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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 W8u 
 
 FATED TO BE FREE 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 FATED TO BE FREE 
 
 By JEAN INGELOW 
 
 AUTHOR OF ''OFF THE SKELL1GS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 THREE VOLS.— 1. 
 
 LONDON 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET 
 
 STRAND 
 
 1875
 
 LONDON : 
 I'KIN- r K I > BY vik i UB kND 
 CITY ROAU.
 
 
 
 vW 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I, 
 
 t HAPTER 
 
 I. A WATCHER OF LILIKS .... 
 
 II. THE LESSON 
 
 III. GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS . 
 
 IV. SWARMS OF CHILDREN 
 
 V. OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN 
 
 VI. THE SHADOW OF A SHADE 
 
 VII. AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL . 
 
 VIII. THEY MEET AN AUTHOR 
 
 IX. SIGNED " DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA 
 
 X. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 
 
 XI. WANTED A DESERT ISLAND . 
 
 XII. VALENTINE 
 
 XIII. VENERABLE ANCIENTRY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 23 
 
 44 
 62 
 84 
 100 
 116 
 136 
 '65 
 187 
 209 
 228 
 250 
 
 ^^OCQi 
 
 *~t
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 
 
 " Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no 
 secrets are hid." — Collect, English Communion Service. 
 
 T N one of the south-western counties of England, 
 some years ago, and in a deep, well-wooded 
 valley where men made perry and cider, wandered 
 little and read less, there was a hamlet with neither 
 farm nor cottage in it, that had not stood two hundred 
 and fifty years, and just beyond there was a church 
 nearly double that age, and there were the mighty 
 wrecks of two great oak-trees, said to be more ancient 
 still. 
 
 Between them, winding like a long red rut, went the 
 narrow road, and was so deeply cut into the soil that 
 a horseman passing down it could see nothing of its 
 bordering fields ; but about fifty yards from the first 
 great oak the land suddenly dipped, and showed on 
 the left a steep cup-like glen, choked with trees, and 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 I A I KI) TO II I 
 
 only divided from the road by a (cw dilapidated stakes 
 and palings, and a wooden gate, orange with the rust 
 oflichens, and held together with ropes and hands. 
 
 A carriage-drive was visible on the other side of 
 the gate, but its boundaries were half obliterated by 
 the grass and weeds that had grown over it, and as it 
 wound down into the glen it was lost among the trees. 
 Nature, before it has been touched by man, is almost 
 always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man's eyes ; 
 but nature, when he has once given it his culture and 
 then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and 
 helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying 
 his hand upon it, and touching it with his life. It 
 has come to relish of his humanity, and it is so 
 flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and per- 
 meated by his spirit, that if the stimulus of his pre- 
 sence is withdrawn it cannot for a long while do 
 without him, and live for itself as fully and as well as 
 it did before. 
 
 There was nothing to prevent a stranger from 
 entering this place, and if he did so, its meaning very 
 soon took hold of him ; he perceived that he had 
 walked into the world of some who were courting 
 oblivion, steeping themselves in solitude, tempting
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 
 
 their very woods to encroach upon them, and so 
 swathe them as in a mantle of secrecy which might 
 cover their misfortunes, and win forgetfulness both for 
 their faults and for their decline. 
 
 The glen was about three hundred yards across, 
 and the trees which crowded it, and overflowed its 
 steep side encroaching over the flat ground beyond, 
 were chiefly maples and sycamores. Every sunbeam 
 that shot in served to show its desolation. The place 
 was encumbered with fallen branches, tangled brush- 
 wood, dead ferns ; and wherever the little stream had 
 spread itself there was a boggy hollow, rank with 
 bulrushes, and glorious with the starry marsh mari- 
 gold. But here and there dead trees stood upright, 
 gaunt and white in their places, great swathes of bark 
 hanging loose from their limbs, while crowds of young 
 saplings, sickly for want of space and light, thrust up 
 their heads towards the sunshine, and were tied to- 
 gether and cumbered in their struggle by climbing 
 ropes of ivy, and long banners of the wild black vine. 
 
 The ring of woodland was not deep, the domain 
 was soon traversed, and then stepping out into a 
 space covered with rank meadow grass, one might see 
 the house which should have been its heart.
 
 FATED TO BE FREE 
 
 It was a wide, old, red brick mansion, with many 
 irregular windows, no pane in which was more than 
 two inches square. One end of it was deeply em- 
 bedded in an orchard of pear and apple trees, but its 
 front was exposed, and over the door might be seen 
 the date of its building. The roof was high and 
 sloping, and in its centre rose a hugh stack of brick 
 chimneys, which had almost the effect of a tower, 
 while under the eaves, at regular intervals, were 
 thrust out grotesque heads, with short spouts protrud- 
 ing from their mouths. Some of these had fallen on 
 the paving-flags below, and no one had taken them 
 up. No one ever looked out of those front windows, 
 or appeared to notice how fast the fruit-trees by the 
 house, and the forest-trees from the glen, were reach- 
 ing out their arms and sending forth their young 
 saplings towards it, as if to close it in and swallow 
 it up. 
 
 So still it looked with its closed shutters, that what 
 slight evidence there was of its really being inhabited 
 appeared only to make it yet more strange and 
 alone; for these were a gaunt, feeble, old dog, 
 
 4 
 
 who paced up and down the flags as if keeping 
 id, and a brass handle on the oaken door, which
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 
 
 was so highly polished that it glittered and shone 
 in the light. 
 
 But there was a great deal of life and company up 
 aloft, for a tribe of blue pigeons had their home 
 among those eaves and chimneys, and they walked 
 daintily up the steep roof with their small red feet, 
 while they uttered their plaintive call to their young. 
 
 It was a strange fancy that prompted the cleaning 
 of this door-handle. " I mun keep it bright," the old 
 woman would say who did it, "in case anybody 
 should come to call." No one but herself ever 
 opened the door, nobody within cared that she should 
 bestow this trouble. Nobody, for more than fifty 
 years, ever had " come to call," and yet, partly 
 because the feigning of such a possibility seemed to 
 connect her still with her fellows of the work-a-day 
 world, and partly because the young master, her 
 foster-brother, whom she deeply loved, had last been 
 seen by her with this door-handle in his hand, she 
 faithfully continued every day to begin her light tasks 
 by rubbing it, and while so doing she would often 
 call to mind the early spring twilight she had opened 
 her eyes in so long ago, and heard creaking footsteps 
 passing down the stairs ; and then how she had heard
 
 D TO BE l REE. 
 
 the great bolt of the door withdrawn, and had sprung 
 out of bed, and peering through her casement had 
 seen him close it after him, and with his young 
 brother steal away among the ghostly white pear- 
 trees, never to return. 
 
 " And I didn't give it a thought that they could be 
 after aught worse than rook-shooting," she would 
 murmur, " for all I heard a sort of a sobbing on the 
 stairs. It was hard on poor old Madam though, 
 never to take any leave of her ; but all her life has 
 been hard for that matter, poor innocent old critter. 
 Well, well, I hope it's not a sin to wish 'em happy, 
 spite of that bad action ; and as for her, she's had 
 her troubles in this world, as all the parish is ready 
 to testify, and no doubt but what that will be con- 
 sidered to her in the world to come." 
 
 All the parish was always ready to testify that poor 
 old Madam had had a sight o' troubles. All the 
 parish took a certain awful pleasure in relating them ; 
 it was a sort of distinction to have among them such 
 an unfortunate woman and mother, so that the very 
 shepherds' and ditchers' wives plumed themselves 
 upon it over those in the next parish, where the old 
 Squire and his wile had never lost one of their many
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 
 
 children, or had any trouble " to speak of." " For 
 there was no call to count his eldest son's running off 
 with a dairymaid, it being well beknown," they would 
 observe with severity, " that his mother never would 
 let e'er a one of the young madams as were suitable 
 to marry him come nigh the house." 
 
 The dairymaid belonged to their parish, and so 
 afforded them another ground of triumph over their 
 rivals. "Besides," they would say, "wasn't their own 
 church parson — old parson Green that everybody 
 swore by — wasn't he distinctly heard to say to the 
 young man's father, ' that he might ha' been expected 
 to do wus'? They didn't see, for their parts, that 
 aught but good had come of it neither ; but as for 
 poor old Madam, anybody might see that no good 
 ever came nigh her. We must submit ourselves to 
 the Almighty's will," they would add with reverence. 
 They couldn't tell why He had afflicted her, but they 
 prayed Him to be merciful to her in her latter end. 
 
 It was in old parson Green's time, the man they 
 all swore by, that they talked thus ; but when parson 
 Craik came, they learned some new words, and in- 
 stead of accepting trouble with the religious acquies- 
 cence of the ignorant, they began to wonder and
 
 I) TO BE FREE. 
 
 doubt, and presently to offend their rivals by their 
 fine language. " Mysterious, indeed," they would 
 " is the ways of Providence." 
 
 In the meantime the poor old woman who for so 
 many years was the object of their speculations and 
 their sympathy, lived in all quietness and humbleness 
 at one end of her long house, and on fine Sunda\s 
 edified the congregation by coming to church. Not 
 however, on foot ; her great age made that too much 
 an exertion for her. She was drawn by her one old 
 man-servant in a chair on wheels, her granddaughter 
 and her grandson's widow walking beside her, and 
 her little great-grandson, Peter, who was supposed to 
 be her heir, bringing up the rear. 
 
 Old Madam Melcombe, as the villagers called her. 
 She had a large frame, but it was a good deal bowed 
 down ; her face was wrinkled, and her blue eyes had 
 the peculiar dimness of extreme old age, yet those 
 who noticed her closely might detect a remarkable 
 shrewdness in her face ; her faculties were not only 
 perfect, but she loved to save money, and still re- 
 tained a high value for, and a firm grip of, her 
 possessions. The land she left waste was, notwith- 
 standing, precious to her. She hail tied up her gate
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 
 
 that her old friends might understand, after her eldest 
 son's death, that she could not be tortured by their 
 presence and their sympathy ; but she was known 
 sometimes by her grand-daughters to enlarge on the 
 goodness of the land thereabouts, and to express a 
 hope that when Peter's guardians came into power, 
 they would bring it under the plough again. She 
 went to church by a little footpath, and always con- 
 ducted herself with great decorum, though, twice or 
 thrice during the reading of the lessons, she had 
 startled the congregation by standing up with a scared 
 expression of countenance, and looking about her 
 while she leaned on her high staff as if she thought 
 some one had called her ; but she was in her ninety- 
 fifth year, and this circumstance, together with the 
 love and pity felt for her, would easily have excused 
 far greater eccentricities. 
 
 She had felt very keenly the desertion of her 
 second and her fourth sons, who had run away from 
 home when the elder was barely eighteen, and with- 
 out previous quarrel or unkindness so far as was 
 known ; nor was it believed that they had ever come 
 to see her since, or sought her forgiveness. Her 
 eldest son, while still in the flower of his age, had
 
 IO FATED TO BE IT 
 
 died by his own hand; her youngest son had died in 
 die West Indies, of fever; and the third, the only 
 one who remained with her, had never been either a 
 comfort or a credit to his family : he had but lately 
 died, leaving a son and a daughter. Of these, the 
 daughter was with her grandmother, and the son was 
 just dead, having left an only child, his heir. 
 
 At one end of the house, as had been said, was an 
 orchard, at the other was a large garden. If the 
 desolate appearance of the house was likely to raise 
 oppressive feelings in a stranger's mind, how much 
 more this garden ! It was a large oblong piece of 
 ground, the walls of which enclosed the western end 
 of the house completely. One of them ran parallel 
 with the front, and a massive oaken door somewhat 
 relieved its flat monotony ; but this door afforded no 
 ingress, it was bolted and barred from within. 
 
 The garden was that special portion of her inherit- 
 ance on which the ancient owner rested her eyes; 
 morning, noon, and evening she would sit gazing on 
 its green fishpond, all overgrown with duckweed, on 
 the lawn now fast being encroached on by shrubbery, 
 and on the bed of lilies which from year to year 
 spread and flourished.
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. II 
 
 But she never entered it, nor did any one else. 
 
 That end of the house had but four windows on 
 the ground floor, and these were all strongly barred 
 with iron, the places they lighted consisting of 
 kitchen, offices, and a cider store-room. Above 
 these on the first-floor were three pleasant rooms over- 
 looking the garden, and opening on to a wooden 
 gallery or verandah, at each end of which was an 
 alcove of an old-fashioned and substantial description. 
 
 The gallery was roofed above, had a heavy oaken 
 balustrade, and being fully ten feet wide afforded a 
 convenient place in which the lonely old lady could 
 take exercise, for, excepting on Sunday, she was 
 scarcely ever known to leave her own premises. 
 There also her little great-grandson Peter first learned 
 to walk, and as she slowly passed from one alcove to 
 the other, resting in each when she reached it, he 
 would take hold of her high staff and totter beside 
 her, always bestowing on her as much as he could of 
 his company, and early showing a preference for her 
 over his aunt and even over his mother. 
 
 Up and down the gallery this strange pair would 
 move together, and as she went she gazed frequently 
 over the gay wilderness below, and if she sat long in
 
 12 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 one of the alcoves, she would peer out at its little 
 window always on the same scene ; a scene in the 
 winter of hopeless neglect and desolation. Dead 
 leaves, dead dry stalks of foxgloves and mullens, 
 broken branches, and an arbour with trellised roof, 
 borne down by the weight of the vine. 
 
 But in spring and summer the place was gorgeous 
 in parts with a confused tangle of plants and shrubs 
 in flower. Persian lilacs, syringas, lahernums made 
 thickets here and there and covered their heads with 
 bloom. Passion flowers trailed their long tendrils all 
 over the gallery, and masses of snow-white clematis 
 towered in many of the trees. 
 
 All distinction between pathway ami border had 
 long since been obliterated, the eyes wandered over 
 a carpet of starred and spangled greener). Tall 
 white gladiolas shot up above it, and spires of fox. 
 gloves and rockets, while all about them ami among 
 the rose-trees climbed the morning glory and the 
 briony vine. 
 
 Stretching in front of the ruined arbour was a 
 lawn, and along one edge of it under the wall, grew 
 a bed of lilies, lilies of the valley, so sweet in their 
 season, that sometimes the old lady's grand-daughters
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 1 3 
 
 would affirm that a waft of their breath had reached 
 them as they sat up in the gallery at work. 
 
 It was towards this spot that Madam Melcombe 
 looked. Here her unquiet face was frequently turned, 
 from her first early entrance into the gallery, till 
 sunset, when she would sit in one of the alcoves in 
 hot weather. She gave no reason for this watch, but 
 a kindly and reverent reserve protected her from 
 questions. It was felt that the place was sacred to 
 some recollection of her youth, when her young 
 children were about her, before the cruel desertion 
 of two, the ceaseless quarrels of other two, and 
 the tragic death of one of them, had darkened 
 her days. 
 
 The one door in the wall being fastened, and the 
 ground-floor at that end of the house having none but 
 barred windows, it follows that the only entrance to 
 the garden was now from this gallery. There was, 
 indeed, a flight of steps leading down from it, but 
 there was a gate at the top of them, and this gate was 
 locked. 
 
 On the day of her eldest son's funeral, his stricken 
 mother had locked it. Perhaps she scarcely knew at 
 first that the time would never come when she should
 
 14 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 find courage again to open it ; but she took away the 
 key to satisfy some present distressful fancy, and 
 those about her respected her desire that the place 
 should not be entered. They did not doubt that 
 there was some pathetic reason for this desire, but 
 none was evident, for her son had gone down to his 
 death in a secluded and now all but inaccessible part 
 of the glen, where, turning from its first direction, it 
 sunk deeper still, and was divided by red rocks from 
 its more shallow opening. 
 
 A useless watch at best was hers, still of the 
 terrace, and the arbour, and the bed of lilies ; but as 
 she got yet deeper down into the vale of years, those 
 about her sometimes hoped that she had forgotten 
 the sorrowful reason, whatever it might be, that drew 
 her eyes incessantly towards them. She began even 
 to express a kind of pleasure in the gradual encroach- 
 ments of the lovely plants. Once she had said, " [1 
 is my hope, when I am gone, as none of you will ever 
 disturb them."' 
 
 Whatever visions of a happy youth, whatever 
 mournful recollections of the sports of her own 
 children, might belong to them, those now with her 
 knew not of them, but they thought that her long and
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. I 5 
 
 pathetic watch had at last become more a habit with 
 her than any conscious recalling of the past, and they 
 hoped it might be so. 
 
 The one sitting-room used by the family opened 
 into the gallery, and was a good deal darkened by its 
 roof. On one side of it was Peter's nursery, on the 
 other his great-grandmother's chamber, and no other 
 part of the house was open excepting some kitchen 
 offices, and two or three bedrooms in the roof. The 
 servants consisted of a nurse (herself an old woman), 
 who sat nearly all day in the parlour, because her far 
 more aged mistress required much attendance, a grey- 
 headed housemaid, a cook, and a man, the husband 
 of this last. His chief business was to groom the one 
 horse of the establishment, and ride on it to the 
 nearest town for meat, grocery, and other marketings. 
 
 The floor of the parlour was oak, which had once 
 been polished ; all the furniture was to the last degree 
 quaint and old fashioned ; the two large windows 
 opened like double doors upon the gallery, and were 
 shaded by curtains of Madras chintz. The chairs, 
 which were inconveniently heavy, were also covered 
 with chintz ; it was frilled round them like a petti- 
 coat, and was just short enough to show their hideous
 
 [6 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 club-feet. Over the chimney-piece was a frame, and 
 something in it said to be a picture. Peter, when a 
 very little child, used to call it "a picture of the 
 dark," for it seemed to be nothing but an expanse of 
 deep brown, with a spot of some lighter hue in one 
 corner. He wished, he said, that they had put a 
 piece of moon in to show how dark that country 
 was. The old nurse, however, had her theories 
 about this patch; she would have it that it was 
 somewhat in the shape of a jacket ; she thought it 
 likely that the picture represented a hunt, and said 
 she supposed the foremost horseman in his red coat 
 was watering his horse in a pond. Peter and the 
 nurse had argued together on this subject many 
 times before the old lady was appealed to, but when 
 they once chanced to ask her about the picture, she 
 affirmed that the patch was a lobster, and that a sort 
 of ring which seemed faintly to encircle it was the 
 edge of a plate. In short, she declared that this 
 was a Dutch picture of still life, and that in Peter's 
 time, when he came to have it cleaned, it would 
 prove to be worth money. 
 
 "And when will it be my time?" asked little 
 Peter innocently.
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 1 7 
 
 " Hold your tongue, child ! " whispered his mother ; 
 " it won't be your time till your poor dear grand- 
 mother's in heaven." 
 
 "I don't want her to go to heaven yet," said 
 Peter in a plaintive tone (for he regarded her as 
 much the best possession he had), and, raising his 
 voice, he complained to her as to one threatening 
 to injure him, " Grandmother, you don't want to go 
 to heaven just yet, do you?" 
 
 "Lor bless the child!" exclaimed old Madam 
 Melcombe, a good deal startled. 
 
 " No, don't," continued Peter in a persuasive tone ; 
 " stop here, but let me clean the picture, because I 
 want to see that lobster." 
 
 " Now I tell you what," answered his great-grand- 
 mother rather sharply, "if you was to go and play 
 in the gallery, it would be a deal better than arguing 
 with me." So Peter departed to his play, and forgot 
 the lobster for a little while. 
 
 But Peter was not destined that evening to please 
 his great-grandmother, for he had no sooner got 
 well into the spirit of his play in the gallery than 
 he began to sing. "I'm a coward at songs," she 
 would sometimes say ; " and if it wasn't for the 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 1 8 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 dear birds, I could wish there was no music in the 
 world." 
 
 Her feeling was the same which has been beauti- 
 fully described by Gassendi, who, writing in Latin, 
 expresses himself thus : — 
 
 " He preferred also the music of birds to the 
 human voice or to musical instruments, not because 
 he derived no pleasure from these last, but because, 
 after hearing music from the human voice, there 
 remained a certain sustained agitation, disturbing 
 attention and sleep ; while the risings and fallings, 
 the tones and changes and sounds and concords, pass 
 and repass through the fancy ; whereas nothing of the 
 sort can be left after the warbling of birds, who, as 
 they are not open to our imitation, cannot move the 
 faculty of imagination within us." (Gassendi, in Vita 
 /Vircskii.) 
 
 In the garden was plenty of music of the sort that 
 Madam Melcombe still loved. Peter could not shout 
 in his play without disturbing the storm-cock as he sat 
 up aloft singing a love-song to his wife. As for the 
 little birds, blackcaps haunted almost every bush, 
 and the timid white-throat brooded there in peace 
 over her half-transparent eggs.
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 1 9 
 
 So no one ever sang in old Madam Melcombe's 
 presence unless Peter forgot himself, and vexed his 
 mother by chanting out snatches of songs that he 
 had caught up from the village children. Mrs. Peter 
 Melcombe formed for herself few theories ; she was 
 a woman dull of feeling and slow of thought ; she 
 knew as a fact that her aged relative could not bear 
 music. So, as a matter of duty and self-interest, she 
 stopped her child's little voice when she could, and if 
 he asked, "Why does grandmother cry when I sing?" 
 she would answer, " Nobody knows," for she had not 
 reflected how those to whom music is always welcome 
 must have neither an empty heart nor a remorseful 
 conscience, nor keen recollections, nor a foreboding 
 soul. 
 
 Peter was a good little boy enough j he was 
 tolerably well tamed by the constant presence of 
 old age and, with the restraints it brought upon 
 him, and having less imagination than falls to the 
 lot of most children, he was the more affected by his 
 position. When he strayed into a field of wheat, and 
 there was waving and whispering above his head, it 
 was not all one to him, as if he had been lost in 
 some old-world forest, where uncouth creatures dwelt,
 
 20 FATED TO HE FREE. 
 
 and castles and caverns might be encountered before 
 the stile. He could not see the great world out 
 of the parlour window, and understand and almost 
 inherit another world beyond the hills; as to the 
 moon, the child's silver heaven, he never saw some- 
 thing marvellous and mild sitting up there and smiling 
 to him to come. 
 
 But he was happy, and instead of the wide-open 
 eyes of a child fed to the full with the wonders about 
 him and within him, his eyes were shaded constantly 
 by their light lashes ; he enjoyed his play, but he 
 blinked when day was at the full ; and all his 
 observations concerned realities. Some story had 
 reached him about a ghost which had been seen in 
 that immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 ' Who cooks his dinner for him ?" inquired the child. 
 
 " He has no dinner," answered the old housemaid. 
 
 " I don't want to see him, then," said the little 
 winking, blinking philosopher ; " he might ask me 
 iome of mine." 
 
 I hit that was a height of prudence that he could 
 not reach often, and he several times annoyed his 
 mother and alarmed his aunt by asking questions 
 about this ghost.
 
 A WATCHER OF LILIES. 21 
 
 Laura Melcombe, Peter's aunt, acted as his gover- 
 ness, and took a certain pride and pleasure in his 
 young intelligence. It was well that she had some- 
 thing real to interest her, for her character was in 
 strong contrast to her nephew's. She lived mainly 
 in an ideal world, and her life was fed by what she 
 fetched up from the clod or down from the clouds. 
 Chiefly by the former. She was " of imagination all 
 compact;" but that is a very unlucky case where 
 there is weak judgment, little or no keenness of 
 observation, a treacherous memory, and a boundless 
 longing for the good things of life. Of all gifts, 
 imagination, being the greatest, is least worth having, 
 unless it is well backed either by moral culture or by 
 other intellectual qualities. It is the crown of all 
 thoughts and powers ; but you cannot wear a crown 
 becomingly if you have no head (worth mentioning) 
 to put it on. 
 
 Miss Laura Melcombe thought most of the young 
 farmers in the neighbourhood were in love with her. 
 Accordingly, at church or at the market-town, where 
 she occasionally went on shopping expeditions, she 
 gave herself such airs as she considered suitable for 
 a lady who must gently, though graciously, repel all
 
 22 I .VI ED TO BE FREE. 
 
 hopeless aspirations. She was one of those people 
 to whom a compliment is absolute poison. The first 
 man who casually chanced to say something to her in 
 her early youth, which announced to her that he 
 thought her lovely, changed her thoughts about her- 
 self for ever after. First, she accepted his compliment 
 as his sincere and fervent conviction. Secondly, she 
 never doubted that he expressed his continuous be- 
 lief, not his feeling of the moment. Thirdly, she 
 regarded beauty in her case as thenceforward an 
 established fact, and not this one man's opinion. 
 Fourthly, she spent some restless months in per- 
 suading herself that to admire must needs be to 
 love, and she longed in vain to see him " come 
 forward." Then some other casual acquaintance 
 paid her a compliment, and she went through the 
 same experience on his account, persuading herself 
 that her first admirer could not afford to marry; and 
 this state of things had now gone on for several 
 years.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LESSON. 
 " Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, think ye . . . ." 
 
 T\ /T ANY and many an hour had Peter spent, when 
 he was a very little boy, in gazing through 
 the heavy banister-like railings of the gallery ; and, as 
 he grew older, in pensively leaning upon them, and 
 longing in vain to get into the forbidden Paradise 
 of the garden. The gallery floor being about twelve 
 feet from the ground he could see the whole place 
 from it. Oh the stores of nests that it must contain ! 
 the beautiful sharp sticks for arrows ! the capital 
 elder shoots, full of pith ! how he longed to get at 
 them for making pop-guns ! Sometimes, when the 
 pink hawthorns were in flower, or the guelder-roses, 
 he would throw a ball at one of them just to see 
 what showers of bloom would come down ; and then 
 what a commotion such an event would make among
 
 24 I \TED TO BE FREE. 
 
 the birds ! what chattering and chirping, and scream- 
 ing and fluttering ! But the experiment was rather 
 a costly one, for the ball once thrown there was no 
 getting it back again, it must lie and rot till the seams 
 burst open, and birds picked the wool out for their 
 nests. 
 
 Sometimes Peter would get a hook tied to the end 
 of a long string, and amuse himself with what he 
 called fishing, that is to say, he would throw out his 
 line, and try to get it tangled in the slight branches 
 of some shrub, and draw it up, with a few of the 
 flowers attached ; but with all his fishing he never 
 got up anything worth having : the utmost being a 
 torn cabbage-rose, and two or three shattered peonies, 
 leaf and root and all. 
 
 It is melancholy to think how much valuable 
 property was engulphed in this untrodden waste, how 
 many shuttlecocks, hit a little too hard, had toppled 
 over and settled on some flowery clump, in full view 
 of, but out of reach for ever of their unfortunate 
 possessor; how many marbles had bounded over 
 and leaped into the green abyss ; how many bits 
 of .slate-pencil, humming-tops, little ships made of 
 walnut-shells, and other most precious articles, had
 
 THE LESSON. 25 
 
 been lost there to human ken, and now lay hidden 
 and mouldering away ! 
 
 Sometimes when Peter had lost anything of more 
 than common value, he would complain to his aunt, 
 or his mother, and hint a humble wish that he 
 could get it again. On such occasions his mother 
 would remark, with a languid sigh, that it certainly 
 did seem a pity such a fine piece of land should lie 
 waste ; but if Peter followed up the conversation by 
 declaring that he could easily climb over the gate 
 and get down into the garden if he might, he was 
 immediately met by such stern rebukes from all 
 parties, and such fervent assurances that if he ever 
 dared to do such a thing he should certainly be 
 sent to school, that he grew to the age of seven 
 years with two deep impressions on his mind ; first, 
 that it would be very wicked to go down into the 
 garden ; second, that it would be very dreadful to be 
 sent to school. 
 
 One very fine hot day in July Madam Melcombe 
 had caused a table to be set in the gallery, that she 
 might enjoy her early tea in the open air. Peter and 
 the rest of the party were with her, and after a long 
 silence he turned towards her and said, " Grand-
 
 26 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 mother, there are no ghosts in our house, are 
 there?" 
 
 " Ne'er a one," exclaimed the nurse with zealous 
 promptitude, " they don't come to houses where good 
 folks live." 
 
 " I wish they would," said Peter, thoughtfully, " I 
 want to see one." 
 
 "What does he say?" asked the great-grand- 
 mother. The nurse repeated Peter's audacious re- 
 mark ; whereupon Madam Melcombe said briskly 
 and sharply, " Hold your tongue, child, and eat your 
 bread and milk like a Christian ; you're spilling it on 
 the floor." 
 
 " But I wish they would, - ' repeated Peter softly ; 
 and finishing his bread and milk, he said his grace ; 
 and his fishing-rod being near at hand, he leaned his 
 elbows on the balustrade, threw his line, and began 
 to play at his favourite game. 
 
 " I think," he said, presently turning to his aunt, 
 "I think, aunt, I shall call the garden the 'field of 
 the cloth of gold;' it's so covered with marigolds just 
 now that it looks quite yellow. Henry's tent shall 
 be the arbour, and I'll have the French king's down 
 in this corner."
 
 THE LESSON. 27 
 
 On hearing this, his mother slightly elevated her 
 eyebrows, she had no notion what he was alluding 
 to ; but his grandmother, who seemed to have been 
 made rather restless and uneasy by his remarks 
 about ghosts, evidently regarded this talk as some- 
 thing more of the same sort, and said to her grand- 
 daughter, " I wish, Laura, you wouldn't let him read 
 such a quantity of fairy tales and heathenish non- 
 sense — 'field o' the cloth o' gold, indeed !' Who 
 ever heard of such a thing ! " 
 
 " He has only been reading the ' History of 
 England,' grandmother," said Peter's aunt. 
 
 " I hadn't read anything out of that book for such 
 a long time," said Peter; "my Bible-lesson to-day 
 made me remember it. About that other field, you 
 know, grandmother." 
 
 " Come, that's something like," said old Madam 
 Melcombe. " Stand up now, and let me hear youi 
 Bible-lesson." 
 
 " But, grandmother," Peter inquired, " I may call 
 this the ' field of the cloth of gold,' mayn't I ? " 
 
 " O dear me, call it anything you like," she replied ; 
 " but don't stand in that way to say your task to me ; 
 put your feet together now, and fold your hands,
 
 28 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 and hold your head up. To think that you're the 
 child's aunt, Laura, she continued fretfully, and 
 should take no more heed to his manners. Now 
 you just look straight at me, Peter, and begin." 
 
 The child sighed : the constraint of his attitude 
 perhaps made him feel melancholy. He ventured 
 to cast one glance at his fishing-rod, and at the 
 garden, then looking straight at his great-grand- 
 mother, he began in a sweet and serious tone of 
 voice to repeat his lesson from the twenty-seventh 
 chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, the third to the 
 tenth verse. 
 
