 we shall quarrel," broke out Arthur hotly. 
 " Don't I tell you that I love her. You 
 don't know what love for a pure woman is, 
 or you wouldn't talk of flings in London ! " 
 
 " Go your own way, then." 
 
 " I mean to do so. There is one piece of 
 advice that you can give me, and I should 
 be obliged to you for it, if you will give it 
 as a lawyer." 
 
 "What is it?' 1 
 
 " If we were to get married without his 
 consent, would it be all right in law."
 
 58 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "By ' his consent ' do you mean your 
 father's ? " 
 
 "No, the other one Tyrell's." 
 
 " She is under age ? " 
 
 " Just eighteen." 
 
 " Poor child ! No. I am afraid you 
 would have to consult Mr. Tyrell." 
 
 "That's an awful bore." 
 
 " You think he would object ? " 
 
 " I am almost sure he would ; he hates 
 soldiers like poison. He'd make a row 
 with my father in a moment if he knew. 
 Suppose we ran away to Scotland what 
 then?" 
 
 " I am not up in Scotch marriage law, so 
 I cannot say," Drummond replied. " Isn't 
 it time to go to bed? The river air has 
 made me sleepy." 
 
 " All this is in strict confidence, Norman." 
 
 " Oh, of course."
 
 A FOOL OR A VILLAIN WHICH? 59 
 
 Before Norman Drummond closed his eyes 
 that night a vision passed before them. Sir 
 Alexander Bellmonte was dead, and his son 
 did not reign in his place. He the waking 
 dreamer was lord of Garcin Hall, member 
 for the county, high sheriff, a possible peer 
 of the realm ! And amidst all his glories 
 he looked round to see if a pair of hazel 
 eyes were smiling on him. They were 
 smiling. He did not seek to think how 
 this could come about, or to account for 
 what had become of the true heir, and baby- 
 face with the golden curls. That did not 
 seem to matter.
 
 60 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1 KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 
 
 "!T cannot be nine o'clock," cried May 
 Fairfax, as she kissed her hand after the 
 receding boat. 
 
 " It is nine o'clock," Sib replied with a 
 shudder of alarm, and they ran. 
 
 They ran till they were out of breath ; 
 then they walked, the pace getting faster 
 and faster till it broke into a run again 
 and soon, little spurts of running sand- 
 wiched between spells of walking, to such 
 refrains as " May ! do come along," and like 
 ejaculations from poor anxious Sib. 
 
 They passed across a dewy meadow,
 
 T KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 61 
 
 climbed a fence, scudded along a footpath 
 and a lane, made a short cut through a 
 brickfield, and panted into a coaly street 
 which led to the manufacturing suburb of 
 Minsterton. There they reduced their pace, 
 not that their hurry was over, but because 
 it would not do to show it so near home. 
 For the last hundred yards or so they 
 sauntered as though they had all night 
 before them. Sib searched her pocket 
 leisurely for the key a huge iron thing 
 weighing about half a pound with which 
 she opened the door of a large red brick 
 house, which looked as though it had once 
 belonged to a respectable street, but had got 
 into disgrace and been sent away into the 
 corner, as it were for punishment. 
 
 After some search for the matches, which 
 May remembered she had upset upstairs 
 somewhere before they went out, a naked
 
 62 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 bee of gas was lighted, and disclosed two 
 spacious rooms divided by folding - doors, 
 and curiously furnished. A faded paper 
 hung in rags from walls on which seven 
 large pier-glasses, in elaborate gilt frames, 
 shone. There were carved oak side-boards, 
 pink satin lounges, and four Windsor chairs 
 standing round a deal table. Two carpets 
 which did not fit either room, or match 
 each other, were stretched loosely on the 
 floor. In the front room there was an 
 ormolu chandelier having twenty-five lights, 
 and not one of them with a shade. Also a 
 large buhl cabinet standing on three legs 
 and a brick. What with clocks, bronzes, 
 unhung pictures, and disabled chairs, the 
 back room looked like a broker's shop ; and 
 indeed Mr. Thomas Tyrell was a sort of 
 broker, as will hereafter appear. 
 
 The one bee of gas, having its pipe bruised
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 63 
 
 and rusty, panted and spluttered as though 
 it too were out of breath. Sib sank wearily 
 into one of the Windsor chairs, and heaved 
 a deep sigh. 
 
 " One more awful risk," laughed May, 
 taking off her hat, " and no one hurt." 
 
 " I hadn't an idea it was so late," Sib 
 gasped; "oh, May, if he had got back 
 first?" 
 
 " Well, he has not, so what is the good of 
 looking frightened. Let us put something 
 out to make believe we have had tea here." 
 
 In the kitchen they found the breakfast 
 things huddled together unwashed, just as 
 they had been left from the morning. 
 
 " That will do splendidly," said May, 
 scattering some plates and dishes on the 
 table. " Now if you would only look a 
 little less miserable." 
 
 " I am miserable, dear."
 
 64 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " What about me ? " 
 
 " Yes, May, about you. When is this to 
 end, and how is it to end ? " 
 
 " When ? very soon. How ? at a wed- 
 ding. Where? in a church. There's one 
 more answer than you wanted, you dear old 
 croak ! So having settled the how, the 
 when, and the where, do cheer up ; I'm not 
 a bit miserable about myself, so do not weep 
 for me. I'm going to ' walk in silk attire 
 and siller hae to spare,' for no one more 
 than you. You are to live with us, Sib, till 
 you marry." 
 
 "Did he say anything more to you to- 
 day?" 
 
 " About your living with us ? " 
 
 " No, no, never mind me ; about your 
 marriage ? " 
 
 " Lots. He's going to take that cousin of 
 his into our confidence. Do you know, Sib,
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 65 
 
 you and he would make a splendid pair ; you 
 are both so prim and wise." 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! Please don't jest. 
 Think what an awful responsibility will 
 rest on me if anything should go wrong." 
 
 " Everything will go all right," said May ; 
 "but, Sib, dear" kneeling by her side and 
 putting both arms around her "no one 
 shall hold you responsible for what I have 
 done or may do. I'm going to write uncle 
 a letter saying that you have always snubbed 
 and scolded me about Arthur, and done all 
 you could to keep him off; and that you 
 have gone out with us only for my sake, 
 because I would go anyhow, and how you 
 have begged and prayed me every time to 
 let it be the last, and threatened to tell, and 
 all sorts of dreadful things if I met him 
 alone. I never have met him alone, Sib, 
 
 you know that ; don't you ? Well, I'm going 
 I. 5
 
 66 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 to take all the blame on myself to others, 
 but between ourselves, you best and dearest ! 
 I shall never cease to admit that all my 
 happiness is your work. Oh, Sib ! if it hadn't 
 been for you I should have done such silly 
 things. He would not respect me as he 
 does if I had not listened to you. Sib, 
 would you marry a man who didn't respect 
 you?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " Not if you loved him ever so much ? " 
 
 "I would not love a man who did not 
 respect me." 
 
 " Suppose you couldn't help it ? " 
 
 " I would help it," 
 
 " Then you put respect higher than love ? " 
 
 " I think that unless there is respect there 
 cannot be love," said Sib. 
 
 " Suppose," May asked gravely, " suppose 
 a man said he loved you and asked you to
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 67 
 
 marry him, and kissed you before you said 
 yes?" 
 
 " It might be a great insult, and it might 
 be as I daresay it was in the instance you 
 have in mind very pardonable," Sib replied, 
 smiling for the first time, and caressing the 
 bright curls which were tangled against her 
 bosom. " One can look ' yes/ May." 
 
 "Oh, I did not look at him at all; I 
 couldn't just then. Was it wrong? Oughtn't 
 he to have asked leave first ? " 
 
 " I don't think they generally ask leave," 
 Sib replied demurely. " It would be rather 
 awkward for us if they did, unless we really 
 meant to say ' No.' I suppose there is some 
 sort of daring it would be unmaidenly to 
 encourage, but which we are not expected 
 to resent. So, to go back to your question, 
 I acquit Arthur of any disrespect, so 
 far."
 
 68 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 May took the caressing hand and kissed 
 it. Then with a start : 
 
 "Oh, Sib the ring!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 ' " If uncle sees it, and asks questions ? " 
 
 " I shall say it is a birthday present." 
 
 " He'll ask who gave it ? " 
 
 " And I shall decline to answer." 
 
 " Oh, Sib ! for my sake." 
 
 " Hasn't he told me a hundred times that 
 I can do what I like, and he does not care a 
 straw what becomes of me ? " 
 
 " He does not mean it." 
 
 " He does. He hates me. He has me 
 here simply because he cannot do without 
 me, and I stay for your sake, and because I 
 know that I earn all he gives me. So we are 
 quits ; but as I find that the more I give way 
 the worse I am treated, I have made up my 
 mind not to stand any more bullying."
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 69 
 
 "If if you had a row, and he were to 
 turn you out now, oh, Sib ! " 
 
 " It would be a good thing for us all, dear 
 May. This affair of yours and Arthur's 
 must be brought to a point, and I believe 
 hush ! That's uncle." 
 
 Tom Tyrell the famous, the infamous, 
 the notorious, the celebrated, according to 
 the lights in which his career was regarded 
 was a tall, shrunken man, dressed in seedy 
 black, with a face like a fox. When away 
 from his home he was like a fox who had 
 passed a pleasant night in some poultry- 
 yard. As soon as his own door closed behind 
 him, he assumed the appearance of a fox 
 who had had misfortunes. His favourite 
 niece, May, sprang forward to greet him, and 
 was given the tip of his left ear to kiss. He 
 growled something in the direction of Sib, 
 lighted a pipe, mixed himself a glass of gin
 
 70 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 and water, and sat down (apparently) to 
 sulk. 
 
 " Had a pleasant day at Sheffield, uncle ? " 
 asked May cheerfully. 
 
 " I always do, don't I ? " he sneered. 
 
 "Then why go?" 
 
 He looked at her, and the expression of 
 the other fox came over his face for a 
 moment. When he was going to be dis- 
 agreeable he always opened his eyes as wide 
 as he could, curled up his lip as though he 
 were going to play the cornet, and began 
 slowly : " Because I choose," he replied. 
 " I suppose I can go where I like, and you 
 haven't a patent for being disagreeable. I'm 
 obliged to put up with others besides you. 
 I've done one good thing anyhow got a 
 place for her," with a jerk of his head 
 towards Sib. 
 
 " Not as a governess," she said gently,
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 7l 
 
 from where she stood. " I cannot 
 teach." 
 
 " A d nice confession, after all the 
 money that's been spent on your education." 
 
 "Learning is one thing, and teaching is 
 another," Sibyl said, advancing and facing 
 him. " I am sorry to say that I have not 
 patience enough to teach children." 
 
 "But you've cheek enough to try and 
 teach their parents ! That's what the Gay- 
 thornes turned you away for." 
 
 "I certainly did attempt to make Mr. 
 Gaythorue understand how a gentlewoman 
 should be treated," Sib replied ; " and as he 
 had had so little practice in the matter, it 
 was a difficult task." 
 
 " All d fine ; but if he'd been some 
 grand lord, living on land robbed from the 
 people, instead of what he is a man who 
 has made himself, and can buy up a score
 
 72 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 of titled rakes and imbeciles you'd have 
 taken it all down like so much honey. I 
 know you and your d stuck-up ways ; 
 and this is the last time I'll lift my finger 
 to help you. You are not worth helping. 
 Who are you that you should sneer at 
 Gaythorne? If it weren't for such as he, 
 the country would have gone to the devil 
 long ago." 
 
 " Poor country ! " sighed Sibyl. 
 
 "Hold your d sneering tongue. You 
 always try to put me in a rage, and then 
 you complain that I swear at you." 
 
 " I think you swore at me before Mr. 
 Gaythorne's name was mentioned," said Sib 
 quietly. 
 
 " And I shall do it again. It is not out 
 of any love for you that I put myself under 
 an obligation to serve you, and so I tell you. 
 I want to get rid of you and your cursed
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 73 
 
 sneering face, that's all. There's a place for 
 you at the railway refreshment-rooms, and 
 you can take it or leave it as you please ; 
 only if you do leave it, you can clear out 
 of here." 
 
 " A place at the refreshment-rooms ! " cried 
 May. " How delightful ! oh, Sib, fancy ! 
 You'd be on the free list with the Banbury 
 cakes, and the butter-scotch, and the pork- 
 pies, and all the goodie - goodies ! And 
 you'll give me lots won't you ? Uncle, 
 I think it was very unkind of you not to 
 have given the place to me. Can't I go 
 too?" 
 
 " What ! and have every bagman cracking 
 his jokes at you; and those d puppies 
 from the Barracks loafing about, and 
 leering ; following you home perhaps ; 
 
 no." 
 
 " If it's good enough for Sib, it's good
 
 /* PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 enough for me," said the pet niece, "and, 
 uncle; if" 
 
 "Hush, dear," Sib interrupted. "Your 
 uncle is right. You are too young and too 
 pretty for a waitress. Am I to be paid ? " 
 this to Tom Tyrell. 
 
 "A pound a week and your food." 
 
 " Sib, its perfect ! " May cried, dropping 
 her hands. "The bagmen won't dare to 
 chaff you; and think of the tarts ! " 
 
 " You've got to have a black silk dress to 
 start with," growled Tyrell, " and I suppose 
 I shall have to pay for that." 
 
 " I will repay you, Sir," Sib assured him 
 coldly. " Do they find me with lodging ? " 
 
 " No, they don't. What else do you 
 want ? A carriage to go to your work 
 in, and a servant to help you draw the 
 beer?" 
 
 "I will take the situation," said Sib;
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. /5 
 
 "and I daresay I can find a room some- 
 where near my " 
 
 " You will sleep here as usual," May 
 interrupted, looking her uncle full in the 
 face, "and I will do all the house-work I 
 will. I shirked it before, because I hated 
 your being away altogether. I don't mind 
 your spending the day with the butter- 
 scotch. If you don't promise to come home 
 every night, I'll go and draw the beer for 
 you myself, and be leered at by the (ahemed) 
 puppies from the barracks." 
 
 " Well, so that she's out of my way she 
 can keep her bed/' Tyrell replied sulkily. 
 " She will have to be out of it by seven in 
 the morning though, and won't see it again 
 till after ten at night. A pound a week 
 isn't to be got for nothing. She won't 
 trouble me much. If she does " 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Mr. Tyrell," Sib replied
 
 76 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 firmly. "I accept your hospitality for 
 May's sake, providing that I pay for it. I 
 have paid for it with my work ; I will pay 
 money hereafter. We shall meet very 
 seldom ; not at all if I can help it. I thank 
 you for getting me the place, and that 
 shall be my only obligation. I think I can 
 get credit, without troubling you for the 
 dress." 
 
 " So it seems," he snapped. " That ring 
 would pawn for the price of ten silk dresses. 
 You II take care of yourself; but don't you 
 let me catch you teaching May how to get 
 emerald rings that's all ! " Here the un- 
 pleasant fox peeped out, and showed his 
 teeth. 
 
 Sib made no reply, and May hastened to 
 change the subject. 
 
 "Why, what a dear old influential party 
 it is," she said, patting the foxy face. "How
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 77 
 
 did you manage to get Sib this nice employ- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " That's my business." 
 
 "If you don't tell me I'll ask Mr. 
 Blundell." 
 
 "Blundell's an ass." 
 
 " But he keeps the refreshment-rooms, 
 and will know why he I don't believe you 
 had anything to do with it, uncle. I 
 believe that Mr. Blundell has taken a fancy 
 to Sib, and begged for her to come, and 
 would have asked her himself. Is he 
 married ? Oh, what fun it would be if he 
 were in love with Sib ! " 
 
 "Rubbish!" Tyrell replied. "He has a 
 wife and six children. He wants to be an 
 alderman ; now do you see ? " 
 
 " Sib can't make him an alderman." 
 " But I can if I like. He's working to 
 get my influence in this ward ; that's what
 
 78 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 he's after! So this morning he asked me 
 if I knew of any young lady that would 
 like to serve at his bar young lady, if you 
 please ! and he thinks to get over me with 
 gammon like that." 
 
 " Now, why could not you have said so 
 at first, instead of growling ' that's my busi- 
 ness ' ? " coaxed May. " Why will you be 
 always grumpy at home, and call people 
 names ? and why should you run down the 
 place you got for Sib, and give it so un- 
 graciously; you bad old bear? You know 
 that it is a nice place, and that there are 
 nice bagmen, and as for officers " 
 
 "D them all," shouted Tom Tyrell, 
 " for a set of idle, conceited, ignorant up- 
 starts. It sets my blood boiling to hear the 
 way they speak to their men. It makes me 
 savage to see men put up with their cursed 
 tyranny."
 
 I KNOW WHAT 1 KNOW. 79 
 
 " Don't you talk of tyranny, uncle ; look 
 how you treat Sib." 
 
 " Please leave me out of the discussion, 
 May," Sib pleaded. 
 
 " I want no discussion, and I'll have 
 none," shouted Tyrell, thumping the table ; 
 " and I'm not going to be snapped up and 
 jeered down in my own house for any one. 
 I am not a soldier ; but there are soldiers 
 who think as I do, and the time's coming, 
 you mark my words ! when 1 the army will 
 elect its own officers. Where will your fine 
 gentlemen be then ? You with the emerald 
 ring, turn down your upper lip, and answer 
 that." 
 
 " I would much rather not." 
 
 "By God, you shall! If you want to 
 keep out of it, cease your sneering." 
 
 " If I sneered it was quite involuntary," 
 Sib replied.
 
 80 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "That makes it worse. That's trying 
 to make me out a fool without giving me 
 a chance of answering. I wont stand it 
 (another thump) from you or any one ; I'll 
 have an answer. Where will youx gentlemen 
 be then?" 
 
 " In their graves," said Sib, " with a 
 ruined nation for their monument." 
 
 " So you've got the heroics bad," observed 
 her uncle, sipping his gin and water. " Do 
 you have them often ? " 
 
 " Am I to answer that ? " 
 
 " No ; you can't talk sense, and so you'd 
 better hold your tongue." 
 
 " She can talk sense, uncle, and she has," 
 May cut in warmly ; " and t she's got the 
 better of you, and it's you who are talking 
 nonsense. The idea of soldiers electing their 
 officers. Why they might elect you, ha, ha, 
 ha ! Fancy you a colonel ! Why you don't
 
 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW. 81 
 
 know ' fours about' from a lump of pipeclay! 
 Does he, Sib?" 
 
 " I know what I know/' he growled. 
 Then that other fox appeared gradually, till 
 the growl is lost in a grin. " Fours about," 
 he repeated. " Four's two too many ; halve 
 it, and perhaps I'm there. Perhaps I know 
 what two's about." 
 
 Sib drew a long breath, and her delicate 
 nostrils quivered, but she made no other 
 sign. 
 
 " 1 am tired," she said, in a steady voice, 
 " and shall go to bed. Will you come, May ? " 
 
 " Not just yet ; it's early. Wait a little." 
 
 " Let her go if she wants," said Tyrell, 
 still grinning over his joke. " She's no 
 company for any one. Let her go, and do 
 you get the tobacco, and mix me another 
 glass. Perhaps we can have some pleasant 
 
 talk when she's gone." 
 
 i. 6
 
 82 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "I'll be up before you are asleep, dear," 
 said May, bottle in hand, "but kiss me now, 
 in case I find you in the land of Nod." 
 Then in a whisper ; "I must get him into a 
 good temper ; don't wait up for me."
 
 SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDEK." 83 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 " SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 
 
 As the door closed behind Sibyl, a note- 
 able change came over May Fairfax. She 
 hardened all over. The softness went out 
 of her face, and the light out of her eyes ; 
 even her lithe, girlish figure became rigid. 
 When she spoke her voice was low and sad. 
 She looked ten years older than when she 
 joked about the Banbury cakes ; but a world 
 of power had come out. Tom Tyrell was 
 not surprised at the metamorphosis; perhaps 
 he had seen it before. He stiffened his gin 
 and water; and, "well," he began, thrusting 
 his hands deep into his pockets, and throwing
 
 84 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 out his legs as far as they will go, with 
 the air of a man who is in for something 
 disagreeable, and is bound to go through 
 with it. " Well what now ? " 
 
 "This," replied May, standing before him ; 
 " you are too hard on Sibyl." 
 
 " I hate her ! " 
 
 " Naturally ; because you are constantly 
 injuring her. But you need not show it so 
 much. She is a dear, warm-hearted, loyal 
 woman ; and the only thing I am afraid of 
 in all this business is my conduct towards 
 her deceiving her as I do. I hate myself 
 for it, and I'm sure it will bring me bad 
 luck. I've half a mind to tell her the 
 truth." 
 
 " If you do," answered Tyrell, " she'll put 
 on her heroics and spoil everything. Let 
 her alone, and tell me what you did to- 
 day."
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 85 
 
 " We went up the river in a boat, walked 
 in the woods, had tea at the Cat and Fiddle, 
 and rowed back by moonlight." 
 
 " Quite romantic. Bah ! You know I 
 don't care a curse where you went. What 
 did you do" 
 
 "Pretty much, I suppose, what other 
 lovers " the last word came out with a 
 little scoffing laugh "do." 
 
 " Does he kiss you 1 " 
 
 " Why of course he kisses me." 
 
 "D him!" 
 
 If Tom Tyrell had looked her in the face 
 when he asked that question, and had seen 
 her manner of answering it, he might have 
 spared himself that curse. No blush, no 
 conscious smile, no shade of pain passed 
 over her beautiful young face. If she had 
 been asked, " does he smoke ? " she could 
 not have replied more calmly. Tom Tyrell
 
 86 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 did not lift up his head as he spoke. He 
 put his question, and hurled his curse at a 
 hole in the ragged hearth-rug. 
 
 " Go on," he growled. " You know well 
 enough what I want to be told. Leave the 
 loverising and the kissing nonsense out, and 
 come to business." 
 
 "He brought his cousin, Mr. Norman 
 Drummond, with him as we had arranged," 
 May replied ; " one of those languid super- 
 cilious gentlemen you are so fond of; but 
 rather good-looking, and in his own opinion 
 exceedingly clever. " He tried " here a 
 faint smile twitched at the hardened lip 
 " to pump me about my family ; meaning 
 you. Why of course not ! Please don't 
 interrupt. He got nothing for his pains. 
 / pumped him, and got all I wanted. It 
 is true that Arthur is dependent upon his 
 father."
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 87 
 
 "That's bad news." 
 
 "It is true," she went on, not heeding 
 the interruption, "that Sir Alexander is 
 just what we were told ; a proud, cold, 
 stupid aristocrat. I can shut my eyes and 
 see him. He is tall and thin, with a hook 
 nose, a pink face, and white hair. He has 
 sixteen pairs of boots, which he wears in 
 turn, and a drawerful of muslin neckties, 
 all of the same pattern, and all ironed stiff 
 to a quarter of an inch. He holds himself 
 bolt upright when he talks, and says ' yeas 
 yeas/ when he has done. He thinks he 
 is awfully wise and strong-minded, and 
 before I have known him six weeks, I'll 
 turn him round that" meaning her little 
 finger, which she held up, alone, in the air. 
 
 The May Fairfax of ten minutes ago 
 would have made this speech with such ges- 
 tures of imitation, and such fun rippling
 
 88 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 over her face and ringing in her voice, that 
 even grim Tom Tyrell could not have kept 
 from laughter. She spoke it now with 
 a deliberate bitterness, which he, sharp- 
 tongued as he was, envied her. 
 
 " You must get at him first," he said. 
 " It's all nonsense talking about twisting 
 him round your finger, with half England 
 between you. That's an operation which 
 requires close quarters, my girl." 
 
 " I intend to come to close quarters," she 
 answered, with a meaning nod. 
 
 " Well, anything's better than shilly- 
 shallying about as you've been doing for 
 the last month." 
 
 "There has been no shilly-shally. You 
 told me to make Arthur write me something 
 that would fix him to his offer of marriage. 
 I had piles of letters full of love, but that 
 you said was not enough. I could not ask
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 89 
 
 him to 'Jix' himself as you call it. I had 
 to wait, and get what we want indirectly." 
 
 " Then you have got it ? " 
 
 " I have. In his letter, arranging our 
 excursion of to-day, he writes, ' I think the 
 only thing we can do is to run away to 
 Scotland, and be married there. Will you 
 do that ? ' and then he goes off into non- 
 sense, and signs himself at the end, 'Your 
 husband to be.' " 
 
 " That's good," said Tom Tyrell, rubbing 
 his hands slowly together "good so far. 
 It's a promise, clear ; but I don't like Scotch 
 marriages. Why not be married here ? " 
 
 "Because," May replied, "in the first 
 place that would involve your consent, 
 which (if things go as I expect) would ruin 
 me." 
 
 It was to be observed that she abstained 
 from the we and us, which people about to
 
 90 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 marry are so fond of using, and discounted 
 the future in the first person singular. 
 