 3. " Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he 
 saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and 
 brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief 
 priests and e/ders, 
 
 4. " Saying, I hare sinned in that I have betrayed 
 the innocent blood, /hid they said, What is that to us ? 
 tee thou to that. 
 
 5. "And he east do:on the pieces of silver in the 
 temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. 
 
 6. " And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and 
 said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, 
 /'/cause it is the price of blood.
 
 THE LESSON. 29 
 
 7. " And they took counsel, and bought with them the 
 potter 's field, to bury strangers in. 
 
 8. " Wherefore that field was called, The field of 
 blood unto this day. 
 
 9. " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by 
 Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty 
 pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom 
 they of the children of Israel did value, 
 
 10. "And gave them for the potter's field, as the 
 Lord appointed me." 
 
 What was this ! — standing upright again, as she, 
 had done several times in the church — was she 
 listening ? It scarcely appeared that she was ; she 
 took first one hand from her staff", and looked 
 earnestly at it, and then she took the other, and 
 with wide-open eyes examined that also. 
 
 " O cruel, cruel," thought Peter's mother, when 
 Peter had repeated a verse or two, " why did not 
 Laura prevent this, she who knew what the child's 
 lesson was ? " and she sat cold and trembling, with 
 an anguish of pity ; but she felt that now it was too 
 late to stop her boy, he must go on to the end. As 
 to the nurse, she sitting there still, with her work on 
 her knees, felt as if every word rose up and struck
 
 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 her on the face. He was slowly, pensively, and O so 
 calmly, describing to the poor mother the manner of 
 her son's death. 
 
 " That will do, master Peter," she exclaimed, the 
 moment he had finished ; and she snatched his hand 
 and led him away, telling him to go and play in the 
 orchard. 
 
 Peter was not destitute of gratitude, and as he made 
 his exit, he thought, what a good thing it was that he 
 did not say his lesson to his grandmother every day. 
 
 When the nurse turned again she observed that 
 Madam Melcombe had tottered a step or two for- 
 ward : her grand-daughter and her grandson's widow 
 were supporting her. One of them called to her to 
 fetch some cordial, and this seemed to disturb the 
 poor old woman, for she presently said slowly, and 
 as if it caused her a great effort to speak, — 
 
 " What are they gone for ? and what are you 
 doing?" 
 
 " We're holding you up, grandmother; you tremble, 
 dear; you can hardly stand. Won't you sit down ?" 
 
 " Won't I what ? " she repeated. " I don't hear ; " 
 and she began to move with their help and that of 
 her staff to the balustrade.
 
 THE LESSON. 3 1 
 
 The old fancy ; the constant fancy ; gazing at the 
 bed of lilies, and talking to herself as, with her 
 trembling hand to her brow, she peered out towards 
 the arbour. They were words of no particular 
 significance that she said; but just as the nurse 
 came back bringing her a cordial, she turned round 
 and repeated them distinctly, and with a solemnity 
 that was almost awful. 
 
 " They all helped to dig it ; and they know they 
 did." 
 
 Words that appeared to be so far from the tragical 
 recollection which must have first caused this dis- 
 turbance in her poor mind ; but her grand- 
 daughter thought proper to make her some kind 
 of answer. 
 
 " Did they, grandmother ? " she said in a soothing 
 tone, " and a very good thing too." 
 
 She stopped short, for upon the aged face fell 
 suddenly such a look of affright, such renewed 
 intelligence seemed to peer out of the dim eyes, 
 and such defiance with their scrutiny, that for the 
 moment she was very much alarmed. 
 
 " She's not quite herself. Oh, I hope she's not 
 going to have a stroke ! " was her thought.
 
 32 I WED TO BE FREE. 
 
 "What have I been a saying?" inquired Madam 
 Melcombe. 
 
 " You said it was a good thing they dug the lily 
 bed," answered her grand-daughter. 
 
 "And nothing else ?" 
 
 " No, ma'am, no," answered the nurse ; " and if 
 you had, what would it signify ? " 
 
 Madam Melcombe let them settle her in her chair 
 
 » 
 
 and give her her cordial, then she said — 
 
 " Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their 
 age. I thought I might be losing my wits; might 
 have said something." 
 
 •' Dear grandmother, don't laugh ! " exclaimed her 
 grandson's widow ; " and don't look so strange. Lose 
 your wits ! you never will, not you. We shall have 
 you a little longer yet, please God, and bright and 
 sensible to the last." 
 
 "Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their 
 age," repeated Madam Melcombe; and during the 
 rest of that evening she continued silent and lost in 
 thought. 
 
 The next morning, after a late breakfast, her family 
 observed that there was still a difference in her 
 manner. She was not quite herself, they thought,
 
 THE LESSON. 33 
 
 and they were confirmed in their opinion when she 
 demanded of her grand-daughter and her grandson's 
 widow, that a heavy old-fashioned bureau should be 
 opened for her, and that she should be left alone. 
 " I don't know as I shall be spared much longer," 
 said the meek nonogenarian, "and I've made up 
 my mind to write a letter to my sons." 
 
 "My sons /" When they heard this they were 
 startled almost as they might have been if she had 
 had no sons, for neither of them had ever heard her 
 mention their names. Nothing, in fact, was known 
 concerning them in that house, excepting that what 
 portion of success and happiness had been allotted 
 to the family seemed all to have fallen to their share. 
 
 They were vastly unpopular in the hamlet. Not 
 that any but the very old people remembered the day 
 when -they had first been missing, or what an extra 
 ordinary effect their behaviour had produced on 
 their mother ; but that the new generation had 
 taken up her cause — the new parson also — and that 
 the story being still often told had lost nothing in 
 the narration. 
 
 Parson Craik had always been poor old Madam's 
 champion since his coming among them. He had 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 taken pains to ascertain the facts from the oldest 
 hedger's old wife, and when first he heard her tell 
 how she had opened her door at dawn to let in 
 her husband, during the great gale that was rocking 
 the orchard trees and filling the air with whirls of 
 blossom, that came down like a thick fall of snow, 
 he made an observation which was felt at the time 
 to have an edifying power in it, and which was in- 
 corporated with the story ever after. " And when I 
 telled him how the grete stack of chimneys fell not 
 half-an-hour after, over the very place where they had 
 passed, and how they were in such a hurry to be off 
 that they jumped the edge for fear us should stop 
 them or speak to them. Then says Parson Craik to 
 me, sitting as it might be there, and I a sitting 
 opposite (for I'd given him the big chair), says he 
 to me, ' My friend, we must lay our hands on our 
 mouths when we hear of the afflictions of the right- 
 eous. And yet man,' says he, ' man, when he hears 
 of such heartless actions, can but feel that it would 
 have been a just judgment on them, if the wind had 
 been ordained in the hauling of those chimneys 
 down, to fling 'em on their undutilul heads." 
 
 Poor Madam Melcombe, her eldest son, whose
 
 THE LESSON. 35 
 
 heir she was, had caused the stack of chimneys to be 
 built up again ; but she was never the same woman 
 from that day, and she had never seen those sons 
 again (so far as was known), or been reconciled to 
 them. And now she had desired to be left alone, 
 and had expressly said, " I've made up my mind to 
 write a letter to my sons." 
 
 So she was left alone and undertook, with trem- 
 bling hands and dimmed eyes, her unwonted task. 
 She wrote a letter which, if those about her could 
 have seen it, would certainly have affected their 
 feelings, and would perhaps have made them think 
 more highly yet of her meek forgiving nature, for 
 she neither blamed her sons nor reminded them of 
 what they had done ; but rather seemed to offer a 
 strange kind of apology for troubling them, and to 
 give a reason for doing so that was stranger still. 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 " Son Daniel and Son Augustus, — This comes 
 from your poor unfortunate mother that has never 
 troubled you these many, many years, and hoping 
 you and your families are better than I am at present, 
 son Daniel and you son Augustus ; and my desire is
 
 \<> I Mil' TO BE FREE. 
 
 both of you, that now you will not deny your poor 
 mother to come and see her, but will, on receipt of 
 this, come as soon as may be, for it's about my 
 tuneral that I want to speak, and my time is very 
 short, and I was never used to much writing. 
 
 " If you don't come, in particular you, son Daniel, 
 you will break your poor mother's heart. 
 
 " And so no more at present from her that never 
 said an unkind word to you. 
 
 " Elizabeth Melcombe." 
 
 This letter was addressed to the elder son, went 
 through the village post-office, and when its direction 
 wis seen, such interest was excited and so much 
 curiosity, that half the women in the hamlet had been 
 allowed to take a look at its cover before it was sent 
 i way. 
 
 Perhaps Madam Melcombe herself, when she sat 
 (ting these longdost sons to appear, was scarcely 
 more agitated or more excited than were the people 
 in that sequestered place. A good many cottagers 
 were hanging about or looking out of the windows 
 when they alighted, and going into the small inn 
 called for spirits and water. It was known outside
 
 THE LESSON. 37 
 
 at once what they had asked for. No wonder they 
 wanted some Dutch courage to take them into her 
 presence, was the general thought. 
 
 Several little boys had gathered in front of the door 
 longing, and yet dreading, to get a sight of them. 
 Some inhabitants would have liked to hiss, but lacked 
 unanimity or courage, nobody wanted to begin. Some 
 would have liked to speak, but had not considered 
 beforehand what to say. 
 
 The brothers came out, the children fell back ; but 
 one little fellow, a child five years old, with a sort of 
 holy necessity upon him (as was supposed) to give his 
 testimony, threw a very little bit of soft dirt at the 
 legs of one of them. 
 
 This action was not noticed ; and before the other 
 little urchins had found time for aught more fruitful 
 than regret that they had not done likewise, the 
 gentlemen got into their post-chaise, and were driven 
 to the old mansion. 
 
 And their mother? 
 
 She was quite alone, sitting in all state and expec- 
 tation, in one of the alcoves, while the deep shadow 
 of the house fell distinct and well defined over the 
 wilderness of a garden.
 
 38 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 Her senses were more acute than usual. She was 
 grasping her long staff, and already wearying for 
 them, when she heard the sound of wheels, and 
 presently after a foot in her parlour, and the nurse 
 appeared with two cards on a tray. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer, Mr. Augustus Mortimer. This for- 
 mal introduction Hurried Madam Melcombe a little. 
 " The gentlemen are coming," the nurse almost whis- 
 pered ; and then she withdrew, and shutting the 
 glass-doors behind her, left this mother to meet with 
 these sons. 
 
 Whatever anxiety, whatever sensations of maternal 
 affection might have been stirring within her, it is 
 certain that her first feeling was one of intense 
 surprise. The well-remembered faces that she had 
 cherished now for much more than half a century 
 — the tall, beautiful youth — the fine boy, almost a 
 child, that had gone off with him, could they be now 
 before her? She was not at all oblivious of the 
 flight of time; she did not forget that the eldest of 
 these sons was scarcely nineteen years younger than 
 herself; yet she had made no defined picture of 
 their present faces in her mind, and it was not with- 
 out a troubled sense of wonder that she rose and
 
 THE LESSON. 39 
 
 saw coming on towards her two majestic old men, 
 with hair as white as snow. 
 
 Her first words were simple and hesitating. She 
 immediately knew them from one another. 
 
 " Son Dan'el," she said, turning to the taller, " I 
 expect this is you ; " and she shifted her staff to her 
 left hand while he took the right ; and then the other 
 old man, coming up, stooped, and kissed her on the 
 forehead. 
 
 Madam Melcombe shed a few tears. Both her 
 sons looked disturbed, arfd very ill at ease. She sat 
 down again, and they sat opposite to her. Then 
 there was such a long, awkward pause, and her poor 
 hand trembled so much, that at last, as if in order 
 to give her time to feel more at ease, her younger 
 son began to talk to her of her grand-daughter who 
 lived with her, and of her little great-grandson, Peter 
 Melcombe. He hoped, he said with gravity, that they 
 were well. 
 
 There seemed to be nothing . else that either of 
 them could think of to say ; and presently, helped 
 by the rest their words gave her, Madam Melcombe 
 recovered her self-possession. 
 
 "Son Dan'el," she said, "my time must be short
 
 40 I AI'ED TO BE 1 Kl I . 
 
 now; and I have sent for you and your brother to 
 ask a favour of you. I could not lie easy in my 
 grave," she continued, " if I thought there would be 
 nobody of all my children to follow me. I have none 
 but poor Peter's daughter and grandson here now, 
 and I hope you and Augustus and your sons will 
 come to my funeral. I hope you'll promise me faith- 
 fully, both of you, that you'll certainly come and 
 follow me to the grave." 
 
 A silence followed. The disappointment of both 
 the sons was evident. 
 
 They had hoped, the younger remarked, that she 
 might have had something else to say. 
 
 No, she had not, she answered. Where would be 
 the good of that ? They had written to her often 
 enough about that. 
 
 And then she went on to repeat her request. 
 There was nothing she would not do for them, 
 nothing, if they would but promise to come. 
 
 "So be it," replied the elder; "but then, you must 
 make me a promise, mother, in your turn.'' 
 
 "It isn't the land?" she inquired with humble 
 hesitation. " I should be agreeable to that." 
 
 " No, God forbid ! What you have to promise
 
 THE LESSON. 41 
 
 me is, that if I come to your funeral, you will make 
 such a will that not one acre of the land or one 
 shilling you possess shall ever come to me or mine." 
 
 " And," said the other promptly, " I make the same 
 promise, on the same condition." 
 
 Then there was another pause, deeper and more 
 intense than the first. The old mother's face passed 
 through many changes, always with an air of cogita- 
 tion and trouble ; and the old sons watched her in 
 such a suspense of all movement, that it seemed as if 
 they scarcely breathed. 
 
 " You sent your cards in," she said as if with 
 sudden recollection, " to remind me that you'd kept 
 your father's name ? " 
 
 " Nothing will ever induce either of us to change 
 it," was the answer. 
 
 " You're very hard on me, son Dan'el," she said at 
 last ; " for you know you was always my favourite son." 
 
 A touching thing to say to such an old man ; but 
 there was no reply. 
 
 " And I never took any pride in Peter," she con- 
 tinued, " he was that undutiful ; and his grandson's a 
 mere child." 
 
 Still no reply.
 
 I-' l \ I ED TO BE i Kl B. 
 
 " I was in hopes, if I could get speech of you, I 
 should find you'd got reasonable with age, Dan'el; 
 for God knows you was as innocent of it as the babe 
 unborn." 
 
 Old Daniel Mortimer sighed deeply. They had 
 been parted nearly sixty years, but their last words 
 and their first words had been on the same subject ; 
 and it was as fresh in the minds of both as if only 
 a few days had intervened between them. Still it 
 seemed he could find nothing to say, and she, 
 rousing up, cried out passionately, — 
 
 '•' Would you have had me denounce my own flesh 
 and blood?" 
 
 " No, madam, no," answered the younger. 
 
 She noticed the different appellation instantly, and 
 turning on him, said, with vigour and asperity, — 
 
 "And you, Augustus, that I hear is rich, and has 
 settled all your daughters well, and got a son of your 
 own, you might know a parent's feelings. It's ill 
 done of you to encourage Dan'el in his obstinacy." 
 
 Then, seeing that her words did not produce the 
 slightest effect, she threw her lace apron over her 
 head, and pressing her wrinkled hands against her 
 face, gave way to silent tears.
 
 THE LESSON. 43 
 
 " I'm a poor miserable old woman," she presently 
 cried ; " and if there's to be nobody but that child 
 and the tenants to follow me to the grave, it'll be the 
 death of me to know it, I'm sure it will." 
 
 With an air of indescribable depression, the elder 
 son then repeated the same promise he had given 
 before, and added the same condition. 
 
 The younger followed his example, and thereupon 
 humbly taking down the lace from her face, and 
 mechanically smoothing it over her aged knees, she 
 gave the promise required of her, and placed her 
 hand on a prayer-book which was lying on the small 
 table beside her, as if to add emphasis and solemnity 
 to her words.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 
 Accipe Hoc. 
 
 A FTER she had received the promise she desired 
 
 from her sons — a promise burdened with so 
 
 strange a condition — Madam Meleombe seemed to 
 
 lose all the keenness and energy she had displayed 
 
 at first. 
 
 She had desired above all things that honour 
 should be shown to her in her death ; her mind 
 often occupied itself with strange interest and perti- 
 nacity on the details of her funeral. All her wishes 
 respecting it had long been known to her grand- 
 daughters, but her eldest surviving son had never 
 been mentioned by name to them. She always spoke 
 of him as "the chief mourner.'' 
 
 Suddenly, however, it appeared to have occurred 
 to her that he might not be present at it, after all.
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 45 
 
 Everything must be risked to ascertain this. She 
 must write, she must entreat his presence. But 
 when he and his brother sent in their cards she, for 
 the first time in her life, perceived that all she had 
 done was useless. She saw the whole meaning of the 
 situation ; for this estate had come to her through the 
 failure of heirs male to her father, and it was the pro- 
 vision of his will that she and her heirs should take 
 back his name — the name of Melcombe. 
 
 She knew well that these two sons had always 
 retained their father's name ; but when they sent it 
 in to her, she instinctively perceived their meaning. 
 They were calling her attention to the fact, and she 
 was sure now that they never meant to change it. 
 
 She had not behaved kindly or justly to her grand- 
 son's widow, for people had called little Peter her 
 heir, and she had not contradicted them. But she 
 had never made a will ; and she secretly hoped that 
 at the last something would occur to prevent her 
 doing so. 
 
 Everything was absolutely in her own power, to 
 leave as she pleased ; but a half superstitious feeling 
 prompted her to wait. She wished her eldest sur- 
 viving son to inherit the estate ; but sad reflection
 
 46 I AI'ED TO BE IK I 
 
 seemed to assure her that if it simply lapsed to him 
 
 as heir-at-law, he would think that next tiling to 
 receiving it through a dispensation of Providence; 
 and she was such an unhappy mother, that she had 
 reason to suppose he might prefer that to a direct 
 bequest from her. So she left the kindly women 
 who shared her seclusion entirely unprovided for, and 
 the long services of her old domestics unrewarded, in 
 order to flatter the supposed prejudices of this un- 
 known son, who was destined now to show her how 
 little he cared for all her forethought, and all her 
 respect for his possible wishes. 
 
 This was now over. She felt that she was foiled. 
 She sat, leaning her chin on the top of her staff, not 
 able to find anything more to say ; and every 
 moment the)- spent together, the mother and sons 
 became more painfully embarrassed, more restless 
 and more restrained. 
 
 In the meanwhile Petri's mother and aunt, just 
 as unconscious that his heirship had ever been a 
 doubt, as that it had been secured to him then 
 and there, sat waiting below, dressed in their best, 
 to receive these visitors, and press them to partake 
 of a handsome collation that had been prepared
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 47 
 
 by their mother's order, and was now spread for 
 them with unwonted state and profusion in the best 
 parlour. 
 
 This large room had not been used for forty 
 years ; but as it was always kept with closed shutters, 
 excepting on those days when it received a thorough 
 and careful cleaning, the furniture was less faded than 
 might have been expected, and the old leather- 
 backed chairs, ebony cabinets, and quaint mirrors 
 leaning out from the walls, looked almost as fresh 
 as ever. 
 
 " Only let me get speech of them," the mother 
 had thought, " and all may yet come right between 
 us ; for it's a long time ago, a weary while since we 
 parted, and they ought to find it easier to forget than 
 I do ! " Then she had charged her grand-daughter, 
 when the lunch was ready, to ring a bell, and she 
 would send them down. " Or even, mayhap, I may 
 come down myself," she had added, " leaning on the 
 arm of my son." 
 
 So the bell was rung, and Laura and Mrs. Peter 
 Melcombe waited for the grandmother and her guests 
 with no little trepidation. 
 
 They had not intended to be cordial. Their notion
 
 48 I \TKI> TO BE FREE. 
 
 of their own part in this interview was that they 
 should be able to show a certain courteous coldness, 
 a certain calm gravity in their demeanour towards 
 these two uncles, but neither of them knew much of 
 the world or of herself. They no sooner saw the 
 majestic old men come in without their mother than 
 I, aura, feeling herself blush down to her very finger 
 tips, retreated into the background, and Mrs. Peter 
 Melcombe, suddenly finding that she had forgotten 
 what she had intended to say, could scarcely collect 
 enough composure to answer the gentle courtesy of 
 their rather distant greeting. 
 
 A sort of urban polish struck her country sense, 
 making her feel at once that she was a rustic, ami 
 that they belonged to a wider and more cultivated 
 world. She felt herself at a disadvantage, and was 
 angry with herself that it should be so, in that house 
 of all places in the world, where she had every right 
 to hold up her head, ami they had surely reason to 
 be ashamed of themselves. 
 
 Peter was the only person present who was at 
 ease ; the unwonted joy of finding himself in the 
 "great parlour" had excited him. He had been 
 wandering about examining the china vases and
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 49 
 
 admiring the little rainbows which sunshine struck 
 out from the cut-glass borders of the mirrors. 
 
 He was very well pleased to include the two 
 great-uncles among the new and interesting objects 
 about him. He came up when called by one of 
 them, answered a few simple questions with childlike 
 docility, and made his mother more sure than before 
 that these dignified old men were treating him, her 
 sister-in-law, and herself, with a certain pathetic 
 gentleness that was almost condescension. 
 
 Indeed, both the ladies perceived this, but they 
 also saw that they could not play the part their old 
 relation had assigned to them. Such a handsome 
 collation as it was too, but each, after accepting a 
 biscuit and a glass of cider (the very finest cider and 
 more than ten years old), rose as if to take leave. 
 One patted Peter on the head, and the other ordered 
 the chaise. Neither Laura nor Mrs. Peter Melcombe 
 could find courage to press them to eat, though their 
 secluded lives and old-fashioned manners would have 
 made them quite capable of doing so if they had felt 
 at ease. They looked at one another as the two 
 grand old men withdrew, and their first words were 
 of the disappointment the grandmother would feel 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 I ATED TO BE I I 
 
 when she heard that they had hardly eaten anything 
 at all. 
 
 Madam Melcombe, however, asked no questions. 
 She was found by them when Mr. Mortimer and his 
 brother had withdrawn sitting in her favourite alcove 
 with her chin resting upon her staff. She was deep in 
 thought, and excepting that she watched the chaise 
 drearily as it wound down among the apple and pear 
 trees and was lost to sight, she did not appear to be 
 thinking of her sons. Nor did she mention them 
 again, excepting with reference to her funeral. 
 
 " He's a fine man," she remarked in a querulous 
 tone ; " he'll look grand in his cloak and scarf when 
 he stands over my grave with his hat oft"; and I think 
 (though Dan'el, you understand, is to be chief- 
 mourner) that he and his brother had better follow 
 me side by side, and their two sons after them." 
 
 How little Laura and Mrs. Peter Melcombe had 
 ever thought about these old men, or supposed that 
 they were frequently present to the mother's mind. 
 And yet now there seemed to be evidence that this 
 was the case. 
 
 Two or three guarded questions asked the next day 
 brought answers which showed her to be better
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 5 1 
 
 acquainted with their circumstances than she com- 
 monly admitted. She had always possessed a portrait 
 in oils of her son Daniel. It had been painted before 
 he left home, and kept him always living as a beauti- 
 ful fair-haired youth in her recollection. She took 
 pains to acquaint herself with his affairs, though she 
 never opened her lips concerning them to those about 
 her. 
 
 His first marriage had been disastrous. His wife 
 had deserted him, leaving him with one child only, a 
 daughter. Upon the death of this poor woman many 
 years afterwards, he had married a widow whose third 
 husband he was, yet who was still young, scarcely so 
 old as his daughter. 
 
 Concerning this lady and her children the poor old 
 mother-in-law continually cogitated, having a common 
 little photographic likeness of her in which she tried 
 to find the wifely love and contentment and all the 
 other endearing qualities she had heard of. For at 
 rare intervals one or other of her sons would write to 
 her, and then she always perceived that the second 
 Mrs. Daniel Mortimer made her husband happy. She 
 would be told from time to time that he was much 
 attached to young Brandon, the son of her first
 
 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 marriage, and that from her three daughters by her 
 second marriage he constantly received the love and 
 deference due to a father. 
 
 But this cherished wife had now died also, and 
 had left Daniel Mortimer with one son, a fine youth 
 already past childhood. 
 
 Old Madam Melcombe's heart went into mourning 
 for her daughter-indaw whom she had never seen. 
 None but the husband, whose idol she was, lamented 
 her longer and more. Only fifty miles off, but so 
 remote in her seclusion, so shut away, so forgotten ; 
 perhaps Mrs. Daniel Mortimer did not think once in 
 a season of her husband's mother ; but every day the 
 old woman had thought of her as a consoler and a 
 delight, and when her favourite son retired she soon 
 took out the photograph again and looked sadly at 
 those features that he had held so dear. 
 
 But she did not speak much of either son, only 
 repeating from time to time, " He's a fine man ; 
 they're fine men, both of them. They'll look grand 
 in their scarves and cloaks at my funeral." 
 
 It was not ordained, however, that the funeral 
 should take place yet awhile. 
 
 The summer flushed into autumn, then the apples
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 53 
 
 and pears dropped and were wasted in the garden, 
 even the red-streak apples, that in all the cider 
 country are so highly prized. Then snow came and 
 covered all. 
 
 Madam Melcombe had been heard to say that she 
 liked her garden best in winter. She could wish to 
 leave it for good when it was lapped up under a thick 
 fall of snow. Yet she saw the snow melt again 
 and the leaves break forth, and at last she saw 
 the first pale-green spires shoot up out of the bed 
 of lilies. 
 
 But the longest life must end at last, the best little 
 boys will sometimes be disobedient. 
 
 It appears strange to put these things together; 
 but if they had anything to do with one another, 
 Peter did not know it. 
 
 He knew and felt one day that he had been a 
 naughty boy, very naughty, for in fact he had got 
 down into the garden, but he also knew that he 
 had not found the top he went to look for, and 
 that his grandmother had taken from him what he 
 did find. 
 
 This punishment he deserved ; he had it and no 
 other. It came about in this wise.
 
 54 I vrED TO BE FREE. 
 
 It was a sweet April day, almost the last of the 
 month. All the cherry-trees were in full flower j the 
 pear-trees were coming out, and the young thickets 
 in the garden were bending low with lilac-blossom, 
 hut Peter was miserable. 
 
 He was leaning his arms over the balustrade, and 
 the great red peonies and loose anemones were 
 staring up at him so that he could see down into 
 their central folds ; but what is April, and what is a 
 half-holiday, and what indeed is life itself when one 
 has lost perhaps the most excellent top that boy ever 
 spun, and the loudest hummer? And then he had 
 taken such care of it. Never but once, only this 
 once, had he spun it in the gallery at all, and yet this 
 once of all misfortunes it had rolled its last circle out 
 50 far that the balustrade had struck it, and in the 
 leap of its rebound it had sprung over. 
 
 At first he felt as if he should like to cry. Then a 
 wild and daring thought came and shook at the very 
 doors of his heart. What if he climbed over the gate 
 and got down, and, finding his top, brought it up so 
 quickly that no one would ever know ? 
 
 His mother and aunt were gone out for a walk; 
 his great-grandmother and the nurse were nodding
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 55 
 
 one on each side of the fire. It was only three 
 o'clock, and yet they had dined, and they were never 
 known to rouse themselves up for at least half an 
 hour at that time of day. 
 
 He took one turn along the gallery again, peeped 
 in at the parlour window, then in a great hurry he 
 yielded to the temptation, climbed over the wooden 
 gate, got down the rotten old steps, and in two 
 minutes was up to his neck in a mass of tangled 
 blossoms. Then he began to feel that passion of 
 deep delight which is born of adventure and curiosity. 
 He quite forgot his top : indeed, there was no chance 
 of finding it. He began to wade about, and got 
 deeper and deeper in. Sometimes quite over-cano- 
 pied, he burrowed his way half smothered with 
 flowers ; sometimes emerging, he cast back a stealthy 
 glance to the gallery. 
 
 At last he had passed across the lawn, arrived 
 almost at the very end of the garden, and down 
 among the broken trellis-work of the arbour three 
 nests of the yellow-hammer were visible at the same 
 time. He did not know which to lay hands on first. 
 He thought he had never been so happy in his life, or 
 so much afraid.
 
 5^ 1 VI ED TO BE FREE. 
 
 But time pressed. He knew now that he should 
 certainly climb over that gate again, though for the 
 present he did not dare to stay ; and stooping, 
 almost creeping, over the open lawn and the bed of 
 lilies, he began to work his way homeward by the 
 wall, and through old borders where the thickest trees 
 and shrubs had always grown. 
 
 At last, after pushing on for a little distance, he 
 paused to rest in a clump of fir-trees, one of which 
 had been dead for so many years that all its twigs 
 and smaller boughs had decayed and dropped to the 
 ground. Only the large branches, gaunt and skele- 
 ton-like, were left standing, and in a fork between two 
 of these and quite within his reach, in a lump of soft 
 felt, or perhaps beaver, he noticed something that 
 glittered. Peter drew it away from the soft material 
 it was lying among, and looked at it. It was a sort 
 of goid band — perhaps it was gold lace, for it was 
 flexible — he had often heard of gold lace, but had not 
 seen any. As he drew it away something else that 
 depended from a morsel of the lump of rag fell away 
 from it, and dropped at his feet. It might have been 
 some sort of badge or ornament, but it was not 
 perfect, though it still glittered, for it had threads of
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 57 
 
 gold wrought in it. " This is almost in the shape of 
 an anchor," said Peter, as he wrapped the gold band 
 round it, " and I think it must have been lost here for 
 ages; perhaps ever since that old uncle Mortimer 
 that I saw was a little boy." 
 
 So then with the piece of gold band wrapped 
 round his hand he began to press on, and if he had 
 not stopped to mark the places where two or three 
 more nests were, he would have been quicker still. 
 
 On and on, how dangerously delightful his adven- 
 ture had been ! What would become of him if he 
 could not get down to-morrow ? 
 
 On and on, his heart beat with exultation ; he was 
 close to the steps and he had not been discovered ; 
 he was close to the top of them and had not been 
 discovered ; he was just about to climb over when he 
 heard a cry that rang in his ears long after, a sharp, 
 piercing cry, and turning he saw his great-grand- 
 mother in her cloak and hood standing in the 
 entrance of the alcove, and reaching out her hands 
 as if she wanted to come and meet him, but could 
 not stir. 
 
 " Peter ! Peter ! Peter ! " she cried, and her voice 
 seemed to echo all over the place.
 
 58 i i D TO BE I R] 
 
 Peter tumbled over the gate as fast as he possibly 
 could ; and as she still cried, he ran to her at the top 
 of his speed. 
 
 All in a moment she seemed to become quite still, 
 and though she trembled as she seized him, she did 
 not scold him at all ; while he mumbled out, " I 
 only just went down for a very little while. I only 
 wanted just to look for my top; I didn't take any of 
 the nests," he continued, mentioning the most valu- 
 able things he had been amongst, according to his 
 own opinion. 
 
 His grandmother had let go his hand and raised 
 herself upright ; her eyes were on the bit of gold 
 band. " What's that ? " she said faintly. 
 
 " It's nothing particular," said Peter, unwinding it 
 slowly from his hand, and humbly giving it up. " It's 
 nothing but a little sort of a gold band and an orna- 
 ment that I found stuck in a tree." Then Peter- 
 observing by her silence how high his misdemeanour 
 had been, began to sob a little, and then to make a 
 few excuses, and then to say he hoped his grand, 
 mother would forgive him. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " I wish I hadn't done it," he next said. He felt
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 59 
 
 that he could not say more than that, and he looked 
 up at her. She was not regarding him at all, not 
 attending to what he had said, her face was very 
 white, she was clutching the bit of gold lace in her 
 hand, and her wide-open eyes were staring at some- 
 thing above his head. 
 
 " Peter ! Peter ! Peter ! " she cried again, in a 
 strangely sharp and ringing voice. It seemed as if 
 she would fall, and Peter caught hold of her arm and 
 held her, while the thought darted through his mind, 
 that perhaps she had called him at first because she 
 was ill, and wanted him to hold her, not because 
 she had observed his visit to the garden. He felt 
 sure she could hardly stand, and he was very much 
 frightened, but in a moment the nurse, having heard 
 her cry, came running out, and between them they 
 guided her to her chair in the alcove. 
 
 " I'm very sorry, grandmother," Peter sobbed, 
 "and really, really I didn't take any nests or lilies 
 or anything at all, but only that bit of stuff. I'll 
 never do it again." 
 
 As he spoke he saw his mother and aunt coming 
 up with looks of grief and awe, and on looking into 
 his grandmother's face he beheld, child that he was*
 
 60 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 a strange shadow passing over it, the shadow of 
 death, and lie instinctively knew what it was. 
 
 "Can't you move poor grandmother out of the 
 sun? " he sobbed. " Oh do ! I know she doesn't like 
 it to shine in her eyes." 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " his mother presently found voice 
 enough to say amid her tears. " What can it 
 signify ? " 
 
 After that Peter cried very heartily because every- 
 body else did, but in a little while when his grand- 
 mother had been able to drink some cordial, and 
 while they were rubbing her cold hands, she opened 
 her eyes, and then he thought perhaps she was 
 going to get better. Oh, how earnestly he hoped 
 might be so ! 
 
 But there was no getting better for Madam Mel- 
 combe. She sat very still for some minutes, and 
 looked like one newly awakened and very much 
 amazed, then, to the great surprise of those about 
 her. she rose without any aid, and stood holding by 
 her high staff, while, with a slightly distraught air, she 
 bowed to them, first one and then another. 
 
 "Well, I thank you for all your kindness, my 
 dears,'' she said, " all your kindness. I may as well
 
 GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS. 6 1 
 
 go to them now ; they've been waiting for me a long 
 time. Good Lord ! " she exclaimed, lifting up her 
 eyes, " Good Lord ! what a meeting it will be ! " 
 
 Then she sank down into her chair again, and in a 
 moment was gone.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 
 " As our hope is that this our sister doth.''— Burial Service. 
 
 \ ND now was to take place that ceremony to 
 -^*- which Madam Melcombe's thoughts had so 
 often been directed. She had tried to arrange that 
 it should be imposing, and imposing indeed it was, 
 but not by virtue of the profusion of the refreshment, 
 not by the presence of the best hearse from the county 
 town, the best mourning coaches, the grandest plumes, 
 but by the unsolicited attendance of a great company 
 of people come together to do homage to a life dis- 
 tinguished by its misfortunes, its patience, and its 
 charitu- . 
 
 She had never been able to think of herself as tak- 
 ing part in that ceremony unconsciously ; her orders 
 had always been given as if by one who felt that if 
 things were meanly done she should know it ; but in
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 63 
 
 taking care that refreshments should be provided for 
 all the funeral attendants, she little thought that the 
 whole parish, men and women, were to follow her, 
 and most of them in tears. But it was so. The 
 tenants had been invited ; they walked after her in 
 scarf and band, two and two, and after them, in such 
 mourning as they could afford, came all the people, 
 and pressed on in a procession that seemed to the 
 real mourners almost endless, to look down upon her 
 coffin and obtain a place near her grave. 
 
 It was out of doors, and all nature was in white. 
 Round the churchyard pear-trees grew, and leaned 
 their laden branches over its walls. Pear-trees, apple- 
 trees, and cherries filled the valley and crowded one 
 another up all the hills. Mr. Craik's voice, as he 
 stood at the grave, also in white, was heard that quiet 
 afternoon far and near. It was remarked on all sides 
 how impressively he read, and there were plenty to 
 be edified by the solemn words who had never heard 
 his voice before, for many people had walked over 
 from neighbouring parishes, and stood in groups at 
 respectful distances. 
 
 All looked at the stranger-sons ; they stood side by 
 side, awe-struck, motionless, depressed. The old do
 
 64 I VI'ED TO BE FREE. 
 
 not easily shed tears, but there was something in the 
 demeanour of both these old men that was felt to 
 tell of no common emotion. One of them seemed 
 unable to look down into the grave at all, he kept his 
 eyes and his face lifted up. The other, as little Peter 
 stood crying by his side, put his hand down and let 
 it rest on the child's uncovered head, as if to quiet 
 and comfort him. 
 
 This little, half-unconscious action gave great um- 
 brage to some of the spectators. " Hadn't the dear 
 child allers been the biggest comfort to his grand- 
 mother, and why indeed wasn't he to cry as much as 
 ever he liked ? He had nothing to reproach himself 
 with, and if he had had his rights, he would have 
 been made chief mourner. Those that stood next 
 the corpse had never been any comfort or pleasure 
 to her, but that dear child had walked beside her to 
 church ever since he had been old enough to go there 
 himself." 
 
 " And so those were Daniel and Augustus Morti- 
 mer's sons. Very fine young gentlemen too, one of 
 them not over young, neither ; he looked at least 
 thirty. Well, very mysterious were the ways of Pro- 
 vidence ! Poor Cuthbert Melcombe, the eldest son,
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 65 
 
 had left neither chick nor child ; no more had poor 
 Griffith, the youngest. As for Peter, to be sure he 
 had left children, but then he was gone himself. 
 And these that had behaved so bad to their blessed 
 mother were all she had to stand by her grave. It 
 was very mysterious, but she was at rest now, and 
 would never feel their undutifulness any more." 
 
 It was about four o'clock on that summer-like after- 
 noon that the mourners came home from the funeral. 
 The ladies for the sake of quiet retired with Peter to 
 their rooms in the roof; the Mortimers, after par- 
 taking of a slight repast in the great parlour, stepped 
 out and began to pace up and down before the house 
 to refresh their spirits with a little air. 
 
 The will had been read in the morning, before the 
 funeral took place. Valentine Mortimer and John 
 Mortimer, the two grandsons, were both present. 
 Valentine being a mere boy, barely eighteen, may well 
 have been excused if he did not notice anything pecu- 
 liar in the demeanour of the two old men ; did not 
 notice, as John Mortimer did, the restless excitement 
 of both, and how they appeared to be sustaining and 
 encouraging one another, and yet, when the important 
 sentence came which left them without so much as 
 
 vol. 1. F
 
 66 FA I I l» TO BE I REE. 
 
 a shilling, how bravely and soberly they took it, 
 without the least betrayal of mortified feeling, without 
 any change of countenance or even of attitude. 
 
 Valentine had often heard his father say that he 
 had no expectations from his mother, that he was 
 quite sure the property never would come to him. 
 He had believed this, and excepting that he found 
 the preamble of the will solemn and the reading im- 
 pressive, he did not take any special interest in it. 
 
 Every shilling and every acre were left to little 
 Peter Melcombe, his mother being appointed his 
 sole guardian till he reached the age of twelve years, 
 and a request being added that her dear son Daniel 
 would see to the repairing of the house, and the 
 setting in order of the garden and woodland. 
 
 "And yet not a shilling left to either of them," 
 thought John. " I always fancied there was some 
 estrangement — felt sure of it ; but if my father and 
 uncle were so far friendly with their mother that she 
 could ask this favour, how odd that she leaves 
 nothing, not so much as a remembrance, to either of 
 them ! The eldest son, by all accounts, was a very 
 violent, overbearing man ; I've heard my father say 
 as much ; but he has been dead so long that, if there
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 67 
 
 was any estrangement on his account, they must have 
 made it up long ago." 
 
 And now the funeral was over. John Mortimer, 
 taking the youth with him, was walking about among 
 the pear-trees 'close to the garden-wall, and the two 
 old brothers, who appeared to have a dislike to being 
 separated, even for a moment, were leisurely walking 
 on, and in silence looking about them. 
 
 " I should like to get into the garden," said John 
 Mortimer ; " here's a door." 
 
 " But it's locked," remarked Valentine, " and Mrs. 
 Peter Melcombe told me yesterday that none of them 
 ever walked in it." 
 
 " Ah, indeed! " said John carelessly— he was far 
 from giving a literal meaning to the information. : ' It 
 looks a rotten old thing," he continued ; " the key is 
 in the house, no doubt, but I don't want to have the 
 trouble of going in to ask for it." 
 
 " Perhaps it's not locked," said Valentine ; " per- 
 haps it only wants a push." 
 
 John and Valentine were standing among some 
 cherry-trees, which, being thickly laden with their 
 blossom, screened them from observation as far as 
 the windows of the now opened house were con-
 
 68 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 cerned. John did push, and when the door creaked 
 lie pushed again, and the rotten old lock yielded, 
 came away from the lintel, and as the two old fathers 
 turned, they were just in time to see their sons disap- 
 pear through the doorway anil walk into the garden. 
 With a troubled glance at one another, and an 
 effort not to appear in haste, the fathers followed 
 them. 
 
 " Can't we get them away ? " exclaimed Mr. Morti- 
 mer ; " can't we tell them to come out ?" 
 
 •' Certainly not, certainly not, brother," answered old 
 Augustus, in a reassuring tone. " You'll not say a word 
 to dissuade them from going wherever they please." 
 
 " No," said the other, in a nervous, hesitating man- 
 ner. " You're quite right, Augustus ; you always are." 
 
 ••Is it not a strange place?" exclaimed John, as 
 they walked forward and looked about them. " It 
 seems to me that really and truly they never do 
 enter it." 
 
 " Well, I told you so," answered Valentine. " It 
 is on account of the eldest son. Miss Melcombe 
 told me that he was a very eccentric character, and 
 for many years before his death he made gardening 
 his one occupation. He never suffered any one but
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 69 
 
 himself to garden here, not even so much as to mow 
 the grass. After he was dead the poor old grand- 
 mother locked it up. She didn't like any one else 
 to meddle with it." 
 
 " Why, he was dead before I was born," exclaimed 
 John, " and I am two-and-thirty. Poor soul ! and she 
 never got over that misfortune, then, in all those years. 
 There's a grand pear-tree ! lots of rotten fruit lying 
 under it — and what a fine apple-tree ! Is this of the 
 celebrated ' redstreak ' variety, I wonder, that Phillips 
 praises so in his poem on cider ? " 
 " A poem on cider ? " 
 
 " Yes, I tell you, a poem on cider, and as long as 
 ' Paradise Lost.' It has some very fine passages in 
 it, and has actually been translated into Italian. I 
 picked up a copy of it at Verona when I was a boy, 
 and learned a good deal of it by heart, by way of 
 helping myself with the language. I remember some 
 of it to this day : — 
 
 ' Voi, donne, e Cavalier del bel paese 
 A cui propizio il ciel tanto concesse 
 Di bene, udite il mio cantare,' 8cc, &c. 
 
 I wonder, now, whether this is a redstreak." 
 
 As their sons talked thus the two fathers approached,
 
 70 I VIED TO BE FREE. 
 
 .iml gravely looked on at this scene of riotous and yet 
 lovely desolation. Nests with eggs in them adorned 
 every little bush, vines having broken the trellis ran 
 far along the ground. John, remembering that the 
 place must have painful thoughts connected with 
 their dead brother for his father and uncle, continued 
 to talk to Valentine, and did not address either of 
 them : and whatever they may have felt they did not 
 say a word ; but Valentine presently observed the 
 bed of lilies, and he and John moved on together, 
 the two fathers following. 
 
 They outwalked their fathers, and Valentine, stoop- 
 ing over the bed, gathered two or three of the lovely 
 flowers. 
 
 •• The poor old grandmother! " he observed. "Mis^ 
 Melcombe told me she loved to watch this bed of 
 lilies, ami said only a few days ago, that she could 
 wish they might never be disturbed." 
 
 I lc turned — both the old men stood stock still be- 
 hind him, looking down on the lily-bed. Valentine 
 repeated what Miss Melcombe had told him. "So 
 no doubt, papa, you'll give orders that it shall not be 
 touched, as you are going to have all the place put in 
 order."
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 7 I 
 
 " Yes, yes, certainly my boy— certainly he will," 
 said Uncle Augustus, answering for his brother. 
 
 Valentine was not gifted with at all more feeling 
 or sentiment than usually falls to the lot of a youth 
 of his age, but a sort of compunction visited him at 
 that moment to think how soon they all. alive and 
 well, had invaded the poor old woman's locked and 
 guarded sanctuary ! He stooped to gather another 
 lily, and offered the flowers to his father. Old Daniel 
 looked at the lilies, but his unready hand did not 
 move forward to take them ; in fact, it seemed that 
 he slightly shrank back. With an instantaneous flash 
 of surprise Valentine felt rather than thought, " If 
 you were dead, father, I would not decline to touch 
 what you had loved." But in the meantime his uncle 
 had put forth a hand and received them. " And yet," 
 thought Valentine, " I know father must have felt 
 that old lady's death. Why, when he was in the 
 mourning-coach he actually cried." And so thinking, 
 as he walked back to the garden-door with John Mor- 
 timer, he paused to let John pass first ; and chancing 
 to turn his head for one instant, he saw his uncle 
 stoop and jerk those lilies under a clump of lilac 
 bushes, where they were hidden. Before either of
 
 I \ 1 1 1 I I . I I 
 
 the old men had noticed that he had turned, Valen- 
 tine was walking with his cousin outside, but an un- 
 easy sensation of surprise and suspicion haunted him. 
 He could not listen to John Mortimer's talk, and when 
 the rest of the party had gone back to the house, he 
 lingered behind, returned to the garden, and, stoop- 
 ing down for an instant, saw that it was as he had 
 supposed ; there, under the lilac bushes, were lying 
 those gathered lilies. 
 
 So he went back to the house. The two grandsons 
 were to return home that afternoon ; the two sons 
 were going to remain for a few days, that the wishes 
 of the deceased might have prompt attention, as 
 regarded the setting of the place in order. They 
 were to sleep at the inn in the hamlet, by their own 
 desire, that, as they said, they might not give trouble. 
 
 When Valentine entered the great parlour, his cousin 
 was talking to Peter's mother, and in the presence of 
 his father and uncle lie was inviting her to let the 
 boy come and stay awhile with his children shortly. 
 
 Mrs. Peter Melcombe hesitated, and observed that 
 her dear child had never been away from her in his 
 life, and was very shy. 
 
 " No wonder," quoth John Mortimer ; " but I have
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 73 
 
 several jolly little boys and girls at home ; they would 
 soon cure him of that." 
 
 Mrs. Peter Melcombe seemed pleased. She had 
 taken a great fancy to the good-looking young 
 widower ; she remarked that Peter had never been 
 used to playing with other children — she was half- 
 afraid he would get hurt ; but as Mr. Mortimer was 
 so kind she would risk it. 
 
 " Poor little beggar ! " said John Mortimer to his 
 father, as they all walked to the inn together ; " those 
 two women will mope that boy into his grave if they 
 don't look out." 
 
 " No, John," exclaimed his uncle, " I hope you really 
 don't think so." 
 
 John, in spite of his youth, had some experience. 
 He had already filled his house with little Mortimers. 
 There were seven of them — some of the largest pat- 
 tern, and with the finest appetites possible. So his 
 opinion carried weight, and was at the same time 
 worth nothing, for as his children had never but once 
 had anything the matter with them, his general view 
 of childhood was that if it had plenty to eat, a large 
 garden to play in, and leave to go out in all weathers, 
 it was sure to prosper, as in fact the little Mortimers
 
 74 I \ I ED TO BE IK! 1 . 
 
 did. They brought themselves up (with a certain 
 amount of interference from their governess) in a 
 high state of health and good-humour, and with no 
 quarrelling to speak of, while the amount of sleep 
 they got out of their little beds, the rapid skill with 
 which they wore down their shoes, and the quantity 
 of rice milk and roast meat they could consume, were 
 a wonder to the matrons round. 
 
 " I see nothing special the matter with him," con- 
 tinued John Mortimer ; " but one cannot help pity- 
 ing a child that has no companions and no liberty. 
 I thought I should like to plunge him for a little while 
 into the sweet waters of real child-life, and let him 
 learn to shout and stamp and dig and climb, as my 
 little urchins do." 
 
 " But his mother is a poor, faded, fat creature," 
 observed Valentine. "You'll see she won't let that 
 boy go. You can no more get her to do a sensible 
 thing than you can dry your face with a wet 
 towel." 
 
 "Gently, sir, gently," said his father, not liking 
 this attempt at a joke on a day which had begun so 
 solemnly. 
 
 So Mr. John Mortimer presently departed, taking
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 75 
 
 his handsome young cousin with him, and the old 
 men, with heavy steps and depressed countenances, 
 went into the inn and began anxiously to talk over 
 the various repairs that would be wanted, and all 
 that would have to be done in the garden and the 
 grounds. 
 
 In the meantime it was known in the neighbour- 
 hood that parson Craik was going to preach a funeral 
 sermon for poor old Madam the very next Sunday 
 morning, and an edifying description of her death 
 passed from mouth to mouth — how she had called 
 her little great-grandson, Peter, to her as the child was 
 playing near, probably that she might give him her 
 blessing — how, when the nurse came running out, she 
 had seen her looking most earnestly at him, but evi- 
 dently not able to say a word. Afterwards, she had 
 a little revived and had risen and beautifully ex- 
 pressed her gratitude to all about her for their long 
 kindness and attention, and then, how, piously lifting 
 up her hands and eyes, she had told them that she 
 was now going to meet with those that she had loved 
 and lost. "O Lord!" she had exclaimed, "what a 
 meeting that will be ! " and thereupon she had de- 
 parted without a sigh.
 
 76 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 For several days after this Mr. Mortimer and his 
 brother went about the business left to them to do. 
 They sent for an architect, and put the house into 
 his hands to be thoroughly repaired. Mrs. Peter 
 Melcombe was desirous not to leave it, and this they 
 arranged to allow, giving orders that the apartments 
 which the family had always occupied should remain 
 untouched till the rest of the house was finished and 
 ready for her. They also had the garden-door re- 
 paired to give her ingress, and the gallery-gate taken 
 away. These same sons who for so many years had 
 never come near their mother, seemed now very 
 anxious to attend to her every wish ; scarcely a shrub 
 was cut down in the garden excepting in the pre- 
 sence of one of them, and when Mrs. Peter Mel- 
 combe especially begged that the grandmother's wish 
 respecting the bed of lilies might be attended to, 
 Mr. Mortimer, with evident emotion, gave orders to 
 the gardener that it should not be touched. 
 
 And then Sunday came, and with it a trial that the 
 two sons had not expected. It was announced by 
 the churchwarden to the family, first to the ladies at 
 the hall, and then to the gentlemen at the inn, that 
 Mr. Craik was going to preach a funeral sermon.
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 77 
 
 He did not wish, he said, to take them by surprise 
 — he felt that they would wish to know. In his secret 
 soul he believed that the old men would not come to 
 hear it — he hoped they would not, because their ab- 
 sence would enable him more freely to speak of the 
 misfortunes of the deceased. 
 
 But they did come. The manner of their coming 
 was thought by the congregation to be an acknow- 
 ledgment that they felt their fault. They did not 
 look any one in the face ; but with brows bent down, 
 and eyes on the ground, they went to the places given 
 them in the family pew, and when morning prayers 
 were over and the text was given out, as still as 
 stones they sat and listened. 
 
 " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let 
 my last end be like his." 
 
 The sermon was more full of eulogy than was in 
 good taste, but the ladies of the family did not find it 
 so ; they wept passionately — so did many of the con- 
 gregation, but the two sons, though their hands might 
 plainly be seen to tremble, maintained a deep, dis- 
 tressed immobility, and because it was neither right 
 to upbraid them to their faces, nor to judge them 
 publicly, a piece of the sermon which concerned
 
 7S FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 Madam Melcombe's sorrow, caused by their desertion, 
 was mer< ifully left out. 
 
 That was the last the people saw of the brothers ; 
 they went away almost before it was light on Monday 
 morning, and for a long time after, their faces, their 
 words, and their every attitude, remained the talk of 
 the place. 
 
 In the meantime, John Mortimer and Valentine 
 had a very pleasant little excursion. As soon as 
 they were out of the presence of their fathers, they 
 naturally threw off any unusual gravity of demeanour, 
 for though suitable to a solemn funeral, this might 
 well pass away witli it, as their grandmother hail been 
 a total stranger to them. 
 
 John hired horses, and they rode about the country 
 together to see the rosy apple orchards ; they in- 
 spected an old Roman town, then they went and 
 looked at some fine ruins, and otherwise they en- 
 joyed themselves for three days; for John had plenty 
 of money, and Valentine was far from suspecting that 
 not many months before his own father had dispos- 
 sessed him, with himself, of an ample fortune and a 
 good inheritance. He had always been brought up 
 to understand that his father was not well off, and
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 79 
 
 that he would have to work for his place in the 
 world. John's place was made already — lucky for 
 him ! Lucky for Valentine, too, for John was very 
 liberal to his young relative, and had taken him about 
 with him more than once before. 
 
 So the first few days after the reading of that will 
 were passed by Valentine in very good spirits, and 
 with much self-gratulation on things in general. 
 John invited him to stay at his house till his father 
 came home, and Valentine accepting, they reached 
 their station, and John was at once received into the 
 bosom of his family, that is to say, he was pushed 
 and pulled with difficulty into a very large carriage 
 so excessively full of young Mortimers that it was 
 perfectly impossible to add Valentine also. 
 
 "What did you bring them all for?" said John, 
 falling foul of the servants in a momentary fit of 
 impatience, while they sat smiling all over him. 
 
 " Well, sir, they were all inside the carriage and out 
 of it ready, before even we put the horses to. We 
 didn't know which to pull out," answered the coach- 
 man, grinning. 
 
 John Mortimer's house was only reached by a 
 country lane ; and to all appearances (though it was
 
 80 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 situated but two miles from the small town of Wig- 
 field), it was buried in the depths of the country. 
 It was a thoroughly unreasonable house, appearing 
 outside to be more than half of it roof, the stables 
 being so arranged as to seem almost imposing in 
 comparison with it. 
 
 These stables ran down at right angles with the 
 house, their windows and doors below, being on the 
 further side. But a story had been added which was 
 made of long wooden shingles, and one of these 
 shingles having been removed to admit light and air, 
 you might very often see seven round faces in a row- 
 looking out there, for the opening overlooked every 
 window in the front of the house without exception. 
 The long loft, which was called " parliament," and 
 had been annexed by the children, admitted of their 
 sending down cheerful greetings to their grandfather 
 and other friends ; and it was interesting, particu- 
 larly when there was company to dinner, to watch 
 their father sitting at the head of the table, and to see 
 the dishes handed round. 
 
 The inside of the house was peculiar also. There 
 was a very fine hall in the centre, and a really beau- 
 tiful old oak staircase wound round it, being adorned
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 8 1 
 
 with carving, and having a fine old fireplace on one 
 of the landings. This hall was the only good room 
 in the house : on the right of it were the kitchens 
 and the kitchen offices, on its left was the dining- 
 room, which was a thoroughfare to the drawing-room, 
 and through that again you reached a pleasant li- 
 brary ; John Mortimer's own particular den or smok- 
 ing room being beyond again. All these rooms had 
 thorough lights excepting the last, and in fine weather 
 every one entered them, back or front, from the 
 garden. 
 
 Up-stairs there were a great many bedrooms, and 
 not one good one : most of them had sloping roofs. 
 Then there was a long school-room, with a little stair- 
 case of its own. You could make a good deal of 
 noise in that room, and not be heard beyond it ; but 
 this circumstance is no particular advantage, if your 
 father has no nerves at all, and scarcely observes 
 whether there is a noise or not. 
 
 John and Valentine Mortimer had a cheerful dinner, 
 and after that a riotous game at romps with the chil- 
 dren. It was four days since the funeral ; it had now 
 passed into the background of their thoughts, and they 
 concerned themselves very little further with the will 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 S2 FATED TO BE IK I I. 
 
 d! old Madam Melcombej lor it must not be sup- 
 posed that they knew much about her — not half 
 as much, in fact, as every man, woman, and child 
 knew round about the place where her house was 
 situated. 
 
 They knew she had had a large family of sons, and 
 that their father and uncle had left home early in life 
 — had been sent away, was their thought, or would 
 have been if the question had ever been raised so 
 as to lead them to think about it. 
 
 They were sent to Wigfield, which was about sixty 
 miles from their home. Here they had an old second 
 cousin, of whom they always spoke with great respect 
 and affection. He took Augustus into his bank, and 
 not only became as fond of him as if he had been his 
 son, but eventually left him half of what he possessed. 
 Daniel went into a lawyer's office, and got on very 
 well ; but he was not at all rich, and had always let 
 his son know, that though there was an estate in the 
 family, it never could come to him. John having 
 also been told this, had not doubted that there must 
 have been a family quarrel at some time or other ; 
 but in his own mind he never placed it very far back, 
 but always fancied it must be connected with his
 
 SWARMS OF CHILDREN. 83 
 
 uncle's first marriage, which was a highly imprudent 
 and very miserable one. 
 
 Whatever it had arisen from, his father had evi- 
 dently taken part with his uncle ; but old Augustus 
 never mentioned the subject. John was aware that 
 he wrote to his mother once a year, but she never 
 answered. This might be, John thought, on account 
 of her great age and her infirmities; and that very 
 evening he began to dismiss the subject from his 
 mind, being aided by the circumstance that he was 
 himself the only son of a very rich and loving father, 
 so that anything the mother might have left to her 
 second surviving son was not a matter of the slightest 
 importance to her grandson, or ever likely to be.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF A FINK MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 
 
 " For life is like unto a winter's (lay. 
 Some break their fast and sn depart aw; 
 
 Others stay dinner, then depart full led ; 
 
 I he longest age but sups, and goes to bed." 
 
 Anon. 
 
 ]\/[R. JOHN MORTIMER, as has before been 
 said, was the father of seven children. It 
 may now be added that he had been a widower one 
 year and a half. 
 
 Since the death of his wife he had been his own 
 .master, and, so far as he cared to be, the master of 
 his household. 
 
 This had not been the case previously : his wife 
 had ruled over him and his children, and had been 
 happy on the whole, though any woman whose house, 
 containing four sitting-rooms only, finds that they are 
 all thoroughfares, and feels that one of the deepest 
 joys of life is that of giving dinner-parties, and better
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 85 
 
 ones than her neighbours, must be held to have a 
 grievance — a grievance against architects, which no 
 one but an architect can cure. 
 
 And yet old Augustus, in generously presenting 
 this house, roof and all, to his son, had said, " And 
 my dears, both of you, beware of bricks and mortar. 
 I have no doubt, John, when you are settled^ that 
 you and Janie will find defects in your house. My 
 experience is that all houses have defects ; but my 
 opinion is, that it is better to pull a house down, and 
 build a new one, than to try to remedy them." 
 
 Mr. Augustus Mortimer had tried building, rebuild" 
 ing, and altering houses more than once ; and his 
 daughter-in-law knew that he would be seriously 
 vexed if she disregarded his advice. 
 
 Of course if it had been John himself that had ob- 
 jected, the thing would have been done in spite of 
 that; but his father must be considered, she knew, 
 for in fact everything depended on him. 
 
 John had been married the day he came of age. 
 His father had wished it greatly : he thought it a fine 
 thing for a man to marry early, if he could afford it. 
 The bride wished it also, but the person who wished it 
 most of all was her mother, who managed to make
 
 86 l vi i D l" BE FRE1 . 
 
 John think he washed it too, and so, with a certain 
 moderation of feeling, he did ; and If tilings had not 
 been made so exceedingly easy for him, he might 
 have attained almost to fervour on the occasion. 
 
 As it was, being young for his years, as well as in 
 fact, he had hardly forgotten to pride himself on hav- 
 ing a house of his own, and reached the dignified age 
 of twenty-two, when Mrs. John Mortimer, presenting 
 him with a son, made a man of him in a day, and 
 threw his boyish thoughts into the background. To 
 his own astonishment, he found himself greatly pleased 
 with his heir. His father was pleased also, and wrote 
 to the young mother something uncommonly like a 
 letter of thanks, at the same time presenting her with 
 a carriage and horses. 
 
 The next year, perhaps in order to deserve an 
 equally valuable gift (which she obtained), she pre- 
 sented her husband with twin daughters; and was 
 rather pleased than otherwise to find that he was glad, 
 and that he admired and loved his children. 
 
 Mrs. John Mortimer felt a decided preference for 
 her husband over any other young man ; she liked 
 him, besides which he had been a most desirable 
 match for her in point of circumstances; but when
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 87 
 
 her first child was born to her she knew, for the first 
 time in her life, what it was to feel a real and warm 
 affection. She loved her baby ; she may have been 
 said, without exaggeration, to have loved him very 
 much ; she had thenceforward no time to attend to 
 John, but she always ruled over his household beau- 
 tifully, made his friends welcome, and endeared her- 
 self to her father-in-law by keeping the most perfect 
 accounts, never persuading John into any kind of 
 extravagance, and always receiving hints from head- 
 quarters with the greatest deference. 
 