 "I have been thinking it all over care- 
 fully," she continued, " and find that I have 
 four choices of what to do. First, get the 
 old man's consent, and marry like a respect- 
 able girl. Second, if he refuse as he is 
 sure to do ; wait till he dies. Third, marry 
 on the sly, and keep it secret till I am Lady 
 Bellmonte. Fourth, marry on the sly, and 
 beg pardon, and be forgiven. It would be 
 very nice to have everything go smooth and 
 respectable," said May, with a sigh, "but 
 I'm afraid that is not possible. It would 
 be too risky even to try it ; for if Sir 
 Alexander were asked and refused, I should 
 be worse off than I am now. But I'm not 
 going to wait. I shall marry Arthur on the 
 sly, and the only real question is shall it 
 be kept secret till he comes in for his
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 91 
 
 property, or shall I make Mm confess it at 
 once, and beg pardon ? " 
 
 "You leave out 'and be forgiven' this 
 time," her uncle observed. " If the old man be 
 what you take him for, he will never see you. 
 You'll never get a chance of fooling him." 
 
 " If I were only a poor girl, perhaps I 
 shouldn't, but I've a power in reserve that 
 will bring him to terms." 
 
 " Your pretty face ? " 
 
 " No. Your bad character." 
 
 "That's a d nice speech to make," 
 
 shouted Tom Tyrell. " How dare " 
 
 "Hush! I'd rather you did not swear; I'm 
 not Sib, you know. We have to understand 
 each other, and there's no use in mincing 
 matters. You have a bad character. Do 
 you suppose I do not read the newspapers ? 
 Do you suppose I have not asked myself 
 why no one ever comes to this house ?
 
 92 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Outside it I haven't a friend, or even a 
 visitor. I used to pick up chance acquaint- 
 ances with girls at the band, or on the river, 
 and made myself nice to them, and they 
 promised to come and see me, and we were 
 sworn friends till they went home and found 
 out who I was. I've given that up long 
 ago. It's no use. I'm young, I'm pretty, I 
 can be merry when I like. I've committed 
 no crime ; but I'm Tom Tyrell's niece ! 
 That's enough to send me to Coventry," she 
 said, bitterly. "Well, be it so," with a 
 proud toss of her head. " They make the 
 worst of it against me ; why shouldn't I 
 make the best of it for myself ? " 
 
 "If that's your game," said her uncle, 
 white with suppressed anger, "you can go 
 on ; I'm not the only bad egg in the family. 
 There's your precious Sib's father why not 
 bring him in ? He's well known at Garcia.
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 93 
 
 Have a shot at your other uncle the 
 drunken poacher, the gipsy thief, the fellow 
 who beats his wife, neglects his daughter, 
 and crippled his son. What have you to 
 say about him ? " 
 
 "Nothing; please keep your temper, uncle. 
 If what I'm saying annoys you I am sorry 
 for it. Let's get it over as quickly as we 
 can, and I think when I've done, you'll not 
 find it so bad. If I were only a poor girl 
 with an uncle who was not so so famous, 
 as you are, and married Arthur Bellmonte 
 without the consent of his family, it is very 
 likely that they would simply ignore my 
 existence, and, as you say, not give me a 
 chance of getting round them. They cannot 
 ignore Tom Tyrell's niece, if Tom Tyrell will 
 do as she asks him ? " 
 
 "Well," replied he, somewhat mollified, 
 " what do you want me to do ? "
 
 94 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " We will be married without saying a 
 word to the Bellmontes, that's settled. Now 
 attend. If we had your consent and were 
 married here, what would they say ? The 
 poor foolish boy that's what they'd call 
 him the poor foolish boy had been en- 
 trapped by that never mind what Tom 
 Tyrell and the artful owner of this never 
 mind what face, and every one would be 
 down upon us as adventurers, intriguers, and 
 heaven knows what else. The Bellmontes 
 would have the sympathy of all their class, 
 and be encouraged to treat us as badly as 
 possible, as a matter of principle. Those 
 sort of people are always doing mean things 
 on principle. That won't do. We run away 
 and get married. Runaways from you, 
 understand ; because you are the Apostle of 
 Labour, because you would never consent to 
 my becoming the wife of an officer a tool
 
 " SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 95 
 
 of tyranny, an aristocrat, a thief" she 
 smiled as she repeated his favourite formula 
 " of the land which ought to belong to 
 the people. You will be the first to hear 
 of my disobedience, my ingratitude, and it 
 is you who are hurt and outraged by it, and 
 indignant so indignant. You write to Sir 
 Alexander, or better still, you go to him, 
 and are eloquent you may swear as much 
 as you like about your wrongs, and threaten 
 to make them known all round the compass. 
 How does that sound ? How would those 
 rich Tory Bellmontes like to have it pub- 
 lished that Radical Tom Tyrell feels himself 
 insulted by their connection \ They'll come 
 to terms, uncle, I'm sure of it. They'll beg 
 you to hold your tongue, and they'll put it 
 or you can put it for them thus. As you 
 are vexed about the marriage your name 
 isn't to appear. They are not to claim
 
 96 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 any relationship with you when the notice 
 goes into the papers. I am the daughter of 
 the late Charles Fairfax, Esquire. Tom 
 Tyrell has nothing to do with any of us." 
 
 " By which you mean/' he said bitterly, 
 " that none of you will have anything to do 
 with Tom Tyrell." 
 
 " Uncle, do you love me ? " The beautiful 
 young face was still hard, but the voice had 
 a slight quiver in it. 
 
 " I suppose I do," he muttered, "or I 
 wouldn't have stood all this." 
 
 " Stand a little more. You love power. 
 To incite, to lead, to impose your will on 
 others is your delight. You'd sooner rule 
 in hell than serve in heaven. You'd sooner 
 lead a tribe of Hottentots than follow the 
 bench of Bishops, you know you would ! 
 Do you suppose that a woman a woman 
 with your blood in her veins isn't fond of
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO CTSTTENDER." 97 
 
 power too ? Think of the life I lead here ; 
 not a friend but Sib ; not one pleasure that 
 girls love ! I'm young, I'm pretty, I've had 
 a good education, and inherit some of your 
 cunning ways you dear old fox ! I could 
 get my own, and hold it too, if you would 
 only help. I could rule those Bellmontes, 
 every one of them, in six weeks, if I had but 
 a chance. Give it me, uncle." 
 
 "By God, May !" he exclaimed, "you ought 
 to have been a man. They'd have made you 
 an ambassador extraordinary in no time." 
 
 " Being a woman," she replied, " I am 
 content to live and die Lady Bellmonte of 
 Garcin." 
 
 " Ah ! If I made you a fine lady, you'd 
 soon forget all about your poor old uncle." 
 
 Tyrell had frequently replenished his gin 
 and water, and was so far overcome by it as 
 
 to be affectionate. 
 
 i. 7
 
 98 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "Not so," she said, kissing his forehead. 
 " Lady Bellmonte of Garcin will have 
 something settled upon her pin money, 
 don't they call it? to do what she likes 
 with ; and if her old uncle takes care of 
 her in that bargain we have been talking 
 about, see if she does not take care of him" 
 
 The other fox came into Tom TyrelFs 
 face, and he was a fox who had got at least 
 six young, fat, tender ducklings into a 
 corner, and no one was looking. 
 
 " And now," May continued, seating her- 
 self for the first time during this conference, 
 and filling up his pipe ; " now that we've 
 done with disagreeables let's talk of some- 
 thing pleasant. Tell me about my father." 
 
 " You think that'll be pleasant, do you ? " 
 
 " I hope so ; any how I ought to know 
 now" 
 
 " You'd like to be able to hedge him
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 99 
 
 against your uncle, eh ? Well you can ; he 
 was a gentleman, oh yes ! there's no doubt 
 about that. He was born a gentleman, and 
 bred a gentleman ; wore fine clothes and 
 
 drank good wine, and talked the d est 
 
 lardy-dardy out." 
 
 " What was he ? " 
 
 " An officer." 
 
 " In the army ? " asked May eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, in the army. It's odd to think of 
 it now," Tom Tyrell continued, half musing, 
 " but he certainly was an officer in the 
 army." 
 
 "What rank?" 
 
 " He was a captain when when he was 
 buried, and that was before you were born. 
 
 "Poor dear father!" She clasped her 
 hands, and tears filled her softened eyes. 
 " To think that he never saw me ! Did you 
 hate officers then, as you hate them now ? "
 
 100 PIOUS FRAUDS 
 
 "A good bit more I had more to do 
 with them." 
 
 "And you were angry with my poor 
 mother for marrying one." 
 
 " She was a fool," growled Tyrell ; " she 
 hadn't a quarter of your brains, or she'd 
 have taken better care of herself. It was a 
 good job for her she died when she did. 
 Now isn't it time for you to go to bed ? " 
 
 " I know," May went on, disregarding the 
 hint, " that Sib's mother took care of me for 
 a long time, and then you took care of Sib ; 
 but I don't at all understand." 
 
 " Don't try, my girl. If you shake your 
 family tree, you'll have something come 
 down on your head that will hurt you." 
 
 " Not on my father's account," said May 
 proudly, " and Aunt Cowper, my mother's 
 sister, and yours, has the tastes and appear- 
 ance of a gentlewoman."
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER." 101 
 
 " And the tongue of a devil." 
 
 "Arthur says she is highly respected 
 about Garcin." 
 
 " Why, you haven't been idiot enough to 
 own that she is connected with you ? " 
 
 " Of course not," May replied, with a 
 slight sneer. " I have not begun to think 
 yet how these Cowpers are to be managed. 
 Sib will do what I want, and her father 
 will do what she wants, so there is only 
 Aunt Milly in the way. Well, you see, with 
 thoroughbreds like the Bellmontes, wealth 
 and poverty that come by accident don't 
 count. Aunt Milly was born a gentlewoman, 
 so she can mend lace for a living without 
 losing caste, and Sir Alexander will take off 
 his hat to her as she crosses the Park. I 
 rather think that I shall be very affectionate 
 to Aunt Milly, and let her understand that 
 she is to be provided for elsewhere, /can't
 
 102 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 afford to have a lace-mender for my aunt. 
 As for Uncle George " 
 
 " Don't call that blackguard ' uncle] " 
 interposed Tyrell. 
 
 " He is my aunt's husband, and your 
 brother-in-law (Tom winced), and his being 
 bad does not do away with the relationship. 
 But he isn't bad, in a low way or in what 
 people think in a bad way don't you see ? 
 He's reckless, and dissipated, and in debt, 
 and all that, but Arthur says that he never 
 did anything that was disgraceful. It seems 
 that when Arthur was a boy, Uncle George 
 used to teach him to ride, and fish, and 
 shoot, and he was very fond of him. Arthur 
 says he had a great deal of good in him, and 
 might have been well off and happy if it 
 had not been for his wife." 
 
 " Just now you said she was highly 
 respected."
 
 "SO YOUNG AND SO UNTENDER," 103 
 
 " And you, that she had the tongue of 
 a devil. She must be a bad woman inside 
 for she hates Sib. I fancy that she is one 
 of those hypocrites who are all sweetness 
 to strangers, but full of gall and wormwood 
 for home use. There are Countesses like 
 that. She's bad, but she's not vulgar. Sib 
 takes after her father, and I'm sure he is a 
 good man at heart ; Sib says so." 
 
 " Sib be hanged. I tell you what it 
 is, May, you think a good deal too much 
 of that girl ; leave her out of this, or she'll 
 make a fool of you. Use your own wits 
 and mine ; and if Tom Tyrell can scare 
 those Bellmontes into recognizing you, drop 
 the whole lot of us." 
 
 " Not my father," May replied, resolutely. 
 
 " You can put it in the paper that you 
 are the daughter of the late Captain Fair- 
 fax ; that's enough ; and then drop him."
 
 104 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "Keally, uncle, your prejudice against 
 soldiers is absurd. Of course there are a lot 
 of conceited idle puppies in the army, as 
 there are in everything else ; but do you 
 suppose there are not many, many steady, 
 sturdy, honourable men in it too ? " 
 
 "Have it your own way. I stick to 
 mine. Whenever I see a red-coat I think 
 of a fool." 
 
 " Ours wear blue," laughed May.
 
 FAMILY HISTORY." 105 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " FAMILY HISTORY." 
 
 SHORTLY before the birth of the young 
 person we know as May Fairfax, a military 
 scandal of considerable dimensions and very 
 full flavour broke out in a large southern 
 depot. It arose out of a trial at law about 
 a bill of exchange, during which counsel 
 made some remarks, which were warmly 
 resented by the military press, and there 
 was not a subaltern within a mile of Pall 
 Mall who had not his fling about " civil- 
 ians who did not understand what they 
 were talking about," and " lawyers, to 
 whom the ways of officers and gentlemen
 
 106 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 were unknown." Whitehall took a different 
 view, and several courts-martial were held. 
 The officers and gentlemen especially af- 
 fected hastened to sneak upon each other 
 in a way that a fourth form boy would 
 be ashamed of; to lose their memory with 
 singular unanimity ; and to exhibit a con- 
 dition of moral laxity wholly lamentable to 
 contemplate. The central figure in this 
 display was a certain paymaster with the 
 honorary rank of Captain, named Tyrell, 
 and the only witness who honestly told the 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth, was one George Cowper a civilian, 
 who had the character of being a very dis- 
 sipated and objectionable person. The pay- 
 master with honorary rank was cashiered, 
 and found it convenient to leave Eng- 
 land for several years ; during which time, 
 a little girl was taken care of by the dissi-
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 107 
 
 pated and objectionable civilian who told 
 the truth, and was at that time living in 
 London at the rate of two thousand a 
 year upon his wits. This child was May 
 Fairfax, whose father died at a foreign 
 station before she was born, and whose 
 mother followed him shortly afterwards to 
 the grave. May remained with the Cow- 
 pers until such time as things had cooled 
 down for the ex-paymaster, with rank of 
 Captain, and he was enabled to return to 
 his native land. Once returned, to the 
 astonishment of every one, he took it into 
 his head to adopt the little orphan perhaps 
 for the sake of her mother his dead sister 
 the one being for whom he had expressed 
 affection. With May Fairfax came her 
 cousin Sibyl Cowper ; thus were the two 
 girls together from early childhood, and 
 together they remained up to the day when
 
 108 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 we found them waiting for the boat on 
 the banks of the Ridingshire river ; but 
 not together under the same circumstances 
 at all. The tables were turned upon George 
 Cowper, and he too found the climate of 
 England unwholesome. 
 
 George Cowper was a man who made 
 periodic dives below the surface of society, 
 disappeared into unknown depths, and 
 emerged in strange places with varied for- 
 tune. He had appeared in the Park behind 
 a pair of thoroughbreds whose stable was 
 connected with a handsomely-furnished house 
 in May Fair; and he had turned up, in 
 rags, at the Office of one of her Majesty's 
 Consuls, asking permission to work his way 
 to a British port, before the mast. Once he 
 was found half dead in a hospital, and it 
 is said that he would have become President 
 of a South American Republic, had not one
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 109 
 
 of his generals (who stood sadly in need of 
 a pair of boots), sold him for fifteen dollars. 
 With all this, he had not an enemy in 
 the world for that general acted on purely 
 business principles and could get on hap- 
 pily with any one, from a duke to a boat- 
 swain when his wife was out of the way. 
 
 This lady was May's maternal aunt 
 Captain Fairfax and George Cowper having 
 married the two sisters of Tom Tyrell. 
 Charlie Fairfax was as honourable a gentle- 
 man as ever drew breath, and no better 
 soldier lived. 
 
 Later on when George Cowper reappeared 
 from the latest of his dives, with his debts 
 paid, and set up as a farmer near Garcin, 
 by a staunch and apparently untiring pa- 
 tron, the present Sir Alexander Bellmonte, 
 his only daughter Sibyl did not return to 
 her parents' home, but remained with her
 
 110 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 cousin under the roof of their mutual uncle, 
 Tom Tyrell. 
 
 The arrangement was, as the Americans 
 say, "mixed muchly." Mrs. Cowper had 
 acquired an unnatural aversion for Sib, and 
 Tom Tyrell an equally unnatural (for him) 
 love for May. Mrs. Cowper thought more 
 about her dead sister's child than her own ; 
 and, mistrusting Tom, made Sib stand sentry 
 over him. Tom hid the only good quality 
 about him from them all, and what was 
 intended as only a temporary arrangement 
 grew into their lives to the dissatisfaction of 
 all concerned. 
 
 The world in which the ex-paymaster 
 with the honorary rank of Captain wore 
 lavender gloves, parted his hair in the 
 middle, and talked " lardie-dardie," was for 
 ever closed to him. He had to look out for 
 another in which he could shine under
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." Ill 
 
 different lights. With an excellent head 
 for figures, an experience-purchased know- 
 ledge of how to keep just within the law ; 
 a glib and a biting tongue, and no scruples 
 about the use of it ; he found a small world 
 that he could grind, and a flock of black 
 sheep he could lead by the nose. He be- 
 came a money lender to small tradesmen 
 and poor gentlemen ; and a Boanerges of 
 Trades Unions. Half the "rattenings" 
 the cutting of bands, the spiriting away of 
 tools in the interests of strikers, the throw- 
 ing of infernal machines into the houses of 
 ignoble creatures who wanted to work for 
 their living, were instigated by " our Tom," 
 as he was fondly called. He was secretary, 
 treasurer, delegate, orator, and I don't know 
 what besides, of the most disreputable 
 societies ; and when those a little higher 
 in the scale wanted work done in which
 
 112 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 their own officers did not care to appear, 
 they knew where to find Tom Tyrell. 
 
 Of another class he was the terror and 
 the scorned. He had a keen scent for 
 adversity, and made the most of it. He 
 would advance a quarter of its value on 
 furniture at the interest of about a hundred 
 per cent., and sell up the last stick if the 
 money were not forthcoming to the moment. 
 Sometimes he would keep out of the way 
 when pay time came, so that the money 
 couldn't be paid even when it was ready ; 
 and seize the goods all the same. Action 
 after action for illegal or excessive distress 
 was brought against him, but what did he 
 care ? For every victim that resisted, ten 
 gave in, and put up with their first loss for 
 fear of the greater damage which the shame 
 of having transactions with Tom Tyrell 
 would bring upon them. Thus we see why
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 113 
 
 his house was encumbered with incongruous 
 objects of art, and articles of furniture ; and 
 why his nieces had no friends. 
 
 So the girl we know as May Fairfax grew 
 up in the contemplation of poor humanity 
 in the worst of its phases only. She saw it 
 bluster and cringe, she heard it lie; and 
 whether the suing, the cringing, or the 
 blustering w T ere used by Tom Tyrell or 
 against him, she learned that the first 
 object of life was to get the advantage of 
 your neighbour somehow, and keep it any 
 way. She estimated a tool by what it 
 would do. If a carpenter wants to make a 
 hole, and has an auger which makes it of 
 the right size, then that auger is a good 
 auger. So little May grew up to think 
 that if Uncle Tom was in a hole out of 
 which he wanted to get, and had a lie 
 
 which did the work, then that lie was a 
 I. 8
 
 1 1 4 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 good lie. Sometimes she had to tell it for 
 him, and there was a time when she felt 
 quite proud of sending women away from 
 the door in tears, and seeing strong men 
 grind their teeth and clench their fists at 
 what she told them. For everybody knows, 
 though few dare to own it, that children are 
 naturally false and cruel. The best brought 
 up sweet innocent is delighted to have the 
 chance of telling her little sister that Ma 
 wants her directly in the school -room. She 
 races with her brother to be first with the 
 pleasing news, and with flushed cheeks and 
 panting breath blurts out the message, with 
 a " and aren't you going to catch it, too " 
 as encouragement to obey it. 
 
 There was another incident of childhood 
 usually a blessed one to influence little 
 May. I mean belief in those upon whom 
 it is dependent. Papa, like the king, can do
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 115 
 
 no wrong known to the world of the nursery 
 or the school-room. Mamma is the wisest 
 and best of women. Happy those who can 
 keep up the dear delusion ! If people came 
 and swore at Tom Tyrell, May considered 
 them wicked people because they swore at 
 him. If he swore at people they were 
 wicked again, because they were sworn at. 
 
 It was not until Sib went out as a 
 governess, and an active part in conducting 
 the Tyrell menage was thrown upon May, 
 that the truth of her position began to dawn 
 upon her. Then slights from school-fellows, 
 coldness of neighbours, scoffs of idlers in 
 the street, as she passed hitherto unre- 
 garded took forms and suggested question- 
 ings. She read the newspapers, and got 
 answers. She noticed how other girls lived 
 and were treated, and discontent with the 
 hugger-mugger (there is no other name for
 
 116 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 it) of her surroundings took root. There 
 were several married officers in the th ; 
 the Colonel had two grown-up daughters. 
 The calm cool demeanour of those ladies, 
 the deference with which they were treated, 
 the absence of all sense of struggle about 
 them, exasperated her whose life was all 
 struggle. Too proud to show the degrada- 
 tion she felt, she hid it, and it grew into 
 another person within her. So there be- 
 came two Mays one gay and apparently 
 thoughtless, making the best of the life she 
 led ; the other acting under it, and scheming 
 with all the falsehood it had taught her, to 
 throw it off. 
 
 With the blood of such a man as Tom 
 Tyrell in her veius, and all her dead mother's 
 beauty in her face, she was quick to see the 
 possibility of escape which the infatuation 
 of Arthur Bellmonte held out a possibility
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 117 
 
 which first dazzled all her senses and then 
 sharpened them. Only a few weeks ago 
 she would have accepted a clerk with a 
 hundred a year, if he could take her away 
 from the place she loathed. Now wealth, 
 title, a grand position seemed to be within 
 her grasp ! Her face was her fortune, and 
 she put it to bank in her brains. To Sib, 
 and to her lover, she was a soft little flutter- 
 ing dove ; with Tom Tyrell when he found 
 out her scent (as soon he did), she was 
 simply a beautiful, lithe, but deadly serpent. 
 And he was proud of her for it. He liked 
 to see some of his own cunning coming into 
 blossom. Besides, like all his tribe, his 
 hatred of the upper classes was born of 
 envy and malice. They had driven him 
 from a service which they honour ; they 
 had expelled him their clubs ; they had 
 turned their backs and closed their doors
 
 118 Piorjs FRAUDS. 
 
 upon him ; they had made his name a 
 by- word. Yet he was willing more than 
 willing to use all they had against him as 
 a fulcrum to force his niece into their ranks. 
 He thought he had a chance of getting even 
 with some of them. Whichever way May's 
 scheme turned, the result would be quits 
 to him. He would have helped to spite a 
 great family if it failed ; and if it succeeded 
 through the fumes of his gin and water 
 on the night of our first acquaintance with 
 him, a dim hope of being able to sneak 
 back, somehow, under her wing into respect- 
 ability, presented itself. The highest of 
 his ambitions of late was a seat in Parlia- 
 ment as a "working man's" candidate. 
 Twice had he stood, and as many times had 
 ignominious defeat awaited him. The vilest 
 nitteners who had shivered by his side in 
 the dock, and profited by his cunning eva-
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 119 
 
 sions of the law, promised him their votes, 
 and then under cover of the ballot went 
 for the gentleman who beat him. A "work- 
 ing man's " candidate, forsooth ! There was 
 a finer prospect now. If he could once get 
 a hold over those Bellmontes, what was to 
 prevent his selling out his funds of to-day 
 and running somewhere as a "gentleman" 
 himself? A seat in parliament was not such 
 a big price for silencing his bitter tongue, 
 and throwing discredit on others like him. 
 May would keep her word and take care of 
 him. He would wash his hands of Sheffield, 
 its highly - flavoured roughs, its infernal 
 machines, and its trade squabbles ; call in 
 his money ; live quietly for a year or two 
 (he was barely a middle-aged man yet) and 
 when May became the Lady of Garcin, they 
 should see what they should see ; bargain or 
 no bargain.
 
 120 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 All this came over him gradually. When 
 first he found out that May had met Arthur 
 Bellmonte at the band, and allowed him to 
 form her acquaintance, he was furious, and 
 it is lucky that Sibyl was not present at the 
 explosion which took place, or much of the 
 subsequent plotting would have been endan- 
 gered. Judging by his own career he saw 
 but one object in a young Huzzar picking 
 up with pretty girls at the band, and taking 
 them for rows on the river one object and 
 one ending. Then, to his intense surprise, 
 he found himself confronted by a will as 
 strong as his own, and a tongue as cutting. 
 He was told that even if the object were as 
 he supposed, and the end as he predicted, 
 the consequences would be preferable to the 
 life she led with him the leaden routine of 
 dulness and slights which his name imposed 
 upon her. " But put that out of your
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 121 
 
 head," she continued. "He is an honour- 
 able man ; he loves me, and I don't care two 
 straws for him. I know what I am about. 
 Leave me alone, and it will end my way, not 
 yours." . 
 