 The only defect her father-in-law had, in her opinion, 
 was that he was so inconveniently religious ; his reli- 
 gion was inconvenient not only in degree but in kind. 
 It troubled her peace to come in contact with states 
 of mind very far removed not only from what she felt, 
 but what she wished to feel. If John's father had 
 set before her anything that she and John could do, 
 or any opinion that they might hold, she thought she 
 should have been able to please him, for she con- 
 sidered herself quite inclined to do her duty by her 
 church and her soul in a serious and sensible manner; 
 but to take delight in religion, to add the love of the 
 unseen Father to the fear and reverence that she
 
 88 FATED TO BE I REE. 
 
 wanted to cultivate, was something that it alarmed 
 her to think of. 
 
 It was all very well to read of it in the Bible, 
 because that concerned a by-gone day, or even to 
 hear a clergyman preach of it, this belonged to his 
 office; but when this old man, with his white beard, 
 talked to her and her husband just as David had 
 talked in some of his psalms, she was afraid, and 
 found his aspiration worse to her than any amount 
 of exhortation could have been. 
 
 What so impossible to thought as such a longing 
 for intercourse with the awful and the remote — " With 
 my soul have I desired thee in the night;" "My soul 
 is athirst for God ; " no, not so, says the listener who 
 stands without — I will come to his house and make 
 obeisance, but let me withdraw soon again from his 
 presence, and dwell undaunted among my peers. 
 
 There is, indeed, nothing concerning which people 
 more fully feel that they cannot away with it than 
 another man's aspiration. 
 
 And her husband liked it. He was not afraid, as 
 she was, of the old man's prayers, though he fully be- 
 lieved they would be answered. 
 
 He tried to be loyal to the light he walked in, and
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 89 
 
 his father rested in a trust concerning him and his, 
 which had almost the assurance of possession. 
 
 She also, in the course of a few years, came to 
 believe that she must ere long be drawn into a 
 light which as yet had not risen. She feared it 
 less, but never reached the point of wishing to see 
 it shine. 
 
 At varying intervals, Mrs. John Mortimer presented 
 her husband with another lovely and healthy infant, 
 and she also, in her turn, received a gift from her 
 father-in-law, together with the letter of thanks. 
 
 In the meantime her husband grew. He became 
 first manly, more manly than the average man, as is 
 often the case with those who have an unusually long 
 boyhood. Then by culture and travel he developed 
 the resources of a keenly observant and very thought- 
 ful mind. Then his love for his children made a 
 naturally sweet temper sweeter still, and in the course 
 of a very few years he had so completely left his wife 
 behind, that it never occurred to him to think of her 
 as a companion for his inner life. He liked her ; she 
 never nagged ; he considered her an excellent house- 
 keeper ; in fact, they were mutually pleased with one 
 another ; their cases were equal ; both often thought
 
 90 FATED TO RE FRE1 . 
 
 they might have been worse off, and neither regretted 
 with any keenness what they had never known. 
 
 Sometimes, having much sweetness of nature, it 
 would chance that John Mortimer's love for his chil- 
 dren would overflow in his wife's direction, on which, 
 as if to recall him to himself, she would say, not 
 coldly, but sensibly, " Don't be silly, John dear." 
 But if he expressed gratitude on her account, as he 
 sometimes did when she had an infant of a few days 
 old in her amis, if his soul appeared to draw nearer 
 to her then, and he inclined to talk of deeper and 
 wider things than they commonly spoke of, she was 
 always distinctly aggrieved. A tear perhaps would 
 twinkle in her eye. She was affected by his relief 
 after anxiety, and his gratitude for her safety ; but she 
 did not like to feel affected, and brought him back 
 to the common level of their lives as soon as possible. 
 
 So they lived together in peace and prosperity till 
 they had seven children, and then, one fine autumn, 
 Mrs. John Mortimer persuaded her father-in-law to do 
 up the house, so far as papering and painting were 
 concerned. She then persuaded John to take a tour, 
 and went herself to the sea-side with her children. 
 
 From this journey she did not return. Their
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 9 1 
 
 father had but just gone quite out of her reach when 
 the children took scarlet fever, and she summoned 
 their grandfather to her aid. In this, her first great 
 anxiety and trouble, for some of them were extremely 
 ill, all that she had found most oppressive in his 
 character appeared to suit her. He pleased and 
 satisfied her ; but the children were hardly better, so 
 that he had time to consider what it was that sur- 
 prised him in her, when she fell ill herself, and before 
 her husband reached home had died in his father's 
 arms. 
 
 All the children recovered. John Mortimer took 
 them home, and for the first six months after her 
 death he was miserably disconsolate. It was not be- 
 cause they had been happy, but because they had 
 been so very comfortable. He aggravated himself 
 into thinking that he could have loved her more if 
 he had only known how soon he should lose her ; 
 he looked at all their fine healthy joyous children, 
 and grieved to think that now they were his only. 
 
 But the time came when he knew that he could 
 have loved her much more if she would have let 
 him ; and when he had found out that, womankind 
 in general went down somewhat in his opinion. He
 
 'J 2 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 made up his mind, as he thought, that he would not 
 marry again ; but this, he knew in his secret heart, 
 was less for her sake than for his own. 
 
 Then, being of an ardently affectionate nature, and 
 having now no one to restrain it, he began to study 
 his children with more anxious care, and consider 
 their well-being with all his might. 
 
 The children of middle-aged people seem occasion- 
 ally to come into the world ready tamed. ^ 'ith a 
 certain old-fashioned primness, they step sedately 
 through the paths of childhood. So good, so easy 
 to manage, so — uninteresting? 
 
 The children of the very young have sometimes 
 an extra allowance of their father's youth in their 
 blood. At any rate the little Mortimers had. 
 
 Their joy was ecstatic, their play was fervent, and 
 as hard as any work. They seemed month by month 
 to be crowding up to their father, in point of stature, 
 and when he and they all went about the garden to- 
 gether, some would be treading on his heels, the select 
 two who had hold of his arms would be shouting 
 in his cars, and the others, dancing in front, were 
 generally treading on his toes, in their desire to get as 
 near as possible and inform him of all the wonderful
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 93 
 
 things that were taking place in this new and remark- 
 able world. 
 
 Into this family the lonely little heir of the Mel- 
 combes was shortly invited to come for awhile, but 
 for some trivial reason his mother declined the invita- 
 tion, at the same time expressing her hope that Mr. 
 Mortimer would kindly renew it some other time. 
 
 It was not convenient to John Mortimer to invite 
 the boy again for a long time — so long that his 
 mother bitterly repented not having accepted the first 
 invitation. She had an aunt living at Dartmouth, and 
 whenever her boy was invited by John Mortimer, she 
 meant to bring him herself, giving out that she was 
 on her way to visit that relative. 
 
 Who knew what might happen ? 
 
 Mr. John Mortimer was a fine man, tall, broad- 
 shouldered, and substantial-looking, though not at all 
 stout. His perfect health and teeth as white as milk 
 made him look even younger than he was. His coun- 
 tenance, without being decidedly handsome, was fine 
 and very agreeable. His hair was light, of the Saxon 
 hue, and his complexion was fair. 
 
 Thus he had many advantages; but Mrs. Peter 
 Melcombe felt that as the mother of a child so richly
 
 94 i atei) to i;k iki i . 
 
 endowed, and as the possessor of eight hundred a year 
 in order that he might be suitably brought up, she 
 was a desirable match also. She did not mean the 
 boy to cost her much for several years to come, and 
 till he came of age (if he lived) she had that handsome 
 old house to live in. Old Augustus Mortimer, on the 
 other hand, was very rich, she knew ; he was a banker 
 and his only son was his partner. Sure to inherit his 
 banking business and probably heir to his land. 
 
 Mrs. Peter Melcombe had some handsome and be- 
 coming raiment made, and waited with impatience ; 
 for in addition to Mr. John Mortimer's worldly advan- 
 tages she found him attractive. 
 
 So did some other people. John Mortimer's troubles 
 on that head began very soon after the sending of his 
 first imitation to Mrs. Melcombe, when the excellent 
 elderly lady who taught the little Mortimers (and in a 
 great measure kept his house) let him know that she 
 could no longer do justice to them. They got on so 
 fast, they had such spirits, they were so active and 
 so big, that she felt she could not cope with them. 
 Moreover, the three eldest were exceptionally clever, 
 and the noise made by the whole tribe fatigued her. 
 
 John sent his eldest boy to school, promised her
 
 OF A FINE MAX AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 95 
 
 masters to help her, and an assistant governess, but 
 she would not stay, and with her went for a time 
 much of the comfort of that house. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer easily got another governess — a 
 very pretty young lady who did not, after a little 
 while, take much interest in the children, but cer- 
 tainly did take an interest in him. She was always 
 contriving to meet him — in the hall, on the stairs, in 
 the garden. Then she looked at him at church, and 
 put him so out of countenance and enraged him, 
 and made him feel so ridiculous, that one day he took 
 himself off to the Continent, and kept away till she 
 was gone. 
 
 Having managed that business, he got another 
 governess, and she let him alone, and the children 
 too, for they completely got the better of her ; used 
 to make her romp with them, and sometimes went so 
 far as to lock her into the schoolroom. It was not 
 till this lady had taken her leave and another had 
 been found that ' Mr. John Mortimer repeated his 
 invitation to little Peter Melcombe. His mother 
 brought him, and according to the programme she 
 had laid down, got herself invited to stay a few days. 
 
 She had no trouble about it. Mr. John Mortimer
 
 96 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 no sooner saw Mrs. Melcombe than he expressed a 
 hospitable, almost a fervent hope, that she could stay 
 a week with him. 
 
 ' )f course Mrs. Melcombe accepted the invitation, 
 and he was very sociable and pleasant ; but she 
 thought the governess (a very grand lady indeed) 
 took upon herself more than beseemed her, and 
 smiled at her very scornfully when she ventured to 
 say sweet things to John Mortimer on her own great 
 love for children, and on the charms of his children in 
 particular. 
 
 Peter was excessively happy. His mother's happi- 
 ness in the visit was soon over. She shortly found 
 out that an elderly Scotch lady, one Miss Christie 
 Grant, an aunt of the late Mrs. Daniel Mortimer, was 
 to come in a few days and pay a long visit, and she 
 shrewdly suspected that the attractive widower being 
 afraid to remain alone in his own house, made arrange- 
 ments to have female visitors to protect him, and 
 hence the imitation to her. But she had to leave 
 Peter at the end of the week, and which of the two 
 ladies when they parted hated the other most it might 
 be difficult to determine. 
 
 It cannot be said with truth that Peter regretted
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 97 
 
 his mother's departure. The quantity of mischief he 
 was taught (of a not very heinous description) by two 
 sweet little imps of boys younger than himself, kept 
 him in a constant state of joyous excitement. His 
 grandmother having now been dead a year and a 
 quarter, his mourning had been discarded, and his 
 mother had been very impressive in her cautions to 
 him not to spoil his new clothes, but before he had 
 been staying with his young friends a fortnight he 
 was much damaged in his outer man, as indeed he 
 was also in his youthful heart, for the smallest of 
 all the Mortimers — a lovely little child about three 
 years old — took entire possession of it ; and when he 
 was not up a tree with the boys in a daring hunt after 
 bergamy pears, or wading barefoot in a shallow stream 
 at the bottom of the garden catching water-beetles, 
 caddis-worms, and other small cattle for a freshwater 
 aquarium, he was generally carrying this child about 
 the garden pickaback, or otherwise obeying her little 
 behests, and assuring her of his unalterable love. 
 
 Poor little Peter ! After staying fully six weeks 
 with the Mortimers his time came to be taken home 
 again, and his mother, who spent two days with them 
 on her way northwards, bore him off to the railway, 
 
 vol. 1. H
 
 9§ FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 accompanied by the host and most of his children. 
 Then he suddenly began to feel the full meaning of 
 the misfortune that had fallen on him, and he burst 
 into waitings and tears. His tiny love had promised 
 to marry him when she was grown up ; his two little 
 friends had given him some sticklebacks, packed in 
 wet moss; they were now in his pockets, as were also 
 some water-beetles in a paper bag ; the crown of his 
 cap was full of silkworms carefully wrapped in mul- 
 berry leaves ; but all these treasures could not avail 
 to comfort him for loss of the sweet companionship 
 he had enjoyed — for the apples he had crunched in 
 the big dog's kennel when hiding with another little 
 imp from the nurse — for the common possession they 
 had enjoyed of some young rats dug out of the bank 
 of the stream, and more than all, for the tender confi- 
 dences there had been between them as to the end- 
 less pranks they spent their lives in, ami all the mis- 
 chief they had done or that they aspired to do. 
 
 John Mortimer having a keen sympathy with child- 
 hood, felt rue at heart for the poor little blinking, 
 sobbing fellow ; but to invite him again might be to 
 have his mother also, so he let him go, handing in 
 from his third daughter's arms to the young heir a
 
 OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN. 99 
 
 wretched little blind puppy and a small bottle of milk 
 to feed it with on the way. 
 
 If anything could comfort a boy, this precious 
 article could. So the Mortimer boys thought. So in 
 fact it proved. As the train moved off they heard 
 the sobs of Peter and the yelping of the puppy, but 
 before they reached their happy home he had begun 
 to nurse the little beast in his arms, and derive con- 
 solation from watching its movements and keeping it 
 warm.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. 
 
 " I he world would lose its finest joys 
 \\ ithout its little- girls and boys : 
 Their i areless glee and simple ruth, 
 And innoi i nee and trust and truth ; 
 
 .\li ! what would youi ] i poi I do 
 
 Without Mich little folk as you?" 
 
 LO( KER. 
 
 •■ \ T 7" ELL, anyhow," observed Mr. Nicholas Swan 
 the gardener, when the children came home 
 and told him how Peter had cried — "anyhow, there's 
 one less on you now to run over my borders. He 
 as meek as Moses, that child was, when first he 
 came, but you soon made him a^ audacious as any of 
 you." 
 
 •' So they did, Nicholas dear." said one of the twins, 
 a tali, dark-haired child. 
 
 •• Oh, it's Nicholas J.ar, is it. Miss Barbara? Well, 
 now . what next? " 
 
 " Why, the key of the fruit-house — we want the 
 key."
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. IOI 
 
 " Key, indeed ! Now, there's where it is. Make 
 a wry path through your fields, and still you'll walk 
 in it ! I never ought to ha' got in the habit of lend- 
 ing you that key. What's the good of a key if a man 
 can never keep it in his pocket ? When I lived up 
 at Mr. Daniel Mortimer's, the children never had my 
 key — never." 
 
 " WelJ, come with us, then, and give us out the 
 pears yourself. We won't take one." 
 
 Nicholas, with a twin on each side, and the other 
 children bringing up the rear, was now walked off to 
 the fruit-house, grumbling as he went. 
 
 " I left Mr. Mortimer's, I did, because I couldn't 
 stand the children ; and now the world's a deal fuller 
 of 'em than it was then. No, Miss Gladys, I'm not 
 a-going any faster ; I wouldn't run, if it was ever so. 
 When the contrac' was signed of my wages, it was 
 never wrote down that I had to run at any time." 
 
 And having now reached the fruit-house, he was 
 just pulling out his big key, when something almost 
 like shame showed itself in his ruddy face, as a de- 
 cided and somewhat mocking voice addressed him. 
 
 " Well, Nicholas, I'm just amazed at ye ! I've lived 
 upward of sixty years in this island, Scotland and
 
 102 I \ I ED I" BE TREE. 
 
 England both, and never did I see a man got over so 
 by children in my life ! Talking of my niece's chil- 
 dren, are ye — Mrs. Daniel Mortimer's? I wonder 
 at ye — they were just nothing to these." 
 
 Here Mr. Swan, having unlocked the door, dived 
 into the fruit-house, and occupied himself for some 
 moments in recovering his self-possession and making 
 his selection ; then emerging with an armful of pears, 
 he shouted after Miss Christie Grant, who had got a 
 good way down the walk by this time. 
 
 " I don't deny, ma'am, that these air aggravating 
 now and then, but anyhow they haven't painted my 
 palings pink and my door pea-green." 
 
 Miss Christie returned. She seldom took the part 
 of any children, excepting for the sake of argument 
 or for family reasons ; ami she felt at that moment 
 that the Daniel Mortimers were related to her, and 
 that these, though they called her " aunt," were not. 
 
 •■ Ye should remember," she observed, with severity . 
 ■' that ye had already left your house when they 
 painted it." 
 
 •• Remember it I " ex< laimed the gardener, straight- 
 ening himself; " ay, ay, I remember it — coming along 
 the lane that my garden sloped down to, so that
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. IO3 
 
 every inch of it could be seen. It had been all 
 raked over, and there, just out of the ground, grow- 
 ing up in mustard-and-cress letters as long as my arm, 
 I saw ' This genteel residence to let, lately occupied by N. 
 Swan, Esq.'' I took my hob-nailed boots to them last 
 words, and I promise you I made the mustard-and- 
 cress fly." 
 
 " Well, ye see," observed Miss Christie, who was 
 perfectly serious, " there is great truth in your saying 
 that those children did too much as they pleased ; 
 but ye must consider that Mr. Mortimer didn't like 
 to touch any of them, because they were not his 
 own." 
 
 " That's just it, ma'am, and Mrs. Mortimer didn't 
 like to touch any of them because they were her 
 otvn ; so between the two they got to be, I don't say 
 as bad as these, but — " Here he shook his head, and 
 leaning his back to the fruit-house door, began dili- 
 gently to peel the fruit for an assembly, silent, because 
 eating. " As for Master Giles," he went on, more to 
 torment the old lady than to disparage the gentleman 
 in question, " before ever he went to school, he chalked 
 a picture that he called my arms on the tool-house- 
 door, three turnips as natural as life, and a mad kind
 
 104 FATED TO BE I REE. 
 
 of bird flourishing its wings about, that he said was a 
 swan displayed. Underneath, fur a mortcr, was wrote, 
 ' All our geese air swans.' Now what do you call that 
 for ten years old ? " 
 
 "Well, well," said Aunt Christie, "that's nearly 
 twenty years ago." 
 
 Then the fruit being all finished, N. Swan, Esq., 
 shut up his clasp-knife, and the story being also 
 finished, his audience ran away, excepting Miss 
 Christie, to whom he said — 
 
 "But I was fond of those children, you'll under- 
 stand, though they were powerful plagues." 
 
 " Swan," said the old lady, " ye'll never be re- 
 spectit by children. You're just what ye often call 
 yourself, softy 
 
 "And what's the good of being rough with 'em, 
 ma'am? I can no more make 'em sober ami sensible 
 than I could straighten out their bushes of curly 
 hair. No, not though I was to take my best rake 
 to it. They're powerful plagues, bios 'em ! but so 
 far as I can see, we're in this world mainly to bring 
 them forrard in it. I remember when my Joey was 
 a very little chap, he was playing by me with a tin 
 sword that he was proud of. I was sticking peas in
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. 105 
 
 my own garden, and a great hulking sergeant came 
 by, and stopped a minute to ask his road. ' Don't 
 you be afraid of me,' says Joey, very kind. ' I won't 
 hurt 'e.' That man laughed, but the water stood in 
 his eyes. He'd lost such a one, he said. Children 
 air expensive, but it's very cutting to lose 'em. I've 
 never seen any of the Mortimers in that trouble yet, 
 though." 
 
 " And you've been many a long year with them 
 too," observed Miss Christie. 
 
 " Ay, ma'am. Some folks air allers for change, 
 but I've known when I was well off and they've known 
 when they were well off.'' Mr. Swan said this in a 
 somewhat pragmatical tone, and continued, " There's 
 nothing but a long course of just dealing and respect 
 o' both sides as can buy such digging as this here 
 family gets out of my spade." 
 
 " Very true," said Miss Christie, who did not ap- 
 pear to see anything peculiar in this self-eulogy. 
 
 " But some folks forget," continued Mr. Swan, 
 " that transplanted trees won't grow the first year, 
 and others want too much for their money, and too 
 good of its kind ; but fair and softly, thinks I ; you 
 can't buy five shillings with threepence-halfpenny in
 
 106 FATED TO BE I I I 
 
 any shop that I ever heerd of; and when you've 
 earned half-a-crown you can't be paid it in gold." 
 
 The next morning, while Peter sat at breakfast 
 revolving in his mind the, delights he had lost, and 
 wondering what Janie and Bertie and Hugh and 
 Nancy were about, these staunch little friends of 
 his were unconsciously doing the greatest damage to 
 his future prospects — to their most important part, as 
 he understood them, namely, his chance of coming 
 to see the Mortimers again. 
 
 Miss Christie Grant always presided over the 
 school-room breakfast, and John Mortimer, unless he 
 had other visitors, breakfasted alone, generally coming 
 down just after his children's meal was over, and 
 having a selection of them with him morning by 
 morning. 
 
 On this occasion, just as he came down, his chil- 
 dren darted out of the window, exclaiming, "Oh, 
 there's Mr. Brandon down the garden — Mr. Bran- 
 dun's come." 
 
 John walked to the window, and looked out with 
 a certain scrutinising interest; for it was but a few 
 weeks since a somewhat important visitor had left 
 old Daniel Mortimer's house — one concerning whom
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. 107 
 
 the neighbourhood had decided that she certainly 
 ought to become Mrs. Giles Brandon, and that it 
 would be an odd thing if Mr. Brandon did not think 
 so. If he did, there was every appearance that she 
 did not, for she had gone away all but engaged to 
 his young brother Valentine. 
 
 " He looks dull, decidedly dull, since Miss Graham 
 left them," soliloquised John Mortimer. " I thought 
 so the last time I saw him, and now I am sure of it. 
 Poor fellow," he continued with a half smile. " I can 
 hardly fancy him a lover, but, if he does care for that 
 graceful little sea-nymph, it is hard on him that such 
 a shallow-pated boy as Valentine should stand in his 
 light;" and he stepped out to meet his guest, who 
 was advancing in the midst of the children, while at 
 the same time they shouted up at the open school- 
 room window that Nancy must come down directly 
 and see her godfather. 
 
 The grand lady -governess looked out in a becoming 
 morning costume. 
 
 " A fine young man," she remarked to Miss Christie 
 Grant. 
 
 " Yes, that's my oldest nephew, St. George they call 
 him. Giles Brandon is his name, but his mother aye
 
 Io8 I \ III' M BE FREE. 
 
 disliked the name of Giles, thought it was only tit 
 for a ploughman. So she called him St. George, and 
 that's what he is now, and will be." 
 
 Miss Christie Grant said this with a certain severity 
 of manner, but she hardly knew how to combine a 
 snubbing to the lady for her betrayal of interest in 
 all the bachelors round, with her desire to boast of 
 this relative. So she presently went on in a more 
 agreeable tone. " His mother married Mr. Daniel 
 .Mortimer; he is an excellent young man. Has no 
 debts and has been a great traveller. In short a year 
 and a half ago he was shipwrecked, and as nearly lost 
 his life as possible. He was picked up by Captain 
 Graham, whose grand-daughter (no, I think Miss 
 Graham is the old gentleman's niece) has been stay- 
 in- this summer with Mr. Daniel Mortimer. Mr. 
 Brandon, ye'll understand, is only half-brother to 
 Valentine Mortimer, whom ye frequently see." 
 
 Valentine was too young to interest the grand lady, 
 but when by a combined carelessness of manner with 
 judicious questioning she hid discovered that the 
 so-called St. George had a moderate independence, 
 and prospects besides, she felt a longing wish to 
 carry down little Anastasia herself to see her god-
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. I 09 
 
 father, and was hardly restrained from doing so by 
 that sense of propriety which never forsook her. In 
 the mean time Brandon passed out of view into the 
 room where breakfast was spread, and the little Anas- 
 tasia, so named because her birth had taken place 
 on Easter day, was brought down smiling in her 
 sister Barbara's arms. 
 
 Peter's little love, a fair and dimpled creature, was 
 forthwith accommodated with a chair close to her god- 
 father, while the twins withdrew to practise their duets, 
 and more viands were placed on the table. 
 
 The children then began to wait on their father 
 and his guest, and during a short conversation which 
 ensued concerning Mrs. Peter Melcombe and her boy, 
 they were quite silent, till a pause took place and the 
 little Anastasia lifted up her small voice and distin- 
 guished herself by saying — 
 
 " Fader, Peter's dot a dhost in his darden." 
 
 " Got a ghost ! " exclaimed John Mortimer, with a 
 look of dismay ; for ghosts were the last things he 
 wished his children to hear anything about. 
 
 "Yes," said the youngest boy Hugh, ''he says 
 he's going to be rather a grand gentleman when he's 
 grown up, but he wishes he hadn't got a ghost."
 
 I IO FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 "Then why doesn't he sell it, Huey?" asked 
 the guest with perfect gravity. 
 
 The little fellow opened his blue eyes wider. " I 
 don't think you know what ghosts are," he remarked. 
 
 " Oh yes, I do," answered Brandon. " I've often 
 read about them. Some people think a good deal of 
 them, but I never could see the fun of having them 
 myself, and," he continued, " I never noticed any 
 about your premises, John." 
 
 " No," answered John Mortimer, following his lead ; 
 " they would be no use for the children to play with." 
 
 " Do they scratch, then ? " inquired the little Ana 
 stasia. 
 
 " No, my beauty bright, but I'm told they only wake 
 up when it's too dark for children to play." 
 
 " Peter's ghost doesn't," observed Master Bertram. 
 " He came in the moraine." 
 
 "Did he steal anything?" inquired Brandon, still 
 desirous, it seemed, to throw dirt at the great idea. 
 
 " Oh no, he didn't steal," said the other little boy, 
 ■■ that's not what they're for." 
 
 "What did he say then?" 
 
 '•'He gave a dee]) sigh, but he didn't say /lot/ii/ik." 
 
 "Ghosts," said Bertie, following up his brother's
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. Ill 
 
 speech as one who had full information — " ghosts are 
 not birds, they don't come to lay eggs for you, or 
 to be of any use at all. They come for you to be 
 afraid of. Didn't you know that, father ? " 
 
 John was too much vexed to answer, and Peter's 
 chance from that moment of ever entering those doors 
 again was not worth a rush. 
 
 " But you needn't mind, father dear," said Janie, 
 the eldest child present, " Peter's ghost won't come 
 here. It doesn't belong to ' Grand,' or to any of us. 
 Its name was Melcombe, and it came from the sea, 
 that they might know it was dead." John and Bran- 
 don looked at one another. The information was far 
 too circumstantial to be forgotten by the children, 
 who continued their confidences now without any 
 more irreverent interruptions. " Mrs. Melcombe gave 
 Peter four half-crowns to give to nurse, and he had to 
 say ' Thank you, nurse, for your kindness to me ; ' 
 but nurse wasn't kind, she didn't like Peter, and she 
 slapped him several times." 
 
 "And Mrs. Melcombe gave some more shillings 
 to Maria," said Bertie. 
 
 " Like the garden slug," observed Brandon, " leav- 
 ing a trail of silver behind her."
 
 112 I MED TO BE FREE. 
 
 The said Maria, who was their little nursemaid, 
 now came in to fetch away the children. 
 
 "Isn't this provoking," exclaimed John Mortimer, 
 when they were gone. " I had no notion that child 
 had been neglected and left to pick up these perni- 
 cious superstitions, though I never liked his mother 
 from the first moment I set my eyes on her." 
 
 " Why did you ask her to stay at your house then ? " 
 said Brandon, laughing. 
 
 " Giles, you know as well as I do." 
 
 Thereupon, having finished their breakfast, they set 
 forth to walk to the town, arguing together on some 
 subject that interested them till they reached the 
 bank. 
 
 behind it, in a comfortable room fitted up with 
 library tables, leather chairs, and cases for books and 
 papers, sat old Augustus Mortimer. " ( irand," as he- 
 was always called by his descendants, that being 
 easier to say than his full title of grandfather; and if 
 John Mortimer had not taken Brandon into this room 
 to see him, the talk about the ghost might have failed 
 away altogether from the mind of the latter. 
 
 As it was, ('.rand asked after the little ones, and 
 Brandon, standing on the rug and looking down on
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. IIJ 
 
 the fine stern features and white head, began to give 
 him a graphic account of what little Peter Melcombe 
 had been teaching them, John Mortimer, while he un- 
 locked his desk and sorted out certain papers, now 
 and then adding a touch or two in mimicry of his 
 children's little voices. 
 
 Old Augustus said nothing, but Brandon, to his 
 great surprise, noticed that as the narrative went on 
 it produced a marked effect upon him ; he listened 
 with suppressed eagerness, and then with a cogitative 
 air as if he was turning the thing over in his mind. 
 
 The conclusion of the story, how Janie had said 
 the name of the ghost was Melcombe, John Morti- 
 mer related, for Brandon by that time was keenly 
 alive to the certainty that they were disturbing the old 
 man much. 
 
 A short silence followed. John was still arranging 
 his papers, then his father said deliberately, — 
 
 " This is the first hint I ever received of any pre- 
 sence being supposed to haunt the place." 
 
 The ghost itself had never produced the slightest 
 effect on John Mortimer. All he thought of was the 
 consequence of the tale on the minds of his children. 
 " I shall take care that little monkey does not 
 vol. 1. 1
 
 1 14 FATED TO BK !■ k 1 I . 
 
 come here again in a hurry," he remarked, at the 
 same time proceeding to mend a quill pen; his father 
 watching him rather keenly, Brandon thought, from 
 under his bushy, white eyebrows. 
 
 " Now, of all men," thought Brandon, " I never 
 could have supposed that Grand was superstitious. 
 I don't believe he is either; what does it mean?'' 
 and as there was still silence, he became so certain 
 that Grand would fain ask some more questions but 
 did not like to do so, that he said, in a careless tone, 
 " That was all the children told us ;" and thereupon, 
 being satisfied and willing to change the subject, as 
 Brandon thought, the old man said, — 
 
 " Does my brother dine at home to-day, St. 
 George ? " 
 
 " Yes, uncle ; shall I tell him you will come over 
 to dinner?" 
 
 •• Well, my dear fellow, if you are sure it will be 
 convenient to have me — it is a good while since I 
 saw him — so you may." 
 
 " He will be delighted ; shall I tell him you will 
 stay the night ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well done, father," said John, looking up. " I
 
 THE SHADOW OF A SHADE. 115 
 
 am glad you are getting over the notion that you 
 cannot sleep away from home. I'll come over to 
 breakfast, St. George, and drive my father in." 
 
 " Do," said Brandon, taking his leave ; and as he 
 walked to the railway that was to take him home, he 
 could not help still pondering on the effect produced 
 by the mention of the ghost. He little supposed, 
 however, that the ghost was at the bottom of this 
 visit to his stepfather ; but it was.
 