 She had her own way, and we know how 
 far it had led unsuspecting Arthur Bell- 
 monte. To him the lady of his love was all 
 simplicity and soft devotion. For Sib, she 
 was the same. Her scheme developed itself 
 by degrees. Sooner or later her lover would 
 be sure to hear of Tom Tyrell, so she became 
 his informant. One way of dealing with a 
 snake -bite is to fasten a bandage tightly 
 above the wound, let the poison into the 
 system bit by bit, and fight it with stimu- 
 lants in detail. She let Tom Tyrell's bad 
 character into Arthur bit by bit, and fought 
 it with excuses. At one time she only 
 aspired to lay the foundation for an action
 
 122 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 for breach of promise. Oh ! she knew all 
 about that sort of thing. The weekly litera- 
 ture which her uncle affected was full of it. 
 She would get swinging damages, and go 
 off with Sib and live happily upon them. 
 False as she was, her loyalty to Sib never 
 wavered. 
 
 This idea was soon abandoned as not good 
 enough. There should be a promise, but no 
 breach of it. Long before that excursion to 
 the Cat and Fiddle, she had made up her 
 inind to marry Arthur, but it was only 
 during the moonlight row back, that the 
 plot to bring his family to terms dawned 
 upon her mind, and was developed. She 
 let him hold her hand ; she smiled in his 
 face, and once furtively kissed his shoulder ; 
 working out all the time how she could 
 shame him and his into a loveless union. 
 She had his verbal promise of marriage,
 
 "FAMILY HISTORY." 123 
 
 known to Sib, and openly discussed before 
 her. She had his written proposal of a 
 secret wedding, carefully locked away in her 
 desk. She held his heart in the hollow of 
 her hand, and as she did not love him that 
 was true he was utterly in her power. If 
 she had loved him how different it might 
 have been. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 When she retired to rest that night, she 
 found that Sib had fallen asleep, tired out. 
 She gently kissed the hand that lay on the 
 coverlet the hand on which still shone the 
 emeralds; and gently took her place beside 
 the sleeping girl. Oh, Sib ! " she sighed, 
 " dear old Sib ! if I were only as good as 
 you." 
 
 "Is that you, May?" asked Sib, without 
 opening her eyes. 
 
 " Yes, darling. And, Sib, don't mind
 
 124 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 what I said about the refreshment-rooms. 
 It's all nonsense. Fancy you selling Banbury 
 cakes." 
 
 Sleepy Sib stretched out a lovely arm, 
 and drew the fair young head so full of 
 guile close to her honest heart.
 
 GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 125 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 
 
 WHILST Arthur Bellmonte was floating 
 down the moonlit river clasping his lady 
 love's hand, two letters from home were in 
 the mail-bags on their way to him. Here 
 they are in the order in which he opened 
 them ; for is there a man who does not open 
 mother's letter first ? 
 
 " Garcin, August 21st. 
 
 " MY DEAR ARTHUR, 
 
 "YouR father has written asking 
 you to come and stay with us for a while, 
 and I think you ought to do so. You must 
 be prepared to find a great change in him.
 
 126 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 There is nothing serious the matter by 
 which I mean there is no actual disease that 
 Dr. Barwell can discover, but he has become 
 restless and dispirited, and loss of sleep and 
 appetite have altered him greatly. I hope 
 you will get leave and come at once, as your 
 presence might do him good. Indeed, I 
 think that the time has arrived when you 
 should seriously consider if your further stay 
 in the army can be of any use to you, or I 
 will say more is not unfair to your family. 
 I was, as you know, always opposed to your 
 becoming a soldier. You did not need the 
 army as a profession, and you could have 
 done very well without it as a stepping- 
 stone into society. You will have duties to 
 perform here some day for which you ought 
 to prepare, and even if this were not so, it is 
 your duty under the circumstances to re- 
 lieve your father of some of the care and
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 127 
 
 worry which the management of a large 
 estate necessarily entails. Think all this 
 over carefully, my dear boy ; or, what will be 
 still better, come and let us talk it over 
 together. " 
 
 Here followed some local news, and gossip 
 about neighbours, which would not edify 
 the general reader, and, sooth to say, did not 
 greatly interest the particular person for 
 whose benefit it was penned. He was in 
 love. What did he care how the Miss 
 Dawkins were dressed at an archery fete ? 
 In conclusion, Lady Bellmonte was sorry to 
 inform her son that his former sporting ally, 
 George Cowper, had been behaving abomin- 
 ably ; " and I must really insist," wrote her 
 ladyship, " that when you come home you 
 will have nothing further to do with or for 
 the fellow."
 
 128 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Sir Alexander's letter ran thus : 
 
 " Garcin, August 2lst, 1877. 
 " MY VERY DEAR BOY, 
 
 " I WOULD like you to get leave of 
 absence, and come and see me. I am not 
 very well. I want to see you very much. I 
 have a great deal to say to you. Don't you 
 think your Colonel would give you leave for 
 a month ? Tell him I am far from strong, 
 and want to see you. Do come soon ; I 
 would like you to telegraph when you are 
 coming; I shall be very anxious until I 
 know that you are coming. 
 
 " Your affectionate father, 
 
 "A. BELLMONTE." 
 
 The writing was fine, round, and clear; 
 every i had its dot, and every t had its 
 cross. The paper was folded with precision, 
 and the cover neatly sealed with the Bell-
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 129 
 
 monte Arms. Looking at this letter without 
 reading it you would think the writer 
 one of those happy-minded persons who 
 have tidy, and therefore strong, minds. 
 Arthur read it with heightening colour, 
 and at the end gasped, " Good God, he' 
 childish!" 
 
 Norman Drummond was in the next room 
 reading in bed. You have not forgotten, I 
 suppose, that the day was Sunday, and that 
 he was away from home. If it would have 
 done him any good (in his sense of the 
 word) to be seen in church, be sure he 
 would be at that moment reading alternate 
 verses of the Psalms, instead of spicy para- 
 graphs signed " Atlas " out of a fashionable 
 scan. mag. 
 
 " Well," he asked, as Arthur entered very 
 pale, with these letters and a Bradshaw in 
 
 his hand ; " what's up ? " 
 
 i. 9
 
 130 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " I'm very sorry, old fellow, but I must 
 leave you. I really must ; but you can stop 
 here all the same. Til ask Dunlop to take 
 care of you ; you know Dunlop ? " 
 
 " Yes, but that does not help me to 
 understand why I am to be handed over to 
 him as a guest, vice Bellmonte, departed. 
 Has that girl " ? 
 
 "No, no nothing to do with her. I've 
 bad news from home. My father is 
 ill." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it." 
 
 " W hat ? " shouted Arthur. 
 
 " Don't fly out like that," Drummond 
 said, with his usual coolness. " All people 
 must be ill sometimes. You did not say 
 that Sir Alexander was very ill ; or that he 
 had typhus, or smallpox, or the cholera, or 
 anything else which implies danger. He 
 will get over his illness, and the necessity of
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 131 
 
 attending him will help you to get over 
 yours. Now, do you understand why I am 
 glad to hear it ? " 
 
 " Yes," Arthur replied ; " I do, but we will 
 drop that other subject, please. Your views 
 go one way, and mine another. They can 
 never join ; but look here. There's only 
 one train that suits, and it starts at two. I 
 haven't more than time to dress, and pack 
 up, and catch it." 
 
 " Well, how about leave ? " 
 
 " I'm sure of that ; I've written to the 
 Colonel, and expect his answer every 
 second." 
 
 " And have you telegraphed to your father 
 as he asks ? " 
 
 " Of course. My man went on with the 
 message when he left my letter at head- 
 quarters." 
 
 " Ah ! then you're all right. I'll get up
 
 132 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 and go with you to the station," said Drum- 
 mond, rising. 
 
 "Thank you. You can do something 
 else for me, if you don't mind," Arthur said 
 rather sheepishly, seating himself on the 
 edge of the bed. " You see I must let May 
 Miss Fairfax, you remember know that 
 I'm going. I I must see her before I start. 
 Hang it, man, I should be a brute if I left 
 without wishing her good-bye." 
 
 ''Well?" 
 
 " Well ! how provoking you are with 
 your wells. You know I can't go to the 
 house because of that confounded uncle. 
 How am I to let her know ? " 
 
 " May I venture to ask how your interviews 
 in the past have been arranged ? " Arthur 
 looked down and plucked at the tufts on 
 the quilt. 
 
 " Sib managed them," he replied, "through
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 133 
 
 a shop ; but it's shut to-day, confound it ! 
 Everything goes wrong on Sundays." 
 
 "I think I understand," Drummond re- 
 plied, " what is required of me. I am to see 
 Sib I suppose I may call her Sib when I am 
 a co- conspirator, or Miss Fairfax one must 
 be respectful in speaking of the future Lady 
 Bellmonte, and bring them to the station 
 to wish you good-bye." 
 
 " Ah, Norman ! be a good fellow," the 
 lover pleaded, brightening up. 
 
 " Say rather be a fool. How do you 
 reconcile such a request as this with what 
 you said just now about dropping the subject 
 for ever, as your views went one way and 
 mine another ? " 
 
 "Upon the principle that what cannot be 
 cured is to be made the best of; but as 
 you're so huffy about it " 
 
 " Nonsense, man ; it's you that are huffy.
 
 134 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 One can be a good fellow and a fool too. I 
 fancy that the two qualities generally go 
 together. If I do what you want you will 
 think me ever such a good fellow to-day ; 
 and I shall be sure that I have played the 
 fool. Hereafter, most likely, you will change 
 your opinion, and think that I played the 
 fool. Then I shall have the consolation of 
 persuading myself that I was the good 
 fellow ; and round it goes, the good fellow 
 always catches it I notice in the end." 
 
 So Norman Drummond melted, not by 
 any means because he was soft-hearted, or 
 because he liked to stand guard over a rail- 
 way carriage, and give two lovers the chance 
 of a hand- clasp and a kiss inside ; but because 
 he wanted to improve his acquaintance 
 with Sib. Arthur was going away for a 
 month ; the assizes would be over in a few 
 days. If he refused, he was thereby cut off
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 135 
 
 from all communication with the cousins. 
 May would hear of his unkindness, and call 
 him a cross old thing. Proud Sib would 
 repulse any direct advances. Melting, he 
 shed delight around, and warmed some seeds 
 he had ready to sow. Arthur would regard 
 him as a true friend who sacrificed his 
 principle to serve him. Baby-face, grateful 
 for her kiss (how little he knew her), would 
 think him such a dear, and Sib yes, he 
 would have some earnest talk with Sib, and 
 gain her confidence, as a beginning, through 
 solicitude for May. . 
 
 Arthur was not one of those Queen's hard 
 bargains who are always flying off on leave 
 upon every possible pretext. He had only 
 to ask and have. 
 
 The two o'clock train came in to shouts 
 of " ten minutes for refreshment" to be 
 served partly by the young person whose
 
 136 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 place lias been offered to Sib. It was very 
 empty. A lady and gentleman got into a 
 vacant first-class carriage whereof the crim- 
 son blinds were immediately pulled down. 
 Another lady and gentleman stood by the 
 door talking earnestly. When the time was 
 up, the first lady got out with her hand- 
 kerchief to her face, and two honest hearts 
 ached that day one belonging to the 
 gentleman who went on with the train, and 
 the other to the lady who did not take out 
 her pocket handkerchief. 
 
 Whilst the crimson blinds were down 
 Norman sowed his seed. 
 
 "Pray excuse me, Miss Cowper," he began, 
 "if the shortness of our acquaintance does 
 not justify me in saying that I am very 
 anxious more anxious than I can fully 
 express to you about your sweet little friend 
 (he threw his eyebrows towards the crimson
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 137 
 
 blinds). I think I have fathomed your share 
 in all this. Will you be offended if I tell 
 you what I think ? " 
 
 " 1 will not." 
 
 " I think that you are acting painfully 
 against your better judgment to protect a 
 wilful nature from danger, and to mitigate 
 evils which you cannot wholly remove. Am 
 I right ? " 
 
 " You mean to be kind ; I am not 
 offended." A flood of soft, tender trust 
 welled up as she raised her face her grand, 
 sad face to his. 
 
 "I will not conceal from you, Miss Cowper," 
 he continued, as though she had answered 
 him, "that what I have done to-day goes 
 greatly against the grain. In the first place, 
 I disapprove of intrigue ; and in the second, 
 1 am apprehensive about our pretty little 
 friend who appears to be so very much in
 
 138 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 earnest. I have brought them (another 
 glance towards the crimson silk curtains) 
 together to-day, because I have received the 
 most solemn assurances that my cousin's 
 intentions are honourable. Having compro- 
 mised me to a certain extent I will take 
 care that they shall continue so. He shall 
 not play with her affections through me, Miss 
 Cowper, you may depend upon that/' 
 
 Inside the crimson blinds, May pettishly 
 throws off an encircling arm, and whispers, 
 " No, sir, not one. You are , breaking 
 my heart ; you are ; you know you are. 
 Oh, Arthur ! Why do you leave me like 
 this ? " 
 
 " My father is ill, dear ; very ill." 
 " Will you show me his letter ? " 
 " I would rather not, even if I had it with 
 me, which I haven't." 
 
 " It seems very strange," she said, almost
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 139 
 
 as though she were alone with Tom Tyrell, 
 " that you should get this summons imme- 
 diately after you had told that cousin of 
 yours all about us." 
 
 " May ! Do you doubt me ? " She had 
 struck through the lover, and the man of 
 honour rang out clear and sharp. It was 
 the first time she had heard that tone and 
 seen the look of stern, pained pride which 
 accompanied it. They frightened her, and 
 she hastened to trim sails for the other 
 tack. 
 
 " Oh, no, darling doubt you ? But it 
 seems so cruel that we must part now that " 
 a sob checked her a hysterical sob, born 
 of fright and anger, but he did not know 
 that. It sounded like sorrow. He wound 
 his arm about her (this time without rebuff), 
 and whispered with the fair false face upon 
 his shoulder, " Dearest, it is all for the
 
 140 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 best. My mother urges me to leave the 
 army and settle down with them at Garcin. 
 How can I do so better than by bringing a 
 dear little wife with me ? " 
 
 " They will set you against me, I know 
 they will." 
 
 " No one can do that. They will have 
 to take us both or neither." 
 
 " Must you stay a whole month ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " And you will write to me every day ? " 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " And " (she nestled up closer) " call me 
 your own dear little wifey as as you did 
 once ? " 
 
 " I will call you that in something better 
 than a letter, soon, my darling." 
 
 She let him kiss her, and hoped that the 
 cousin outside was listening. 
 
 Norman Drummond was not listening ; at
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 141 
 
 that moment lie was sowing his seed of 
 mistrust, emphasizing that " shall not " 
 which sent a cold shudder through Sib. 
 
 Miss Fairfax having rubbed her eyes to a 
 fitting redness under the pocket-handker- 
 chief, tripped up to Drummond as they 
 were leaving the station, and took his arm. 
 
 " I know you'd rather walk with Sib," 
 she cooed; " I'm always so stupid, and more 
 so than ever to-day, of course ; but I must 
 tell you how kind and dear you have been. 
 To think we only met the day before yes- 
 terday ! Why you seem like an old, old 
 friend." 
 
 " I hope you will always think so." 
 
 " Oh, I'm a silly little thing, I know ; but 
 I'm grateful and affectionate. Am I not 
 grateful and affectionate, Sib ? I will never 
 forget your kindness, Mr. Drummond. Oh 
 dear, dear ! If Arthur had left, perhaps
 
 142 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 for ever, without wishing me good-bye, I 
 should have died, I know I should ! " 
 
 As it was not considered necessary to 
 answer that assurance, they walked on in 
 silence till they came within range of Tom 
 Tyrell's domain. 
 
 " We must leave you here, Mr. Drum- 
 mond," said May. " Uncle is rather pecu- 
 liar, and I'm afraid we can't ask you in 
 without getting his permission first. We 
 mustn't lose sight of you though. When 
 shall we three meet again ? Will you take 
 us out for a row to-morrow evening ? " 
 
 "I am not much of a hand at rowing 
 now," Drummond replied, thinking of the 
 heavy boat. 
 
 " Oh but you can get a man to row," she 
 urged, " and it is so much more jolly. You 
 can talk to us all the time, and we can go to 
 that dear old wood ; and look here " she
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 143 
 
 whispered a few words in his ear which 
 made him blush for the first time in several 
 years. 
 
 " What an unmitigated little idiot it is," 
 he muttered to himself, as he made his 
 way back to the barracks. 
 
 " Oh, Sib," chuckled May, when he was 
 out of sight. " What fun it will be if we 
 catch them both" was on her tongue, but she 
 substituted, " get another row on the river 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " The words which brought blood into 
 Norman Drummond's face, were, " And you 
 shall have Sib all to yourself!' 
 
 " Is the little idiot trying to throw her 
 at my head ? " he mused. " Has this Sib 
 helped her to catch Arthur, and is she 
 returning the service ? Are they work- 
 ing together ? Well, let them try." An 
 earnest votary of the Proprieties (for Mrs.
 
 144 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Grundy holds one key of the Temple of 
 Success) he argued the case of Inclina- 
 tion v. Interest, being counsel for both sides. 
 For the plaintiff it was urged that Sib had 
 beautiful sad eyes very pleasant to soften, a 
 sweet sad voice very charming to hear, and 
 that even if she were an adventuress (which 
 is not clear) there was no danger about her 
 for such a man as Mr. Norman Drummond. 
 If she had evil designs, it would serve her 
 right to meet with her match. It would give 
 her a lesson, and perhaps save some other 
 fellow who had not Mr. Norman Drum- 
 mond's hard, common sense, from getting 
 into trouble. If, on the other hand, she 
 made a fool of herself over him, she must 
 take the consequences. 
 
 The defendant's brief was a sermon upon 
 prudence, and the sinfulness of little sins 
 against Mrs. Grundy. Supposing you were
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 145 
 
 seen gallanting Tom Tyrell's nieces ? There 
 would arise lots of dear kind friends to say, 
 " Oh, Drummond ! yes, he's always run- 
 ning after milliners' girls, and that sort of 
 thing." The game was not worth the 
 candle. 
 
 In reply, the plaintiff having the last 
 word argued : " Yes, but I need not be 
 seen. The assizes are nearly over. Ail 
 the idle ones likely to be on, or about, the 
 river have left. The busy bees who remain 
 are too hard at work to mind me. I shall 
 not be seen, and Sib has beautiful eyes very 
 pleasant to soften, and a sweet voice very 
 charming to hear, and I am Mr. Norman 
 Drummond." 
 
 So next morning he ordered a boat with 
 a man to row, and through the same 
 underground communication, which had 
 
 brought one pair of lovers together at the 
 i. 10
 
 146 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 railway station, lie appointed to take the 
 girls on board at the spot where he had 
 first seen them. 
 
 That night Sib went to bed early, not 
 because she was tired this time. She wanted 
 to be alone to think over, and to wonder 
 at, some new influence that had fallen into 
 her life, or rather over some new power 
 which had partly drawn aside a veil that 
 used to darken it. Poor, slighted, hard 
 worked, long abused Sib had listened to 
 deferential words, had breathed the incense 
 of silent homage and well-bred flattery 
 had found a power of pleasing in herself 
 born of being pleased which surprised and 
 gratified her ; was contented with herself, 
 perhaps for the first time in her life, and 
 was happy. She loosened her splendid hair, 
 threw it back over her shoulders, and looked 
 at herself in the glass with a shy smile
 
 "GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE." 147 
 
 She saw a face and form worthy to serve as 
 a model for Aphrodite herself, as she rose 
 from the sea, and before her career as a pro- 
 fessional beauty (late hours on Olympus 
 and racketing about after Trojan generals 
 would obviously play the deuce even with a 
 goddess), had taken the gloss off her charms. 
 She saw an oval face, sweetly grave, with 
 classically - regular features - - all but the 
 nose. The sculptor had started to make 
 this regular too, but just at the tip, his 
 chisel had slipped, and left something like 
 the crest of a ripplet, or the curl of a rose 
 leaf, that was wholly irregular, but wonder- 
 fully fascinating. The human nose, I think, 
 is a most unaccommodating organ, so far 
 as expression is concerned. The eyes above 
 it, and the mouth below, are capable of 
 evincing all the emotions. With the nose 
 alone, most of us can do nothing. Borrow-
 
 148 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 ing aid from the upper lip, we can give 
 it half the credit for a sneer that's all. 
 But Sib saw in the glass a nose which was 
 one in ten thousand. Thanks to that 
 slip of the chisel, it laughed all by itself. 
 She saw a pair of shoulders cool and white 
 as the sea-foam, a pair of arms, blue veined, 
 dimpled, robust, but exquisite for their 
 graceful lines, down to the wrist. The 
 wrist ! Poor hard-worked Sib ! Here the 
 goddess ended. Tom Tyrell kept no serv- 
 ants. The glass gave back " Aphrodite " 
 all pure and beautiful and Greek with a 
 housemaid's gloves on. As Sib threw back 
 her hair, her hand passed across her bosom as a 
 cloud over the sun, and her smile darkened as 
 she noticed how rough it was. " I wonder," 
 she mused, as she drew off the ring, " if I 
 could get something at the chemist's to make 
 them soft and white, like like his."
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 149 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. . 
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 
 
 DURING a brief visit to London, May had 
 been taken to see " Our Boys," and it was 
 from the representative of the fine old Eng- 
 lish gentleman of her period by Mr. Farren 
 in that perennial comedy, that her fancy por- 
 trait of Sir Alexander Bellmonte of Garcin 
 was afterwards drawn. It was a very bad 
 likeness indeed. Stripped of his vulgarity, 
 the Butterman would have been nearer the 
 mark outwardly. Sir Alexander was a small, 
 podgy man, usually in a fuss, with wander- 
 ing eyes which had lately become watery, 
 and a long, thin upper lip which had
 
 150 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 recently begun to twitch. Inwardly he was a 
 man of some acquirements of the curious, 
 rather than the useful, sort : an affectionate 
 husband, an indulgent father, a good land- 
 lord, in the sense of a landlord who does 
 not grind the faces of his tenants, and leaves 
 things to take care of themselves. In all 
 relations of life a kind, easy-going gentleman, 
 loath to find difficulties, or to take offences, 
 but one who when he did get his back up 
 about anything, evinced a degree of obstinacy 
 which bordered upon the sublime. 
 
 You might just as well argue the case with 
 a commissariat mule as with Sir Alexander, 
 once he pulled down that long upper lip of 
 his, and fixed his wandering eyes. 
 
 Lady Bellmonte had been a celebrated 
 beauty in her time. By this I do not mean 
 to imply that she was puffed in the news- 
 papers, or mobbed at Botanical fetes; or
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 151 
 
 that young gentlemen talked about her by 
 her Christian name in the smoking-rooms 
 of their clubs, and knew where she got 
 her Burmese bangles, or who gave her 
 those curious fans, or that parasol with the 
 sapphires on the handle. Her own set 
 spoke of her respectfully as the beautiful 
 Miss Wilbraham, and in a narrower circle 
 the reasons which kept her Miss Wilbraham 
 until time had rubbed the bloom off some of 
 her charms, were known but not repeated. 
 When, in her thirtieth year, she married 
 Mr. Bellmonte, a few inquiries were made 
 as to what had become of poor old Stanley 
 Mayne was he dead or what ? And there 
 it ended. The wonder did not run the 
 proverbial nine days yet there were in it 
 twelve long years of trusts assailed and 
 defended, of hopes that blossomed only to 
 be blighted.
 
 152 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 If you did not know Arthur's age, you 
 would guess my lady's at ten years under 
 the mark, and say that she was still a hand- 
 some woman ; without flattery. The gloss 
 of youth had long vanished from cheek, and 
 eyes, and hair, but time had not blurred the 
 beautiful outlines within which it used to 
 dwell. The special curse of British matron- 
 hood had not fallen upon her. Many a girl 
 of twenty would like to change figures with 
 Lady Bellmonte now, and be able to take a 
 velvet train across a room as she can. 
 Many a girl of twenty knew more about 
 " making up " than did my lady. 
 
 She had been an excellent wife alike to 
 Mr. Bellmonte the prematurely dried up 
 antiquarian of Wimpole Street ; and to Sir 
 Alexander Bellmonte of Garcin; but she 
 had never looked quite a happy one. It 
 was only when Arthur was present that her
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOM1. 153 
 
 face brightened up. He had always been, 
 and was, the light of her life, child, boy, 
 and man. In the great change of their 
 fortunes which happened eleven years ago, 
 she thought only of him, rejoiced only for 
 his sake. But for him she would have been 
 content to end her days in the stuffy little 
 London house ; but for him she would have 
 shrunk from going back into the great 
 world which had learned to do without her ; 
 and for whose flesh-pots she had then lost 
 all taste. As a rule I think that mothers 
 hate to think about the marriage of their 
 boys. The man who sneaks into a daughter's 
 heart and shuts its front door, does not so 
 much matter ; but the woman who steals a 
 son's best affections is a "horror" in the 
 average mother's eyes. In this regard Lady 
 Bellmonte was not the average mother. 
 When Arthur (aged twelve) came to be
 
 154 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 kissed good -night for the first time at 
 Garcin Hall, she held him from her, a 
 trembling, tender hand on each shoulder, 
 and gazing into his bright manly face, 
 thought " Darling boy ! If God spares 
 you to be a man you can marry the woman 
 you love." 
 
 What dreams she dreamed sitting wide 
 awake what pictures she drew with closed 
 eyes ! 
 
 He was to go to a public school, and 
 afterwards to an University, of course. She 
 was not one of those foolish matrons who 
 think that because they have brought a 
 man-child into the world, they can make a 
 man of him single-handed. She was willing 
 that his mind should be breeched as well as 
 his legs, when the proper time came. She 
 admitted that the former operation cannot 
 be done at home, and thought she would
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 155 
 
 not grudge the long separations which the 
 career she had chosen for him would demand. 
 Perhaps he would take after his father, be 
 studious, and make a name in the world. 
 Perhaps he would only come back to her 
 strong, and frank, and loving. What need 
 for more ? His future was made for him 
 thank God ! Then when he came home 
 for good they would turn the old house 
 out of windows. What balls and fetes and 
 dinners there should be. All the nicest 
 girls in three counties should be in and 
 out; and one of them (no matter which so 
 that she loved him) would stay. Stay and 
 keep him there. Soldiering, you will ob- 
 serve, was not in this programme. Sir 
 Alexander having carefully watched his son's 
 career at Eton, came to the conclusion that 
 it would only be throwing away time and 
 money to send him to Oxford, and that,
 
 156 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 all things considered, the army would be 
 the best finishing school for a young fellow 
 of his tastes and capabilities. The boy had 
 not taken after his father, and become 
 studious. There was no prospect whatever 
 of his turning out a Balliol scholar, or win- 
 ning the Newdegate. If University prizes 
 were to be won for hard riding, good shoot- 
 ing, rowing it out to the last stroke, playing 
 with a straight bat, and never letting off a 
 loose ball, Arthur Bellmonte might have 
 taken a double first. His father being of 
 an old-fashioned turn of mind, thought that 
 young men were sent to College to work, 
 and not to play ; and into the army to play 
 and not to work. He did n6t know that 
 the subaltern and the undergraduate have 
 changed places that the latter is the idle, 
 dashing, pleasure-seeking butterfly ; and the 
 former the sober bookworm, of this day.
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 157 
 
 So if he had not under-estimated Arthur's 
 ability, he might have given his wife cause 
 for great exaltation. Lady Bellmonte strug- 
 gled as long and vigorously as she could 
 against the fiat which was to make a soldier 
 of her only son. Her lord pulled down his 
 long upper lip upon it, fixed his wandering 
 eye, heard with his usual courtesy all 
 that could be said against it; and budged 
 not one hair's-breadth from his resolution. 
 Arthur didn't mind what they arranged for 
 him. It would be jolly to go to Oxford and 
 be in the 'Varsity eleven he'd know lots of 
 Eton fellows there. Light cavalry ! yes, 
 that'd be very jolly too. Plenty of Eton 
 fellows in the army, and you can get 
 leave every winter to shoot and hunt. 
 So Sir Alexander had his way : he had 
 a new idea now, and it remained to be 
 seen if it would suit his son as well as
 
 158 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 that other one ; and if he gained his point 
 as heretofore. 
 
 As the heir was now on his way back to 
 his home, it might be as well to give you an 
 idea of what it was like. 
 
 Garcin Hall was not remarkable for ex- 
 ternal beauty, being one of those great red 
 and white box-looking buildings in which 
 the lieges of good Queen Anne delighted. 
 Inside until very recently it was con- 
 sidered a very shabby place. The old 
 spindle-legged tables and chairs, the quaint 
 old corner cupboards, the ugly old china, 
 and the clumsy old brass of another age, 
 were left stranded as it were by Fashion's 
 stream, amidst faded hangings, on old pine- 
 wood floors, or clinging to worm-eaten wain- 
 scotings which really some visitors remarked 
 would be a disgrace to a farm-house. They 
 (the Bellmontes) were very badly off it was
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 159 
 
 kindly explained before they came in for 
 this property, " and, poor things ! they don't 
 know what they ought to have about them." 
 Other equally kind excuses were found for 
 the new tenants. Sir Alexander was terribly 
 in debt, and had to economise to pay off his 
 creditors. No he did not owe anything. 
 The debts were not his, but his late brother's, 
 which he felt bound in honour to discharge. 
 
 Debts ! no such thing. It was hush- 
 money my dear. The defunct Sir George 
 had done something dreadful, and had to 
 pay immense sums to a man in America to 
 keep his secret. That is why he (Sir George) 
 could not live in England. Don't you know 
 that during all the time he was Squire of 
 Garcin he did not spend a month altogether 
 at the Hall ? This was a fact all the rest 
 was fiction founded on it. 
 
 The present lord of Garcin, finding in its
 
 160 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 library everything that his heart desired, 
 did not notice or noticing did not care to 
 remedy the shortcomings in other direc- 
 tions. His wife was content to design, in 
 dreamland, the changes which were to be 
 made for that happy day when the heir 
 should bring home his bride. 
 
 Well, fashion's stream changed its course, 
 and came back to its old bed. Garcin Hall 
 became almost a show place with but little 
 aid from the upholsterer of the period, and 
 dear Lady Bellmonte's beautiful bric-a-brac, 
 and exquisite taste, became the theme of 
 universal praise. Would she allow Mrs. A's 
 daughter Grace to make a drawing of that 
 charming old chiffonier ? Might the B's and 
 the C's and the D's examine those dear old 
 hangings. And the real old oak wain- 
 scoting it was really too nice ! Look at 
 the sweet little holes the worms had made.
 
 RES AUGUSTA DOMI. 161 
 
 How delightful it was to have real old 
 things about one ! and so aristocratic ! 
 
 Lady Bellmonte had good taste, and used 
 it to good purpose. Sir George would 
 have never endured one of those domestic 
 cataclysms known as refurnishing, so she 
 went to work gradually, and I think he 
 scarcely noticed what was done. About an 
 acre and a half of flaunting but musty old 
 carpets were carried out one market-day, 
 and immured in a barn, like state prisoners 
 of a bygone age, consigned to oblivion. A 
 good deal of stuff of all sorts which had 
 no other merit than the sweet little holes 
 that the worms had eaten, was made into a 
 very effective bonfire one 5th of November. 
 Floors were polished, and ceilings were 
 scraped, and things were placed. If you do 
 not know what I mean by "things were 
 placed," send a woman who has taste into 
 i. 11
 
 162 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 the room of a woman who has none ; with a 
 yard or two of velvet, and a piece or two of 
 lace, and a few pots of ferns and flowers. 
 Come back in an hour or so, and you will 
 find out. The rooms will be transfigured. 
 The things are placed. You find a general 
 effect that was not there before. You see 
 special effects that you did not see before. 
 Nothing obtrudes as before shouting, as it 
 were, " Holloa ! You've got to look at me ; 
 I'm an ornament ; " and nothing appears to 
 have misbehaved itself, and been put in the 
 corner as a punishment. The chances are 
 that our tasty one in the exercise of her 
 prerogative has banished certain bad sub- 
 jects, and degraded several minor offenders ; 
 and yet there seems to be more there than 
 used to be about. 
 
 Things got "placed" at Garcin. Hand- 
 some rugs began to appear on lustrous
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 163 
 
 floors, bright hangings dawned in dark 
 places ; ugly wall papers disappeared. The 
 old house got grander and larger in some 
 places ; and smaller and cosier in others ; 
 and the end was not yet. Visitors had been 
 asking dearest Lady Bellmonte to take them 
 over the house, for a year or two, before Sir 
 Alexander noticed the change. One day 
 crossing the entrance-hall on his way to 
 dinner, he slipped, and " Dear me ! " he ex- 
 claimed, rubbing an injured knee, " where 
 is the oil-cloth ? " He passed on into the 
 dining-room and said " dear me ! " again. 
 This he repeated several times during the 
 meal, and changed his formula of tardily 
 awakened surprise into " Well, really " when 
 afterwards they adjourned into my lady's 
 own room. If he had not hurt his knee 
 and missed the oil-cloth, he might have 
 
 7 O 
 
 gone to his grave in blind ignorance of
 
 164 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 what had been done. The morning after 
 his awakening, he made his wife take him 
 all over the house. He said very little be- 
 yond an occasional " Dear me ! " and " Well, 
 really ! " but at the end he took her hand 
 and kissed it in his old-fashioned way, 
 saying simply, " My love, I am greatly in- 
 debted to you greatly ! I ought to have 
 seen to this myself, and spared you the 
 trouble. I beg your pardon, my love, for 
 not having noticed all this before." 
 
 There is one room into which reconstruc- 
 tion did not enter, and was not wanted 
 the Library. I have written the word with 
 a capital Z, out of respect for the place. A 
 long, high, vaulted room on the ground 
 floor, with three lancet-shaped windows to 
 the front and five to the side looking out 
 upon the most secluded part of the lawn, 
 and a distant row of aged yew trees. Be-
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 165 
 
 tween each window was a book- case ten feet 
 high, standing like a sentinel, and on the 
 inner wall where no windows were, the main 
 body of the army of General Learning was 
 drawn up in solid columns. Over the cases 
 between the windows hung trophies of old 
 arms and armour, and family portraits, al- 
 ternatively. All the appointments floor, 
 ceiling, furniture, panels, frames, cases ; 
 everything was of rich old oak, black with 
 age, and bright with elbow - grease. In 
 summer-time the mid-day sun-beams fell 
 with softened splendour through the stained 
 glass, crept as it were on tip-toe along the 
 floor, and touched the sober - coated files 
 with awe, as though some all-compelling 
 power had once stood there and written 
 Hush! in letters which could be felt not 
 read. The great open fire-place at the end 
 did not pretend to warm all the room, nor
 
 166 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 did the wide-spreading brass chandelier 
 which hung from its dome, aspire to give it 
 light. Cold and dim as it was by night, 
 you shivered but forgave it ; for its thought- 
 creating silence, its faint shadows, its vener- 
 able age, and the wisdom which seemed to 
 be breathed out from its treasures, and to 
 fill the air. 
 
 There was only one sham about it what 
 looked like a bookcase between the fourth 
 and fifth windows was not a bookcase at all, 
 but a screen painted to represent the backs 
 of books whereon imposing titles were in- 
 scribed, and which being slid aside disclosed 
 a small door leading out on to the lawn. 
 This was fashioned by Sir Humphrey Bell- 
 monte (son of the elder Humphrey who had 
 restored the fallen fortunes of the house), 
 so that he might go out when he pleased, 
 and digest his reading, pacing up and down
 
 RES ANGUSTA DOMI. 167 
 
 the velvet grass, or chew the cud of it at his 
 ease under the grave old yew trees. Mr. 
 Moule post-master, stationer, archaeologist, 
 and antiquarian, the most unpretentious 
 little man in all Town Garcin, whose name 
 will be mentioned once or twice in this 
 history had a key of that door, and was 
 welcome to use it as much as he liked. He 
 came and he went unnoticed. No one not 
 Sir Alexander himself knew as well as 
 little Mr. Moule, the extent and value of 
 that library. He knew it by heart in a 
 double sense, for he loved it. He handled 
 the books as if they were tender living 
 things. No fear of stains or tearing at his 
 hands. No fear of borrowing even, for he 
 was honest as the day is light ; but what if, 
 being (as he was) a pre-occupied little man, 
 he were to leave that door open when he 
 went out, and some tramp were to enter,
 
 168 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 and out of mere wantonness set the room 
 on fire, and all those priceless manuscripts, 
 those irreplacable copies, those splendid 
 editions were burned to ashes? Well, if 
 all they had done between them could be 
 known, he and that tramp might claim the 
 eternal gratitude of the Bellmontes of 
 Garcin.
 
 HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 169 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 
 
 ARTHUR'S telegram from Minsterton, stat- 
 ing that lie was about to start for home in 
 obedience to his father's wishes, developed 
 Sir Alexander's chronic state of fuss into 
 one of excitement, which gave Lady Belle- 
 mont serious uneasiness. Muddle and 
 muddle was the order of the day. They 
 (Sir Alexander and his wife) would drive to 
 the station and meet their dear boy. No, 
 if she didn't mind, he would rather go alone, 
 and meet his dear boy. Well, perhaps it 
 would be nicer for the meeting to be in 
 private. They would neither of them go.
 
 170 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 The dear boy was to have his old room. 
 No, it was not good enough for him now. 
 Half a dozen chambers were prepared, and 
 furniture changed about from one to the 
 other, under the immediate supervision of 
 Sir Alexander, before one was selected for 
 the heir. The dog- cart was ordered to the 
 station, and countermanded because Sir 
 Alexander thought it would rain. The 
 brougham was substituted and counter- 
 manded, because the clouds looked as 
 though they would pass, and so on. Fuss 
 and contradiction reigned supreme, cretonism 
 invaded the house-keeper's room, and mental 
 paralysis seized upon the stables. Arthur, 
 finding no carriage at the station to meet 
 him, had to start for home in a hired fly, 
 and met every wheel and hoof that his 
 father's stables contained, on the road. 
 When the procession, headed by the fly,
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 171 
 
 arrived at the Hall, he had to wait (starv- 
 ing) two hours for luncheon, which had been 
 originally ordered for about the time his 
 train left Charing Cross. 
 
 When they met, his father kissed him as 
 when he was a child; slapped him on the 
 shoulder and chuckled ; slapped him again, 
 and cried, quietly. On several occasions he 
 was observed rubbing his hands together 
 with an air of great content, and muttering, 
 " now then," as though something of further 
 happy import were on the way. 
 
 After luncheon, he took Arthur out to see 
 the stables. He thought it would be a treat 
 for the young Huzzar to see the three 
 demure animals out of which the pair for 
 my lady's carriage was selected; the Roman- 
 nosed grey of unknown age, who ran the 
 dog-cart ; the pony and the cob. 
 
 This inspection over, he carried his son
 
 172 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 off to the flower-garden, having previously 
 armed himself with a spud, with which he 
 was wont to do irreparable damage under 
 the hallucination that he was weeding. 
 
 They wandered about, and nothing parti- 
 cular was said on either side, till they came 
 to a plant which had passed its bloom, and 
 being an annual had lived its life. Sir 
 Alexander stooped to pull it up, but after 
 two ineffectual tugs had to desist, panting 
 and red in the face. 
 
 " I'm not so strong as I was, Arthur, you 
 see," he said, almost whimpering. 
 
 Arthur took hold, and pretended to exert 
 his whole force. 
 
 " Tough as the deuce ! " he observed, 
 throwing aside the doomed plant, and 
 wiping his hands. 
 
 " Yes, it was tough, very ; very tough 
 indeed," replied his father, brightening up ;
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 173 
 
 " but if I had grasped it a little lower down, 
 where you did, I think I could have pulled 
 it up ; don't you ? " anxiously. 
 
 " Of course," Arthur assured him ; " but 
 what's the use of your getting a back-ache 
 for nothing ? " 
 
 " Who told you it made my back ache ? " 
 Again the anxious look and fretful tone. 
 
 "No one. I only say it's not worth while 
 to bother about such work. Leave it to the 
 gardeners." 
 
 " Ah ! then you don't mean to say that I 
 cannot do it ? " 
 
 It was pitiful to behold the weak, wander- 
 ing eyes ; now fearing against a hope, now 
 hoping against a fear. Arthur comforted 
 him with some jocular evasion, and after a 
 pause, he went on in a brighter strain : 
 
 " I don't deny that I'm not the* man that 
 I was ten or fifteen years ago. I'm going
 
 174 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 down hill, my dear boy. There's no doubt 
 about that ; but I may live a good long time 
 yet." 
 
 "God grant it, sir." 
 
 " Good boy. Yes, I have not been feel- 
 ing strong lately just lately, you know 
 but it's nothing serious. Dr. Barwell says 
 so ; and, Arthur," he continued, lowering his 
 voice, " there is no sign." 
 
 "No, I don't think there is to signify," 
 his son replied, looking him over. " You are 
 a little thinner than you were perhaps ; may 
 be it's the hot weather." 
 
 Sir Alexander turned aside and muttered 
 to himself : " I forgot ; he does not know." 
 
 "But that needn't fret you," Arthur 
 continued quickly, thinking that he had 
 touched a tender point. " I think you look 
 better as you are ; I wish I could get rid of 
 two or three pounds of fat."
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 175 
 
 " Well, I suppose you think I have been 
 shamming a bit, and brought you home 
 under false pretences," said the baronet, 
 pleased as one class of invalid is at having 
 his strength over-rated. " Perhaps I have ; 
 perhaps I have, my dear boy. I wanted to 
 talk with you about yourself. I have been 
 thinking for some time, ever since you went 
 to Minsterton, that we made a mistake in 
 putting you into a cavalry regiment. You 
 ought to have gone into the Guards, Arthur ; 
 that is the career for you. The Guards have 
 the run of the best London society, and it 
 isn't too late yet. Many men in the Guards 
 get ruined, and exchange into the line for a 
 consideration." 
 
 " 1 think you are misinformed, sir," 
 Arthur replied ; " the Guards are amongst 
 the quietest regiments in the service, and 
 when a Guardsman goes to the bad, he does
 
 176 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 not exchange into an expensive corps like 
 mine." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! the thing is done every day. 
 Don't tell me ; I read the ' Gazette ' regular- 
 ly. There are ways of arranging such mat- 
 ters for a consideration, and that we can 
 easily manage. The fact is, my dear boy, that 
 this family and there isn't a better one in 
 the kingdom has been let down. Your uncle 
 was a peculiar man very peculiar ; never 
 knew the value of money ; under-rated his 
 position in the world ; lived only for him- 
 self. The sums he spent upon gaming and 
 worthless creatures dear, dear ! Any woman 
 with a pretty face made a fool of him, and 
 it is a wonder and a mercy that some of 
 them did not inveigle him into a disreput- 
 able marriage. He wouldn't live on the 
 estate ; treated it like a milch cow for his 
 extravagancies. Spent all his time in Lon-
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 177 
 
 don and Paris, and got quite a bad name, 
 poor fellow ! Yes, he let us down a good 
 deal. I was not'brought up to think I had a 
 chance of inheriting. Why, he was, com- 
 paratively speaking, a young man when he 
 died, and might have married up to the 
 last ! When I came into the estate I was 
 old for my years, Arthur ; my ideas were 
 formed ; I lived amongst my books and my 
 cabinets. I couldn't go hunting and shoot- 
 ing, and doing what a country gentleman 
 should, even if I knew how ; and I did not. 
 It's very different with you ; you have the 
 ball at your feet." Here the speaker struck 
 his spud into the ground and leant upon it 
 with both hands. " You can raise the old 
 house, Arthur. You can be a Bellmonte of 
 Garcin that the world will talk about." 
 "By going into the Guards?" Arthur 
 
 asked, with a smile. 
 
 i. 12
 
 178 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " That is only a means towards the end. 
 What can you do, buried in some dirty, 
 manufacturing town, or sent to Ireland, or 
 India, or Heaven knows where ? In the 
 Guards, as I have said, the best society is 
 yours. You will mix on equal terms with 
 great people, and you could make a great 
 marriage. That's what I am thinking of, 
 Arthur. A great marriage ! With your win- 
 ning ways yes, my dear boy, you have very 
 winning ways, God bless you ! and your 
 position as the heir of Garcin, there's many 
 a noble lady who would smile upon you. 
 Aye ! and many a noble lord who would not 
 check her for it. Settlements ! I should 
 think we could make settlements. Why, 
 during the eleven years I have been here, I 
 haven't spent one-half of my income ; no, 
 nor a-third of it. I couldn't ; and my savings 
 are all well invested in land that cannot run
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 179 
 
 away. What is there to look glum about ? 
 Are you attending to me ? You are not 
 averse to matrimony, I hope ? " 
 
 Arthur was not attending, his mind was 
 at Minsterton with May. He had to bring 
 it back with a jerk. " No no not a bit/' 
 he stammered ; "on the contrary, I think 
 that the married state, with a woman one 
 loves, must be a very happy one." 
 
 " That's right. And one can love, and 
 be loved by a high-born girl. Women are 
 women all the world over. It's all nonsense 
 to suppose that a man in your position can- 
 not get rank, and blood, and wealth, or 
 that which we most require, influence ; and 
 love too." 
 
 " Did you try for all that when you 
 married ? " Arthur asked drily. 
 
 " I ! what did it matter what / tried for, 
 or did ? I was very differently situated to
 
 180 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 you ; I was a second son. It did not matter 
 a straw whom I married." 
 
 " But you did right well." 
 
 " For me. But what was I ? Nobody. 
 I was very lucky. I don't repent in the 
 least. Your mother is, and always has been, 
 the best of women, and she had a little 
 fortune of her own, which was not to be 
 sneezed at by a second son. She has made 
 me very happy/' 
 
 " And if I were to follow your ex- 
 ample ? " 
 
 " It wouldn't do, Arthur ; it would not do. 
 You can get every quality that your dear 
 mother possesses, for your own personal 
 happiness, and something more something 
 greatly more for the welfare and glory of 
 the family. Now promise me that you will 
 think' seriously of what I have said." 
 
 One can promise to think, without much
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 181 
 
 compromising oneself, and so Arthur con- 
 sented. 
 
 " And you will do your best to fulfil my 
 wish ? " 
 
 This was putting it a great deal closer. 
 Arthur thought of Tom Tyrell, and shiv- 
 ered. What if his father should go on and 
 ask if he had ever been in love ? Or worse 
 push his questionings, and demand if he 
 were heart-whole at that moment. How 
 could that be answered ? With an adroit- 
 ness, for which he afterwards gave himself 
 much credit, he shirked the end, and went 
 back to the proposed means. 
 
 "Well, sir," he said, "if you think I 
 should do better in the Guards " 
 
 " That's my own boy," cried his delighted 
 father. In his eagerness to shake hands upon 
 what he took to be a bargain concluded, he 
 wrenched out his spud, and wholly devas-
 
 182 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 tated what the gardener was fondly pray- 
 ing might turn out a prize dahlia. 
 
 " Oh Arthur," he sighed, still grasping his 
 hand, " if I could only live to ride a little 
 grandson on my knee, and hear him prattle, 
 as you used to do, so proud and confident of 
 what you would be when you were a man. 
 And, Arthur, I wouldn't stand in your way 
 you should be Bellmonte of Garcin. We 
 could easily get you elected for this division 
 of the county ; old Eomsey is not likely to 
 stand again, and if he did, we could beat 
 him. In the Guards ! in Parliament ! wiiat 
 could you not aspire to ! I tell you, my 
 boy, there have been Bellmontes of Garcin 
 who have refused peerages. But times have 
 changed a title is a title now-a-days. Earl 
 Bellmonte of Garcin, or even Baron Garcin, 
 does not sound bad, I think," Sir Alex- 
 ander concluded, rubbing his hands.
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 183 
 
 He stuck to his son's side so closely all 
 the rest of that day, that the latter had no 
 opportunity of speaking alone with Lady 
 Bellmonte, and went to his bed in deep 
 depression. He had come with the hope 
 that finding his father in failing health, and 
 his mother bent upon his establishing him- 
 self upon the estate that might soon be his, 
 he might bring them both to terms. His 
 plan was to magnify the delight he took 
 in soldiering, hint that only one state was 
 preferable to that of a light dragoon, and 
 gradually get them to accept May Fairfax 
 as the price of his becoming a country 
 gentleman. All this was scattered to the 
 four winds now. With sorrow let us do 
 him justice, sorrow far beyond the immediate 
 trouble it involved he saw that his father's 
 ambition for him was the outcome of a 
 diseased mind. He knew that there was
 
 184 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 nothing of the snob in Sir Alexander's com- 
 position. A Manchester warehouseman or a 
 Staffordshire ironmaster might have talked 
 as Sir Alexander did there in the garden, 
 and been perfectly sane ; but for a Bell- 
 monte of Garcin to want his son to sell him- 
 self (for to Arthur's mind it came to that) 
 into ranks which his ancestors would not 
 lower themselves to enter even as the 
 supposed reward of honourable service 
 seemed to be sheer insanity ! 
 
 After a sleepless night he came down, 
 and found his mother alone. The excite- 
 ment of the previous day had been too much 
 for Sir Alexander, who was confined to his 
 room, under the influence of morphine, by 
 the Doctor's order. 
 
 " Well, dear," said Lady Bellmonte, when 
 breakfast was over. " Tell me the truth ; 
 how do you find him ? "
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 185 
 
 "Fearfully changed. I was prepared to 
 see him looking ill, but how long has he 
 been thus ? " 
 
 " About three months." 
 