 CHAM i.U VII. 
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 
 
 " And travel finishes the 
 
 Gay. 
 
 TV /T RS. PETER MELCOMBE,all unconscious of 
 the unfavourable impression her son had made 
 on his late host, continued to think a good deal of 
 the agreeable widower. She made Peter write from 
 time to time to little Janie Mortimer and report the 
 progress of the puppy, at the same time taking care 
 to mention his dear mamma in a manner that she 
 thought would be advantageous. 
 
 It cost Peter a world of trouble to copy and recopy 
 these epistles till his mother was satisfied with them ; 
 but she always told him that he would not be remem- 
 bered so well or invited again unless he wrote; and 
 this was true. 
 
 His little friends wrote in reply, but by no means 
 such carefully-worded letters ; they also favoured him
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. I I J 
 
 with shoals of Christmas cards and showers of valen- 
 tines, but his letters never got beyond the school- 
 room ; and if John Mortimer's keen eyes had ever 
 fallen on them, it would have availed nothing. He 
 would have discovered at once that they were not the 
 child's sole production, and would have been all the 
 more decided not to invite him again. 
 
 When first Mrs. Melcombe came home she per- 
 ceived a certain change in Laura, who was hardly 
 able to attend to Peter's lessons, and had fits of 
 elation that seemed to alternate with a curious kind 
 of shame. Mrs. Peter Melcombe did not doubt that 
 Laura fancied she had got another lover, but she was 
 so tired of Laura's lovers that she determined to take 
 no notice ; and if Laura had anything to say, to make 
 her say it without assistance. It seemed to her so 
 right and natural and proper that she should wish to 
 marry again herself, and so ridiculous of Laura to 
 fancy that she wished to marry also. 
 
 On Valentine's day, however, Laura had a letter, 
 flushed high, and while trying to look careless actually 
 almost wept for joy ; for the moment Mrs. Mel- 
 combe was thrown off her guard, and she asked 
 a ipaestion.
 
 I 18 FA'll D TO BE I REE. 
 
 Laura, in triumph, handed the valentine to her 
 sister-in-law. " It's strange," she said tremulously . 
 " very strange ; but what is a woman to do when she 
 is the object of such a passion ? " 
 
 It was a common piece of paper with two coloured 
 figures on it taking hands and smiling ; underneath, 
 in a clear and careful hand, was written — 
 
 " What would he give, your lover true. 
 Just for one little sight of you ? 
 
 "J.S.' 
 
 "J. S.?" said Mrs. Melcombe, in a questioning tone. 
 
 " It's Joseph, dear," replied Laura, hanging down 
 her head and smiling. 
 
 Joseph was the head plumber who had been em- 
 ployed about the now finished house, and Mrs. Mel- 
 combe's dismay was great when she found that 
 Joseph, having discovered how the young lady 
 thought he was in love with her, was actually taking 
 up the part of a lover, she dreaded to think what 
 might occur in consequence. Joseph was a very 
 clever young workman, of excellent character, and 
 Laura was intolerably foolish and to the last degree 
 credulous. 
 
 If the young man had been the greatest scamp and
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 119 
 
 villain, but in her own rank of life, it would have 
 been nothing to compare with this, in the eyes of 
 Mrs. Melcombe, or indeed in most people's eyes. 
 She turned pale, and felt that she was a stricken 
 woman. 
 
 She was not well educated herself, and she had 
 not been accustomed to society, but she aspired to 
 better things. The house was just finished, she had 
 written to Mr. Mortimer to tell him so. She thought 
 of giving a house-warming ; for several of the families 
 round, whose fathers and mothers had been kept 
 at arms' length by old Madam Melcombe till their 
 children almost forgot that there was such a person, 
 had now begun kindly to call on the lonely ladies, 
 and express a wish to see something of them. 
 
 Also she had been rubbing up her boarding-school 
 French, and hoped to take a trip to Paris, for she 
 wanted to give herself and her son all the advantages 
 that could be got with money. She knew there was 
 something provincial about herself and her sister-in- 
 law, as there had been about the old grandmother ; 
 and indeed about all the Melcombes. She wished to 
 rise ; and oh what should she do, how could she ever 
 get over it, if Laura married the plumber ?
 
 I 2 I \IED TO BE FREE. 
 
 Her distress was such that she took the only course 
 which could have availed her — she was silent. 
 
 " I was afraid, dear, you might, you would, you 
 must think it very imprudent," said Laura, a little 
 struck by this silence ; " but what is to be done ? 
 Amelia, he's dying for me." 
 
 Still Mrs. Melcombe was silent. 
 
 " He told me himself, that if I wouldn't have him 
 it would drive him to drink." 
 
 " Laura ! " exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe with vehe- 
 mence, " it's not credible that you can take up 
 with a lout who courts you in such fashion as that. 
 O Laura !" she exclaimed in such distress as to give 
 real pathos to her manner, " I little thought to see 
 this day, I could not have believed it of you ; " and 
 she burst into an agony of tears. 
 
 " And here's a letter," she presently found voice 
 enough to say, " here's a letter from Mr. Mortimer, 
 to say that his brother's coming to look at the house. 
 Perhaps Mr. John .Mortimer will come with him. Oh, 
 what shall I do if they hear of this?" 
 
 Laura was very much impressed. If scorn, or anger, 
 or incredulity had confronted her, she would have held 
 to her intentions ; but this alarm and grief at least hail
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 121 
 
 the merit of allowing all importance to the affair, and 
 consequently to her. 
 
 Her imagination conjured up visions of her sister- 
 in-law's future years. She saw her always wringing 
 her hands, and she was touched for her. " And then 
 so happy as we meant to be, having a foreign tour, 
 and seeing Paris, and so as we had talked it over to- 
 gether. And such friends as we always are." 
 
 This was perfectly true ; Mrs. Melcombe and Laura 
 were not of the nagging order of women, they never 
 said sarcastic or ill-natured things to one another, the 
 foibles of the one suited the other ; and if they had a 
 few uncomfortable words now and then between them- 
 selves, they had enough esprit de corps to hide this 
 from all outsiders. 
 
 An affecting scene took place, Laura rose and threw 
 herself into Amelia's arms weeping passionately. 
 
 " You'll give it up, Laura dear, for my sake, and 
 for our poor dear Peter's sake, who's gone." 
 
 No ; Laura could not go quite so far in heroic self- 
 sacrifice as that ; but she did promise solemnly, that 
 however many times Joseph might say he was dying 
 for her, she would — what ? She would promise to 
 decide nothing till she had been to Paris.
 
 122 I A I Kit To |!K 1 KKK. 
 
 She was very happy that morning; Amelia had not 
 made game of her, and there had been such a scene ! 
 Laura enjoyed a scene ; and Amelia had pleaded so 
 hard and so long with her for that promise. At last 
 she had given it. if she had not been such a re- 
 markably foolish woman, she would have known she 
 was glad on the whole that the promise had been 
 extorted from her. As it was she thought she was 
 sorry, but after a little more urging and pleading she 
 gave up the precious valentine, and saw it devoured 
 by the flames. It had a Birmingham postmark, and 
 Mrs. Melcombe heard with pleasure that Joseph would 
 be away at least a fortnight. 
 
 Laura had wanted a little excitement, just the least 
 amusement; and if not that, just the least recognition 
 of her place in nature as a woman, and a young one. 
 At present, her imagination had not been long at 
 work on this unpromising payer of the tribute. If 
 some one, whose household ways and daily Knglish 
 were like her own, had come forward she would soon 
 have forgotten Joseph ; for he himself, as an indi- 
 vidual, was almost nothing to her, it was only in his 
 having paid the tribute that his power lay. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Mr. Augustus Mortimer
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 1 23 
 
 arrived. He was received by Mrs. Melcombe almost, 
 as it seemed, with the devotion of a daughter. 
 
 The room was strewed with account-books and 
 cards. It had been intended that he should make 
 some remark about them, and then she was to say, 
 with careless ease, " Only the accounts of the parish 
 charities." But he courteously feigning to see none 
 of the litter, she was put out. 
 
 He presently went to inspect the repairs and re- 
 storations, to look over the garden and the stables ; 
 and it was not till the next morning that she found 
 occasion to ask some advice of him. 
 
 The cottages on the land were let with the farms, 
 so that the farmers put their labourers into them, 
 charged, it is true, very little rent, but allowed them 
 to get very much out of repair. It was the farmers' 
 duty to keep them in repair ; but there was no agent, 
 no one to make them do it. Moreover, they would 
 have it that no repairs worth mentioning were wanted. 
 Did Mr. Mortimer think if she spent the money she 
 had devoted to charity in repairing these cottages, she 
 could fairly consider that she had spent it in charity ? 
 
 It was a nice point, certainly, for it would be im- 
 proving her son's property, and avoiding disputes
 
 124 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 with valuable and somewhat unmanageable tenants ; 
 and, on the other hand, it would be escaping the bad 
 precedent of paving for repairs out of the estate ; so 
 she went on laying this casuistry before the old man 
 while he pulled down his shaggy white brows, and 
 looked very stern over the whole affair. " Some of 
 the poor old women do suffer so sadly from rheuma- 
 tism,'' she continued, "and our parish doctor says 
 it comes from the damp places they live in, and 
 then there is so much fever in the lower part of the 
 hamlet." 
 
 " You had better let me see the farmers and the 
 cottagers," said old Augustus. " I will go into the 
 whole affair, and tell you what I think of it." 
 
 Accordingly he went his way among the people, 
 and if he had any sorrowful reason for being glad of 
 what rendered, it his duty to pick up all the informa- 
 tion he could, this did not make him less energetic 
 in fighting the farmers. 
 
 Very little, however, could be done with them; an 
 obvious hole in a roof they would repair, a rotting 
 door they would replace, but that was all, and he felt 
 strongly the impolicy of taking money out of the 
 estate to do all the whitewashing, plastering, car-
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 1 25 
 
 penters' work, and painting that were desirable ; 
 besides which, he was sure the water was not pure 
 that the people drank, and that they ought to have 
 another well. 
 
 When Mrs. Melcombe heard his report of it all, 
 and when he acknowledged that he could do hardly 
 anything with the farmers, she wished she had not 
 asked his advice, particularly as he chose to bring 
 certain religious remarks into it. He was indeed a 
 most inconveniently religious man ; his religion was 
 of a very expensive kind, and was all mixed up with 
 his philanthropy, as if one could not be religious at 
 all without loving those whom God loved, and as if 
 one could not love them without serving them to the 
 best of one's power. 
 
 She listened with dismay. If it was useless to 
 expect much of the farmers, and impolitic to take 
 much out of the estate, what was the use of talking? 
 But Mr. Augustus Mortimer did talk for several 
 minutes ; first he remarked on the expressed wish of 
 his mother that all needful repairs should be attended 
 to, then he said his brother began to feel the infirmi- 
 ties of age, and also was a poor man ; then he made 
 Mrs. Melcombe wince by observing that the condition
 
 126 1 MED TO BE FREE. 
 
 of the tenements was perfectly disgraceful, and next 
 he went on to say that, being old himself, he did not 
 wish to waste any time, for he should have but little, 
 and therefore as he was rich he was content to do 
 what was wanted himself. 
 
 " This house," he continued, " is a great deal too 
 large for the small income your son will have. Very 
 large sums have been spent, as the will directed, in 
 putting it into perfect repair. I am not surprised, 
 therefore, that you have felt perplexed, but now, if 
 you have no objection, I will have estimates made at 
 once." 
 
 Excessively surprised, a little humiliated, but yet, 
 on the whole, conscious that such an offer relieved 
 her of a great responsibility, Mrs. Peter Melcombe 
 hesitated a moment, then said in a low voice — 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Mortimer, but you will give me 
 a little time to think of this." 
 
 " Certainly," he answered, with all composure, "till 
 to-morrow morning;" then he went on as if that 
 matter was quite settled, and enough had been said 
 about it. " There is one person whom I should 
 much like to point out to you as an object for your 
 charity — the old shepherd's wife who is bedridden.
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 1 27 
 
 If you were inclined to provide some one to look 
 after her " 
 
 " Oh, Becky Maddison," interrupted Mrs. Mel- 
 combe; "the dear grandmother did not approve of 
 that woman. She used to annoy her by telling an 
 absurd ghost story." 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " But still, as you think I ought to do something 
 for her, I certainly will." 
 
 " I shall go and see her myself this afternoon," 
 answered Mr. Augustus Mortimer hastily. " I will 
 not fail to report to you how I find her." 
 
 " Her talk was naturally painful to the dear grand- 
 mother," continued Mrs. Melcombe. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer looked keenlv attentive, but he did 
 not ask any question, and as she said no more, he 
 almost immediately withdrew, and walked straight 
 across the fields to the cottage of this old woman. 
 
 Nothing more was said that evening concerning the 
 repairs, or concerning this visit ; but the next morning 
 Mr. Mortimer renewed his proposition, and after a 
 little modest hesitation, she accepted it ; then, re- 
 membering his request concerning old Becky, she told 
 him she had that morning sent her a blanket and
 
 128 FATED TO BE I REE. 
 
 some soup. "And, by-the-byc, Mr. Mortimer, did 
 she tell you the story that used to annoy the dear 
 grandmother?" she inquired. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer was so long in answering, that she 
 looked up at him, and when he caught her eye he 
 answered "Yes." 
 
 " He d" sn't like it any more than his mother did," 
 she thought, so she said no more, and he almost 
 immediately went away to give orders about the pro- 
 posed estimates. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe and Laura made Mr. Mortimer 
 very comfortable, and when he went away he left 
 them highly pleased, for, having been told of their 
 intended journey to Paris, he had proposed to them 
 to come and spend a few days at his house, consider- 
 ing it the first stage of their tour. 
 
 So he departed, and no more dirt was thrown at 
 him. The tide began to turn in favour of the Morti- 
 mers, people had seen the mild face and venerable 
 gentleness of the Mortimer who was poor, they had 
 now handled the gold of the one that was rich. 
 
 " Old Madam was a saint," they observed, " but 
 she couldn't come and look arter us hersen, poor 
 dear. Farmers are alters hard on poor folk. So he
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. I2Q 
 
 was bent on having another well atop o' the hill 
 'stead o' the bottom. Why let him, then, if he liked ! 
 Anyhow, there was this good in it — the full buckets 
 would be to carry down hill 'stead of up. As to the 
 water o' the ould well being foul and breeding fevers, 
 it might be, and then again it might not be; if folks 
 were to be for ever considering whether water was 
 foul, they'd never drink in peace ! " 
 
 The moment he was gone, Mrs. Melcombe turned 
 her thoughts to Laura's swain, and excited such hopes 
 of pleasure from the visit to Paris in the mind of her 
 sister-in-law, that Joseph's devotion began to be less 
 fascinating to her, besides which there was something 
 inexpressibly sweet to her imaginative mind in the 
 notion of being thwarted and watched. She pictured 
 to herself the fine young man haunting the lonely glen, 
 hoping to catch a sight of her, and smiting his brow 
 as men do in novels, sighing and groaning over his 
 lowly birth and his slender means. She wished Joseph 
 would write that her sister-in-law might rob her of the 
 letter ; but Joseph didn't write, he knew better. At 
 the end of the fortnight he appeared • coming to 
 church, and sitting in full view of the ladies, looking 
 not half so well in his shining Sunday clothes of 
 
 vol. 1. K
 
 130 I A 111" I" DE i'KF.li. 
 
 Birmingham make, as he had done in his ordinary 
 
 working suit. 
 
 Laura was a good deal out of countenance, but 
 
 Mrs. Melcombc perceived, not without surprise, that 
 while she felt nothing but a feminine exultation in 
 bi ing admired, the young man's homage was both 
 deep and real. Nothing was either fancied or feigned. 
 So by Monday morning Mrs. Melcombe had got 
 ready a delightful plan to lay before Laura — she 
 actually offered to take her to London, and fired her 
 imagination with accounts of the concerts, the thea 
 tres, and all that they were to do and see. 
 
 Xo mortal plumber could hold his own against 
 such a sister-in-law. Laura let herself be carried off 
 without having any interview with Joseph, who began 
 to think " it was a bad job," and did not know how 
 his supposed faithless lady wept during the railwa) 
 journey. But then he did not know how completely 
 when she went to her first oratorio she was delighted 
 and consoled. 
 
 The longer they stayed in London the more de- 
 lighted they were ; so was Peter ; the Polytechnic 
 
 lone was worth all the joys of the country put to- 
 gether; but when they came back again at the end of
 
 AN OLD MAX DIGS A WELL. I$l 
 
 April, and all the land was full of singing-birds, and 
 the trees were in blossom, and the sweet smiling land- 
 scape looked so full of light, and all was so fresh and 
 still, then the now absent Joseph got hold of Laura's 
 imagination again ; she went and gazed at the window 
 that he had been glazing, when, as she passed, he 
 lifted up his fine eyes and looked at her in such a 
 particular manner. 
 
 What really had taken place was this. Joseph, with 
 a lump of putty in his palm, was just about to dig a 
 bit out of it with a knife that he held in his other 
 hand. Laura passed, and when the' young man looked 
 up, she affected to feel confused, and turned away 
 her face with a sort of ridiculous self-consciousness. 
 Joseph was surprised, and the knife held suspended 
 in his hand, he was staring at her when she glanced 
 again, and naturally he was a little put out of counte- 
 nance. 
 
 So Laura now walked about the place, recalled the 
 romantic past, and if Joseph had appeared (which he 
 did not, because he had no means of knowing that 
 she had returned), it is highly doubtful whether Laura 
 would ever have seen Paris. 
 
 As it was, with sighs and smiles, with regrets over
 
 FATED fO BE FRE] . 
 
 a dead nosegay that the young man had given her, 
 and with eager longings to see Paris, and perhaps 
 Geneva, Laura spent the next fortnight, and then, 
 taking leave of Melcombe again, was received in due 
 time by Mr. Augustus Mortimer on the steps of his 
 house, his son being with him. 
 
 It was nearly dinner-time, she and her sister-in-law 
 were delighted to meet this gentleman, and find that 
 he was going to dine that day with his father. Peter, 
 too, was as happy as a king, for he hoped Mr. 
 John Mortimer would and could give him informa- 
 concerning all the well-remembered puppies, 
 kittens, magpies, and white mice that he had made 
 acquaintance with during his happy visit to the little 
 Mortimers. 
 
 Mr. Augustus Mortimer's house was just outside 
 the small town of Wigfieldj it appeared to be quite 
 in the country, because it was on the slope of a hill, 
 and was so well backed up with trees that not a 
 chimney could be seen from any of its windows. It 
 was built with its back to the town, and commanded 
 a pretty view over 6eld, wood, and orchard, and also 
 o\ ei its ow i) beautiful lawn and slightly-sloping garden, 
 which was divided from some rich meadows by the
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 1 33 
 
 same little river that ran, nearly two miles further on, 
 past the bottom of John Mortimer's garden. " And 
 there," said John Mortimer, after dinner, pointing out 
 a chimney which could be seen against the sky, just 
 over the tops of some trees — " there lives my uncle 
 Daniel, in a house which belongs to his stepson, Giles 
 Brandon ; his house is just two miles from this, and 
 mine is two miles from each of them, so that we form 
 a triangle." 
 
 Mr. Mortimer's daughter came the next day to call 
 on the relatives from Melcombe; she brought his 
 step-daughters with her ; and these young ladies when 
 they returned home gave their step-brothers a succinct 
 account of the impressions they had received. 
 
 " Provincial, both of them. The married one looks 
 like a faded piece of wax-work. Laura Melcombe is 
 rather pretty, but unless she is a goose, her manners, 
 voice, and whole appearance do her the greatest in- 
 justice possible." 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe and Laura also gave judgment in 
 the same manner when these visitors were gone. 
 
 " Mrs. Henfrey looks quite elderly. She must be 
 several years past fifty; but I liked her kind, slow 
 way of talking ; and what a handsome gown she had
 
 134 I \ I I l> in BE I RE] . 
 
 on, Laura, real lace on it, and a real Maltese lace 
 shawl ! " 
 
 "She has a good jointure," said Laura; "she can 
 afford to dress well. The girls, the Miss Grants, have 
 graceful, easy manners, just the kind of manners I 
 should like to have ; but I can't say I thought much 
 of their dress. I am sure those muslins must have 
 been washed several times. In fact, they were de- 
 cidedly shabby. I think it odd and old-fashioned of 
 them always to call Mrs. Henfrey ' Sister.' " 
 
 " I do not see that ; she is older than their mother 
 was ; they could not well address her by her Christian 
 name. They do not seem to be a marrying family, 
 and that is odd, as their mother married three times. 
 The Grants are the children of the second marriage, 
 are they not ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but three times ! Did she marry three 
 times ? Ah, I remember — how shocking ! " 
 
 " Shocking," exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe, " O, Laura, 
 I consider it quite irreligious of you to say that." 
 
 Laura laughed. "But only think," she observed, 
 •• what a number of names one must remember in 
 consequence of her three marriages. First, there is 
 Uncle Daniel's own daughter, Mrs. Henfrey; I do
 
 AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL. 1 35 
 
 not mind her; but then there is Mr. Brandon, the son 
 of Aunt Mortimer's first husband ; then these Grants, 
 the children of her second husband ; and then Valen- 
 tine, uncle's son and hers by this third marriage. It's 
 a fatigue only to think of them all ! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THEN Mil I AN AUTHOR. 
 
 " People maj-be taken in oner, who imagine that an author is greater in 
 private life than other men. Uncommon parts require uncommon oppor- 
 tunities for their exertion." 
 
 Dr. Johns' '\. 
 
 1\ IT RS. HENFREY in taking leave of Amelia had 
 expressed her pleasure at the prospect of shortly 
 seeing her again. They were all coming by invitation 
 to lunch, the next day, at her Uncle Augustus Morti- 
 mer's house, because in the afternoon there was to be 
 a horticultural show in the town. They always went 
 to these shows, she continued, and this one would 
 have a particular interest for them, as John Mortimer's 
 LMidener, who had once been their gardener, was to 
 i airy off the first prize. "And if you ask him what 
 the prize is foresaid one of the girls, "he will tell 
 •<hi ii is for 'airly 'tates.' " 
 
 Accordingly the next day there was a gathering of 
 Mortimersand heir families. Augustus Mortimer was
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 137 
 
 not present, he generally took his luncheon at the 
 bank ; but his son John, to Peter's delight, appeared 
 with the twins, and constituting himself master of the 
 ceremonies, took the head of the table, and desired 
 his cousin Valentine to take the other end, and make 
 himself useful. 
 
 Peter asked after his little love, Anastasia. 
 
 " Oh, she is very happy," said Gladys Mortimer ; 
 " she and Janie have got a wash." 
 
 "Got what?" asked Mrs. Henfrey. 
 
 " A wash, sister," said Valentine. " I passed 
 through the garden, and saw them with lots of tiny 
 dolls' clothes that they had been washing in the 
 stream spread out to bleach on the grass." 
 
 " It's odd," observed Brandon, " that so wise as 
 children are, they should be fond of imitating us who 
 are such fools." 
 
 " Janie has been drawing from the round, in imita- 
 tion of her sisters," observed John Mortimer. " She 
 brought me this morning a portrait of a flat tin cock, 
 lately bought for a penny, and said, ' I drew him from 
 the round, father.' " 
 
 By this time the dishes were uncovered and the 
 servants had withdrawn. Laura was very happy at
 
 i; v S FATED TO BE Ikl.i . 
 
 first. She had been taken in to luncheon by the so- 
 called St. George, he was treating her with a sort of 
 deference that she found quite to her mind, and she 
 looked about her on these newly-known relatives and 
 i i mnections with much complacency. There was John 
 Mortimer, with Amelia at his right hand, in the place 
 of honour; then there were the two Miss Grants (in 
 fresh muslin dresses), with a certain Captain Walker 
 between them, whose twin brother, as Laura under- 
 stood, had married their elder sister. This military 
 person was insignificant in appearance and small of 
 stature, but he was very attentive to both the young 
 ladies. Then there was Valentine, looking very hand- 
 some, between Mrs. Henfrey and Miss Christie Grant, 
 and being rebuked by one and advised by the other 
 as to his carving, for he could not manage the joint 
 before him, and was letting it slip about in the dish 
 and splash the white sauce. 
 
 " You must give your mind to it more," said Mrs. 
 Henfrey, "and try to hit the joints." 
 
 " It's full of bones," exclaimed Valentine in a 
 deeply-injured voice. 
 
 " Well, laddie," said Miss Christie, " and if I'm 
 not mistaken, ye'll find when you get more used
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 39 
 
 to carving, that a breast of veal always is full of 
 bones." 
 
 " Nobody must take any notice of him till he has 
 finished," said Brandon. " Put up a placard on the 
 table, ' You are requested not to speak to the man at 
 the veal.' Now, Aunt Christie, you should say, ' aweel, 
 aweel,' you often do so when there seems no need to 
 correct me." 
 
 " Isn't it wonderful," observed Valentine, " that he 
 can keep up his spirits as he does, when only last 
 week he was weighed in the columns of the Wigfield 
 Advertiser and True Blue, and expressly informed that 
 he was found wanting." 
 
 " If you would only let politics alone," observed 
 Mrs. Henfrey, " the True Blue would never interfere 
 with you. I always did hate politics," she continued, 
 with peaceable and slow deliberation. 
 
 " They are talking of some Penny Readings that 
 St. George has been giving," said John Mortimer, 
 for he observed a look of surprise on Laura's 
 face. 
 
 " ' Our poet,' though, has let him alone lately," 
 remarked Valentine. " Oh I wish somebody would 
 command Barbara to repeat his last effusion. I am
 
 140 1 Mil) TO BE FREE. 
 
 sure by the look in her eyes that she knows it by 
 heart." 
 
 " We all do,'' said John Mortimer's eldest daughter. 
 
 "Ah! it's a fine thing to be a public character," 
 observed her father; " but even I aspire to some 
 notice from the True Blue next week in consequence 
 of having old Nicholas for my gardener." 
 
 " I am very fond of poetry," said Laura simpering. 
 " I should like to hear the poem you spoke of." 
 
 Thereupon the little girl immediately repeated the 
 following verses : — 
 
 " If. dear friends, you've got a penny 
 1 1 '.mi haven't steal one stra 
 Go ami buy the best of any 
 
 Penn'orth that you've bought of 1 
 
 " At the schoolroom as before 
 I p May Lane), or else next door 
 (As last 14 t the Boar, 
 
 II' ii thl Wi I Id lion roar. 
 
 •• What a treat it was, go. id Lai k ' 
 Though my bench had ne'er a bai k, 
 
 With a mild I dee 
 
 i hear, and that to see. 
 
 " Sweetly slept the men and ! 
 
 Ami the girls, they sighed meanwhile 
 ' O my good what a voice ! 
 
 O my gracious, what a smile ! ' " 
 
 The man with no ear for music feels his sense 
 of justice outraged when people shudder while his
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 141 
 
 daughter sings. Why won't they listen to her songs 
 as to one another's ? There is no difference. 
 
 With a like feeling those who have hardly any sense 
 of humour are half-offended when others laugh, while 
 they seem to be shut out for not perceiving any 
 cause. Occasionally knowing themselves to be sensible 
 people, they think it evident that their not seeing the 
 joke must be because it is against them. 
 
 Laura and Mrs. Melcombe experienced a certain 
 discomfort here. Neither would have been so rude as 
 to laugh ; in fact, what was there to laugh at ? They 
 were shut out not only from the laugh, but from that 
 state of feeling which made these cousins, including 
 the victim, enjoy it, against one of themselves. 
 
 As for Mrs. Henfrey, who also was without any per- 
 ception of the humorous side of things, she looked on 
 with a beaming countenance ; pleased with them ail 
 for being in such good spirits, whatever might be the 
 reason, for, as she always expressed it, she did so love 
 to see young people happy. 
 
 " It's capital," said John, but not so good as the 
 prose reviewing they give you ; and all this most 
 excellent fun we should lose, you know, Giles, if 
 you might have your way, and all sorts of criticism
 
 14- I A FED TO BE FR1 E. 
 
 and reviewing had to be signed with the writer's 
 name." 
 
 " But it would make the thing much more fair and 
 moderate," said Brandon " (not that 1 intended to 
 include such little squibs as this) ; besides, it would 
 secure a man against being reviewed by his own 
 rivals — or his enemies." 
 
 " Yes," said Valentine ; " but that sort of thing 
 would tell both ways." 
 
 As he spoke with great gravity Mrs. Melcombe. 
 mainly in the kind hope of helping dear Laura's mis- 
 take into the background, asked with an air of interest 
 what he meant. 
 
 "Well," said Valentine, with calm audacity, "to 
 give an example. Suppose a man writes something, 
 
 • all it anything you please — call it a lecture if you 
 like — say that it is partly political, and that it is pub- 
 lished by request ; and suppose further that somebody, 
 name unknown, writes an interesting account of its 
 scope and general merits, and it is put into some 
 periodical — you can call it anything you please — say 
 a county paper, for instance. The author is set in the 
 best light, and the reviewer brings forward also some 
 
 • if his own views, which is quite fair — "
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 43 
 
 As he seemed to be appealing to Laura, Laura said, 
 " Yes ; perfectly fair." 
 
 " His own views — on — on the currency or anything 
 else you like to mention." Here John Mortimer 
 asked Mrs. Melcombe if she would take some more 
 wine, Valentine proceeding gravely : " Now do you or 
 do you not think that if that review had been signed 
 by the lecturer's father, brother, or friend almost as 
 intimate as a brother, it would have carried more 
 weight or less in consequence ? " 
 
 As several of them smiled, Mrs. Melcombe immedi- 
 ately felt uncomfortable again. 
 
 " If what he said was true," she said, " I cannot 
 exactly see " and here she paused. 
 
 " Well," said John Mortimer, observing that the 
 attention of his keen-witted little daughter was excited, 
 and being desirous, it seemed, to give a plainer ex- 
 ample of what it all meant, " let us say now, for 
 once, that I am a poet. I send out a new book, and 
 sit quaking. The first three reviews appear. Given 
 in little they read thus : — 
 
 " One. ' He copied from Snooks, whose immortal 
 work, " The Loves of the Linendraper," is a comfort 
 and a joy to our generation.'
 
 144 l-".\'l l!> Tt» 1!E FREE. 
 
 " Two. ' He has none of the culture, the spon- 
 taneity, the suavity, the reticence, the abandon, the 
 heating power, the cooling power, the light, the shade, 
 or any of the other ingredients referred to by the great 
 Small in his noble work on poesy.' 
 