 " So long. Tell me truly, mammie dear, 
 does he get better or worse ? " 
 
 "Well, he varies. I hope your coming 
 will benefit him when the first excitement 
 has worn off" 
 
 "There's one good thing about it," ob- 
 served Arthur ; "he does not perceive how 
 altered he is." 
 
 "Oh, but he does, indeed." 
 
 " We were speaking about his health, 
 and he said distinctly that there was not a 
 sign." 
 
 " I think you must be mistaken." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Those were his very 
 words ' there is no sign ' and he said them 
 very seriously."
 
 186 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Lady Bellmen te turned aside and hid her 
 face, arranging an antimacassar. 
 
 " I told him," Arthur went on, " that he 
 had got a little thin, and looked better for 
 it. That appeared to please him." 
 
 " You were quite right," his mother 
 said, still with her face averted, and he 
 did not notice the flush upon it. " Did 
 he have anything particular to say to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied her son with a laugh, to 
 which he tried hard to give a natural ring ; 
 "he wants me to marry." 
 
 She turned to him with a soft light in her 
 eyes, and took his hand. 
 
 " That is a serious step, Arthur." 
 
 " Serious ! " he replied, somewhat bitterly ; 
 "as he puts it, it's simply awful ! I'm to 
 marry a Princess, or some Grand Duchess in 
 her own right at least, and all our relatives
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MAKRY." 187 
 
 are to be Prime Ministers and Archbishops 
 of Canterbury." 
 
 " Poor man ! He has said something of 
 the sort to me." 
 
 " The idea of my catching a Duchess ! 
 and being sat upon by her Grace and the 
 Gracelings all my life. I'd sooner marry 
 a girl without a penny who hadn't 
 a relative in the world/' spluttered her 
 son. 
 
 " There's a wide margin between the two, 
 dear," said she, caressing the hand she still 
 held. " They say that mothers lose their 
 sons when they marry, but, Arthur, I should 
 not be jealous of your wife. I would try to 
 gain her, and to keep you. I think it is well 
 for men to marry early, if they marry wisely. 
 I am prepared to be a model mother-in-law 
 dear, if you bring me home a good girl who 
 loves you."
 
 188 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Mother, you are the best, the sweetest, 
 the dearest." 
 
 " Silly boy ! one would think that you 
 were some one in a play who had his 
 beloved one hid in a cupboard, to pop out 
 and ask for a blessing. Let us be serious. 
 You must not contradict your poor father 
 in any way. In these cases one must use a 
 little diplomacy. It is kindness. Seem to 
 agree with him, or the chances are that he 
 may turn round and forbid you to marry at 
 all. We must not forget," she continued 
 seriously, " that your future is entirely in his 
 hands." 
 
 "Not so entirely, mother dear. I hate 
 to talk on these subjects ; but he told me, 
 when I came of age that Garcin would be 
 mine." 
 
 " Arthur, I know him better than you do. 
 He is a good man, but fearfully obstinate
 
 "HE WANTS ME TO MARRY." 189 
 
 always was so. Now, unfortunately, he 
 has taken an idea into his mind which will 
 be very difficult to eradicate unless it goes 
 out of itself, opposition will only strengthen 
 it. And, Arthur, dearest, you are mistaken. 
 He is not so weak as not to be able to make 
 a valid will, and if he were offended, and 
 did make one 3 
 
 " Do you mean to say he could disinherit 
 me?" 
 
 " Disinherit is a terrible word," she re- 
 plied. " Don't let us mention it. But you 
 must be careful."
 
 190 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT, AND THE COURT 
 AWARDS IT." 
 
 THE first Tuesday in every month was 
 market-day at Town Garcin, which must 
 not be confused with Castle Garcin, on the 
 other side of the river Gar, where stood 
 Arthur Bellmonte's house. Time was, when 
 the former Garcin was given its explanatory 
 addition to denote its inferiority. The grim 
 round tower, and the abbey which had been 
 built under its walls, formed the Garcin, 
 which was the scene of many strange and 
 stirring events, recorded in early histories 
 of Hopshire, the county in which both
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 191 
 
 places were situate. Abbey and tower had 
 crumbled into ruins, old and older ; and the 
 once despised cluster of huts on the opposite 
 bank of the river had long ago become a 
 market-town. And a remarkably dirty and 
 ill-flavoured town it was on market-day. 
 For a fine old conservative spirit had main- 
 tained, in its maturity, the primitive custom 
 of selling beeves, and sheep, and swine, in 
 its main street, which arose in its youth. 
 The pens that confined this raw and fre- 
 quently obstreperous material of dining, 
 gave just room for one cart to pass in the 
 centre of the roadway ; and one foot pas- 
 senger, if he be adroit, could just scrape along 
 between their other boundary and the shop 
 windows. The market began at six in the 
 morning, and lasted till two in the after- 
 noon, when the rush of sold and unsold 
 beasts, the barking of dogs, the shouts of
 
 192 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 the boys acting as amateur drovers, and the 
 curses of the professional class at everything 
 and everybody (including their unsought 
 allies), occupied another hour. Then began 
 the shovelling, and scraping, and sluicing of 
 pavement and street, and Town Garcin went 
 to its tea about six P.M., clean once more ; 
 but tired and cross, and declaring that it 
 was " a shame." Let any stranger, however, 
 suggest that the monthly sale of live stock 
 might be transferred to some one of the not 
 very productive meadows on Gar side, with 
 advantage to man and meat, he would be 
 set down as a leveller, and a visionary, and 
 bade to mind his own business. If the 
 market made dirt, it brought custom. 
 "You could wash away dirt, but custom 
 stuck," was the oracular dictum of an 
 ancient proprietor of the Bettmonte Arms; 
 which Garcin remembered, and repeated to
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 193 
 
 this day. The smaller publics were well 
 satisfied. The draper sold more goods on 
 market day than during the rest of the 
 month. Mr. Moule, the antiquary, who 
 kept the post-office and sold stationery, up- 
 held the unsavoury custom upon constitu- 
 tional principles ; and the china shop had 
 long grown accustomed to receive an occa- 
 sional bull. So what was the use of talking ? 
 Thus you see that Garcin was an old- 
 fashioned little place, and the Ga.rcinians 
 old-fashioned people, with jog-trot ways and 
 deep-rooted prejudices. The nearest railway 
 was six miles off. They had no music hall, 
 and did not want one. Arthur Bellmonte 
 had not been at home for nearly two years, 
 and then his visit was a flying one, on his 
 way to head-quarters in Ireland, from the 
 depot. His appearance, therefore, at the end 
 
 of August, breathing of shooting parties and 
 i. 13
 
 194 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 a lengthened stay, during which festivities 
 might be expected at Bellmonte, stirred up 
 Garcin. Mr. and Mrs. Dawkins requested 
 the pleasure of sixteen people's company at 
 dinner, " to meet Mr. Bellmonte ; " where- 
 upon ten of that select circle immediately 
 issued cards to the same set, " to meet Mr. 
 Bellmonte ; " and when those entertainments 
 came off, they presented an uniformity of 
 viands which harmonized with that of the 
 guests roast saddle of mutton and boiled 
 turkey being invariably bidden to " meet 
 Mr. Bellmonte," and no previous engage- 
 ments prevented them. So, what with 
 visits to old friends, and gossiping with 
 tenants, and interviews with Mr. Jones, the 
 head keeper, about the all-important First, 
 and certain correspondence which occupied 
 him the greater part of his morning Arthur 
 had plenty to do and to think about. On
 
 " THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 195 
 
 the eve of the Feast of St. Partridge the 
 shooting party arrived, and on the great 
 day itself, an event occurred which threw 
 all Garcin into a ferment. 
 
 To fully understand what had happened, 
 and what was to be the consequence, we 
 will follow if you please the example of 
 a good many curious people, and go into 
 town on market-day. 
 
 Market-day was also justice's day at Town 
 Garcin. Their worships, taking advantage 
 of the influx, held their regular petty ses- 
 sions in the Town-hall an ugly red brick 
 structure built on arches in a nitch cut out 
 of the High Street and on this occasion 
 they had before them a cause celebre. The 
 special btte noir of clergy, and magistrates, 
 and all the respectabilities (especially the 
 gamekeepers), was in custody on a charge of 
 poaching. His name was George Cowper.
 
 196 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 He was usually spoken of as "Gipsy Cowper," 
 or "that Cowper/' with an occasional adjec- 
 tive or past participle to qualify the proper 
 name, between the two words. And he was 
 Sib's father. From the first day that he set 
 his foot in Garcin, he had been marching 
 quick step to the bad. He began as a 
 gentleman farmer, and there he was in the 
 dock I For years he had laughed at law, 
 and what was worse, made others laugh at 
 it with him ; but it had caught him at last. 
 He was a man who had seen some forty 
 winters, and had not been upon good terms 
 with them. Hard, but handsome features, 
 stamped with dissipation and recklessness 
 as plainly as a sovereign is stamped with St. 
 George and the dragon ; and a tall, lithe, 
 and vigorous frame, that had, as yet, held 
 its own against them. He lounged with a 
 shoulder against one of the posts which
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 197 
 
 flanked the desk nothing awed or ashamed 
 with his hands in his pockets. When 
 asked if he had any question to put to the 
 witnesses who testified against him, he re- 
 plied, with a half contemptuous chuck of 
 the head, that said " go on," and moved Mr. 
 Tidy, the clerk, to wrath. 
 
 The magistrates on the bench were Mr. 
 Dawkins, and a justice who did not usually 
 attend, but had to be summoned because 
 Sir Alexander Bellmonte, the regular chair- 
 man being interested in the case did not 
 think it proper to sit. The stranger was a 
 retired Manchester warehouseman, named 
 Witherspoon, who had recently bought a 
 place in Hopshire ; and, as a compliment, 
 he was allowed to conduct the proceedings. 
 He was anxious to take a place in the 
 county, and here was a chance of cultivat- 
 ing the regard of its game preservers, by
 
 198 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 sending the terrible Gipsy Cowper to the 
 tread-mill. 
 
 So anxious was he to have all the honours 
 to himself, that he began by snubbing Mr. 
 Tidy for some suggestion or other, where- 
 upon Mr. Tidy sits down in a fret, and the 
 prisoner shook his head at him as at a little 
 boy who was being naughty. This did not 
 prepossess Mr. Tidy in the prisoner's favour. 
 
 There were only two witnesses Mr. 
 Jones, head keeper to Sir Alexander, and 
 Mr. Jones' boy ; and they told a very clear 
 and straightforward story, to which Gipsy 
 Cowper did not appear to listen. He heard 
 it though every word. 
 
 " Now, prisoner, is the time to make your 
 defence," said Mr. Witherspoon, as the boy 
 stood down uncross-examined ; " have you 
 anything to say ? " 
 
 Gipsy Cowper slowly changed his attitude
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 199 
 
 to one of still greater indifference and con- 
 tempt, and asked, coolly 
 
 " Is that the case ? " 
 
 " That is the case," replied the presiding 
 justice, " and I must say " 
 
 "No, you mustn't," interrupted the pri- 
 soner. " It's my turn to speak now. Let's 
 have no mistake about it. Is that all ? " 
 This time to the clerk. 
 
 The clerk, to avenge being nodded at 
 when he asked questions, nodded a reply ; 
 but that would not suit Gipsy Cowper. 
 
 " Can't you speak ? " he asked, haughtily. 
 " Is that your case all of it ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is," snapped the clerk. 
 
 " Then there is no case to answer," 
 sneered the prisoner. 
 
 " No case ! " exclaimed Mr. Witherspoon, 
 turning over his notes. " Why it has been 
 distinctly proved that you were caught
 
 200 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 trespassing in pursuit of game and seen 
 to shoot two partridges which were found 
 upon you, and you did not put one single 
 question in cross-examination." 
 
 " There was no need," said the prisoner, 
 with exasperating confidence. "I am charged 
 with trespassing in pursuit of game upon 
 land belonging to Sir Alexander Bellmonte. 
 You have not proved that the land on which 
 I was found belongs to Sir Alexander Bell- 
 monte." 
 
 " Why, it is notorious " 
 
 "Nothing is notorious in a court of justice." 
 
 " Then we will call back Mr. Jones, and " 
 
 " Oh no, you won't. The case is over. 
 
 You said so. Your clerk said so. It's too 
 
 late. You can't make out a trespass against 
 
 me without proving that the land isn't mine, 
 
 or that I hadn't leave to go on it. You've 
 
 done neither. You have proved that I went
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 201 
 
 out shooting on the first of September like 
 any other gentleman, and bagged a brace of 
 birds. What then ? You've done the same 
 yourself, I dare say." 
 
 " This is ridiculous," from the bench. 
 
 "Of course it is," from the dock, "very 
 ridiculous. I'm not certain that I haven't 
 an action of false imprisonment against some 
 
 
 
 01 you. 
 
 " At any rate he was shooting without a 
 license," observed Mr. Witherspoon (who 
 was beginning to feel small) to his brother 
 justice. 
 
 " How do you know ? " retorted Cowper. 
 " I'm not up for that, anyhow. Stick to one 
 thing at a time. I say there's no case on 
 the summons I've got to answer now." 
 
 " Do you mean to pretend that Sir Alex- 
 ander gave you leave to shoot ? " said Mr. 
 Dawkins, coming to the rescue.
 
 202 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 " I don't mean to say anything, and you've 
 no business to ask me any questions. I 
 stand on my rights." 
 
 " On a mere quibble," interposed the clerk. 
 
 "Well ; call it a quibble," replied Cowper, 
 with another contemptuous wave of his hand. 
 " ' Quibbling's ' your trade." 
 
 "Really!" exclaimed Mr. Tidy, rising, 
 very red in the face. 
 
 " Yes, really ! " echoed the prisoner. "You 
 should keep better order in court." 
 
 " You must not be impertinent, prisoner," 
 fumed Mr. Witherspoon. 
 
 " All right ! " said Cowper, putting his 
 hands in his pockets, and resuming his lounge 
 against the post ; " only don't let him call my 
 legal objections quibbles again," and there 
 came a smile over his face as he spoke which 
 was terribly provoking. 
 
 The two justices put their heads together ;
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 203 
 
 the clerk got upon his chair and put his 
 head between theirs, and they had a long 
 conference in whispers, during which Mr. 
 Witherspoon repeatedly wiped his brows. 
 
 Then the court retired to consider its de- 
 cision, clerk and all; and soon afterwards 
 Arthur Bellmonte came in to see how things 
 were going. Cowper remained in the dock, 
 and when he saw the young squire, a great 
 change came over his face and bearing. He 
 looked ashamed for the first time. 
 
 " I'm sorry for this, Cowper," said Arthur, 
 in a low voice from the outside of the rail 
 " very sorry. Of course they have convicted 
 you." 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " But the evidence was so " 
 
 "Did you hear it?" 
 
 "Not here; I have only just come in ; 
 but if what Jones told me was true "
 
 204 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "Every word of it was true/' growled 
 Cowper " for once ; but they've made a 
 slip didn't prove that the land was Sir 
 Alexander's. Didn't show that you hadn't 
 given me leave." 
 
 " Ah ! and you hope to get off on that" 
 
 The two men's eyes met, and Gipsy 
 Cowper's felL 
 
 Arthur passed in, and went into the 
 magistrates' private room, * where he found 
 a fierce discussion raging. Mr. Witherspoon 
 was furious with the clerk for not " remind- 
 ing him." The clerk was humbly cutting 
 in, supposing that Mr. Witherspoon did not 
 , need to be reminded. Mr. Witherspoon 
 wished he had not come, and the clerk 
 sighed amen! Mr. Dawkins, never strong- 
 minded, tried to make peace, and like all 
 weak-handed peace-makers only made bad 
 worse. The legal point, for the consideration
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 205 
 
 of which they had retired, was not mentioned 
 in the first half-hour. When it did crop up 
 it was in relation to what the newspapers 
 would say. 
 
 At this juncture Arthur came in, and find- 
 ing the case still undecided was about to 
 retire, when Mr. Dawkins clutched his arm 
 and whispered : " For God's sake, help us 
 out of this, or we shall be made the laughing- 
 stock of the county." Mr. Dawkins had 
 reasons to think that Arthur would not be 
 sorry if the prisoner escaped ; and also that 
 Mr. Witherspoon's anxiety to convict him 
 was born of a desire to please the Bellmontes. 
 
 "Yes, pray remain," added Mr. Wither- 
 spoon. " We are placed in a painful dilem- 
 ma from which you may, perhaps, assist us 
 to escape with propriety. It is quite clear 
 that the man is guilty, and ought to be 
 punished, notwithstanding the discreditable
 
 206 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 quibble of which he has taken advantage. 
 He says that you gave him leave to shoot." 
 
 "No, no, no," interposed the other justice; 
 " he said nothing of the sort." 
 
 " He implied it, which is quite as bad." 
 
 " Now did you give him leave ? " 
 
 " I did not," replied Arthur. 
 
 " There ! now are you satisfied ? " This 
 to Mr. Dawkins. 
 
 " That he was poaching ? Yes ; certainly 
 I am. I was before the case was opened. 
 So was every one. But if we are to go on 
 what we think beforehand, what's the good 
 of a trial ? Now look here, Mr. Witherspoon, 
 if we let him off, he'll make fun of us in 
 half-a-dozen pot-houses, grow bolder, pre- 
 sume upon his escape, do the same thing 
 again, and then we can hit him. If we over- 
 rule his quibble, and send him to jail, we 
 shall have those d Radical papers on us
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 207 
 
 with an article headed " Justices' Justice," 
 calling us fools and worse. Then there'll be 
 a question in the House of Commons, a let- 
 ter from the Home Secretary, and all sorts 
 of bother. It isn't worth the fuss there'd 
 be. It isn't, really." 
 
 " As for newspaper criticism," began Mr. 
 Witherspoon, loftily, " I despise it, and " 
 
 " Exactly of course ! I know you do," 
 said Dawkins ; " so do I. But then, you 
 know, Mr. Tidy, who is an excellent lawyer, 
 and by whose opinions we always go don't 
 we, Arthur ? says " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," interposed the per- 
 son indicated, " I have said nothing except 
 in self-defence. Mr. Witherspoon has been 
 lecturing me ever since you retired for not 
 having suggested certain questions. He has 
 not even asked me if they were necessary or 
 even proper."
 
 208 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Why, you distinctly gave us to under- 
 stand " 
 
 "I was not allowed to say three words 
 without being snapped up," replied Tidy, 
 with a sullen look of appeal. " I am not 
 accustomed to be treated in this manner. I 
 came in here to be consulted, and if I am 
 only to be found fault with I'd better go," 
 
 " Well, well, well, don't be vexed, Mr. 
 Tidy," purred the peace-maker. " I really 
 thought you why, you really called it a 
 quibble, you know ! " 
 
 " So it is." 
 
 " Then do sit down, like a good man, and 
 tell us what it is worth." 
 
 " Am I to understand that my opinion is 
 required by both magistrates ? " 
 
 " I shall not interrupt you again, Mr. 
 Tidy," replied the strange justice, who had 
 shrunk considerably.
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 209 
 
 " As for the first point," Mr. Tidy began ? 
 " the ownership of the land there's nothing 
 in it. The idea of every gentleman being 
 obliged to bring his title-deeds into court to 
 convict a tramp of trespass ! And as to the 
 second " 
 
 Here a policeman entered with a message 
 from the prisoner. The prisoner presented 
 his respectful duty to the Court, and might 
 he be allowed to say a few words ? 
 
 " Ought we to go in and hear him ? " 
 asked Witherspoon. 
 
 "I think it would be as well," Tidy 
 replied ; " I can finish my opinion afterwards. 
 Speech is a rope that has hung many a 
 rascal. Give this one plenty of it." 
 
 So they all went back into the justice 
 room, and found Gipsy Cowper standing 
 upright in the centre of the dock. His face 
 
 was pale, his hand fretted nervously on the 
 i. 14
 
 210 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 rail, the old air, half defiance, half contempt, 
 had left him. He had to clear his throat 
 several times before he could speak, and 
 then his voice was low, and trembled. 
 
 " I take back that that quibble," he said. 
 " It's too much like a lie. You were right, 
 sir (to Witherspoon) . It's notorious that 
 the Brake meadow belongs to Sir Alexander 
 Bellmonte. It has been Bellmonte land for 
 generations and generations. And neither 
 he nor Mr. Arthur gave me leave to shoot- 
 not then at any rate. Time was, when I 
 taught him to bag his brace right and left, 
 and was welcome to a bird or two myself 
 but that's gone by. No ; the first thing he 
 said to me when he came back, was to beg 
 me to give up poaching but I couldn't ; 
 and last Friday he gave me fair warning 
 not to poach on Bellmonte land, or I'd be 
 prosecuted. He said you gentlemen were
 
 "THE LAW ALLOWS IT." 211 
 
 down upon Sir Alexander for letting me off 
 so many times. That's all I've got to say." 
 
 " Then you plead guilty ? " asked Mr. 
 Tidy, taking a dip of ink, and writing 
 quickly, lest the talented Witherspoon 
 should cut in and spoil the situation. 
 
 " I plead guilty," said Gipsy Cowper. As 
 he spoke, he turned towards where Arthur 
 stood. Their eyes met again, and this time 
 the prisoner's did not fall.
 
 212 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 
 
 " I WOULD much rather not have any- 
 thing more to say about it," replied Arthur, 
 as he drove Mr. Dawkins home in his dog- 
 cart, "but if you insist upon an answer, I 
 will tell you candidly that I think your 
 sentence was monstrous perfectly mon- 
 strous ! Wo oh, there ! " He had emphasised 
 this dictum by a crack of the whip, which 
 the big grey resented. 
 
 "It was Witherspoon's sentence, not 
 mine." 
 
 " You concurred in it. The idea of 
 giving a man six months for a first offence, 
 and when he pleaded guilty ! "
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 213 
 
 " Come, come, Arthur, first offence ! That 
 won't do. It's the first time he has been 
 caught, but he has deserved it twenty times. 
 He pleaded guilty because he could not 
 help it. I cannot think why you should 
 stick up for the fellow as you do." 
 
 "I am not defending him; I say that 
 six months is too much for any one, under 
 the circumstances." 
 
 " Well, it'll keep him out of harm during 
 this season, and next year you can give him 
 leave to shoot." 
 
 " Do you think that is quite the way to 
 meet a discussion which you have forced 
 on me ? " 
 
 " Witherspoon has a theory." 
 
 " Witherspoon is an ass." 
 
 " Do you think that is quite the way to 
 speak of a county magistrate ? There, 
 there, don't whip your horse because you're
 
 214 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 vexed with us. That's not just. Wither- 
 spoon, as I was going to say, has a theory 
 that first punishments ought to be severe. 
 A short term would make no impression on 
 a worthless, hardened scamp like Cowper." 
 
 " If he were worthless he would not have 
 acted as he did." 
 
 " I don't agree with you. I think his 
 raising that silly quibble " 
 
 "Which put you and Witherspoon at 
 your wit's ends for three quarters of an 
 hour," cut in Arthur. 
 
 " But which he acknowledged to be a lie. 
 Come," said Dawkins, buttoning up his 
 coat, as though to keep his triumphal re- 
 joinder warm. " I think I have you there." 
 
 " Not quite. His words were ' it is too 
 much like a lie,' and therefore he withdrew 
 it. Now, Mr. Dawkins, you know perfectly 
 well that that is not the view a lawyer
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 215 
 
 would take of it. It is certainly not the 
 view of a worthless, hardened scamp. It's 
 a gentleman s view." 
 
 "I really cannot consider a drunken 
 poacher a gentleman, even to keep you in a 
 good temper." 
 
 " There is a wide margin between doing 
 that and pronouncing him a worthless, hard- 
 ened scamp. What I contend for is, that 
 there is some good in the man, and what I 
 fear is that you will have soured it by your 
 severity, by your unusual severity. To be 
 sent to jail at all must be a terrible punish- 
 ment to a man who would not save himself 
 by what looked to him like a lie." 
 
 " He had some motive depend upon it," 
 Dawkins rejoined ; " after all, such scruples 
 take them at their best come rather late 
 from a fellow who had made himself very 
 like a thief."
 
 216 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 " By shooting those partridges ? " 
 
 " Why, of course ! " replied Dawkins. 
 
 " He's not one of those sneaking poachers 
 who trap game at night to sell it. I believe 
 that he shot those birds out of love for sport, 
 or else in bravado. He never intended to 
 sell them he'd have starved first." 
 
 " No ; he would have eaten them. I dare 
 say he did," Dawkins laughed. " You don't 
 seem to consider the example he sets. Sup- 
 pose we had given him seven days? We 
 should have fifty cases of poaching this day 
 month." 
 
 Arthur bit his lip, and the big grey got 
 another unmerited cut on his roman nose. 
 
 "Well," he said half to himself, "it 
 can't be helped, I suppose. The only thing 
 left is to see what can be done for his wife 
 and child." 
 
 "Now, look here, Arthur, I'm an older
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 217 
 
 man than you, and hear more of what con- 
 cerns you than comes to your ears. Take 
 my advice, and don't have anything more 
 to do with those Cowpers personally I mean. 
 There is a feeling about that you have done 
 too much for them already." 
 
 " Indeed ! And may I ask what business 
 is it of any one's whom I may choose to be- 
 friend?" 
 
 "One has to respect the feelings of one's 
 neighbours." 
 
 " And pray to be delivered from envy, 
 hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness 
 on Sundays." 
 
 " Well, do as you like," said Dawkins, 
 " only mind, I have warned you." 
 
 " With the very best intentions, I am sure. 
 Don't be afraid ! I shall not offend the 
 proprieties. In the first place, I don't like 
 Mrs. Cowper."
 
 218 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Now what a strange fellow you are ! " 
 exclaimed his companion. " You take part 
 with the man whom every one else is down 
 upon, and you don't like his wife, who is 
 generally respected and sympathised with." 
 
 " If that be so, why this grave warning ? " 
 
 " It would be said you helped her for his 
 sake." 
 
 " And that would be precisely the truth. 
 However, we are wandering from the point ; 
 I shall act indirectly." 
 
 " That's right," cried Dawkins, brighten- 
 ing up, " and I'm sure my wife " 
 
 " Oh ! I should not think of troubling 
 Mrs. Dawkins." 
 
 " Or one of the girls ? " 
 
 " Yes s, I think I might ask one of 
 them," replied Arthur Bellmonte. 
 
 " Thanks for the hint. How well the 
 old abbey looks ! "
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 219 
 
 They were crossing the bridge over the 
 Gar at this moment, and the once bright 
 autumn day was darkening fast. The giant 
 oaks, which hid the view in summer time, 
 stood up with thinned foliage against the 
 sun-set, and threw ghostly shadows upon 
 the sward. The river dashed, black and 
 deep, and silent, against the foot of the hill, 
 on which what was left of Garcin Abbey 
 stood, and slanting off, broke into bright 
 ripples over the shallows round the point 
 where the last red rays fell, as though 
 laughing at its escape from the gloom-struck 
 spot. The ruins themselves cast and re- 
 ceived so many shadows that the eye could 
 scarcely tell where substance ended and 
 fantasy began. They appeared twice their 
 real size, and the ravage marks of time were 
 so blurred by the darkness which fell upon 
 them from above, and the mists which rose
 
 220 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 to meet it, that as Arthur Bellmonte gazed 
 upon them he could almost fancy that some 
 magic had restored the sacred fane ; that 
 soon the angelus would peal out into the 
 silence, and the chaunting of the monks be 
 wafted on the breeze. 
 
 Prosaic Mr. Dawkins had none of the 
 qualities from which such imagination 
 springs. He was cold and hungry. He 
 only saw some old stones, and a place which 
 suggested rheumatism. Still, as he always 
 liked to agree with people, he replied, "Very 
 well indeed," in reply to Arthur Bellmonte's 
 question, and consulted his watch. Then 
 he remarked, "It's half -past five," but 
 Arthur did not hear him. He had pulled 
 up, his eyes were fixed upon the old abbey, 
 and his mind wandering amongst its shadowy 
 cloisters. 
 
 "1 beg your pardon," he said at last, with
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 221 
 
 a start. "Get up, Captain" this to the big 
 grey " I was dreaming." 
 
 " And I shivering," said Dawkins. 
 
 " I was thinking," Arthur continued, as 
 the horse refreshed by the halt threw up his 
 roman nose and rattled them along " I was 
 thinking that such an old place as that 
 ought to have a ghost, or at any rate a ghost 
 story. It's old enough, and weird enough. 
 I have often wondered why it has no his- 
 tory, no legends, no mysteries connected 
 with it. I must ask Moule why this is 
 so." 
 
 "Nonsense ! nonsense ! " Dawkins replied, 
 with more warmth than the occasion seemed 
 to demand. " What's the good of a pack of 
 stupid lies. And as for Moule ! he's a 
 learned ass. You'll stop and dine with us, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 " If I may in this dress."
 
 222 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Of course you may. You're always 
 welcome." 
 
 When a young gentleman of three and 
 twenty is heir to a baronetcy, and a fine and 
 improving estate, has fourteen quarterings 
 on his shield, good looks, and perfect health, 
 moral and physical, he is generally welcome. 
 And this rule does not find its exceptions in 
 families which include daughters of a mar- 
 riageable age. Mr. Dawkins had two fair 
 daughters, who were out in society, and a 
 son who was out of elbows. Not yet quite 
 of age, this golden youth had eaten (and 
 drank) a large hole in the portions set aside 
 in better days for his sisters, whose fortunes 
 thanks to him were now almost entirely 
 invested in their faces. It was very import- 
 ant, therefore, that they should make good 
 marriages, and the consequent arrangements
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 223 
 
 proposed by Mrs. Dawkins were, that the 
 elder should become Lady Bellmonte of 
 Garcin, and that the younger taken under 
 her ladyship's wing into the great world of 
 London should pounce upon even a higher 
 quarry. Why not ? In a former gener- 
 ation, the Dawkins had held their own 
 socially against the Bellmontes, and "the 
 Court" (short for Basden Court, their seat) 
 had run ahead of "the Hall" (short for 
 Garcin Hall, where the Bellmontes lived and 
 died) in hospitable ways, and the popularity 
 which is to be gained therefrom. This was 
 in the time of Arthur's uncle, Sir George, 
 who had " let down " the family. If old Mr. 
 Dawkins had been as careful in selecting his 
 investments as he was in choosing his port, 
 his grandchildren would have filled a differ- 
 ent stall in the matrimonial market. But 
 he drank good wine, and bought bad shares,
 
 224 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 and left the worst sort of heritage to his heir 
 a position which he had not the money to 
 maintain, or the heart to abandon. So Mrs. 
 Dawkins kept her carriage and pair, but had 
 to be careful about turnpikes, and the family 
 sat down to five mutton chops and a rabbit 
 served solemnly on silver plate by a butler 
 and footman, whose wages were always three 
 quarters in arrear. To secure even this, the 
 shooting had to be let, and the kitchen 
 garden farmed. "My shooting days are 
 over," Mr. Dawkins would say, cheerily, 
 " but I like to see the thing kept up, you 
 know. Good for the county." Eespecting 
 the arrangement under which the young 
 ladies might not pick a strawberry without 
 leave, he was equally satisfied. " My dear 
 fellow, it's the best way ; far the best way. 
 You get all you want without any bother, 
 and there is no robbery. The extent to
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 225 
 
 which my gardeners used to rob me would 
 surprise you." 
 
 Jane Dawkins (who was to be Lady 
 Bellmonte) was what one would call a " fine 
 girl." She stood five feet seven on her well- 
 made feet, and in ball dress showed a 
 delightful expanse of cool, plump, white 
 flesh, which however tapered down to a 
 waist which seemed rather too small for 
 comfort. She had nice regular features, a 
 pleasant voice, a clear complexion, and 
 plenty of hair which might be called hay- 
 coloured or golden, according to the inspira- 
 tion of the moment. She talked well, 
 danced well, was great at lawn-tennis and 
 croquet, and usually won a prize, if not the 
 prize at the annual Toxophilite meeting. 
 Her character was as regular as her counten- 
 ance as fair as her shoulders, and as cool. 
 
 Any gentleman who wanted a figure-head 
 i. 15
 
 22 ti PIOUS tfKAUDS. 
 
 for his dinner-table, and an ornament for 
 his carriage or opera-box, combined with a 
 wife who would never discredit him would 
 find all necessary qualities in Jane Dawkins. 
 This is why she was a terror to matrons 
 with sons who ought to look for money, 
 which we know poor Jane Dawkins had 
 not. 
 
 Sarah Dawkins was just like her elder 
 sister, only a size smaller all round ; figure, 
 face, character, accomplishments and all. 
 Are wooden lemons one inside the other 
 won at knock-em-downs (three sticks for a 
 penny) now-a-days ? If so, the big outside 
 one is to the next in order what Jane was to 
 Sarah, and with this idea in your mind 
 beholding the two sisters together, you 
 would almost fancy that if you opened 
 Sarah you would find a third Miss Dawkins 
 one size smaller still inside, looking just as
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 227 
 
 cool as her larger sisters, and without a 
 rumple in her costume. 
 
 The Court was only about two miles dis- 
 tant from the Hall, and so the young folk 
 became playmates as soon as they could 
 play. Even now, they were "Arthur" and 
 " Jennie " and " Sarah " with each other. 
 Once upon a time Arthur (aged ten) used 
 to call Jennie (aged seven) his " little wife." 
 They left off kissing when the boy went to 
 school, and did not resume that practice 
 when he left it, greatly to the disappoint- 
 ment of Mrs. Dawkins. For absence makes 
 the heart grow fonder, and a break in boy 
 and girl friendships is often apt to call out 
 warmer sentiments. There was no more 
 talk of wives little or big, but still no worm 
 had as yet entered the bud, and no one's 
 damask cheek had paled. Mrs. Dawkins' 
 cheek, on the contrary, assumed a deeper,
 
 228 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 larker peony, as she informed her lord in 
 the silent watches of the night that Jennie 
 was a fool, and would not take a hint. 
 " What do you think the idiot did yesterday 
 when I arranged that she and Arthur should 
 sketch the ruins together ? Let him call for 
 Grace Farquhar, and take her with them. I 
 sometimes think I'd have done better to 
 have begun with Sarah, but I'm afraid it's 
 too late." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that Jennie loves 
 him \ " asked the anxious father. 
 
 " My girls have been brought up too well 
 to love any man without being asked, Daw- 
 kins. She doesn't know what love is, and 
 she looks so healthy ! " sighed his wife. " I 
 wonder if there is anything a girl could take 
 to make her pale and miserable for a few 
 days without injuring her constitution ? " 
 mused this afflicted lady.
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 229 
 
 This conversation took place the day 
 before Gipsy Cowper was tried, and ended 
 with the arrangement that, if possible, 
 Arthur should be brought home to dinner, 
 sans ceremonie. When the repast was over, 
 good Mrs. Dawkins' cares were requited by 
 seeing her elder daughter and Arthur 
 saunter out in the garden, where they 
 remained in close converse for fully half-an- 
 hour. 
 
 They were only talking as was afterwards 
 explained about Mrs. Cowper, and how her 
 immediate necessities could be relieved ; but 
 this was a good step in the right direction, 
 Mr. Dawkins was told in the privacy of the 
 marital chamber that night. Confidences 
 between young people often led to something 
 warmer. Arthur had given Jennie ten 
 pounds to bestow according to her discre- 
 tion ; more was to come if needed, and she
 
 230 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 wasn't to say a word to any one. All this 
 would involve little notes, and little meet- 
 ings, and little expressions of mutual 
 admiration and gratitude. Yes, it was 
 decidedly a very good beginning. Poor 
 woman ! If she had only heard Sir 
 Alexander's greeting to his son on his 
 return. 
 
 " Dined at the Court, eh ? quite right. 
 Keep up with the neighbours, my dear boy, 
 only don't let people get talking about you 
 and those girls." 
 
 "The Miss Dawkins' are gentlewomen, 
 sir." 
 
 " Gentlewomen, yes ; but that sort of 
 woman mustn't get in your way. Their 
 mother is a very pushing person ; I don't 
 like her. Nothing would please her better 
 than to have you talked about in connection 
 with either of her daughters. I knew a man
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 231 
 
 once who had to many a girl simply because 
 they talked about her and him." 
 
 " Perhaps he gave some cause for it, and 
 honour bound him," Arthur observed, think- 
 ing of his own plighted word. 
 
 " Honour ? nonsense 1 He was a fool. A 
 man's honour, like his name, is not his own 
 to do what he likes with. He has to think 
 of his family, Arthur, of those who reared 
 him, and those who may come after him. If 
 I thought you capable of throwing yourself 
 away for what story-books call honour, I I 
 don't know what I should do. We have had 
 enough of that sort of thing. There was 
 your Aunt Cecilia the only daughter of 
 the house threw herself away upon a 
 penniless tutor because she had given him 
 her word." 
 
 " Well, sir, that didn't turn out badly." 
 
 " I admit he got on ; he treated her well,
 
 232 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 and they didn't absolutely starve ; but dear 
 me, Arthur ! is a house like ours to be satis- 
 fied with our daughters and our sons not 
 turning out badly ? We want them to turn 
 out well, brilliantly. At the time I remem- 
 ber that I was sorry for poor Cecilia," Sir 
 Alexander continued after a pause, and with 
 something like a whimper ; "I thought 
 that your grandfather and Uncle George 
 were too hard upon them ; but I was 
 only a second son, you know, and it was 
 no business of mine. Poor Cecilia a sweet 
 girl a very sweet girl. I'm glad that 
 you and Norman Drummond have made 
 friends. Did you say that you had asked 
 him here ? " 
 
 " You invited him yourself, sir. We 
 expect him on the 19th," Arthur replied. 
 
 " I'm glad of it ; poor dear Cecilia I I 
 was her favourite brother. I am glad I was
 
 ALWAYS WELCOME. 233 
 
 not the elder son I should have had to do 
 what George did. I couldn't have helped it. 
 I see now, being the head of the house, that 
 it was right." 
 
 Yes, Mr. Drummond was to visit Garcin 
 Hall. Arthur asked him to shoot, but that 
 was not enough. He doubted whether 
 respect for his dead mother's memory should 
 allow him to enter the house from which she 
 had been expelled, at all certainly he would 
 not do so except at the bidding of Sir 
 Alexander himself. So at Arthur's request 
 an invitation beginning " My dear Nephew," 
 and ending "Your affectionate Uncle," was 
 sent, and jumped at. But this guest could 
 not join the party on the first. One of those 
 fat arbitration cases which young barristers 
 who pay proper court to their seniors can 
 sometimes obtain, fell into his lap, and kept 
 him at Minsterton long after the assizes were
 
 234 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 over. Kept him there, perhaps, longer than 
 was absolutely necessary ; but he had his 
 fifteen guineas a day, and Sib's great speak- 
 ing eyes shone very softly now.
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 
 
 A POLITE fiction of the British constitu- 
 tion provides that when the sovereign, after 
 mature consideration, has determined on no 
 account to give his or her consent to a bill, 
 he or she says, " I'LL THINK ABOUT IT." 
 Unconscious, perhaps, of the origin of this 
 august formula of rejection, many of Her 
 Majesty's lieges adopt it as a roundabout 
 way of saying " no." For myself, I would 
 much rather be met by a downright "I 
 won't," " I can't," or " I sha'n't," than with 
 that sneaking " I'll think about it." Very 
 few people come out with a plump " yes " or
 
 236 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " no," without some after consideration of 
 what the effect may be, and this gives one 
 the chance of a new trial and a more favour- 
 able verdict. But when a man says he will 
 think about it, you may be perfectly sure 
 that he will not give it (whatever it is) 
 another thought. He wants to shirk it. The 
 only thing he will make up his mind to do, 
 is not to make up his mind. An essay upon 
 shirking as one of the Fine Arts has yet to 
 be written. The power of the intelligent 
 shirker is infinite. You can flatter the fierce, 
 bully the timid, withstand the obstinate, and 
 so gain your point because you are opposed 
 by something on which to work. The shirker 
 gives you nothing to work upon. He is a 
 cross between a mosquito and an eel. It is 
 the hardest work to corner him, and when 
 you have got hold, he slips through your 
 fingers ! Many of you, I dare say, have seen
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 237 
 
 what is called the " Saladin feat " performed 
 at exhibitions of swordsmanship. The man 
 who has cut the leg of mutton in twain with 
 one blow of his sabre, selects another weapon 
 and essays to demonstrate his skill in another 
 direction by dividing a lace handkerchief. 
 The leg of mutton hung solid, resisted the 
 blow, and click! half of it is on the floor. 
 There he shows his muscle. The flimsy lace 
 is to fall the victim of a trick, and down it 
 flutters from each side of the deftly-handled 
 blade. Here you have the most difficult feat 
 of the two, because the lace is in some degree 
 a shirker. It shirks brute force with its 
 levity. If, like the human shirker, it could 
 shirk trick force too, it would be invulner- 
 able. 
 
 Arthur Bellmonte, following his mother's 
 advice, became a shirker of the subject which 
 was uppermost in what was left of his afflicted
 
 238 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 father's mind. He tried hard to satisfy him- 
 self that it was not only justifiable, but 
 actually kind, to let Sir Alexander imagine 
 that his main point was conceded, and to 
 amuse him by discussing in detail what was 
 to follow the fulfilment of his desire. The 
 poor man was taking infinite pains to com- 
 pile from Burke and the Almanach de Gotha 
 a list of possible brides for his son. Nothing 
 could be neater or completer. There was a 
 blue-lined column for the favoured fair one's 
 name, a red one for her age, a violet one for 
 her father's rank, and a broad margin beyond 
 these particulars, for observations, such as 
 " Mother's family were in trade ; " " Radical 
 tendencies in eldest son won't do ; " " Said 
 to be delicate ; " " Very handsome just the 
 thing ; " and so on. No native under the 
 rank of an earl's daughter, or foreigner below 
 a duke's, was admitted into this competition,
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 239 
 
 for as such Sir Alexander got by degrees to 
 consider it; the possibility of "observations" 
 on the other side not being admitted. 
 
 For some this might have had its ludi- 
 crous side. To Arthur it was all inexpress- 
 ibly painful. No such thought as " Poor old 
 governor ! it pleases him, and it can't hurt 
 me " curdled in his mind. His public school 
 career had not produced a scholar, but it 
 made him a gentleman. He scorned and 
 hated the very semblance of a lie, and here 
 he was, acting one to his own father ! How 
 was it to end ? All their friends agreed, and 
 he could see for himself, that Sir Alexander's 
 general health had improved greatly since 
 his arrival. Mr. Dawkins had slapped him 
 on the back and declared he was the best 
 doctor out, and Mrs. Dawkins observed, with 
 a sigh as though it were a dispensation of 
 Providence to be lamented but endured
 
 240 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 that a good son was sure to make a good 
 husband. Very lately, Doctor Harwell had 
 taken him aside, and said : " Keep it up ; 
 amuse him. And look here, Arthur, never 
 mind the partridges just now you'll have 
 plenty of that. Stay with him as much as 
 you can, and don't let him go out alone." 
 
 Stay with him as much as you can ! 
 Made up of the worst materials out of 
 which a successful shirker could be con- 
 structed, Arthur's tactics had been to keep 
 out of his father's way as much as he could, 
 and for this purpose to pay great attention 
 to the partridges, who did not greatly suffer. 
 " He don't shoot near as well as he did used 
 to," Mr. Jones remarked. " He walks along 
 thinking of something else, and when the 
 birds get up, he shoots any how. Wonder 
 why he comes out so often, and stays out so 
 long?"
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 241 
 
 Mr. Jones was right. This apparently 
 enthusiastic sportsman plodded through the 
 turnips with little thought or heart for 
 the sport before him. He was thinking of 
 May Fairfax, of that roll-call of noble 
 fathers-in-law and Tom Tyrell! 
 
 " Well ! " he mused, " 111 follow Barwell's 
 advice. There is just a chance of things 
 coming right. He is better dear old father ! 
 all but in this one craze, and it is possible that 
 this also may die out as he gets stronger. 
 It's awful hard lines having to go over that 
 infernal list, and say " yes " and " no " in 
 the right place ; but I suppose it must be 
 done. I wonder what Barwell meant by 
 not letting him go out alone ? " 
 
 By this time Mr. Norman Drummond 
 
 had arrived, and established himself in Sir 
 
 Alexander's good graces. " So like his 
 
 mother," he whimpered when they met. 
 
 i. 16
 
 242 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " Poor dear Cecilia ! she was my favourite 
 sister. Dear, dear ! to think that you are 
 her son ? " 
 
 " I am thought to take most after my 
 father, sir," was the somewhat stiff reply. 
 
 Mr. Norman Drummond did not shoot. 
 He had enjoyed little or no opportunity of 
 acquiring proficiency in the art, and it was 
 a rule with him never to attempt in public 
 anything which he did not do well. He 
 brought an imposing pile of books and 
 papers with him, upon which he was sup- 
 posed to work when more frivolous minds 
 were steeping themselves in the fumes of 
 smoking-rooms. His days he devoted to 
 Sir Alexander and Lady Bellmonte, being, 
 as he said, with a superior smile, "the only 
 idle guest in the house." And he had his 
 reward. 
 
 "My nephew, Norman," Sir Alexander
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 243 
 
 told his wife, " is a very intelligent young 
 man. I am glad we had him down here 
 I am exceedingly glad for Arthur's sake. I 
 think he will do dear Arthur a great deal of 
 good." 
 
 Now, Lady Bellmonte was ready to admit 
 that her nephew Norman was a very in- 
 telligent young man, and to echo her lord's 
 gratification at his presence, as their guest ; 
 but mothers, as a rule, don't like to be told 
 that any young man, however intelligent 
 and however welcome, will do their grown 
 up sons "a great deal of good." That 
 implies a superiority which in this mother's 
 view was all the other way on. So she bit 
 her lip and held her peace. 
 
 " I was afraid," Sir Alexander continued, 
 "that his father, being naturally a disap- 
 pointed man, might have imbued him with 
 feelings of bitterness against me, and and
 
 244 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 my family. Young men who have to 
 make their own way in the world, fre- 
 quently acquire disrespectful ideas of the 
 class above them ; lean to radicalism, and 
 the uprooting of those landmarks without 
 which society could not exist. I am grate- 
 ful to find that my nephew Norman has 
 been brought up to see these things in a 
 proper light. Poor dear Cecilia ! it was her 
 work, I'm sure. My nephew Norman will 
 be a credit to us, my love, in his way, you 
 know. When Arthur gets into Parliament 
 he might be of use to him, in his way. For 
 example, there is a subject of importance, 
 upon which he appears to be well up ; the 
 pretensions of those trade unionists. He 
 quite shocked me, for as you are aware, my 
 love, I don't care much to read the news- 
 papers, and am a little behindhand with 
 the topics of the day. I must really read
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 245 
 
 the newspapers. Well, I could not believe 
 that any one would be permitted to advocate 
 such doctrines publicly, and I told him I 
 thought he must be exaggerating uncon- 
 sciously, you know I put it nicely that he 
 must be unconsciously exaggerating. So 
 he got me a copy of one of their papers for 
 me they actually are allowed to publish 
 papers of their own ! containing the report 
 of a speech made by a fellow named Tirret 
 or Twirret I don't remember exactly, but 
 it began with a T ; in which downright 
 communism was preached it was dreadful, 
 dreadful, my love ! Now when Arthur gets 
 into Parliament, I shall make it a point 
 with him to compel government to make 
 some law, if none exists, for the punishment 
 of such scoundrels as this Twir Tir Tyrell ! 
 that's his name, Tyrell ! I shall not forget it
 
 246 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 So that when Arthur " never minded" 
 the partridges, and stayed at home according 
 to Doctor Barwell's prescription, he found 
 that he was not wanted. Sir Alexander 
 had some one else to amuse him. "Go on 
 with your shooting, dear boy," he was told ; 
 " you haven't much time left, you know. 
 Besides, it isn't fair to your friends to leave 
 them." 
 
 " My first duty is to you, sir," said his 
 son. 
 
 " Good boy, dear boy ! but never mind 
 me. Your cousin Norman takes care of 
 me ; don't you, Norman ? " I am afraid 
 that Arthur rejoiced. 
 
 We pile up a mountain of good resolves, 
 laboriously, stone by 'stone ; we swear that it 
 ought to endure, and therefore that it shall 
 endure for all time, standing between us 
 and the sunny valley where prudence has
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 247 
 
 set up its " No Trespass " board, and lo ! we 
 stumble upon a pebble of the brook, on 
 which we read "Excuse" and straightway 
 it grows bigger than the mountain, and flies 
 at the mountain, and breaks it down and 
 smashes up the trespass board, and paves us 
 a beautiful macadamised road, straight into 
 the heart of that valley ! Arthur hating, as 
 we know, the r61e of the shirker, heaved a 
 sigh of relief, and went off for his gun. 
 
 That day the shooters' luncheon was ap- 
 pointed to be partaken of at Castle Garcin. 
 In my hot youth we were content to eat a 
 sandwich, and wash it down with a glass of 
 sherry, under a hedge ; or to find a cut of 
 ham and a mug of cider at a farm-house. 
 We thought that a more succulent repast 
 would spoil our shooting. You have 
 changed all that, you others. When Arthur 
 and his friends mounted the castle hill, they
 
 248 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 found a cloth spread on the grass, with 
 knives and forks and table napkins if you 
 please and all other acessories of a regular 
 dinner ; which indeed followed, for the 
 head- keeper's lodge was near at hand, and 
 viands prepared at the Hall could be, 
 and were, cooked in his kitchen on these 
 occasions. 
 