 " Three. ' This man doesn't know how to write his 
 own language.' 
 
 " As I am a poet, fancy my state of mind ! I am 
 horribly cast down; don't like to go out to dinner; 
 am sure my butler, having read these reviews, despises 
 me as an impostor ; but while I sit sulking, in comes 
 a dear friend and brother-poet. ' How do you know,' 
 says he, ' that Snooks didn't write number one him- 
 self? Or perhaps one of his clique did, for whom he 
 is to do the same thing.' I immediately shake hands 
 with him. This is evidently his candid opinion, and 
 I love candour in a friend ; besides, we both hate 
 Snooks. ' And it is a well-known fact,' he continues 
 with friendly warmth, ' that Small's great work won't 
 sell ; how do you know that number two was not 
 written by a brother or friend of the publisher's, by 
 way of an advertisement for it?' By this time 1 am 
 almost consoled. Something strikes me with irre- 
 sistible force. I remember that that fellow Smith,
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 45 
 
 who contested with me the election for the borough 
 , of Wigfield in eighteen hundred and fifty or sixty, has 
 taken to literature. He was at the head of the poll 
 on that occasion, but my committee proving that he 
 bribed, he lost his seat. I came in. It was said that 
 I bribed too ; but to discuss that now would be out 
 of place. I feel sure that Smith must have written 
 number three. In fact he said those very words con- 
 cerning me on the hustings." 
 
 " Gladys," said Brandon, observing the child's 
 deep attention, "it is right you should know that 
 the brother-poet had written a tragedy on tin-tacks. 
 Your father reviewed it, and said no family ought 
 to be without it." 
 
 " But you didn't bribe father, and you didn't copy 
 from Snooks, I am sure," said Gladys, determined to 
 defend her father, even in his assumed character. 
 
 "What was the name of your thing, papa?" asked 
 Barbara. 
 
 " I don't know, my dear, I have not considered that 
 matter." 
 
 "It was called 'The Burglar's Betrothal,'" said 
 Valentine. 
 
 " And do you think that Snooks really wrote that 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 I vi ED TO BE 1 ki 1 . 
 
 review?" she continued, contemplating her father 
 through her eyeglass, for she was shortsighted. 
 
 " If you ask my sincere opinion, my dear, I must 
 that I think he did not ; but if some other man 
 had signed it, 1 should have been sure. Which now 
 1 never shall be." 
 
 Here the door was slowly opened, and the portly 
 butler appeared, bearing in his own hands a fine dish 
 of potatoes ; from the same plot, he remarked to John, 
 with those that had obtained the prize. The butler 
 looked proud. 
 
 " I feel as much elated," said John, " as if I had 
 raised them myself. Is Nicholas here?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, and he has been saying that if the soil 
 of your garden could only be kept dry, they would be 
 finer still." 
 
 " Dry I " exclaimed Valentine, ''you can't keep any- 
 thing dry in such a climate as this — not even your 
 jokes." 
 
 "Hear, hear!" said John Mortimer; "it" the old 
 man was not a teetotaler, and I myself were not so 
 nearly 1 ned in this public recognition of our 
 
 merits, I should certainly propose his health.'' 
 
 " Don't let such considerations sway you." ex-
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 147 
 
 claimed Valentine rising. "Jones, will you tell him 
 that you left me on my legs, proposing his health in 
 ginger-pop — ' Mr. Nicholas Swan.' " 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Swan. Not one word of the ridiculous 
 speech which followed the toast was heard by Laura, 
 nor did she observe the respectful glee with which the 
 butler retired, saying, " I think we've got a rise out of 
 the True Blue now, sir. I'm told, sir, that the potatoes 
 shown by the other side, compared with these, seemed 
 no bigger than bullets." 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Swan. A sudden beating at the heart 
 kept Mrs. Melcombe silent, and as for Laura, she had 
 never blushed so deeply in her life. Joseph's name 
 was Swan, and it flashed into her mind in an instant 
 that he had told her his father was a gardener. 
 
 She sat lost in thought, and nervous, scarcely able 
 to answer when some casual remark was made to her, 
 and the meal was over before she had succeeded in 
 persuading herself that this man could not be Joseph's 
 father, because her coming straight to the place where 
 he lived was too improbable. 
 
 "There goes Swanny across the lawn, father," said 
 one of the twins, and thereupon they all went to the 
 bow-window, and calling the old man, began to con-
 
 I I i D i" EE. 
 
 gratulate him, while he Leaned his arms on the 
 window-frame, which was at a convenient height from 
 the ground, and gave them an account of his success. 
 
 They grouped themselves on the seats near. Mrs. 
 Melcombe took the chair pushed up fur her where, as 
 John Mortimer said, she could see the view. Laura 
 followed, having snatched up a book of photographs, 
 with which she could appear to be occupied, for she 
 did not want to attract the gardener's attention by 
 sitting farther than others did from the window; and 
 as she mechanically turned the leaves, she hearkened 
 keenly to Swan's remarks, and tried to decide that he 
 was not like Joseph. 
 
 '•The markiss, sir? Yes, sir, his gardener, Mr. 
 Fergus, took the best prize for strawberries and green 
 peas. You'll understand that those airly tates were 
 from seedlings of my own — that's where their great 
 merit lies, and why they were first. They gave Clakis 
 the cottagers' prize for lettuce; that 1 uphold was 
 wrong. Said I, 'Those lettuce heads that poor Raby 
 shows air the biggest ever I set my eyes on.' ' Swan,' 
 - Mr. Tikey, 'we must encourage them that has 
 id < hara< ters.' 'Well, now, if you come to think, 
 sir,' says r, ' it's upwards often years since Raby stole
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 149 
 
 that pair of boots,' and I say (though they was 
 my boots) that should be forgot now, and he should 
 have the cottagers' prize, but stealing never gets 
 forgiven." 
 
 " Because it's such an inconvenient vice to those 
 that have anything to lose," said Miss Christie. 
 
 " Yes, that's just it, ma'am. You see the vices and 
 virtues have got overhauled again, and sorted dif- 
 ferently to suit our convenience. Stealing's no worse 
 probly in the eyes of our Maker than lying and 
 slandering ; not so bad, mayhap, as a deep stveer. 
 But folks air so tenacious like, they must have every 
 stick and stone respected that they reckon theirs." 
 
 " We shouldn't hear ye talking in this pheelosophical 
 way," said Miss Christie, " if yere new potatoes had 
 been stolen last night, before ye got them to the show." 
 Laura took a glance at the gardener, as, with all 
 the ease of intimacy, he leaned in at the window and 
 gave his opinion on things in general. He was hale, 
 and looked about sixty years of age. He was dressed 
 in his Sunday suit, and wore an orange bandana 
 handkerchief loosely tied round his neck. He had 
 keen grey eyes. Joseph's eyes were dark and large, 
 and Joseph was taller, and had a straighter nose.
 
 150 l.\ [ED I" B] 1 1:1 . 
 
 "Swan's quite right," remarked Valentine ; " we arc 
 
 a great deal too tenacious about our belongings. 
 Now I've heard of a fellow who was waiting about, to 
 horsewhip another fellow, and when this last came 
 out he had a cane in his hand. His enemy snatched 
 it from him, and laid it about his back as much as he 
 liked, split it and broke it on him, and then carried 
 ofl the bits. Now what would you have done, Swan, 
 in such a case?" 
 
 ■• Well, sir, in which case ? I can't consider any- 
 how as I could be in the case of him that was 
 whipped.'' 
 
 " I mean what would you have done aoout the 
 ie? — the property? A magistrate had to decide. 
 The man that had been horsewhipped said the other 
 had spoilt his cane, which was as good as new. 
 and then had stolen it. The otln r said he did not 
 carry off the cane till it had been so much used 
 that it was good for nothing, and he didn't call tl 
 stealing." 
 
 ••Well, sir.' - said Mr. Swan, observing a smile on 
 the face of one and another, " I think I'll leave that 
 there magistrate to do the best he can with that there 
 . and I'll abide by his decision."
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 151 
 
 '• When ye come out in the character of Apollo," 
 said Miss Christie to Valentine, " ye should compose 
 yourself into a grander attitude, and not sit all of a 
 heap while ye're drawing the long-bow. Don't ye 
 agree with me, Mrs. Melcombe?" 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe looked up and smiled uneasily ; 
 but the gardener had no uncomfortable surmises re- 
 specting her, as she had respecting him, and when he 
 caught her eye he straightened himself up, and said 
 with pleasant civility, while putting on his hat on 
 purpose to touch it and take it off again, " 'Servant, 
 ma'am ; my son Joseph has had a fine spell of 
 work, as I hear from him, at your place since I 
 saw you last autumn, and a beautiful place it is, I'm 
 told." 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe answered this civil speech, and 
 John Mortimer said, " How is Joseph getting on, 
 Swan?" 
 
 " Getting on first-rate, thank you kindly, sir," re- 
 plied Swan, leaning down into his former easy atti- 
 tude, and keeping his Sunday hat under his arm. 
 " That boy, though I say it, allers was as steady as 
 old Time. He's at Birmingham now. I rather expect 
 he'll be wanting to settle shortly."
 
 152 FATED TO HE FREE. 
 
 As he evidently wished to be asked a further 
 question, Mrs. Henfrey did ask one. 
 
 " No, ma'am, no," was the reply ; " he have not 
 told me nor his mother the young woman's name ; 
 but he said if he got her he should be the luckiest 
 fellow that ever was." Here, from intense confusion 
 and shyness, Laura dropped the book, St. George 
 picked it up for her, and nobody thought of con- 
 necting the fall with the story, the unconscious 
 Nicholas continuing. " So thereby his mother 
 judged that it would come to something, for that's 
 what a young chap mostly says when he has made 
 up his mind j but I shall allers say, sir," he went on, 
 " that with the good education as I gave him, it's a 
 pity he took to such a poor trade. He airly showed 
 a bent for it ; I reckon it was the putty that got. the 
 better of him." 
 
 "Ah." said John .Mortimer, " and I only wonder. 
 Swan, that it didn't get the better of me ! I used 
 to lay out a good deal of pocket-money in it at one 
 time, and many a private smash have I perpetrated 
 in the panes of out-houses, and at the back of the 
 conservatory, that I might afterwards mend them 
 with my own putty and tools. I can remember my
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 153 
 
 father's look of pride and pleasure when he would 
 pass and find me so quietly, and, as he thought, so 
 meritoriously employed." 
 
 And now this ordeal was over. The gardener was 
 suffered to depart, and the ladies went up-stairs to 
 dress for the flower-show. 
 
 " Oh, Amelia ! " exclaimed Laura, pressing her cold 
 hands to her burning cheeks, " I feel as if I almost 
 hated that man. What business had he to talk of 
 Joseph in that way ? " 
 
 Amelia, on the contrary, was very much pleased 
 with Swan, because he had clearly shown that he was 
 ignorant of this affair. " He seems a very respect- 
 able person," she replied. " His cottage, I know, is 
 near the end of John Mortimer's garden. I've seen 
 it ; but I never thought of asking his name. It 
 certainly would be mortifying for you to have to 
 go and stay there with him and Joseph's mother. I 
 suppose, though, that the Mortimers would have to 
 call." 
 
 Amelia felt a certain delight in presenting this 
 picture to Laura. 
 
 " I would never go near them ! " exclaimed Laura, 
 very angry with her sister-in-law.
 
 154 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 ••Why not?" persisted Amelia, determined to 
 
 make Laura see things as they were. " You could 
 not possibly wish to divide a man from his own 
 family ; they have never injured you. - ' 
 
 " Oh that he and I were on a desert island to- 
 gether," said Laura. She had often said that before 
 to Amelia. She now felt that if Joseph's father and 
 mother were there also, and there was nobody else 
 to see, she should not mind their presence ; besides, 
 it would be convenient, they would act almost as 
 servants. 
 
 Amelia very seldom had intuitions; but one seemed 
 to visit her then. " Do you know, Laura, it really 
 seems to me less shocking that you should be attached 
 to Joseph (if you are, which I don't believe), than 
 that you should be so excessively ashamed of it, with 
 no better cause." 
 
 This she said quite sincerely, having risen for the 
 moment into a clearer atmosphere than that in which 
 she commonly breathed. It was a great advance for 
 her ; but then, on the other hand, she had never felt 
 so easy about the result as that old man's talk had 
 now made her. Laura never could do it ! 
 
 So off they set to the flower-show, which was held
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 155 
 
 under a large tent in a field. Laura heard the hum 
 and buzz about her; the jolly wives of the various 
 gardeners and florists admiring their husbands' prizes ; 
 the band of the militia playing outside ; Brandon's 
 delightful voice — how she wished that Joseph's was 
 like it ! — all affected her imagination ; together with 
 the strong scent of floAvers and strawberries and 
 trodden grass, and the mellow light let down over 
 them through the tent, and the moving flutter of 
 dresses and ribbons as the various ladies passed and 
 repassed, almost all being adorned with little pink 
 and blue flowers, if only so much as a rose-bud or a 
 forget-me-not — for a general election was near, and 
 they were " showing their colours " (a custom once 
 almost universal, and which was still kept up in that 
 old-fashioned place). 
 
 Wigfield was a droll little town, and in all its ways 
 was intensely English. There was hardly a woman 
 in it or round it who really and intelligently con- 
 cerned herself about politics ; but they were all 
 " blues " or " pinks," and you might hear them talk 
 for a week together without finding out which was 
 the Liberal and which was the Conservative colour ; 
 but the " pinks " all went to the pink shops, and the
 
 156 I All Ip 10 BE FREE. 
 
 "blues" would have thought it wrong not to give 
 their custom to those tradesmen who voted " blue." 
 
 You might send to London for anything you 
 thought you wanted ; but the Marchioness herself, 
 the only great lady in the neighbourhood, knew 
 better than to order anything in Wigfield from a shop 
 of the wrong colour. 
 
 The "pinks" that day were happy. " Markiss," in 
 the person of his gardener, had three prizes; "Old 
 Money-Bags" (Mr. Augustus Mortimer's name at 
 election time) had two prizes, in the person of his 
 son's gardener; in fact, the "pinks" triumphed 
 almost at the rate of two to one, and yet, to their 
 immortal honour, let it be recorded that the " blues'* 
 said it was all fair. 
 
 John Mortimer shortly went to fetch his father, and 
 returned with him and all his own younger children. 
 Mr. Mortimer had long been allowed to give three 
 supplementary prizes, on his own account, to some of 
 the exhibitors who were cottagers, and on this occa- 
 sion his eyes, having been duly directed by his son, 
 were observed to rest with great admiration on the big 
 lettuces. Ral>y*s wife could hardly believe it when 
 she saw the bright sovereign laid on the broad top
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 57 
 
 of one of them ; while Mr. Swan, as one of the heroes 
 of the day, and with Mrs. Swan leaning on his arm, 
 looked on approvingly, the latter wearing a black 
 silk gown and a shawl covered with fir-cones. She 
 was a stout woman, and had been very pretty — she 
 was supposed by her husband to be so still. On this 
 occasion, pointing out the very biggest and brightest 
 bunch of cut-flowers he saw, Mr. Swan remarked com- 
 placently — 
 
 " They remind me of you, Maria." 
 
 •• And which on 'em came from our garden, dear/' 
 said Mrs. Swan, meaning which came from Mr. John 
 Mortimer's garden. 
 
 Swan pointed out several. " Mr. Fergus came to 
 me yesterday, and said he, ' We want a good lot 
 of flowers to dress up the tent. You'll let us have 
 some?' 'Certain,' said I ; ' we allers do.' Then he 
 marches up to my piccotees. ' Now these,' said he, 
 ' would just suit us. We could do very well with 
 pretty nigh all of 'em.' ' Softly,' said I ; ' flowers 
 you'll have ; but leave the rest to me. If I'm to have 
 one of my teeth drawn, it's fair I should say which.' 
 Yes, William Raby air improved; but I shall allers 
 say as nothing ever can raise that idle dog Phil.
 
 [58 l WT.h TO Bl FREE. 
 
 R;il>y. I don't hope for folks that take parish 
 pay." 
 
 The said William Raby came in the evening and 
 brought the big vegetables, wrapped in an old news- 
 paper, for Mr. Mortimer's acceptance, and when the 
 old man came out into his hall to speak t > him, Raby 
 said — 
 
 " It wer' not only the money. My wife, her feels, 
 too — when a man's been down so long — as it does 
 him a sight o' good to get a mouthful o' pride, and 
 six penn'orth o' praise to make him hold his head up." 
 
 "St. George was dull yesterday," observed John 
 Mortimer, when he and his father were alone the next 
 morning in the bank parlour. " He was not like 
 himself; he flashed out now and then, but 1 could 
 see that it was an effort to him to appear in good 
 spirits. 1 thought he had got over that attachment, 
 for he seemed J0II3 enough some time i 
 
 ••When does he sail for Canada ?" asked the old 
 man. 
 
 "At the end of this week, ami I believe mainly for 
 the sake of having something to do. It is very much 
 to be lamented that my uncle did not manage to 
 make him take up some profc -on. Here are his tine
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 59 
 
 talents almost wasted ; and, besides that, while he is 
 running about on his philanthropic schemes, Valen- 
 tine steals the heart of the girl he loves." 
 
 " But," said his father, " I think the young fellow is 
 quite unconscious that St. George likes her." 
 
 " My dear father, then he has no business to be. 
 He ought to know that such a thing is most probable. 
 Here is St. George shipwrecked, floating on a raft, 
 and half starved, when this impudent little yacht, that 
 seems, by the way she flies about, to know the sound- 
 ings of all harbours by special intuition — this impu- 
 dent little yacht comes and looks round the corner of 
 every wave, and actually overhauls the high seas till 
 she finds him, and there the first time he opens his 
 eyes is that sweet, quaint piece of innocence leaning 
 over him. He is shut up with her for ten days or 
 so ; she is as graceful as a sylph, and has a tender 
 sort of baby face that's enough to distract a man, and 
 I don't see how he could possibly leave that vessel 
 without being in love with her, unless some other 
 woman had already got hold of his heart. No, even 
 if St. George did not know himself that he cared for 
 her, he ought to have been allowed time to find it 
 out before any one else spoke. And there is Val in
 
 160 l ATED TO BE l REE. 
 
 constant correspondence with her, and as secure as 
 possible ! " 
 
 Conversation then turned to the Melcombes. Old 
 Augustus spoke uneasily of the boy, said he looked 
 pale, and was not grown. 
 
 " He gets that pallor from his mother," said John. 
 " I should not like to see any of my children such 
 complete reproductions of either parent as that boy is 
 o! her. Family likeness is always strongest among 
 the uncultivated, and among lethargic and stupid 
 people. If you go down into the depths of the 
 country, to villages, where the parents hardly think 
 at all, and the children learn next to nothing, you'll 
 find whole families of them almost exactly alike, 
 excepting in size." 
 
 Ili- father listened cmietly, but with the full inten- 
 tion of bringing the conversation back to Peter as 
 soon as he could. 
 
 " It is the same with nations," proceeded John, 
 •• those who have little energy and no keen desire for 
 knowledge are ten times more alike in feature, com- 
 plexion, ami countenance than we are. No! family 
 likeness is all very well in infancy, before the mind 
 has begun to work on the face ; but as a man's
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. l6l 
 
 children grow, they ought to be less and less alike 
 every year." 
 
 " That little fellow," said the father, " seems to me 
 to be exactly like what he was a year ago." 
 
 " I observe no change." 
 
 " Do you think he is an average child, John ? " 
 
 John laughed. " I think that little imp of mine, 
 Hughie, could thrash him, if they chose to fight, and 
 he is nearly three years the younger of the two. No, 
 I do not think he is an average child ; but I see 
 nothing the matter with him." 
 
 Grand was not exempt from the common foibles 
 of grandfathers, and he was specially infatuated in 
 favour of the little Hugh, who was a most sweet- 
 tempered and audacious child, and when his son went 
 on, " Those two little scamps are getting so trouble- 
 some, that they will have to be sent to school very 
 shortly," he said, almost in a grumbling tone, " They're 
 always good enough when they're with me." 
 
 So, in course of time, Mrs. and Miss Melcombe set 
 forth on their travels ; it was their ambition to see 
 exactly the same places and things that everybody 
 else goes to see, and they made just such observa- 
 tions on them as everybody else makes. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 I 02 FATED TO BE ] REE. 
 
 In the meantime Brandon, not at all aware that 
 several people besides John Mortimer had noticed 
 that he was out of spirits — Brandon also prepared to 
 set forth on his travels. He had persuaded several 
 families to emigrate, and had also persuaded himself 
 that he must go to their destination himself, that he 
 micrht look out for situations for them, and settle them 
 before the winter came on. He was very busy for 
 some days arranging his affairs ; he meant to be away 
 some time. Mr. Mortimer knew it — perhaps he knew 
 more, for he said not a word byway of dissuasion, 
 but only seemed rather depressed. The evening, 
 however, before Brandon was to start, as, at 
 about eight o'clock, he sat talking with his step- 
 father, the old man lifted up his head and said to 
 him — 
 
 "You find me quite as clear in my thoughts and 
 quite as well able to express them as usual, don't 
 you, St. George ?" 
 
 " Yes," answered the step-son, feeling, however, a 
 little dismayed, for the wistful earnestness with which 
 this was s.iid was peculiar. 
 
 " If you should ever be asked," continued Daniel 
 Mortimer, " you would be able to say that you had
 
 THEY MEET AN AUTHOR. 1 63 
 
 seen no signs of mental decay in me these last few 
 months ? " 
 
 " Yes, I should." 
 
 " Don't disturb yourself, my dear fellow. I am as 
 well as usual ; better since my illness than I was for 
 some time before. I quite hope to see you again; 
 but in case I do not, I have a favour to ask of 
 you." 
 
 The step-son assured him with all affection and 
 fervour that he would attend to his wish, whatever it 
 might be. 
 
 " I have never loved anything that breathed as I 
 loved your mother," continued the old man, as if still 
 appealing to him, " and you could hardly have been 
 dearer to me if you had been my own." 
 
 " I know it," said Brandon. 
 
 " When you were in your own study this morning 
 at the top of the house " 
 
 " Yes, my liege ? " 
 
 " I sent Valentine up to you with a desk. You 
 were in that room, were you not ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 " A small desk, that was once your mother's — it 
 has a Bramah lock."
 
 !<>i FATED I" BE FR] 
 
 •' I noticed that it had, and that it was locked." 
 
 " What have you done with it?" 
 
 " Valentine said you wished me to take particular 
 of it, so I locked it into my cabinet, where 
 my will is, as you know, and where are most of my 
 papers." 
 
 " Thank you ; here is the key. You think you 
 shall never forget where that desk is, Giles ? 
 
 " Never ! such a thing is quite impossible.'' 
 
 " If I am gone when you return, you are to open 
 that desk. You will find in it a letter which I wrote 
 about three years ago ; and if I have ever deserved 
 well of you and yours, I charge you and I implore 
 you to do your very best as regards what I have asked 
 of you in that letter."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SIGNED " DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. 
 
 " The logs burn red ; she lifts her head 
 
 For sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung. 
 ' Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah ! to think 'tis fled, 
 Saelang, lang syne,' quo' her mother, ' I, too, was young.' 
 
 " No guides there are but the North star, 
 
 And the moaning forest tossing wild arms before, 
 The maiden murmurs, ' O sweet were yon bells afar, 
 
 And hark ! hark ! hark ! for he cometh, he nears the door.' 
 
 " Swift north-lights show, and scatter and go. 
 
 How can I meet him, and smile not, on this cold shore ? 
 
 Nay, I will call him, ' Come in from the night and the snow, 
 
 And love, love, love in the wild wood, wander no more.' " 
 
 A N hour after the conversation between Brandon 
 and old Daniel Mortimer, they parted, and 
 nothing could be more unlike than his travels were 
 and those of the Melcombes. First, there was New- 
 foundland to be seen. It looked at a distance like a 
 lump of perfectly black hill embedded in thick layers 
 of cotton wool ; then as the vessel approached, there 
 was its harbour, which though the year was nearly half 
 over, was crackling all over with brittle ice. Then
 
 1 66 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 there was Halifax Bay, blue as a great sapphire, full 
 of light, and swarming with the spawn of fish. And 
 there was the Bras d'Or, boats all along this yellow 
 spit of sand, stranded, with their sails set and scarcely 
 flapping in the warm still air ; and then there was the 
 port where he was to meet his emigrants, for they had 
 not crossed in the same ship with him ; and after that 
 there were wild forests and unquiet waters far inland, 
 where all night the noise of the " lumber " was heard 
 is it leaped over the falls; while at dawn was added 
 the screaming of white-breasted fowl jostling one 
 another in their flight as they still thronged up to- 
 wards the north. 
 
 We almost always think of Canada as a cold 
 country. Its summer counts for little; nor meadow- 
 grass waist deep, over which swarms of mosquitoes 
 hover, tormenting man and horse ; nor sunshine that 
 blisters the face, nor natural strawberry-grounds as 
 wide as Yorkshire, nor a sky clearer, purer, and more 
 intensely blue than any that spans Italian plains. 
 No ; Canada means winter, snow, quivering northern 
 lights, log-fires, and sledge-hells ! 
 
 Brandon found Canada hot, but when he had 
 finished his work there, he left it, and betook him-
 
 -CANADA. 167 
 
 self to the south, while it became the Canada of our 
 thought. 
 
 He went through the very heart of the States, and 
 pleased himself with wild rough living in lands where 
 the rich earth is always moist and warm, and primeval 
 forest still shelters large tracts of it. 
 
 Camping out at night, sometimes in swampy hol- 
 lows, it was strange to wake when there was neither 
 moon nor star, and see the great decaying trees that 
 storm had felled or age had ruined, glow with a weird 
 phosphorescent light, which followed the rents in 
 them, and hovered about the seams in their bark, 
 making them look like the ghosts of huge alligators 
 prone in the places they had ravaged, and giving 
 forth infernal gleams. Stranger yet it was to see in 
 the dark, moving near the pine-wood fire, two feeble 
 wandering lights, the eyes of some curious deer that 
 had come to gaze and wonder, and show its where- 
 abouts by those soft reflections. 
 
 And then, when he and his companions wanted 
 venison, it was strange to go forth into the forest in 
 the dark, two of them bearing a great iron pot slung 
 upon a long rod, and heaped with blazing pine-cones. 
 Then several pairs of these luminous spots would
 
 l68 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 be- seen coming together, and perhaps a dangerous 
 couple would glare down from a tree, and a wounded 
 panther would come crashing into their midst. 
 
 After that, he went and spent Christmas in Florida. 
 He had had frequent letters from home and from his 
 step-father. He wished to keep away till a certain 
 thing was settled one way or the other, but every 
 letter showed that it was still unsettled ; the sea- 
 nymph that he had been wasting his heart upon had 
 not yet decided to accept his brother's, but there was 
 every likelihood that she would. 
 
 As time went on, however, he felt happy in the 
 consciousness that absence was doing its work upon 
 him, and that change had refreshed his mind. 1 1 
 was beginning to forget her. When the woman whom 
 one loves is to marry one's brother, and that brother 
 happens to be of all the family the one whom one 
 prefers, what quality can be so admirable as in- 
 constancy ? 
 
 Still, for a man who was really forgetting, he argued 
 the matter too much in his mind. Even when he- 
 got far south, among the Florida keys, and saw the 
 legions of the heron and the ibis stalking with stately 
 t along the wet sand, and every now and then
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. 169 
 
 thrusting in their "javelin bills," spiking and bringing 
 out long wriggling flashes of silver that went alive 
 down their throats, he would still be thinking it over. 
 Yes ; he was forgetting her. He began to be in 
 better spirits. He was in very good spirits one day 
 in January when, quite unknown to him, the snow 
 was shovelled away from the corner of a quiet church- 
 yard in which his mother slept, and room was made 
 beside her for the old man who had loved him as 
 his own. 
 
 Old Daniel Mortimer had no such following as had 
 attended the funeral of his mother, and no such 
 peaceful sunshine sleeping on a landscape all blossom 
 and growth. The wind raged, and the snow whirled 
 all about his grave and in it. The coffin was white 
 before the first clod of earth was thrown on it, and 
 the mourners were driven out of the churchyard, when 
 the solemn service was over, by such gusts of storm 
 and whirling wind as they could hardly stand against. 
 
 His will was read. He had hardly anything to 
 leave. His directions were very simple and few, and 
 there was a little desk locked up in a cabinet that 
 nobody thought about, and that the one person who 
 could have opened it supposed to concern exclu-
 
 170 I MED TO BE FREE. 
 
 sively himself. So when he came, six months after, 
 
 ami looked about him with regretful affection; when 
 he had put the old man's portrait up in a place of 
 honour, and looked to the paying of all the debts, for 
 everything, even to the furniture, was now his own ; 
 when he had read the will, and sealed up all such 
 papers as he thought his half-brother Valentine might 
 afterwards want to refer to — he betook himself to his 
 own particular domain, his long room in the top of 
 the house. There, locking himself in, he opened his 
 cabinet, and taking out the little desk, sat down to 
 look for and read this letter. 
 
 The desk was soon opened. He lifted one half, 
 saw several old miniatures which had belonged to his 
 own father's family, a lock of his father's hair which 
 he remembered to have seen in his mother's posses- 
 sion, and one or two trinkets. No letter. 
 
 It was not without some slight trepidation that he 
 opened the other side, and there, nothing else being 
 with it. a large letter sealed with black and directed 
 to himself in his Step-father's well-known hand, it was 
 lying. 
 
 As he took the letter up, a sensation so faint, so 
 ethereal that it is hard to describe or characterize it,
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. 171 
 
 but which most of us have felt at least once, came 
 over him, or rather came about him, as if something 
 from without suggested a presence. 
 
 He was free from any sensation of fear, but he 
 chose to speak ; lifting up his face as if the old man 
 had been standing before him, he said aloud, " Yes, I 
 promised." The feeling was gone as he spoke, and 
 he broke the seal. 
 
 A long letter. His eyes, as it was folded, fell first 
 on these surprising words, " I forbade my mother to 
 leave her property to me," and then, " I have never 
 judged her," the aged writer continued, " for in her 
 case I know not what I could have done." 
 
 Brandon laid the letter down, and took a moment 
 for thought, before he could make up his mind to 
 read it through. Some crime, some deep disgrace, he 
 perceived was about to be confided to him. With a 
 hurried sense of dislike and shrinking from acquaint- 
 ance with it, he wondered whether his own late 
 mother had known anything of it, then whether he 
 was there called upon to divulge it now, and to act. 
 If not, he argued with himself, why was it to be con- 
 fided to him ? 
 