 " What a jolly place this would be for a 
 picnic," said Arthur, looking round him. 
 " Romantic ruins, thick woods, a river, a 
 piece of old masonry, which would make a 
 capital table every requisite. Do they 
 ever have picnics here, Jones ? " 
 
 " No, sir," said the head-keeper, solemnly. 
 " Sir Alexander won't allow it." 
 
 " Quite right. Bore to have a lot of 
 bitter beer bottles and greasy newspapers 
 scattered over the grass, but, Jones ! you 
 haven't picked out half a good place.
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 249 
 
 Here's where we ought to be. Spread the 
 cloth on this flat stone." 
 
 " If you please, Mr. Arthur, Sir Alex- 
 ander " 
 
 " Do as you are told." 
 
 "He's growed mighty masterful," growled 
 Mr. Jones to himself, as he obeyed the com- 
 mand, "since he's been a hossifer, but I'd 
 rather not be in his shoes, if the governor 
 comes to know it." 
 
 Fortune willed that "the governor" way 
 to know it. The shooters had scarcely 
 begun their repast, when some one said, 
 " Here's Sir Alexander ! " All looked round, 
 and in the next second of time all rose, for 
 they saw their host hatless, breathless, with 
 blood trickling from a bramble tear on his 
 face staggering up the hill towards them, 
 and gesticulating like a madman. Arthur 
 rushed forward, and just caught him as he
 
 250 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 was falling, limp and exhausted, on the 
 grass. 
 
 " Wine ; some one, quick ! " cried the 
 young man, lifting his father in his arms. 
 "In God's name, father, what has happened? 
 Let me carry you to a seat." 
 
 " No, no, not there, not there," moaned 
 Sir Alexander, as they approached the 
 stones. "Put me down directly. Do you 
 hear, Arthur, I insist ! Put me down." 
 
 Here Norman Drummond appeared no 
 one in the excitement noticed whence, and 
 was appealed to for an explanation. 
 
 ' ' Heaven knows ! " h e said. "He asked me 
 to come out for a walk, and we were going 
 on quietly, when all of a sudden he gave a 
 shriek and plunged into the wood, where I 
 lost sight of him till I heard you fellows 
 shouting, and found him here." 
 
 The wine revived him somewhat. He
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 251 
 
 raised himself on his elbow and cast a quick 
 hunted sort of look towards where the 
 luncheon was spread. " Oh, Arthur ! " he 
 sighed, " how could you ? Jones " (angrily) 
 " how dare you, after all I have said ! oh 
 dear, oh dear ! you were all five of you 
 sitting on them all five ! and those things. 
 Take them off do you hear me ? Take 
 them off this instant." 
 
 The miserable keeper began to remove the 
 things in question, but could not do so 
 quick enough to satisfy his master. 
 
 "Throw them off knock them off, man. 
 Don't stand there picking and fidgeting," 
 the baronet shouted. " There, fool ! stand 
 aside," and the next moment he sprang up, 
 seized a corner of the table-cloth, and swept 
 it, and all there was upon it, a heap of 
 smoking ruin to the ground. 
 
 The guests looked at each other and raised
 
 252 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 their eyebrows. Then they took up their 
 guns and sauntered off to talk it over under 
 a distant tree. 
 
 " Old gentleman seems a little cracked," 
 said one. 
 
 " Been drinking, I think," observed an- 
 other. 
 
 " Well, anyhow, we've lost our luncheon. 
 I vote we go back to the Hall," the third 
 proposed. 
 
 " Come on then," agreed number four, 
 leading the way. 
 
 For some time, Sir Alexander stood gazing 
 sullenly at the wreck he had made. At last 
 he pulled himself together with palpable 
 effort, and said with laboured distinctness : 
 
 " I'm sorry that I spoiled your luncheon, 
 Arthur. Where are your friends ? gone ! 
 Ah, that was kind of them. Did did they 
 see me ? I hope not."
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 253 
 
 " I am afraid they did, sir ; and what on 
 earth am I to say ? " Arthur replied, in a 
 low, troubled voice. 
 
 " The sun was very hot on the road, dear 
 boy," his father said, holding him by the 
 lappel of his shooting-coat, and looking 
 piteously in his face. " Ask your cousin 
 Norman if it was not very hot, and and I 
 was excited. I had so often forbidden pic- 
 nics ; I thought it was a pic-nic." 
 
 " You knew it was not when you snatched 
 everything off just now." 
 
 " Don't be angry with me, Arthur." 
 
 " Angry ! Of course I can't be angry, but 
 you must see, sir, what a hideously awkward 
 position you've put me in with my friends. 
 What excuse can I give ? " 
 
 " Give none, dear boy. Leave it to me. 
 They have shown themselves considerate by 
 moving away. Depend upon it, they'll not
 
 254 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 ask any questions. k There now, go and 
 join them." 
 
 " Oh no, I must see you home." 
 
 Jones was busy carrying off broken plates 
 and glasses ; Drummond had discreetly re- 
 tired. Father and son were alone. 
 
 " Arthur, dear boy,"pleaded Sir Alexander, 
 " if you love me, leave me here. Take your 
 cousin away, and leave me do." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " I want to be alone." 
 
 Dr. Harwell's advice flashed on Arthur's 
 remembrance. 
 
 "It is not good for you to be alone, 
 particularly " 
 
 "Do you want to drive me mad. Am I 
 a child, or an idiot ? I will be obeyed," 
 cried his father with rising excitement. 
 "There were five of you on them all 
 five ; and Captain Wellmore is a twelve
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 255 
 
 stone man. I must see, Arthur ; I must, I 
 must." 
 
 "See what?" 
 
 " I cannot tell you. You mustn't know. 
 Oh leave me, Arthur, dear Arthur ! for 
 five minutes, only five minutes, and I give 
 you my word of honour, I will go straight 
 home with you straight." 
 
 Arthur left him and joined his cousin. 
 
 " This is dreadful, Norman ! " he sighed. 
 " Have you the least idea what it means ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest. All during our walk, 
 he was talking, not only rationally, but well. 
 I cannot make it out." 
 
 " What is he doing now ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Suppose you get up on this bank, and 
 look?" 
 
 " Play spy on him ! No." 
 
 " Well, don't glare at me as though I had
 
 256 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 proposed a murder. I spoke for the best. 
 If you get a clue to what irritates a man, 
 you know how to avoid setting his back up." 
 
 " He seemed to resent our sitting on those 
 stones," murmured Arthur. " Tell me truly, 
 Norman, as a friend, do you think his mind 
 is affected ? " 
 
 "My dear fellow, all our minds are 
 affected by some fid-fad or another, which, 
 taken by itself, might send us to the lunatic 
 asylum. There is something connected with 
 this spot which indirectly excites Sir Alex- 
 ander very strongly ; but if you ask me if 
 he is out of his senses generally, I can say 
 with all sincerity, that he is not. I have 
 seen a good deal of him during the last 
 week. We have conversed on a variety of 
 subjects some of them requiring thought 
 of a high character and I have been much 
 struck by the depth of his reading, and the
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 257 
 
 clear manner in which he applies it. Cheer 
 up, old fellow. The sun was very hot, as he 
 said and now I think of it, we called at a 
 farm-house on our way, and the man insisted 
 on our drinking some of his cider. It didn't 
 seem strong." 
 
 "Oh, but it is strong though," Ar- 
 thur broke in, seeing a glimmer of excuse ; 
 "and my father rarely takes any strong 
 drink." 
 
 " The fellow would have us taste it. It 
 made my head buzz afterwards," said Mr. 
 Drummond, his hand on his brow. 
 
 "Would you mind joining us in the 
 smoking-room to-night, and just mentioning 
 this by the way, you know I mean, don't 
 drag it in ? " 
 
 "Why, certainly, if you think it worth 
 while." 
 
 " It is better," said Arthur gloomily, 
 I. 17
 
 258 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 "that they should think it was the cider, 
 and the heat, and the running up hill, 
 than" 
 
 "Think what?" asked Mr. Drummond, 
 point blank, " wasn't the cider at the bottom 
 of it?" 
 
 " Yes but hush, here he comes ! " 
 
 He came rubbing his hands cheerily, and 
 nothing to show of his previous access of 
 fury than the scratch on his face. He 
 appeared at dinner as usual, and made a 
 joke of the whole affair. 
 
 " I really did think they were picnicers, 
 at first, my love," he explained to Lady 
 Bellmonte over the epergne, " and I wanted 
 to give Master Arthur here a lesson ; but I 
 went too far I don't at all approve of 
 practical jokes I admit I went too far. You 
 must excuse me. Dear, dear ! I'm so sorry 
 I spoilt your luncheon."
 
 STRANGE CONDUCT OF SIR ALEXANDER. 259 
 
 In the smoking-room that night, Drurn- 
 mond kept his promise. No ; he wouldn't take 
 any 'polli and B. thank you he had a head- 
 ache already. That confounded cider ! He 
 could stand a good deal, but poor Sir Alex- 
 ander and so on. 
 
 " You managed it splendidly, Norman, 
 splendidly ! " said Arthur, following his 
 cousin to his room when they all retired. 
 " It's all right now. Thank you, old man." 
 His honest eyes were moist as he spoke. 
 " Good night." 
 
 " Yes ; I think I did," mused Mr. Drum- 
 mond, when he was alone. " After this, I 
 don't see how any will could be set aside 
 unless he does something more like a mad- 
 man than what he did to-day, which isn't 
 likely. That was a happy thought of mine 
 about the cider. I must give him a hint not 
 to spoil it."
 
 260 PIOUS FEAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BELLMONTE was a man-of 
 habit. Every day at twelve o'clock he used 
 to take a constitutional, which lasted just 
 two hours. If it was fine he took it in the 
 grounds or outside ; if it rained he walked 
 up and down the great picture gallery which 
 ran through the whole depth of the Hall. 
 Up to within a few months of the com- 
 mencement of this history he was almost 
 always accompanied by his wife, and one of 
 the remarkable changes which had recently 
 come over him, was his shirking her com- 
 pany and going out in all weathers alone.
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GAttCIN. 261 
 
 I say " shirking " advisedly. He never 
 actually said, " No, my love, I do not want 
 your company," or " I would rather go alone." 
 He gained his point by excuses. It was too 
 warm it was too wet he was going to look 
 after some things which would not interest 
 her had she not better go and call on the 
 Dolbysons ? and so on. Of course she soon 
 found out where he went, and what he went 
 for ; and the knowledge troubled her. He 
 went to Castle Hill where stood the ruins 
 of Garcin Abbey and Garcin Tower. He 
 fussed about those ruins ; he searched in the 
 most methodical manner this bit to-day, 
 that bit to-morrow amongst the ferns, the 
 gorse, and the bushes which fringed the 
 crest of the hill ; and then he went home 
 generally in better spirits than when he 
 started. Was he searching for something 
 which he did not want to find ? Was his
 
 262 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 quest radiating, as it did, wider and wider 
 from the site of the old tower to go on for 
 ever ? 
 
 Latterly, somewhat to Lady Bellmonte's 
 dissatisfaction, Mr. Norman Dnimmond had 
 been honoured with an invitation to join his 
 uncle and host on these sanitory expeditions ; 
 and it was, I think, on the fourth of them 
 that the incidents related in the last chapter 
 took place. Mr. Drummond did not find 
 anything strange in their going always in 
 the same direction. The road was good, the 
 air on Castle Hill was fresh, and the view 
 from it pleasant. Methodical elderly gentle- 
 men frequently take the same walk, day 
 after day, so there was nothing odd in Sir 
 Alexander going day after day to Castle 
 Hill ; but why did he always make some 
 excuse to be left there alone for ten minutes ? 
 This did strike Mr. Norman Drummond as
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 263 
 
 odd when it was repeated for the third time ; 
 odder still when after his furious onslaught 
 upon the shooting luncheon he insisted upon 
 Arthur's leaving him, as has been already 
 told. 
 
 The next day Dr. Barwell (who had called 
 soon after breakfast) was asked by Sir 
 Alexander to give him a lift towards Bamp- 
 ton End, in which direction he (the doctor) 
 had stated that his next visit lay. 
 
 Now Bampton End was about a quarter 
 of a mile further on than Castle Hill. 
 
 Lady Bellmonte followed her lord to his 
 study, whither he passed ^to get his gloves 
 and stick, and laying her hand affectionately 
 on his, said : " Dear love, be careful ! 
 Doctor Barwell " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I mustn't keep him from his 
 patients," stammered the baronet. " I'm 
 coming (loud). Good-bye, my love, I'll not
 
 264 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 be long." And out he wriggled with odd 
 dog-skins and a broken cane. 
 
 "Is that patient of yours at Bampton 
 End very bad, doctor ? " asked Sir Alexan- 
 der as they turned out of the park gates. 
 
 "No, it's only old Mrs. Galves." 
 
 "Ah! Well, she can wait an hour, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Yes, she can, but," 
 
 " Can you give me an hour, Barwell one 
 clear hour now ? I've something of the 
 utmost importance to consult you about. 
 I'll make it worth your while, doctor don't 
 fear." 
 
 "Well, can't we talk it over as we go 
 along?" 
 
 " Not exactly. I want you to come with 
 me to Castle Hill. I want to show to 
 explain to you something there, and then I 
 want to ask you a question or two. We can
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GAKCIN. 265 
 
 put your gig up at the keeper's lodge, and 
 walk on. It's not more than two hundred 
 yards." 
 
 " I'll charge him three visits for it," 
 mentally exclaimed Barwell, as he threw 
 the reins to Master Jones, the keeper's boy, 
 and followed his patient to the peculiar 
 consultation ground he had chosen. They 
 scrambled through a gap in the fence, 
 crossed a meadow, and came to a regular 
 foot-path. 
 
 " How long have you lived at Garcin, 
 doctor ? " asked Sir Alexander, stopping on 
 the top of the first stile to sit and rest a 
 little. 
 
 " About ten years. I came soon after you 
 did." 
 
 " Ha ! yes, I recollect bought out old Mr. 
 Fodd." 
 
 " And got sold," laughed Barwell. " He
 
 266 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 didn't tell me what a healthy set you were. 
 Why, I haven't got twenty pounds a year 
 out of the Hall servants and all since I've 
 been here." 
 
 " Fodd didn't get twenty half-pence ; for 
 there was no one there to doctor in his 
 time," observed the baronet. " Now, Bar- 
 well, answer me without any reservation. 
 You and old Fodd had a good deal of talk 
 together about Garcin and its people ? " 
 
 " We had." 
 
 " Did he ever speak to you about any- 
 thing peculiar in the family of the 
 Bellmontes ? " 
 
 " Not that I remember." 
 
 "If he had spoken of what I mean you 
 must remember it. It is not a thing to be 
 forgotten," said Sir Alexander, solemnly. 
 
 " Then I can say that he did not ? " 
 
 " Has any body mentioned it ? "
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 267 
 
 "My dear Sir Alexander, how can I say 1 ?" 
 asked Barwell ; " not having the faintest 
 idea what this terrible "it" is. I have 
 heard some scandals about the late Sir 
 George " 
 
 " Oh no, it's not that not that sort of 
 thing at all," interrupted Sir Alexander. 
 " I'm very glad you have not heard. I'm 
 very glad that the thing has died out of 
 people's minds, as we hoped it would do for 
 our son's sake. You must not tell him, 
 Barwell, not a word never ! I wish to 
 heaven I had never known it. It has made 
 me very wretched at times. It's killing me, 
 Barwell, I do believe. I should be well and 
 strong if I had not this on my mind." 
 
 " Well," said the doctor doctor like 
 " get it off your mind at once." 
 
 I do not think that the reader would care 
 to take what followed verbatim from Sir
 
 268 PIOCJS FRAUDS. 
 
 Alexander's lips. He was very long, very 
 prosy, very prone to branch off into epi- 
 sodes, and to lose his way in explanations. 
 I will not, therefore, take you over all the 
 ground that Doctor Barwell had to travel, 
 but bring you to the end and object by 
 short cuts. 
 
 Sometime in the reign of King Henry the 
 Second, a lord of Bellmonte became suddenly 
 pious (never mind who she was), built a fair 
 abbey at Garcin, under the shade and 
 shelter of his castle walls, and became its 
 first abbot. For several generations the 
 wishes of the pious founder prevailed, to 
 the great advantage of that part of the 
 country. The abbots of Garcin were lords 
 of Bellmonte, and the lords of Bellmonte 
 were abbots of Garcin, so there could be no
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 269 
 
 sort of trouble between the military and the 
 priestly powers ; and none there was, till an 
 abbot arose who so scandalized the monks, 
 and indeed every one else (never mind who 
 she was), that the noise of his wickedness 
 reached as far as Rome, and so grave were 
 the charges substantiated against him, that 
 the Pope expelled him from his abbey, and 
 threatened him with the major excommuni- 
 cation if he did not don a hair-cloth shirt, 
 put peas in his shoes, and walk off, instanter, 
 to the Holy Land. 
 
 Then the trouble began. Had the fief of 
 Bellmonte merged in the fief of the Abbot of 
 Garcin ? Was the new abbot monarch of 
 all he surveyed like his predecessors, or did 
 he own nothing beyond the ground on 
 which his Holy House stood ? Had the 
 haughty scion of a pious race lost his lands 
 when he lost his mitre? or was he still
 
 270 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 master of the situation up there in his grim 
 stronghold, free to sing old Rose and burn 
 the bellows, and make things in general 
 look blue, as theretofore ? 
 
 These were the questions which arose for 
 settlement, and he settled them for himself. 
 He flouted the Pope, scoffed at the peas, 
 stopped where he was, and fought for his 
 own. Not much of a hand at praying, he 
 could and did fight pretty well. As 
 for the major excommunication, there must 
 have been something wrong in the method 
 of its fulmination. It did not harm him a 
 bit. When the fact that he was under this 
 dreadful sentence was communicated to him 
 by the new abbot, he beleaguered the abbey, 
 and not a bite of food would he let pass its 
 doors till his half-starved successor took off 
 the ban, and publicly blessed him. When 
 the high sheriff of the county came with his
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 271 
 
 posse comitatus to enforce the decrees of my 
 lords the king's justices against the castle, 
 the wicked Earl poured molten lead upon 
 their heads, and sallying out afterwards 
 with his men-at-arms, drove them into the 
 river Gar. Indeed, his " goings on " (as we 
 should call them) became worse and worse, 
 day by day, until his awful ending. He 
 was carried away, quick, by the arch-enemy 
 himself in a chariot of flame ! The monks 
 saw it, and made a gorgeous illuminated 
 note of the event ; so it must be true. 
 Moreover, a great hole was knocked in the 
 top of the tower to let the demoniacal con- 
 veyance in. Modern scepticism may suggest 
 that the place was struck by lightning, and 
 this idea led Sir Alexander to fifteen minutes 
 of prosing about the antiquity of lightning 
 conductors. 
 
 Lucifer or Lightning it matters little
 
 272 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 now there was an end of the wicked abbot, 
 and a beginning of a legend, or prophecy, 
 or curse, to which subsequent events gave 
 curious evidences of fulfilment. No one 
 knows who said, or sang, or wrote it. It 
 came somehow, and ran thus : 
 
 farcin's Eofoer anfc <arctn's 
 Eogetfjer sfjali crumfole from {jour to fjour. 
 &s tjje stones sinfe in tfje ground, 
 bells sfjall surely sountr. 
 
 Garcin Tower badly shaken as aforesaid 
 began to crumble away. The age in 
 which belted earls and mitred abbots could 
 do pretty much as they pleased on their own 
 lands, began to pass. " Garcin's power and 
 Garcin's Tower " did " together crumble from 
 hour to hour," until the grim old keep lay 
 prostrate. About the same time, by a strange 
 fatality, the head of the house died childless,
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 273 
 
 and so the earldom became extinct. This 
 took place in the year 1583, when good 
 Queen Bess was on the throne, and keeping 
 a smart look-out for Elizabeth by the grace 
 of God, &c. The Bellmontes had been a 
 turbulent and troublesome set, I am afraid ; 
 so she refused to ennoble the distant kins- 
 man who succeeded to the estates, and 
 removed one of his claims to a peerage by 
 grabbing the best part of his possessions 
 on the plea that they had gone with the 
 title. 
 
 Even the river Gar went with the title. 
 A landslip near the tower so filled up the 
 channel that it became unnavigable. Garcin 
 ceased to be a port. The sea with almost 
 human instincts retired from its poor relation 
 the river ; and the river in a pet, vexed at 
 the obstructions which were constantly roll- 
 ing into it, burst out of its proper course 
 I. 18
 
 274 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 and spoilt by inundation some of the best 
 land left to the Bellmontes. 
 
 Thus the prophecy or curse, as contained 
 in the two first lines of the legend, appears 
 to have lapsed by fulfilment. There was no 
 longer any tower to crumble. Its ruins 
 cumbered the ground, and if Sir Alexander's 
 narrative were correct and I must confess 
 that many of his statements were apparently 
 well corroborated they sank from time to 
 time in a very extraordinary way. For 
 example : a father and his two elder sons 
 were killed at the battle of Edge Hill, and 
 on the very day it was fought three stones 
 went down one after the other. The third 
 son, then an infant, lived to be a very old 
 man and a prosperous. He was the first 
 baronet, and did much to raise the fallen for- 
 tunes of his house. No stone sank till he 
 died. He died during an unusually severe
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 275 
 
 winter, when the ground was as hard as 
 iron ; yet the stone sank slowly and passed 
 out of sight with his last breath. In the 
 year 1700, a Bellmonte was supposed to have 
 been lost at sea. The ship in which he 
 sailed was wrecked. Portions of her timbers 
 (showing that she had gone to pieces) were 
 thrown up on the coast. No survivor 
 appeared, and hope was abandoned, particu- 
 larly by the heir (a nephew), who took pos- 
 session of his heritage. But his widow put 
 her trust in the Sinking Stones of Garcin, 
 for they made no sign. She visited them 
 daily with tearless eyes, and clad in her 
 brightest raiment. She had her reward. 
 After three years a ragged sailor-man landed 
 at Garcin port, claimed his own, and in due 
 time had a son born to him who put the 
 nephew's nose out of joint. He had been 
 picked up by a passing vessel and taken to
 
 276 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 that part of Her Majesty's plantations now 
 known as the State of South Carolina. Now, 
 as Sir Alexander very properly observed, if 
 superstitious people fitted the sinking of a 
 stone to the death of a Bellmonte why did 
 not some of them pretend that a stone had 
 sunk when they were all perfectly sure that 
 the head of the family was drowned ? 
 
 There is one point, however, which the 
 baronet did not take. May not a good many 
 portions of the ruins have subsided with- 
 out being noticed when there was no death 
 in the family to draw attention to them ? 
 Even a stopped clock is right, we know, 
 twice in the twenty-four hours; who ever 
 counted the stones when they were numer- 
 ous ? There is no evidence that any one 
 ever did ; so therefore the prophecy might 
 have met with more of failure than of 
 fulfilment.
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 277 
 
 This history was begun upon the stile, 
 continued on the way to Castle Hill, and 
 concluded in sight of all that remained of 
 the sinking stones of Garcin. 
 
 Old paintings of Garcin Castle made the 
 hill on which it stood slope down towards 
 the river, and place at least ten yards of 
 golden gravel between its foot and the verge 
 of the stream. At the present day, the Gar, 
 thrown out of its course by obstructions 
 above, thrusts out a great green elbow against 
 the hill itself, part of which it had washed 
 away, forming a big hole, known to fisher- 
 men as Poynder's Hole. Why Poynder's 
 Hole ? Because an unfortunate of that 
 name had committed a remarkably deter- 
 mined suicide there. He filled his pockets 
 with stones, tied a boulder as big as his head 
 round his neck with his pocket-handkerchief, 
 and walked in.
 
 278 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Half-way down the hill, on the left hand 
 side looking from the river, stood the ruins 
 of Garcin Abbey, overshadowed by huge 
 oaks and elms. The right hand side was 
 also covered with magnificent timber trees. 
 The top was open ; carpeted with short, 
 mossy grass, with here and there a tuft of 
 bracken. Where the moss was greenest, 
 and the grass was shortest on the very 
 crown of the hill, standing up with jagged 
 outline against the sky was a mass of 
 masonry broad enough, and to all appear- 
 ance solid enough, to serve as the found- 
 ation for a lighthouse. It had formed 
 part of Garcin Castle of the oldest and 
 the wickedest part of all the grim round 
 Norman tower from which the ex-abbot 
 had defied the power of the Church, and 
 scalded the secular arm with his molten 
 lead.
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 279 
 
 They were no "jerry " builders, those old 
 Normans, as you may perceive from this 
 specimen of their handiwork. The blocks of 
 granite were massive and square to a line 
 the mortar which joined them, harder, if 
 possible, than they. Doctor Barwell knocked 
 them with his stick, and poked them as 
 gentlemen of his age will do, and thought 
 over the strange story he had heard. There 
 they were THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN 
 scarred by the storms of centuries, 
 fretted with last summer's lichens ; with 
 here part of a loop-hole graven by a 
 contemporary of Norman William, and 
 there the hacked initials of a cockney 
 tourist. 
 
 " Now, doctor," said Sir Alexander, when 
 the story was over, and the stones had been 
 examined, " we won't argue about the truth 
 of the legend. I've my own opinion about
 
 280 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 that (here the quivering lip hardened), and 
 nothing on earth that you or any one else 
 can say will alter it. What I want you to 
 do is to answer me two questions fairly, 
 fully, and truly will you ? " 
 
 " If I can." 
 
 " Oh, you can ; but first of all, I must tell 
 you that this mass before us is all that 
 remains above ground of Garcin Tower. 
 Moule you know Moule, the antiquary, of 
 course well, Moule pretends that a much 
 smaller fragment of masonry, which I will 
 show you personally, belongs to it also ; but 
 I know better. It is part of the abbey. I 
 can trace carving upon it that belongs to the 
 period in which the abbey was built. Moule 
 is a clever man, but so very obstinate. To 
 make assurance doubly sure, I have made a 
 careful survey of the hill. There is not a 
 foot of ground that I have not examined,
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 281 
 
 and no other particle of masonry that could 
 under any possibility have belonged to the 
 tower is to be found. The mass now before 
 us is all that remains of it, and this being 
 so, I come to my first question. Look at the 
 base of these stones, observe the delicate 
 fibres of moss which grow up their sides 
 from the ground, and tell me if you observe 
 any sign of sinking." 
 
 " I do not indeed," Barwell replied. 
 
 " If they were sinking," Sir Alexander 
 continued, getting more and more excited, 
 " those mosses would be puckered up, 
 wouldn't they ? There would be a division, 
 however small, between them and the soil, 
 eh?" 
 
 " I should think so." 
 
 " Think so ! It is so it must be so, Bar- 
 well ! If the stones varied their position 
 the hundredth part of an inch, some of those
 
 282 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 fragile threads would be broken. I have 
 examined them with a lens all round, and 
 there is no rupture or displacement of the 
 most delicate growths. They went through 
 a terrible ordeal yesterday five great men 
 sitting on them dear, dear ! but they stood 
 it" 
 
 " I will answer your first question, then, 
 that there is no sign of sinking. Now for 
 your second." 
 
 " Am I likely to die a sudden death ? " 
 " Medically speaking," replied the doctor, 
 " I say, no. Your organs are sound at 
 present. I don't think you have any 
 tendencies to apoplexy, but now that I 
 know what you have been thinking and 
 doing of late, it is my duty to warn 
 you, Sir Alexander and I do so seriously 
 that you are doing yourself a grave 
 mischief."
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 283 
 
 "That would come on gradually," he 
 replied, half musing. 
 
 " But surely." 
 
 " I'm not afraid of anything gradual, 
 Barvvell (with a glance at the stones). What 
 I fear is sudden death. It is understood, 
 and numerous examples can be given of the 
 fact, that when the head of "our house is 
 about to die of natural disease, some stone 
 begins to sink, and sinks lower and lower as 
 he gets worse and worse. The stones begin 
 it always." 
 
 ' As the stones sink in the ground 
 Passing bells shall surely sound.' 
 
 " When we are taken off suddenly as in 
 the battle I mentioned, for example, the 
 stones sink all at once. Now you see that 
 they show no sign of sinking, and you say 
 that I show no symptom of any disease 
 which kills at a stroke. I am very much
 
 284 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 obliged to you, doctor, but you are quite 
 wrong in one respect. What I have been 
 thinking and doing of late has not done 
 me harm. On the contrary, I'm a better 
 man to-day than I've been for a long 
 time." 
 
 "Then strike whilst the iron's hot, Sir 
 Alexander, and go abroad for a month or 
 two, and restore yourself completely," said 
 the doctor, preparing to leave, for his hour 
 was more than up. " Take advantage of 
 the turn. It would do Lady Bellmonte 
 good, too." 
 
 " No, no I, it's nonsense. I don't want 
 to go abroad," stammered Sir Alexander. 
 He glanced at the stones as he spoke, and 
 his lip began to twitch, and his eyes to 
 wander. "And, Bar well not a word of 
 this to my wife." 
 
 " Now look here, Sir Alexander," said the
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 285 
 
 doctor, striking the first finger of his right 
 hand upon the palm of his left, as was his 
 wont when about to lay down the law 
 "by consulting me in this way, you put 
 responsibility on my shoulders which I'm 
 not going to accept without protest. When 
 you first began to speak about this weird 
 or whatever you like to call it you said 
 that it was to be kept from the knowledge 
 of your son. You wished to heaven that 
 you had never known of it yourself. You 
 admitted that it made you wretched. I 
 think you went as far as to say that it was 
 killing you ; and you must excuse my ob- 
 serving that the manner in which you spoke 
 impressed me as a more thoughtful reflection 
 of your feelings than that which you have, 
 lately assumed. If you go on allowing this 
 thing to fill your mind, it will kill you. 
 You come here every day to examine, and
 
 286 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 measure, and fret, and fidget over these 
 stones; and then you go home and fret, and 
 fidget don't tell me ; I know better ! you 
 fret and fidget, and lay awake at night, 
 thinking over your examinations, and your 
 measurements, until it is time to go and 
 examine again. No man could stand such 
 a strain. And all about what ? An old 
 woman's rhyme, and a block of masonry 
 (resting most probably on the foundations 
 of the old castle), which in the days of our 
 grandfathers was exactly as we find it ; 
 and so will remain when our great-grand- 
 children are grey. Do you expect to live 
 five hundred years ? Hitherto I confess 
 that I have not known exactly what was 
 the matter with you. I thought it was 
 some bodily ailment affecting the nerves 
 now I know it is a nervous derangement, 
 preying upon the body ; and can prescribe
 
 THE SINKING STONES OF GARCIN. 287 
 
 accordingly. Go away for six months, Sir 
 Alexander. Change your air, change your 
 scene, change your associations, or change 
 your doctor. Good day."
 
 288 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 
 
 ABOUT this time a quarrel which had 
 broken out amongst the steel-pen-holder- 
 makers came to its climax. In happier 
 days, the wooden stick of our pens was 
 shaped by one "trade," the shoulder in it 
 (whereon the metal holder rests) was cut by 
 another, and the polishing of the entire 
 article perfected by a third. And all went 
 well, until a rapacious capitalist, actuated 
 by fiendish greed, and oblivious to the 
 rights of labour, took it into his head that 
 those who made the stick could also make 
 the shoulder in it ; and he actually went so
 
 " WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 289 
 
 far as to arrange that women the wives 
 and children of the workers might do the 
 polishing. At first he found some creatures 
 sufficiently debased to accept this combin- 
 ation, and pocket its profits. Then other 
 masters, following his evil example, began 
 to teach that notching a bit of soft wood 
 and polishing it up afterwards, was just the 
 sort of work for women and children ; that 
 the wives and the daughters might do this 
 also, and that great big hulking fellows who 
 whined about the " trade " being taken from 
 them, ought to be ashamed of themselves. 
 But these oppressors never said a word 
 about the penny three farthings a gross 
 which they saved by the innovation, until 
 Tom Tyrell, ever on the guard against the 
 " bloated capitalist," found them out, and 
 exposed their hypocrisy. Long and bitter 
 
 was the fight on this point, but they had to 
 T. 19
 
 290 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 give in at last to Tom's arithmetic. Then 
 they tried to sneak out of it by saying they 
 would add the profit whatever it was to 
 the wages paid ; so that they would be none 
 the better off; their sole object being, as 
 they pretended, to find light, clean, and 
 healthy work for women and children ; but 
 it wouldn't do ! Tom Tyrell showed the 
 pretence up in all its baseness. It was the 
 small end of the wedge. If such things 
 were permitted, all those wise divisions of 
 labour, which trade unions had erected, 
 would be undermined. A plumber would 
 be expected to remove and nail up the 
 wainscot board which hid his gas or water- 
 pipe. The bricklayer who took out a brick 
 for the carpenter, might be required to 
 plaster up the hole, and the plasterer thereby 
 be defrauded of his job. Principles were at 
 stake. "Don't let them tell me," shouted
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 291 
 
 Tom, "that they want to make work for 
 your wives and your children. They want 
 to take work away from you, and then, where 
 will your wives and children be ? " He 
 knew how and when to strike the chord of 
 self, did "our "Tom! 
 
 The steel-pen-holder-makers did not pos- 
 sess a union to tell them that they had 
 been hurt. In fact they thought that they 
 were getting on very comfortably, until 
 Tom Tyrell came to their rescue. It did 
 not take him long to put them into line, 
 and to be made their secretary. 
 
 This involved a change of residence, which 
 Tom had long been contemplating. He felt 
 that he was thrown away at Minsterton. 
 Just one more secretaryship as a stand-by, 
 and he could throw his hat into the ring of 
 rings for his style of fighting London. To 
 be of use to the steel-pen-holder-makers, he
 
 292 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 must be in London, and he could watch the 
 interests of the amalgamated bellows-nozzle 
 makers, the envelope gummers, the stay-lace 
 pointers, and the sweet-stuff moulders (for 
 all of whom he was already retained), quite 
 as well from London as from Minsterton 
 perhaps better. Besides, he had lately heard 
 of a weekly newspaper, which could be 
 bought for a trifle from its present owners, 
 (being for them a sort of literary quicksand, 
 into which they dropped about twenty 
 pounds every Friday night), and turned 
 into an " organ " for the working man. 
 With his connection, even if the steel-pen- 
 holders, the bellows-nozzles, the gummers, 
 the pointers, and the moulders only took 
 fifty copies each (and he would see that they 
 took no less) he could command a circulation 
 that would pay expenses from the start; 
 and then well, then the capitalist, the
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 293 
 
 land robbers who call themselves Dukes and 
 Earls, and the lardy-dardy swells he hated, 
 had better look out. 
 
 When he had quite made up his mind for 
 the change, had found a sufficiently stony- 
 hearted attorney to get in his debts, and 
 had issued an advertisement of the sale by 
 auction of his furniture ; he consulted May, 
 and wanted to know how the change would 
 suit her. The news from Garcin had been 
 unsatisfactory of late, and he expected oppo- 
 sition, rather hoped for it. He liked to get 
 his own way with a crash. There was 
 an opposition. He did not know, she 
 did, that Arthur's papers had already 
 been sent in for an exchange into the 
 Guards. 
 
 " So you give it up, do you ? " asked Tom 
 Tyrell. 
 
 " Not in the least ! " she replied.
 
 294 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "Perhaps you think he'll come to the 
 scratch, if you go away from him ? Don't 
 you be too sure ! ' Out of sight, out of mind,' 
 my lass." 
 
 " Absence makes the heart grow fonder," 
 May retorted ; " I can always knock one 
 proverb down with another. But you're 
 quite out. He is going to leave the th. 
 They are in orders for India, and his father 
 does not like the idea of foreign service 
 wants to have him always near him. So 
 he will exchange into the Guards." 
 
 Nothing about Sir Alexander's marriage 
 scheme, you see, had reached Minsterton as 
 yet. 
 
 Tom Tyrell, disappointed of a row with 
 May about moving, blew off his accumu- 
 lated steam on this fresh instance of aris- 
 tocratic depravity. 
 
 " Oh indeed," he muttered, with the
 
 " WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 295 
 
 distinctness peculiar to him when in a white 
 rage " That's their way ! The people keep 
 up the army, and these fine gentlemen turn 
 it' into a club for their own convenience. 
 Afraid of India ! mustn't go abroad ! poor 
 dear ! Got to get a pretty red coat, and 
 stay near his pa I So soldier-like, isn't it ? 
 Pockets the pay and shirks the danger. 
 What should we do at all without our 
 gentlemen officers ? " 
 
 " If you knew anything at all about the 
 army," said May in her hardest voice, and 
 without showing the least irritation, " you 
 would be aware that whenever there is 
 fighting the Guards are the first to march to 
 the front. Thatis/0c" 
 
 "May be. But the general daren't use them 
 to fight when they're there that's history/' 
 
 " Put in its proper place as the opposite 
 of fact," May replied.
 
 296 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " You think yourself d smart, don't 
 you?" 
 
 " There, that will do. When you begin 
 to swear, uncle, it's like " Now to God the 
 Father" in a sermon. There's nothing 
 more to be said. Whenever you feel that 
 you are getting worsted in any of our dis- 
 cussions, you have only got to swear, and I 
 shall take the hint, and let you down easy. 
 Now to change the subject Sib goes with 
 us, of course ? " 
 
 "If it hadn't been for your foolery she'd 
 have been provided for here," growled Tom. 
 
 " Selling beer and sandwiches ? " 
 
 " Good enough for her." 
 
 " Uncle, you are a clever man in some 
 things, why don't you ever look beyond 
 your nose ? That odious Blundell offered 
 you the place for Sib to gain your influence. 
 Supposing she had taken it, do you think he
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 297 
 
 would have kept her when you had gone, 
 and were no longer of use to him ? Not he ! 
 He'd have turned her off, and treated some- 
 body else with her pound a week. My 
 making her decline was the wisest thing I 
 ever did. In the first place, I have enough 
 with you and Uncle George to fight against. 
 I don't want my cousin the barmaid to be 
 flung in my teeth. And in the second, it 
 has turned out well for Sib " the lustrous 
 eyes closed a little and softened. " I do 
 believe Mr. Drummond is in love with her." 
 
 " Bumptious prig ! " 
 
 " You know nothing about him," snapped 
 May. " He improves on acquaintance." 
 
 " I wish to God he'd marry her and take 
 her off my shoulders ; but she's such a 
 bumptious fool herself. She'd refuse him if 
 he asked her, and think she'd done some- 
 thing grand."
 
 298 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 "If all went well with me/' said May, 
 " she wouldn't refuse him." 
 
 Mr. Norman Drummond had been very 
 attentive to Sib and May during the course 
 of that arbitration case. He had even been 
 brought home to tea with the sanction of the 
 master of the house, whose acquaintance 
 he was permitted to make. " He thinks," 
 May explained to her uncle, " that he is 
 pretending to cheer up poor disconsolate me 
 out of regard for Arthur, but he's after Sib. 
 If you get talking trade union with him, 
 talk sense, will you, please ? It's no use 
 cursing people and telling lies to him. 
 He'll see through all that. I want him to 
 think that you are really dangerous." Now 
 Tom Tyrell could talk sense when he wasn't 
 making a speech and the impression left 
 upon Drummond's mind in this respect 
 was all that May could desire.
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 299 
 
 The impression made in another respect 
 was equally satisfactory. " I have seen her 
 (meaning Sib) look at him " (meaning Mr. 
 Norman Drummond), May proceeded to 
 inform her uncle, "just as Arthur used to 
 look at me before when he was courting. 
 Such a look ! happiness, anxiety, hope, 
 fear, devotion, all mixed up together some- 
 how." 
 
 " Like the mustard, and oil, and vinegar 
 in a salad. So she's after him," sneered 
 Tom. 
 
 " I have seen that look on her dear face," 
 May went on, as though he had not spoken, 
 " when she thought no one was noticing her, 
 and at the slightest movement it would dart 
 back into her heart as a rabbit pops down 
 into his hole. Dear old Sib ! If I could 
 only feel what that look means for Arthur," 
 she said with a sigh. " But do you know,
 
 300 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 uncle," she continued more quickly, " I 
 hardly like Mr. Drummond's manner to her. 
 He's deferential, and soft, and all that to 
 her face, but I've caught him with the 
 expression of a wild beast crouched for a 
 spring, when he did not think any one was 
 noticing him." 
 
 " Most men have a wild beast in them," 
 said Tyrell. 
 
 " Not men in love," said May, thinking 
 of the bright, true, honest face of her own 
 lover. 
 
 " Particularly men in what men think is 
 love," Tyrell persisted " a wild beast or an 
 idiot, one of the two for certain. The wild 
 beast has no mercy, and the idiot no sense. 
 The wild beast drags the woman into the 
 jungle and gobbles the best part of her up ; 
 the idiot takes her to church and marries 
 her. That's all the difference."
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 301 
 
 " Give me then the idiot," said May. 
 
 " You've got him," said Tyrell. " If you 
 want to keep him, you'd better set a bright 
 look out over your precious Sib. You don't 
 want people to talk about your cousin the 
 barmaid, take care you don't arrange things 
 so that they have something worse to call 
 her. Drummond isn't an idiot. He's got 
 his own way to make in the world. Men 
 such as he don't marry for love of a pretty 
 face. He wants and he's smart enough to 
 get a wife with money enough to help him 
 on in the world. He'll marry an attorney's 
 daughter you see if he doesn't. He's just 
 amusing himself with your Sib that's all." 
 
 " If I thought that," said May, " and had 
 the strength " she had turned pale, and 
 her voice fell almost to a whisper " If I 
 were sure of it, I should have the strength 
 I'd kill him!"
 
 302 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 " It's a good thing," sneered Tyrell, " that 
 Bellmonte hasn't some friend to feel that 
 way about you. You'd get polished off 
 pretty quick." 
 
 A shudder ran through her at these words 
 a shudder which was provoking, because 
 they had, as she thought, no bearing upon 
 her, and therefore should have no effect. 
 
 " There is no similarity between the cases," 
 she replied, indifferently. 
 
 " All right. You can have it so ; /don't 
 mind," said he. 
 
 " It's no harm for a woman to deceive a 
 man, I suppose, if it ends in a church." 
 
 " Such news ! " cried May, dancing into 
 the room where Sib sat sewing ; " guess what 
 it is no " (thrusting a rosy-tipped finger 
 into each of her ears, as Sib rose, flushed 
 and anxious) " no, you sha'n't guess. I
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 303 
 
 want to tell you. We're going to London 
 London London ! " 
 
 " Oh, is that all ? " 
 
 " You nasty wet blanket ! What more 
 could you want ? " 
 
 "I thought it was good news about 
 Arthur." 
 
 "You're always thinking about Arthur, 
 Sib ; I shall get jealous." 
 
 " I am always thinking about you, dear ; 
 and he is part of you, isn't he ? Well, what 
 am I to pack up ? How long are you going 
 to stay this time ? " 
 
 "For ever and ever, world " 
 
 " Hush, May ! please don't." 
 
 " Oh, it's always ' please don't ' when I am 
 boiling over with joy. Well, we're going 
 for the term of our natural lives will that 
 do ? We're going to live there and leave 
 this hateful place for good no, I don't wish
 
 304 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 it any good for bad, worse, worst ! If there 
 was a worse word than ' worst ' I'd fling it 
 like a dead cat at hateful Minsterton." 
 
 " Poor Minsterton," said Sib, bending 
 over her work, " I should have thought it 
 had some pleasant associations for you." 
 
 " A cock, scratching upon a dunghill, 
 once found a pearl," May began. Min- 
 sterton was to stand for the dunghill ; 
 Arthur Bellmonte the pearl ; the sex of the 
 finder was to be changed, and the moral was 
 to be that a nasty place is not rendered 
 sweet and lovely by the accidental discovery 
 of something nice in it. But it quickly 
 struck her that the end and real moral of 
 the fable would not do at all. It was too 
 true. She stopped suddenly, and that 
 shudder which had once before troubled her 
 to-day, went through her. " I know what 
 you mean," she continued ; " I hate to think
 
 "WE'KE GOING TO LONDON." 305 
 
 that I first saw him here. I shall try. hard 
 to forget that I did. I want to fix it in my 
 own mind that we knew each other years 
 ago, when I was a respectable child in a 
 white muslin frock, and a pink sash round 
 my knees. I have nothing but dullness, 
 and slights, and hiding, and story-telling to 
 associate with Minsterton. In big happy 
 London no one will know us know us as 
 they all know us here, I mean. I shall not 
 let uncle do any sort of business where we 
 live. He can rent some den in the slums 
 he loves slums for all that. People will 
 come to see us, and invite us to their 
 Louses. We shall be respectable, Sib ; we 
 shall live" 
 
 " Am I to go with you ? " 
 " Why, of course ! Are you still hungering 
 after your Banbury cakes ? " 
 
 " I'm hungering for independence, May." 
 i. 20
 
 306 PIOUS FKAUDS. 
 
 " You are so grave, and dear, and stupid. 
 Independence ! No woman is independent ; 
 other women won't let her. They call her 
 * that creature ' if she tries. Men won't 
 let her. If you had gone into the Banbury 
 cake line, there isn't a cad with a second- 
 class ticket in his pocket who would give 
 you credit for being an honest ' girl.' " 
 
 " One does not live for the cads, dear," 
 said Sib, " and there are other ways of being 
 independent besides serving behind a refresh- 
 ment bar." 
 
 " Yes, you could go to a ready-made mantle 
 shop, wear a fine black silk (which you'll 
 have to take off when your work's done), 
 and have things tried on you to show some 
 dumpy dowager or her scrawny daughters 
 how they'll look. And then the gentleman 
 with the first-class ticket (all over him) 
 will say, ' D d fine girl at Ticketman and
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 307 
 
 Hopkins ; must send a fellow to follow her 
 home, and see where she lives.' Is that 
 independence ? You could be a duchess at 
 a grand hotel, or work the electric telegraph. 
 If you amused yourself in your free time 
 you'd lose your situation ; and if you did 
 the goodie-goodie and moped ; you'd well 
 you'd mope. No, Sib, there's only one busi- 
 ness for a woman marriage. A. pretty 
 woman with a rich husband is either a fool 
 or the most independent creature upon this 
 blessed, beautiful earth. She can do exactly 
 what she pleases, and make others have no 
 will but hers. That's independence I That's 
 glory ! That's what I'm going to be. Now 
 you you dear old thing ! You're better 
 than pretty, so you have half the raw 
 material ready. And look here, Sib, Norman 
 Drummond is all very well in his way. He's 
 good-looking, talks nicely, and all ' that.
 
 308 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 He'll be useful when we get to London, too, 
 as I daresay lie knows a lot of tip-top men, 
 and would introduce them ; but lie's as poor 
 as a rat." 
 
 Sib was stitching at express rate by this 
 time, and the nature of the work required 
 that her face should go down very close to 
 it. 
 
 " So," May went on, " if I were in your 
 place, I are you attending to what I'm 
 saying, Sib ? " 
 
 "lam." 
 
 " I'd not let him go too far. Do you 
 understand me, Sib ? " 
 
 " I hope not ; " she raised her face with a 
 deep sigh. There was no blush upon it, 
 only a touch of pain. " I hope you do not 
 understand yourself," she said, " what those 
 pretty lips have been saying. Life is not a 
 story out of the London Journal, May, as you
 
 " WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 309 
 
 seem to think. But then, you did not mean 
 it, of course. Mr. Tyrell (she never called 
 him uncle) has been talking to you about 
 me, and you can tell him, May, that Mr. 
 Norman Drummond, for want of something 
 else to do, was content to go about and talk 
 with me when he was here, and that I found 
 him a pleasant companion that's all. He 
 has gone, and I don't suppose he has given 
 me a second thought since he said ' good- 
 bye/ " 
 
 " But you, Sib -you ; how many thoughts 
 have you " 
 
 " I will not endure this, May not even 
 from you ! " cried Sib, starting from her seat, 
 and scattering her work broadcast. " It is 
 too cruel. Can I have no companionship, 
 no friendly converse, no courtesy without 
 these shameful shameful suspicions ? Do 
 you think that because you fell in love with
 
 310 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 the first man who was civil to you, that I 
 I won't hear another word, and I won't say 
 another word about it. I will never speak 
 to Mr. Drummond again never! I hate 
 him. And if you mention his name again I 
 won't go with you to London. It's unbear- 
 able." 
 
 She threw open the door with a crash, 
 plunged into her own room, and flung its 
 portal to with a bang ; but she did not throw 
 herself upon the bed and burst into tears as 
 perhaps she ought to have done. She raged 
 up and down with clenched hands and set 
 teeth, looking supremely handsome, and feel- 
 ing utterly wretched. " What must he think 
 of me ? " she asked herself, as though scolding 
 sjme one else. " If simple-hearted May has 
 found me out, what must he man of the 
 world as he is think of me ? " 
 
 She made him think all sorts of wretched
 
 "WE'RE GOING TO LONDON." 311 
 
 things of her, and then she accused him of 
 being so unjust, so conceited, so wicked, so 
 hateful, and otherwise comported herself in 
 a manner which, had he been in hiding and 
 seen it, would have made Mr. Norman 
 Drummond very satisfied with the past, and 
 hopeful for the future. 
 
 As for May, when she had recovered from 
 the first surprise of her cousin's outburst, she 
 smiled and said, half aloud : " Poor old Sib ! 
 now I know. Poor, dear old Sib ! the 
 idea of her thinking she could keep such a 
 secret as that ! Sib in love ! And she shall 
 marry him she shall ! and they shall not be 
 poor." 
 
 END OP VOL. I.

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
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