 Then he addressed himself to his task, and read the
 
 172 I \ii.m l'o i:k FREE. 
 
 letter through, coming to its last word only to be still 
 more surprised, as he perceived plainly that beyond 
 what he could gather from those two short sentences 
 already quoted, nothing was confided or confessed; 
 
 nothing at all — only a request was made to him, and 
 that very urgently and solemnly, but it concerned not 
 himself, but his young brother Valentine, for not con- 
 tent with repudiating the family property for himself, 
 the old father was desirous, it was evident, through 
 his step-son, to stand in the way and bar his own 
 son's very remote chance of inheriting it either. 
 
 A thing that is very unexpected and moderately 
 strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start 
 and perhaps exclamations ; but a thing more than 
 strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, 
 and the last thing one could have supposed possible 
 as coming from the person who demanded it, is met 
 in far quieter fashion. 
 
 Brandon leaned back in his chair and slowly 
 looked about him. He was conscious that he was 
 drawing deeper breath than usual, and that his heart 
 beat quickly, but he was so much surprised that for 
 the moment his thoughts appeared to scatter them- 
 selves about, and he knew not how to marshal them
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER. CANADA. I 73 
 
 and make them help him as to what this might 
 mean. 
 
 Mystery in romance and in tales is such a common 
 vulgar thing, in tragedy and even in comedy it is 
 so completely what we demand and expect, that we 
 seldom consider what an astonishing and very un- 
 common thing it is when it appears in life. And here 
 in a commonplace, well-conducted, happy, and united 
 family was a mystery pointing to something that one 
 of its best-loved members had never had a hint of. 
 Whatever it was, it concerned a place little more than 
 fifty miles off, and a man in whose presence he had 
 lived from his early childhood ; the utmost caution of 
 secrecy was demanded, and the matter spoken of 
 entirely changed the notions he had always held con- 
 cerning his step-father, whom he had thought he knew 
 better than any man living. When one had believed 
 that one absolutely understood another, how it startles 
 the mind to discover that this is a mistake ! A beauti- 
 ful old man this had been — pious, not very worldly- 
 wise, but having a sweetness of nature, a sunny smile, 
 and a native ease about him that would not have 
 been possible without a quiet conscience. This he 
 had possessed, but " I forbade my mother to leave
 
 174 I * FED TO BE I REB. 
 
 her property to me." His step sun turned back the 
 page, and Looked at those words again. Then his 
 eyes fell lower. "In her case I know not what I 
 could have done." " When did he forbid this — was 
 it ten years ago, twenty years, fifty years? He was 
 really very well off when he married my mother. 
 Now where did he get the property that he lost by 
 his speculations? Not by the law; his profession 
 never brought him in more than two hundred a year. 
 Oh ! he had it from the old cousin that he and ('.rami 
 often talk of, old John Mortimer. And that's where 
 the old silver plate came from. Of course, and where 
 John got his name. 
 
 " We always knew, I think, that there was an aged 
 mother; now why did I take for granted that she 
 must be in her second childhood ? I wonder whether 
 John put that into my head. 1 think I did remark 
 to him once when I was a boy and he was living at 
 home, that it was odd there was no portrait of her in 
 either of the houses. (But no more there is of Grand 
 now 1 come to think of it; John never could make 
 him sit.) Before the dear old man got so infirm he 
 used generally to go out about once a year and come 
 back in low spirits, not liking to be questioned. He
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." CANADA. I 75 
 
 may have gone then to see his mother, but I know 
 sister used to think he went to see the relations of 
 that wretched woman, his first wife. Who shall say 
 now ? " 
 
 And then he sat down and thought and thought, 
 but nothing came of his thinking. Peter Melcombe, 
 so far as he knew, was perfectly well ; that was a 
 comfort. Valentine was very docile ; that was also a 
 comfort ; and considering that what his father had 
 wished for him nearly four years ago was actually 
 coming to pass, and everything was in train for his 
 going to one of the very best and healthiest of our 
 colonies, there seemed little danger that even if Mel- 
 combe fell to him he should find the putting it from 
 him a great act of self-denial. 
 
 And what a strange thing it was, Brandon thought, 
 that through the force of circumstances he himself 
 should have been made to bring about such an un- 
 likely thing ! That so young a man should want 
 to marry was strange enough. It was more strange 
 that he should have fixed on the only woman in the 
 world that his brother wanted. This said brother 
 had thought it the very climax of all that was strange 
 that it should have devolved on him who had com-
 
 176 I A TED TO BE I Kl I . 
 
 mand of money and who knew the colonies, to make 
 
 this early marriage possible. But surely the climax 
 of strangeness was rather here, that he had all this 
 time been working as if on purpose to bring about 
 the longing desire of his old step-father, which till 
 then he had never heard of, depriving Valentine 
 as much as was possible of his freedom, shutting 
 him up to the course his lather wanted him to 
 follow, and preparing to send him as far as in this 
 world he could be sent from the dreaded precincts 
 of MelcomK'. 
 
 Brandon had devoted out of his moderate patri- 
 mony a thousand pounds each to his step-brother and 
 his step-sisters. In the case of Valentine he had 
 1 lone more; he had in a recent visit to New Zealand 
 bought some land with a dwelling-house on it, and to 
 this place it was arranged that immediately on his 
 marriage Valentine should sail. 
 
 Brandon felt a strong desire to go and look at Mel- 
 combe, tor his step lather's conduct with regard to it 
 kept coming back to his mind with ever-fresh sur- 
 prise; but though he searched his memory it could 
 yield him nothing, not a hint, not a look, from any 
 one which threw the lea^t light on this letter.
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. 177 
 
 " But that there's crime at the core of it, or some 
 deep disgrace," he soliloquized, " appears to me most 
 evident, and I take his assurance in its fullest meaning 
 that he had nothing to do with it." 
 
 The next morning, having slept over the contents 
 of the letter, he went to his upper room, locked him- 
 self in, and read it again. Then after pausing a while 
 to reconsider it, he went up to the wall to look at 
 a likeness of Dorothea Graham. Valentine had a 
 photographing machine, and had filled the house with 
 portraits of himself and his beloved. This was sup- 
 posed to be one of the best. " Lucky enough that 
 I had the sense to leave this behind me," thought 
 Brandon. " Yes, you sweet thing, I am by no means 
 breaking my heart now about you and your love for 
 that boy. You are sure to marry him ; you have a 
 faithful heart, so the best thing for him will be to let 
 you marry as soon as possible. I'll tell him so as we 
 walk to John Mortimer's to-day. I'll tell him he may 
 do it as soon as he likes." 
 
 Accordingly as about six o'clock he and Valentine 
 walked through a wood, across a common, and then 
 over some fields, Brandon began to make some 
 remarks concerning the frequent letters that passed 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 1-jS FATED TO BE TREE. 
 
 between these youthful lovers. " It is not to be sup- 
 posed," he observed, " that any lady would corre- 
 spond with you thus for years if she had not fully 
 made up her mind to accept you in the end." 
 
 " No," answered Valentine with perfect confidence; 
 " but she knows that I promised my father to wait a 
 few months more before I decidedly engaged myself, 
 but for that promise I was to have had an answer 
 from her half a year ago." 
 
 Brandon fully believed that Dorothea Graham loved 
 his brother, and that her happiness was in his own 
 hands. He had found it easy to put the possibility 
 of an carl)- marriage in Valentine's way, but nothing 
 could well go forward without his sanction, and since 
 his return he had hitherto felt that the words which 
 would give it were too difficult for him to say. Now, 
 however, that remarkable letter, cutting in across the 
 usual current of his thoughts, had thrown them back 
 for awhile. So that Dorothea seemed less real, less 
 dear, less present to him. 
 
 The difficult words were about to be said. 
 
 " If she knows why you do not speak, and waits, 
 there certainly is an understanding between you, 
 which amounts almost to the same thing."
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. I 79 
 
 " Yes," said Valentine, " and in August, as she 
 knows, I shall ask her again." 
 
 " Then," said Brandon, almost taking Valentine's 
 breath away with sudden delight, " I think, old 
 fellow, that when she has once said ' yes,' you 
 had better make short work with the engagement ; 
 you will never be more ready to marry than 
 you are now; you are a few months older than 
 John was when he went and did it; and here 
 you are, with your house in New Zealand ready 
 built, your garden planted, a flock of sheep bought, 
 and all there is to do is to turn out the people now 
 taking care of the place, as soon as you are ready to 
 come in." 
 
 Brandon was standing on a little plank which 
 bridged a stream about two feet wide ; he had turned 
 to say this, for Valentine was behind him. 
 
 Valentine received the communication first with 
 silence, then with a shout of triumph, after which 
 he ran completely round his brother several times, 
 jumping over the stream and flourishing a great stick 
 that he held, with boyish ecstasy, not at all dignified, 
 but very sincere. When he had made at least three 
 complete circles, and jumped the stream six times,
 
 I So FATED TO BE FRE1 , 
 
 Giles gravely walked on, and Valentine presently fol- 
 lowed, wiping his forehead. 
 
 " Nobody could have expressed my own sentiments 
 in more charming English," he exclaimed ; " I never 
 heard such grammar in my life ; what a brick you are, 
 St. George ! " 
 
 Giles had great faith in his theory that absence 
 always cured love, also in his belief that his was 
 cured and half forgotten. At that moment he expe- 
 rienced a sharp pang, however, that was not very like 
 forgetfulncss, but which Valentine converted almost 
 into self-scorn when he said — 
 
 " You know, Giles, she always did show the most 
 undisguised liking for me from our first meeting ; and 
 then look how constant she has been, and what 
 beautiful letters she writes, always trying, too, to im- 
 prove me. Of course I cannot even pretend to think 
 she would not have engaged herself to me months 
 ago if I might have asked her." 
 
 "All true, perfectly true," he thought to himself; 
 " he loves her and she loves him, and I believe if she 
 had never met with Valentine, she would still never 
 have married me. What a fool I am ! " 
 
 " Why wouldn't you take this view of things
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." — CANADA. iSl 
 
 yesterday, when I tried to make you ? " asked Val- 
 entine. 
 
 " I was not ready for it," answered Giles, " or it 
 was not ready for me." 
 
 Thereupon they passed through a wicket-gate into 
 a kind of glen or wilderness, at the end of John 
 Mortimer's garden, and beyond the stream where his 
 little girls acted Nausicaa and his little boys had 
 preserves of minute fishes, ingeniously fenced in with 
 sticks and fine netting. 
 
 " There's Grand," exclaimed Valentine, " they've 
 brought him out to look at their water-snails. What 
 a venerable old boy he is ! he looks quite holy, 
 doesn't he?" 
 
 " Hold your tongue," said Brandon, " they'll hear 
 you. He's come to see their newts ; they had a lot 
 yesterday at the bottom of the punt. Little Hugh 
 had one in his hand, a beast with an orange breast, 
 and it was squinting up at him." 
 
 It would be hard to say of any man that he is never 
 right. If he is always thinking that he has forgotten 
 a certain lady, surely he is right sometimes. 
 
 They went in to dinner, a party of four, for John Mor 
 timer since his wife's death did not entertain ladies,
 
 1S2 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 and Miss Christie Grant always presided at an early 
 dinner, when the governess and the children dined. 
 
 As the dinner advanced St. George and Valen- 
 tine both got into high spirits, the former because a 
 stronger conviction than usual assured him that he 
 was forgetting Dorothea Graham ; the latter, because 
 instead of being pulled back, he had at last got a 
 shove in the other direction. In short, Valentine 
 was so happy in his jokes and so full of fun, that the 
 servants had no sooner withdrawn than John Mortimer 
 taxed him with having good reason for being so, 
 mentioned the probable cause, and asked to see Miss 
 Graham's portrait, "which, no doubt," he said, "you 
 have got in your pocket." 
 
 " Why I have had that for years," said Valentine 
 scornfully. 
 
 " And dozens of them," said Brandon ; " they took 
 them themselves." 
 
 "When is it to be?" asked old Grand with great 
 interest. 
 
 •■ I don't exactly know, uncle ; nm Giles doesn't 
 know that ! If he had known, I'm sure he would 
 have told you, and asked your advice, for I always 
 brought him up to be very respectful to his elders."
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER.'' CANADA. I 83 
 
 " Come, sir, come," said the old man laughing, " if 
 you don't exactly know, I suppose you have a tolerably 
 distinct notion." 
 
 " I know when I should like it to be, and when I 
 think D. would like it. Not too late for a wedding 
 tour, say October, now, or," seeing his brother look 
 grave, "or November; suppose we say November." 
 
 " I'm afraid there is no wedding tour in the pro- 
 gramme," observed Brandon. " The voyage must be 
 the tour." 
 
 " Then I'll go without my cart. We must have a 
 tour ; it will be the only fun I shall ever be able to 
 give her." 
 
 Valentine had inherited only about two hundred 
 pounds from his father, he having been left residuary 
 legatee, and he was much more inclined to spend this 
 on luxuries than on necessaries. 
 
 " You've bought me land, and actually paid for it 
 yourself, and you've bought me a flock, and made me 
 a barn, and yet you deny me the very necessaries of 
 life, though I can pay for them myself ! I must have 
 a tour, and D. must have a basket-carriage." 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow," said Grand, " though that 
 matter is not yet settled, it is evident things are so
 
 1N4 I ^'ED TO BE FREE. 
 
 far advanced that we may begin to think of the 
 wedding presents. Now, what would you like to 
 have from me, I wonder? I mean how would you 
 prefer to have it? John and I have already con- 
 sidered the amount, and he quite agrees with m< 
 to what I ought to give to my only brother's only 
 son. 
 
 "Only brother's!" The word struck Brandon both 
 as showing that the old man had almost forgotten 
 other dead brothers, and also as evidently being the 
 preface to a larger gift than he had anticipated. 
 
 " Thank you, uncle," said Valentine, almost accom- 
 plishing a blush of pride and pleasure. " As you arc- 
 so kind as to let me choose, I should like your pre- 
 sent in money, in my pocket, you know, because 
 there is the tour, and it would go towards that." 
 
 " In your pocket !" exclaimed John Mortimer, with 
 a laugh of such amusement and raillery as almost put 
 Valentine out of countenance. " Why, do you think 
 my father wants to give you a school-boy's tip?" 
 
 "I think a good deal depends on the lady," said 
 Grand, who also seemed amused; " if she has no 
 fortune, it might be wise to settle it on her; if she 
 has, you might wish to lay it out in more land, or to
 
 SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER." CANADA. 1 85 
 
 invest it here ; you and Giles must consider this. I 
 mean to give you two thousand pounds." Then, 
 when he saw that Valentine was silent from astonish- 
 ment, he went on, " And if your dear father had been 
 here he would not have been at all surprised. Many 
 circumstances, with which you are not acquainted, 
 assure me of this, and I consider that I owe every- 
 thing to him." There was a certain sternness about 
 these words ; he would have, it was evident, no dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 John Mortimer heard his father say this with sur- 
 prise. " He must mean that he owes his religious 
 views to my uncle," was his thought ; but to Brandon, 
 who did not trouble himself about those last words, 
 the others were full of meaning; the amount of the 
 gift, together with the hint at circumstances with 
 which Valentine was not acquainted, made him feel 
 almost certain that the strange words, " I forbade my 
 mother to leave her property to me," alluded to some- 
 thing which was known to the next brother. 
 
 Valentine, at first, was too much surprised to be 
 joyous, but he thanked his uncle with something of 
 the cordial ingenuousness and grace which had distin- 
 guished his father.
 
 lS6 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 " I can have a tour now, can't I, old fellow," he 
 said after a time to his brother; "take my wife " — 
 here a joyous laugh — "my WIFE on the Continent; 
 we shall go dashing about from place to place, you 
 know, staying at hotels, and all that .'" 
 
 " To be sure," said Brandon, " staying at hotels, 
 of course, and ordering wonderful things for break- 
 fast. I think I see you now — 
 
 ' Happy married lovers, 
 Phillis trifling with a plover's 
 
 Egfr, while Condon uncovers 
 
 With a grace the Sally Lun.'" 
 
 " That's the way this fellow is always making game 
 of me," exclaimed Valentine ; " why I'm older than 
 you were, John, when you married." 
 
 " And wild horses shall never drag the words out 
 of me that I was too young," said John Mortimer, 
 " whatever I may think,'' he continued. 
 
 " John was a great deal graver than you are," 
 said Brandon ; " besides, he knew the multiplication 
 table." 
 
 " So do I, of course," exclaimed Valentine. 
 
 " Well," answered Brandon, " I never said you did 
 not."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 " Now I am at a loss to know whether it be my hare's foot that is my 
 preservation ; for I never had a fit of the collique since I wore it ; or 
 whether it be my taking of a pill of turpentine every morning." 
 
 Diary of Mr. Samuel Pepys. 
 
 " T OHN, the Melcombes have stayed on the Conti- 
 J nent so much longer than I expected that I 
 hardly remember whether I told you I had invited 
 them to come round this way, and remain here a few 
 days on their return." Old Augustus Mortimer said 
 this to his son, who was dining with him a few days 
 after the conversation concerning the wedding pre- 
 sent. " I supposed," he added, " that you would 
 not invite that child or his mother again ? " 
 
 John Mortimer replied, in clear and vigorous 
 English, that he never should — never ! 
 
 The manner in which he was looked after by the 
 ladies had become quite a joke in the family, though 
 one of his chief tormentors had lately been moved out 
 of his way — Louisa Grant was married. Captain
 
 lS8 1 \l I li TO BE FREE. 
 
 Walker had at first, after Mr. Mortimer's death, agreed 
 to wait for her till Brandon's return; but his regiment 
 being ordered abroad, he had induced her to hasten 
 the wedding, which took place about three months 
 before Brandon reached England. And as Louisa 
 did not, out of respect to her step-father, like to be 
 married from his house so soon after his death, old 
 Grand had received and entertained all the wedding 
 guests, and John Mortimer had given away the bride. 
 
 On that occasion it was confidently asserted by the 
 remaining Miss Grant and Valentine, that there were 
 four ladies present who would at any time with plea- 
 sure undertake to act the loving mother to dear John's 
 seven children. 
 
 John was becoming rather sensitive ; he remembered 
 how sweetly Mrs. Melcombe had smiled on him, and 
 he remembered the ghost story too. 
 
 " I rather want to see how that boy is getting on," 
 continued Augustus. 
 
 " By-the-bye," said the son, " I heard to my sur- 
 prise the other day from Swan, whose son, it seems, 
 was doing some work at Melcombe this spring 
 (making a greenhouse, 1 think), that Mrs. Melcombe 
 wintered at Mentone, partly on her boy's account, for
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 1 89 
 
 he had a feverish or aguish illness at Venice, and she 
 was advised not to bring him to England." 
 
 " I never heard of it," said Grand, with anxiety. 
 
 " Nor I, my dear father ; but I meant to have told 
 you before; for I see you take an interest in the 
 child." 
 
 "What imprudence!" continued Grand; "those 
 people really have no sense. I begged them particu- 
 larly not to go to Venice in the autumn." 
 
 " Yes," said John, " it was foolish ; but Swan went 
 on to say that he heard the boy was all right again." 
 
 " I hope so," replied Grand, almost fervently ; 
 " and his mother wants to consult us now about his 
 going to school." 
 
 John could not forbear to smile when his father 
 said "us." 
 
 "So you have written to say you shall be glad to 
 see them ? " he inquired. 
 
 " Yes ; it is very little I ever see of my relations." 
 
 John thought that perhaps his father's mind was 
 turning with affection towards his family, from whom 
 he did not now doubt that he had been estranged 
 owing to some cause which had terminated with the 
 old mother's death. So he said cordially —
 
 I 90 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 " Would you like, when Mrs. Melcombe goes home, 
 to invite Laura to remain with you for a few weeks ? 
 I have no doubt, if you would, that Lizzy Grant would 
 be charmed to come at the same time, and taste the 
 sweetness of freedom. The two girls could have the 
 carriage, you know, and the canoes, and the riding- 
 horses. They might enjoy themselves very much, 
 and give croquet parties and picnics to their hearts' 
 content. I would get old Christie to come to you 
 whenever a chaperone was wanted. She is a most 
 valuable possession, my dear father, but I would lend 
 her." 
 
 " You are very kind, my dear," answered the 
 father, who often addressed his son in this fashion 
 when they were alone. " I think it would be a plea- 
 sure to me to have the girls. You can't think, John, 
 how cheerful the house used to be before your sisters 
 were married ; you can hardly remember it, you were 
 so young." 
 
 " Why did I never think of proposing such a visit 
 to him before?'' thought John, almost with compunc- 
 tion. 
 
 " I seem to know them pretty well," he answered, 
 " from their letters and from hearing you talk of them ;
 
 CAUSES AND COXSEQUENXES. 191 
 
 but what I really remember, I believe, is four grand 
 young ladies who used to carry me a pick-a-back, and 
 give me sugared almonds." 
 
 Of the four Miss Mortimers, the eldest had mar- 
 ried a clergyman, and died soon after ; the second 
 and third had married " shepherd kings," and were 
 living with the said kings in Australia ; and the fourth 
 was in India with her husband and a grown-up family. 
 Their father had given to each of them an ample 
 fortune, and parted with her before his only son was 
 five years old, for John Mortimer was fifteen years 
 younger than his youngest sister, and had been, 
 though the daughters were much beloved, a greater 
 joy and comfort to his father than all four of them 
 put together. 
 
 He was glad that his father showed this willingness 
 to have Lizzy Grant to stay in his house, for he was 
 fond of all the Grants ; there was a kind of plain- 
 spoken intimacy between him and them that he en- 
 joyed. The two elder had always been his very good 
 friends, and during his wife's lifetime had generally 
 called him "John dear," and looked to him and his 
 wife to take them about whenever their brother 
 was away. Liz, who was rather a plain girl, he
 
 IQ2 I in TO BE FREE. 
 
 regarded more in the light of a niece than of a step- 
 cousin. 
 
 A day or two after this, therefore, while sitting 
 alone writing his letters (('.rand being gone out for 
 his constitutional), when he was told that Miss Grant 
 wanted to speak to him, he desired that she might be 
 shown in. 
 
 She was sitting at the back door in a little pony 
 carriage, and giving the reins to her boy, she passed 
 through it, to the wonder of all beholders. 
 
 Very few young ladies were shown in there. 
 
 "What is it?" exclaimed John, for Liz looked 
 almost sulky. 
 
 " Oh John," she answered, with a sort of whimsical 
 pathos, " isn't it sad, so few delightful things as 
 there are, that two of them should come together, 
 so that I can't have both ! '' 
 
 "What are the delightful things — offers?" 
 
 "Don't be so tiresome. No, of course not. You 
 know very well that nothing of that kind ever 
 happens to me." 
 
 " Indeed, if that is the case, it can only be because 
 your frocks are almost always crumpled, and — what's 
 that long bit of blue ribbon that I see ? "
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 1 93 
 
 " It's all right — that's how it's meant to go. I 
 can't think why you fancy that I'm not tidy. St. 
 George is always saying so too." 
 
 " That's very hard. Well, child ? " 
 
 " I thought perhaps you knew that Grand had in- 
 vited me to stay six weeks at his house — Laura 
 Melcombe to be there also, and we two to do just 
 as we liked. The whole of August, John, and part 
 of September, and that's the very time when I can't 
 come, because we are going to be at the seaside. 
 Dorothea is to join us, you know, and if I do not see 
 her then I never shall, for they are to sail at Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 " There is a world of misery to be got out of con- 
 flicting pleasures," said John philosophically. " You 
 can't come, that's evident ; and I had just given orders 
 that the new canoe should be painted and the old 
 one caulked. Two quiet ponies for you to drive (you 
 are a very tolerable whip, I know). As to the grapes, 
 a house is being kept back on purpose to be ripe 
 just at that time ; and the croquet balls are all 
 sent to be painted. Melancholy facts ! but such is 
 life." 
 
 " No but, John " 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 I')| FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 I — ■■■■■- — - — — ■ , ■ ■ 
 
 " I'm extremely busy to-day." 
 
 " Not so busy that you have not time to laugh at 
 me. This would have been almost the greatest plea- 
 sure I ever had." 
 
 " And I've been reminding my father," proceeded 
 John, "that when Emily came to stay with him she 
 always sat at the head of the table. She asked him 
 if she might, and so should you have done, because, 
 though Laura is a relation, he has known you all 
 your life." 
 
 " No but, John," repeated Lizzie, " can't you do 
 something for me ? Tell me whether Laura Melcombe 
 has been already invited ? " 
 
 " She has not, Miss Grant." 
 
 " I have no doubt, if you asked Grand to let the 
 visit be put off till the middle of September, he 
 would." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 " Then you'll do it, won't you ? because you know 
 you and I have always been such friends." 
 
 " Now you mention it, I think we have; at any rate, 
 I don't dislike you half so much as I do some of my 
 other friends. Yes, child, your confidence is not mis- 
 placed."
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 195 
 
 " Then I may leave the matter in your hands ? " 
 exclaimed Liz joyfully. 
 
 " You really may," replied John Mortimer, and he 
 took her back to the pony carriage in a high state of 
 bliss and gratitude. 
 
 This change, however, which was easily effected, 
 made a difference to several people whom Miss Grant 
 had no wish to disoblige. First, Mrs. Melcombe, 
 finding that Laura was invited to pay a long visit, and 
 that the invitation was not "extended to her, resolved 
 not to come home by Wigfield at all; but when 
 Laura wrote an acceptation, excused herself from 
 coming also, on the ground of her desire to get home. 
 
 Grand, therefore, did not see Peter, and this trou- 
 bled him more than he liked to avow. Brandon was 
 also disappointed, for he particularly wanted to see 
 the boy and his mother again. The strangeness of 
 his step-father's letter grew upon him, and it rather 
 fretted him to think that he could not find any plausi- 
 ble reason for going over to Melcombe to look about 
 him. He was therefore secretly vexed with his sister 
 when he found that, in consequence of her request 
 to John, the plans of all the Melcombes had been 
 changed. So Liz with a cheerful heart went to the
 
 196 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 sea-side with Mrs. Henfrey and Valentine, and very 
 soon wrote home to Miss Christie Grant that Doro- 
 thea had joined them, that the long-talked-of offer 
 had been made and (of course) accepted, ami that 
 Giles was come. She did not add that Giles had 
 utterly lost his heart again to his brother's bride 
 elect, but that she would not have done if she had 
 known it. 
 
 Miss Christie was wroth on the occasion. 
 
 ''It's just shameful," she remarked. "Everybody 
 knew Miss Graham would accept him, but why can't 
 she say how it was and when it was ? She's worse 
 than her mother. ' Dear Aunt,' her mother wrote to 
 me, ' I'm going to marry Mr. Mortimer on Saturday 
 week, and I hope you'll come to the wedding, but 
 you're not to wear your blue gown. Your affectionate 
 niece, Emily Grant.' That was every word she said, 
 and I'd never heard there was anything between her 
 and Mr. Mortimer before." 
 
 " And why were you not to wear your blue gown ? " 
 inquired John Mortimer. 
 
 " Well," replied Miss Christie,"! don't deny that 
 if she hadn't been beforehand with me I might just 
 slyly have said that my blue gown would do, for I'd
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. J 97 
 
 only had it five years. I was aye thrifty ; she knew it 
 was as good as ever — a very excellent lutestring, and 
 made for her wedding when she married Mr. Grant — 
 so she was determined to take my joke against her 
 out of my mouth." 
 
 If Miss Christie had not found plenty to do during 
 the next six weeks, she would have grumbled yet more 
 than she did over her wrongs. As it was, Master 
 Augustus John Mortimer came home from school 
 for his long holidays, and he and his friends excited 
 more noise, bustle, and commotion in the house than 
 all the other children put together. 
 
 John Mortimer's eldest son, always called Johnnie, 
 to distinguish him from his father, was ridiculously 
 big for his age, portentously clever and keen-witted, 
 awkward, blunt, rude, full of fun, extremely fond of 
 his father, and exceedingly unlike him in person. His 
 hair was nearly black, his forehead was square and 
 high, his hands and feet almost rivalled those of his 
 parent in size, and his height was five feet three. 
 
 In any other eyes than those of a fond parent he 
 must have appeared as an awkward, noisy, plain, and 
 intolerably active boy ; but his father (who almost 
 from his infancy had pleased himself with a mental
 
 198 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 picture of the manner of man he would probably 
 grow into) saw nothing of all this, but merely added 
 in his mind two inches to the height of the future 
 companion he was to find in him, and wished that 
 the boy could get over a lisp which still disfigured 
 some of his words. 
 
 He brought such a surprising account of his merits 
 with him — how he could learn anything he pleased, 
 how he never forgot anything, how, in fact, his 
 master, as regarded his lessons, had not a fault to find 
 with him, that when his twin sisters had seen it, there 
 seemed to them something strange in his being as 
 fond of tarts and lollipops as ever. 
 
 As for John, nothing surprised him. Miss Christie 
 saw great diversities in his children, but in regard to 
 them all he showed an aggravating degree of content- 
 ment with what Providence had sent him. Miss 
 Christie wore through Johnnie's sojourn at home as 
 well as she could, and was very happy when she saw 
 him off to school again ; happier still when walking 
 towards home across the fields with John Mortimer 
 and the four younger children, they saw Brandon and 
 Valentine at a distance coming to meet them. 
 
 " So they are at home again," she exclaimed ; " and
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 1 99 
 
 now we'll hear all about the wedding that is to be. 
 I've been just wearying for the partceculars , and there 
 never were such bad letter-writers as those girls. 
 Anyhow there'll be a handsome bridegroom." 
 
 " Ah ! " said John Mortimer, " all the ladies 
 admire Val. He's quite a woman's man." 
 
 "Well, and St. George is a man's man, then," 
 retorted Miss Christie; "ye all admire him, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " And what are you, papa, dearest ? " asked 
 Janie, who had hold of his hand. 
 
 " I'm my own man, my little queen-regnant," 
 answered her father with a somewhat exultant laugh. 
 
 "Ay, Mr. Mortimer, I'm just surprised at ye," 
 quoth Miss Christie, shaking her head over these 
 vainglorious words. 
 
 " I think father's the most beautifullest man of 
 all," said little Janie, with a sort of jealous feeling as 
 if somehow he had been disparaged, though she did 
 not exactly know how. " And the goodest, too," she 
 presently added, as if not satisfied with her first 
 tribute to him. 
 
 Valentine, who was seldom out of countenance on 
 any occasion, received the congratulations of all
 
 200 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 the party with a certain rather becoming pride and 
 complacency. He seemed, however, to be taking 
 things very easily, but he presently became rather 
 silent, and John, who 'felt keenly that Brandon was 
 not so indifferent to the bride-elect as he wished to 
 be, turned the conversation as soon as he could to 
 other matters. There was some talk about Valen- 
 tine's land which had been bought for him in New 
 Zealand, after which Brandon said suddenly, — 
 
 " John, when this fellow is gone, or perhaps before, 
 I mean to have something to do — some regular work 
 — and I think of taking to literature in good earnest." 
 
 " All right," answered John, " and as you evidently 
 intend me to question you, I will ask first whether 
 you, Giles Brandon, mean to write on some subject 
 that you understand, or on one that you know 
 nothing about ? " 
 
 Brandon laughed. "There is more to be said in 
 favour of that last than you think," he answered. 
 
 " It may be that there is everything to be said ; 
 but if you practise it, don't put your name to your 
 work, that's all." 
 
 " I shall not do so in any case. How do I know 
 whether the only use people may make of it (and
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 201 
 
 that a metaphorical one) may not be to throw it at 
 me ever after." 
 
 " I don't like that," said Miss Christie. " I could 
 wish that every man should own his own." 
 
 " No," remarked John Mortimer ; " if a man in 
 youth writes a foolish book and gives his name to it, 
 he has, so far as his name is concerned, used his one 
 chance ; and if, in maturer life, he writes something 
 high and good, then if he wants his wise child to live, 
 he must consent to die himself with the foolish 
 one. It is much the same with one who has become 
 notorious through the doing of some base or foolish 
 action. If he repent, rise to better things, and write 
 a noble book, he must not claim it as if it could 
 elevate him. It must go forth on its own merits, or 
 it will not be recognised for what it is, only for what 
 he is or was. No, if a man wants to bring in new 
 thoughts or work elevating changes, he must not clog 
 them with a name that has been despised." 
 
 " I think Dorothea and I may as well write a book 
 together," said Valentine. " She did begin one, but 
 somehow it stuck fast." 
 
 " You had better write it about yourselves, then," 
 said John, " that being nearly all you study just now,
 
 2 02 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 I should think. Many a novel contains the author 
 and little else. He explains himself in trying to 
 describe human nature." 
 
 " Human nature ! " exclaimed Valentine ; " we 
 must have something grander than that to write of, I 
 can tell you. We have read so many books that turn 
 it ' the seamy side outward,' and point out the joins 
 as if it was a glove, that we cannot condescend to it." 
 
 " No," said John, setting off on the subject again 
 as if he was most seriously considering it, Valentine 
 meanwhile smiling significantly on the others. " It 
 is a mistake to describe too much from within. The 
 external life as we see it should rather be given, and 
 about as much of the motives and springs of action 
 as an intelligent man with good opportunity could 
 discover. We don't want to be told all. We do not 
 know all about those we live with, and always have 
 lived with. If ever I took to writing fiction I should 
 not pretend to know all about my characters. The 
 author's world appears small if he makes it manifest 
 that he reigns there. I don't understand myself 
 thoroughly. How can I understand so many other 
 people ? I cannot fathom them. My own children 
 often surprise me. If I believed thoroughly in the
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 203 
 
 children of my pen, they would write themselves 
 down sometimes in a fashion that I had not 
 intended." 
 
 "John talks like a book," observed Valentine. 
 "You propose a subject, and he lays forth his views 
 as if he had considered it for a week. ' Drive on, 
 Samivel.' " 
 
 " But I don't agree with him," said Miss Christie. 
 " When I read a book I aye dislike to be left in any 
 doubt what the man means or what the story means." 
 
 " I always think it a great proof of power in a 
 writer," said Brandon, "when he consciously or un- 
 consciously makes his reader feel that he knows a 
 vast deal more about his characters than he has 
 chosen to tell. And what a keen sense some have of 
 the reality of their invented men and women ! So 
 much so that you may occasionally see evident 
 tokens that they are jealous of them. They cannot 
 bear to put all the witty and clever speeches into 
 the mouths of these ' fetches ' of their own imagina- 
 tion. Some must be saved up to edge in as a sly 
 aside a sage reflection of the author's own. There 
 never should be any author's asides." 
 
 " I don't know about that," John answered, " but I
 
 204 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 often feel offended with authors who lack imagination 
 to see that a group of their own creations would not 
 look in one another's eyes just what they look in his 
 own. The author's pretty woman is too often pretty 
 to all ; his wit is acknowledged as a wit by all. The 
 difference of opinion comes from the readers. They 
 differ certainly." 
 
 " Even I," observed Valentine, " if I were an 
 author's wit, might be voted a bore, and how sad that 
 would be, for in real life it is only right to testify that 
 I find little or no difference of opinion." 
 
 He spoke in a melancholy tone, and heaved up a 
 sigh. 
 
 " Is cousin Val a wit ? " asked little Hugh. 
 
 " I am afraid I am," said Valentine ; " they're 
 always saying so, and it's very unkind of them to 
 talk about it, because I couldn't help it, could I ? " 
 
 Here the little Anastasia, touched with pity by 
 the heartfelt pathos of his tone, put her dimpled 
 hand in his and said tenderly, " Never mind, dear, 
 it'll be better soon, p'raps, and you didn't do it on 
 purpose." 
 
 " Does it hurt? " asked Hugh, also full of ruth. 
 
 "Be ashamed of yourself," whispered Miss Christie,
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 205 
 
 " to work on the dear children's feelings so. No, my 
 sweet mannie, it doesn't hurt a bit." 
 
 "I'm very much to be pitied," proceeded Valen- 
 tine. "That isn't all" — he sighed again — "I was 
 born with a bad French accent, and without a single 
 tooth in my head, or out of it, while such was my 
 weakness, that it took two strong men, both masters 
 of arts, to drag me through the rudiments of the 
 Latin grammar." 
 
 Anastasia's eyes filled with tears. It seemed so 
 sad; and the tender little heart had not gone yet 
 into the question of seeming. 
 
 "They teached you the Latin grammar did they?" 
 said Bertram, who had also been listening, and was 
 relieved to hear of something in this list of miseries 
 that he could understand ; " that's what Miss Cramp- 
 ton teaches me. I don't like it, and you didn't 
 either, then. I'm six and three quarters; how old 
 were you ? " 
 
 Before Valentine had answered, John and Brandon, 
 finding themselves before the party, had stopped and 
 turned. Brandon was surprised to see how earnestly 
 the two elder children, while he talked, had been 
 looking at him, and then at their father and Valen-
 
 206 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 tine. At last, when this pause occurred, and the two 
 groups met, Janie said — 
 
 "I am sure papa is a great deal prettier than Mr. 
 Brandon, and Cousin Val looks quite ugly beside 
 him." 
 
 " Yes, Janie," said Bertram, with an air of high 
 satisfaction, " papa's much more beautiful than either 
 of the others. I shall ask Miss Crampton when I 
 go in if she doesn't think so. You would like to 
 know what she thinks, wouldn't you, father?" 
 
 John had opened his mouth to say no, when his 
 better sense coming to his aid, he forbore to speak. 
 For this lady taught his children to perfection, but 
 his friends always would insist that she wanted to 
 teach him too — something that he wouldn't learn. 
 
 Aunt Christie, his constant friend and champion, 
 presently spoke for him. 
 
 " No, children," she said, as soon as she had com- 
 posed her voice to a due gravity, "it's natural ye 
 should admire your father, good children generally 
 do, but, now, if I were you, I would never tell any- 
 body at all, not even Miss Crampton — do ye hear me, 
 all of you ? I would never tell anybody your opinion 
 of him. If ye do, they will certainly think ye highly
 
 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 207 
 
 conceited, for ye know quite well that people say 
 you four little ones are just as exactly like him as ye 
 can be." 
 
 The children were evidently impressed. 
 
 " In fact," said Valentine, " now I take a good 
 look at him, I should say that you are even more 
 like him than he is himself — but — I may be mis- 
 taken." 
 
 " I won't say it then," said Bertram, now quite 
 convinced. 
 
 " And I won't, and I won't," added others, as they 
 ran forward to open a gate. 
 
 " Cheer up, John," said St. George, " let us not 
 see so much beauty and virtue cast down. There's 
 Miss Crampton looking out of the school-room 
 window." 
 
 But though he laughed he did not deceive John 
 Mortimer, who knew as well as possible that the loss 
 of Dorothea Graham pressed heavily on his heart. 
 
 " You two are going to dine with me, of course," 
 he said, when all the party had passed into the 
 wilderness beyond his garden. 
 
 " On the contrary, with your leave," answered 
 Valentine, " we are going to take a lesson of Swan
 
 2oS FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 in the art of budding roses. We cannot manage it 
 to our minds. We dined early." 
 
 "And I suppose you will agree with Val," observed 
 Brandon, " that a rose-garden is one of the neces- 
 saries of life." 
 
 " Dorothea must have one, must she, out in New 
 Zealand? Well, Swan will be proud to teach you 
 anything he knows or doesn't know, and he will give 
 you an opinion if you ask it on any subject whatever." 
 
 Accordingly John went into the house to dine, and 
 perhaps it was in consequence of this assertion that 
 the two young men asked their old friend's opinion 
 on various points not at all in his line. Valentine 
 even told him that his brother intended to write a 
 book, and asked him what he thought it had better 
 be about ; whereupon Swan, while deftly shaping his 
 bud, shook his head gravely, and said that wanted 
 a deal of thinking over. 
 
 "But if I was you, sir," he continued, speaking 
 to Brandon, "I should get Mr. Mortimer — Mr. John 
 — to help you, specially if there's going to be any 
 foreign talk in it. My word, I don't believe there's 
 any language going that Mr. Mortimer can't lay his 
 tongue to ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 
 
 " We, too, have autumns, when our leaves 
 Drop loosely through the dampened air ; 
 When all our good seems bound in sheaves, 
 And we stand reaped and bare." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 T AURA and Mrs. Melcombe went home, and 
 J — ' Laura saw the window again that Joseph had 
 so skilfully glazed. Joseph was not there, and Laura 
 would not have occupied herself with constant 
 thoughts about him if there had been anything, or 
 rather anybody else to think of. She soon began to 
 feel low-spirited and restless, while, like a potato- 
 plant in a dark cellar, she put forth long runners 
 towards the light, and no light was to be found. 
 This homely simile ought to be forgiven, because it 
 is such a good one 
 
 Peter was getting too old for her teaching. He 
 had a tutor, but the tutor was a married man, and 
 had taken lodgings for himself and his wife in one of 
 
 the farm-houses. 
 
 vol. I. P
 
 2IO I ED TO i:i: 1REE. 
 
 Laura had no career before her, and no worthy 
 occupation. All that came to pass in her day was a 
 short saunter, or a drive, or a visit to the market- 
 town, where she sat looking on while her sister-in- 
 law did some shopping. 
 
 Melcombe was six or seven miles from any visitable 
 families, excepting two or three clergymen and their 
 wives ; it was shut up in a three-cornered nook of 
 land, and could not be approached excepting through 
 turn-pikes, and up and down some specially steep hills. 
 These things make havoc with country sociability. 
 
 As long as there had been plenty to do and see, 
 Laura had enjoyed her life on the Continent, and 
 had fed herself with hope. So many people as 
 passed before her, it would be strange, she thought, 
 if not one of them had been made for her, not one 
 was to give her the love she wanted, the devotion 
 she knew she could return. 
 
 It was certainly strange, and yet it came to pass, 
 though the travelled fool returned, improved in style, 
 dress, and even in appearance, while her conversa- 
 tion was naturally more amusing than before, for she 
 had seen most places and things that people like to 
 -talk of.
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 211 
 
 Not one man had asked her to spend her life with 
 him, and she came back more given to nights of 
 fancy than ever, but far better acquainted with herself 
 and more humble, for she had spent so much of her 
 time (in imagination) with Joseph that she had be- 
 come accustomed to his slightly provincial accent, 
 and had ceased to care about it. Joseph, however, 
 did not speak like his good father, and he had been 
 endowed with as much learning as he would consent 
 to acquire, Swan having felt a great ambition to make 
 him a certified schoolmaster, but Joseph having been 
 at an early age rather an idle young dog, had tor- 
 mented his father into letting him take to a mere 
 handicraft, and had left school writing a hand almost 
 like copperplate, and being a very fair accountant, 
 but without thirst for knowledge, and without any 
 worthy ambition. 
 
 Laura had always known that nothing but a desert 
 island was wanted, and she could be his contented 
 wife ; but a desert island was not to be had, such 
 things are getting rare in the world, and she now 
 thought that any remote locality, where nobody knew 
 her, would do. 
 
 But where was Joseph?
 
 2 I 2 I'M 1 l> l'(> HE IREE. 
 
 She had certainly gone away without giving him 
 any interview, she had persistently kept away, yet 
 though she was doing what she could, by fits and 
 starts, to forget him, that perverse imagination of 
 hers always pictured him as waiting, constant, ready. 
 There was a particular tree in the glen behind which 
 du- had so frequently represented him to herself as 
 standing patiently while she approached with furtive 
 steps, that when she came home and went to look at 
 it, there was a feeling almost akin to surprise in her 
 mind at seeing the place drenched in sparkling dew, 
 and all overgrown with moss. Footsteps that are 
 feigned never tread anything down; they leave no 
 print, excepting in the heart that feigns them. 
 
 When Laura saw this place in the glen, she per- 
 ceived plainly that there was no one with whom she 
 might be humbly happy ami poor — not even a 
 plumber ! 
 
 This form of human sorrow — certainly one of the 
 worst — is not half enough pitied by the happy. 
 
 Of course Laura was a fool — nobody claims for her 
 that she was not ; but fools are not rare, either male 
 or female ; as they arrange the world and its ways 
 in great measure, it is odd that they do not under-
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 21 3 
 
 stand one another better, and whether Laura showed 
 her folly most or least in thinking that she could have 
 been obscurely happy as the wife of a man who be- 
 longed to a different class of life from her own (she 
 herself having small intellectual endowments, and but 
 little culture), is a subject too vast, too overwhelm- 
 ing, for decision here; it ought to have a treatise 
 in twelve volumes all to itself. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe had come home also somewhat 
 improved, but a good deal disappointed. She had 
 fully hoped and intended to marry again, because 
 her son, who was to live to be old, would wish to 
 marry early, and her future daughter-in-law would be 
 mistress of the house. It was desirable, therefore, 
 that Peter's mother should not be dependent on him 
 for a home. She had twice been invited, while on 
 the Continent, to change her name ; but in each 
 case it would have been, in a worldly point of view, 
 very much to her disadvantage, and that was a 
 species of second marriage that she by no means con- 
 templated. She did not want her second husband 
 to take her that she might nurse him in his old age, 
 fast approaching, and that he might live upon her 
 income.
 
 ^14 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 So she came home Mrs. Mclcombc, and she con- 
 tinued to be kind to Laura, though she did not 
 sympathize with her; and that was no fault of hers: 
 sympathy is much more an intellectual than a moral 
 endowment. However kind, dull, and stupid people 
 may be, they can rarely sympathize with any trouble 
 unless they have gone through one just like it them- 
 selves. 
 
 You may hear it said, " Ah, I can sympathize with 
 him, poor fellow, for I have a wooden leg myself," 
 or, "Yes, being a widow, I know what a widow's 
 feelings are," and so on. 
 
 No one has a right to blame these people ; they are 
 as kind as any ; it is not their fault that some are 
 living among them to whom no experience at all is 
 necessary, and who not only could sympathize, but 
 do in thought, with the very angel that never fell, 
 when they consider what it must be to him if the 
 mortal child he has to watch goes wrong; with the 
 poor weak drunkard who wishes he could keep sober, 
 but feels, when he would fain pass by it, that the 
 gin-shop, like a devil-fish, sends forth long tentacles 
 and ruthlessly sucks him in; with the mother-whale, 
 when her wilful young one insists on swimming up
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 21 5 
 
 the fiord, and she who has risked her life to warn him 
 must hear the thud of the harpoon in his side ; with 
 the old tired horse, when they fetch him in from his 
 sober reverie in the fields, and put his blinkers on ; 
 with anything else? — yes, with the bluebells, whose 
 life above ground is so short, when wasteful children 
 tread them down ; — these all feel something that one 
 would fain save them from. So perhaps does the 
 rose-tree also, when some careless boy goes by 
 whooping in the joy of his heart, and whips off her 
 buds with his cane. 
 
 Fruitful sympathy must doubtless have some like- 
 ness of nature, and also a certain kindliness to found 
 itself on ; but it comes more from a penetrative 
 keenness of observation, from the patient investi- 
 gations of thought, from those vivid intuitions that 
 wait on imagination, from a good memory, which 
 can live over again in circumstances that are 
 changed, and from that intelligent possession of 
 the whole of one's foregone life, which makes it 
 impossible to ignore the power of any great emo- 
 tion or passion merely because it is past. Where 
 these qualities are there should be, for there can 
 be. sympathy.
 
 216 FATED TO BE FRKE. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe was fond of her one child; but she 
 had forgotten what her own nature, thoughts, fears, 
 and wishes, as well as joys, had been in childhood. 
 In like manner, as she was, on the whole, contented 
 herself, she not only thought that her own example 
 ought to make Laura contented, but she frequently 
 pointed this out to her. 
 
 The child is to the father and mother, who im- 
 parted life to him, and who see his youth, the most 
 excellent consolation that nature can afford them for 
 the loss of their own youth, and for the shortness of 
 life in themselves ; but if a mother is therefore con- 
 vinced that her child is a consoler to those who have 
 none, he is sure, at some time or other, to be con- 
 sidered an unmitigated bore. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe often thought, " Laura has my 
 child with her constantly to amuse her, and has none 
 of the responsibility about him that I have. Laura 
 goes to the shops with me, sees me give the orders, 
 and I frequently even consult her ; she goes with me 
 into the garden, and sees the interest I take in the 
 wall-fruit and the new asparagus-bed, and yet she 
 never takes example by me. She will eat just as 
 many of these things as I shall, though she often
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 217 
 
 follows me about the place looking as if she scarcely 
 cared for them at all." 
 
 Laura was pleased, however, to go to Wigfield and 
 stay with Grand, and have for a companion a careless, 
 childish girl, who undertook with enthusiasm to teach 
 her to drive, and if old Grand wanted his horses, 
 would borrow any rats of ponies that she could get. 
 
 Laura spent many happy hours with Liz and the 
 Mortimer children, now huddled into an old tub of a 
 punt, eating cakes and curd for lunch, now having 
 a picnic in the wood, and boiling the kettle out of 
 doors, and at other times welcomed into the long 
 loft called " Parliament ; " but she seldom saw John 
 Mortimer himself, for Lizzie was always anxious to 
 be back in good time for dinner. She valued her 
 place at the head of the table, and the indulgent old 
 Grand perceived this plainly. He liked Laura well 
 enough ; but Liz was the kind of creature whom he 
 could be fond of. They were both foolish girls. Liz 
 took no manner of pains to improve herself any more 
 than Laura did ; but Laura was full of uneasy little 
 affectations, capricious changes of manner, and shy- 
 ness, and Liz was absolutely simple, and as confiding 
 as a child.
 
 2 lS FATED TO HE FREE. 
 
 The only useful thing the girls did while they 
 stayed with Grand was to go into the town twice a 
 week and devote a couple of hours to a coal ami 
 clothing club, setting down the savings of the poor, 
 and keeping the books. This bi-weekly visit had 
 < onsequences as regarded one of them, but it was 
 the one who did not care what happened ; and they 
 parted at the end of their visit, having become a 
 good deal attached to each other, and intending to 
 correspond as fully and frequently as is the manner of 
 girls. 
 
 The intelligent mind, it may be taken for granted, 
 is able to grasp the thought that one may be a very 
 fair, and even copious, letter-writer, and yet show 
 nothing like diffusiveness in writing to an ancient 
 aunt. 
 
 The leaves were all dropping when Laura came 
 home, and was received into the spirit of the autumn, 
 breathing in that sense of silence that comes from 
 absence of the birds, while in still mornings, unstirred 
 of any wind, the leaves let themselves go, and the 
 (lowers give it up and drop and close. She was 
 rather sad ; but she found amusement in writing to 
 Li/, and as the days got to their shortest, with
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 219 
 
 nothing to relieve their monotony, there was pleasure 
 to be got out of the long answers, which set forth 
 how Valentine was really going to be married soon 
 after Christmas, and what Liz was going to wear, how 
 Dorothea was coming down to be married from 
 Wigfield House, to please " sister," and how it would 
 all be such fun — " Only three weeks, Laura dear, to 
 the delightful day ! " Finally, how Dorothea had 
 arrived — and oh, such a lovely trousseau ! and she 
 had never looked half so sweet and pretty before, 
 " and in four days, dear, the wedding is to be ; eighty 
 people to breakfast — only think ! and you shall be 
 told all about it." 
 
 Laura felt herself slightly injured when, a week 
 after this, she had not been told anything. She felt 
 even surprised when another week passed, and yet 
 there was silence ; but at the end of it, she came 
 rushing one morning into Amelia's room, quite 
 flushed from excitement, and with an open letter in 
 her hand. 
 
 "They're not married at all," she exclaimed, 
 " Valentine and Miss Graham ! There has been no 
 wedding, and there is none coming off. Valentine 
 has jilted her."
 
 2 20 FATED TO HE FREE. 
 
 "Nonsense," cried Mrs. Melcombe. "You must 
 be dreaming — tilings had gone so far," and she sat 
 down, feeling suddenly weak from amazement. 
 
 " But it is so," repeated Laura, " here is the whole 
 account, I tell you. When the time came he never 
 appeared." 
 
 " What a disgraceful shame ! " exclaimed Amelia, 
 and Laura proceeded to read to her this long- 
 expected letter : — 
 
 " Dearest Laura, — I don't know how to begin, 
 and I hardly know what to tell you, because I am so 
 ashamed of it all ; and I promised to give you an 
 account of the wedding, but I can't. What will you 
 think when I tell you that there was none ? Valen- 
 tine never came. I told you that Dorothea was in 
 the house, but that he had gone away to take leave 
 of various friends, because, after the wedding, they 
 were to sail almost immediately, and so, — I must 
 make short work with this, because I hate it to 
 that degree. There was the great snowstorm, as you 
 know, and when he did not come home we thought 
 he must be blocked up somewhere, and then we were 
 afraid he was very ill. At last when still it snowed,
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 22 1 
 
 and still he did not come, Giles went in search of 
 him, and it was not till the very day before the wed- 
 ding that he got back, having found out the whole 
 detestable thing. 
 
 " Poor Val ! and we used to think him such a dear 
 fellow. Of course I cannot help being fond of him 
 still, but, Laura, he has disgracefully attached himself 
 to another girl ; he could not bear to come home and 
 be married, and he knew St. George would be in 
 such a rage that he did not dare to tell." 
 
 " Young scamp ! " exclaimed Amelia ; " such a tall, 
 handsome fellow to, who would have believed it of 
 him ? " 
 
 " Well, Laura dear, when I saw St. George come 
 in, I was so frightened that I fainted. Dorothea was 
 quite calm — quite still — she had been so all the time. 
 It makes me cry to think what she must have felt, 
 dear sweet thing ; but such a day as that one was, 
 Laura, I cannot describe, and you cannot imagine. 
 The whole country was completely snowed up. St. 
 George had telegraphed to John Mortimer, from 
 London, to be at our house, if possible, by four 
 o'clock, for something had gone wrong, and his 
 horses, because of the deep drift, overturned the
 
 22 2 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 phaeton into a ditch. John rolled out, but managed 
 to wade on to us ; he was half covered with snow 
 when I came down just as light was failing, and saw 
 him in the hall stamping about and shaking the 
 snow out of his pockets and from his hair. I heard 
 him sighing and saying how sad it was, for we 
 thought Val must be ill, till Giles came up to him, 
 and in two minutes told him what had happened. 
 Oh I never saw anybody in such a fury as he put 
 himself into ! I was quite surprised. He almost 
 stuttered with rage. What was the use either of his 
 storming at Giles, as if he could help it, or indeed 
 any of us ? And then sister was very much hurt, for 
 she came hurrying into the hall, and began to cry ; 
 she does so like, poor thing, that people should take- 
 things quietly. And presently, grinding and crunch- 
 ing through the snow, with four horses, came dear 
 old Grand, done up in comforters, in the close car- 
 riage. He had driven round the other way; he 
 knew something was wrong, and he came into the 
 hall with such trembling hands, thinking Val was 
 dying or perhaps dead. And then what a passion 
 he got into, too, when John told him, it's no use at 
 all my trying to explain to you ; he actually cried,
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 223 
 
 and when he had dried his eyes, he shook his fists, 
 and said he was ashamed of his name. 
 
 " It was very disagreeable for us, as you may 
 suppose. It was dusk before sister and St. George 
 could get them to think of what we had to do. To 
 send and stop the bells from ringing early the next 
 morning ; to stop several people who were coming by 
 rail to dinner that day, and expecting to sleep in the 
 house on account of the unusual weather; to let 
 Dick A' Court know, and the other clergyman, who 
 were to have married them ; and to prevent as many 
 people as possible from coming to the breakfast, or 
 to the church; to stop the men who were making a 
 path to it through the drift — Oh you can't think 
 what a confusion there presently was, and we had 
 four or five hired flys in the stable, ready to fetch our 
 friends, and take them to church, too ; and there 
 was such a smell all over, of roasting things and 
 baking things. Well, Laura, off we all set into the 
 kitchen, and sent off the hired men with the flys, and 
 every servant we had in the house, male or female 
 — and Grand's men too — excepting sister's little 
 maid to attend to Dorothea. They went with mes- 
 sages and letters and telegrams right and left, to
 
 224 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 prevent the disgrace of any more people coming to 
 look at us. And then, when they were all gone, we 
 being in the kitchen, John soon recollected how the 
 cook had begged us to be very particular, and put 
 water every now and then into the boiler, for the 
 pipe that supplied it was frozen, and if we didn't 
 mind it would burst. So off he and Giles had to go 
 into the dark yard and get in some water, and then 
 they had to fetch in coals for the fires, and when 
 John found that all the water in the back kitchen 
 was frozen, and there was none but what was boiling 
 to wash his hands in, he broke out again and de- 
 nounced Val, and that minute up came the carrier's 
 cart to the back door, having rescued the four 
 smallest Mortimers and Aunt Christie and the nurse, 
 who had been found stuck fast in the sociable in a 
 drift, and in the children burst, full of ecstasy and 
 congratulations, and thinking it the greatest fun in 
 the world that we should all be in the kitchen. 
 And while Grand sat in low spirits at one side of the 
 fire, and they began to amuse themselves by pulling 
 in all the fish-baskets, and parcels, and boxes, and 
 wedding presents, that the carriers had left outside 
 in the snow (because John wouldn't let them come
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 225 
 
 in and see us), St. George sat at the end of the 
 dresser with his arms folded, smoked a cigar, and 
 held his peace. He must have been very much tired, 
 as well as disgusted, poor fellow, for he had been 
 rushing about the country for three days and nights ; 
 so he left all the others to do just what they liked, 
 and say what they liked. And very soon the whole 
 confusion got to its height, by the elder children 
 coming in and being told, and flying at John to con- 
 dole and cry over him, and entreat him not to mind. 
 John, indeed ! just as if we didn't care at all ! It 
 was intended that all the children should sleep in 
 our house, for it is so near the church, and nothing 
 could prevent the younger ones from thinking it all 
 the most glorious fun. What with having been stuck 
 fast, and then coming on in the cart and finding us in 
 the kitchen, and having supper there, they were so 
 delighted that they could not conceal their ecstasy. 
 
 " As for little Anastasia, when the weights of the 
 great kitchen clock ran down, and it stopped with 
 an awful sort of gasping click, I believe she thought 
 that was the wedding, for she ran up to St. George, 
 who still sat on the dresser, and said — 
 
 " 'Shan't we have another one to-morrow?' 
 
 vol. 1. Q
 
 2 26 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 " ' No, you stoopid little thing ! ' Bertie said. ' You 
 know Cousin Val won't come to do the marrying.' 
 
 " ' But somebody must,' she went on, ' else we can't 
 have our new nopera cloaks and our satin frocks. 
 Can't papa ? ' 
 
 " ' No, papa doesn't wish,' said Bertie ; ' I asked him.' 
 
 " ' Then,' she said, looking up at St. George, and 
 speaking in a very pathetic tone, ' you will, dear, 
 won't you? because you know you're so kind.' 
 
 " I just happened to glance at St. George then, 
 and you can't think, Laura, how astonished I was. 
 He turned away his face, and sister, who was stand- 
 ing close by, lifted up the child and let her kiss him. 
 Then he got down from the dresser and went away ; 
 but, Laura, if he had wished more than anything in 
 the world to marry Dorothea, he might have looked 
 just so. 
 
 "Don't tell any one what I have said about this. 
 Perhaps I was mistaken. 1 will write again soon. 
 " Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 "Elizabeth Grant." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Melcombe, "it's the most dis- 
 graceful thing I ever heard of."
 
 WANTED A DESERT ISLAND. 227 
 
 " And here is a postscript," remarked Laura : 
 "nothing particular, though: — 'P.S. — Dorothea was 
 ill at first; but she is better. I must tell you that 
 dear old Grand, the next morning, apologized to 
 sister for having so lost his temper; he said it was 
 the old Adam that was strong in him still.' "
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VALENTINE. 
 
 "It be bad known where he was going to fall, he could have put down 
 straw." — Russian Proverb. 
 
 T AURA wrote with difficulty an answer to Lizzy 
 — ' Grant's letter. It is easier for the sister to 
 say, " My brother is a dishonourable young fellow, 
 and has behaved shamefully," than for the friend to 
 answer without offence, "I quite agree with you." 
 
 But the next letter made matters in some degree 
 easier, for it at least showed the direction that his 
 family gave to the excuses they now offered for the 
 behaviour of the young scapegrace. First, he had 
 been very unwell in London — almost seriously un- 
 well ; and next, Lizzy said she had been quite right 
 as to St. George's love for Dorothea, for he had made 
 her an offer before she left the house. 
 
 ••In fact," continued Liz, "we have all decided, 
 so far as we can, to overlook what Val has done,
 
 VALENTINE. 229 
 
 for he is deeply attached to the girl who, without any 
 fault of her own, has supplanted Dorothea. He is 
 already engaged to her, and if he is allowed to marry 
 her early in the spring, and sail for New Zealand, 
 he is not likely ever to return ; at any rate, he will 
 not for very many years. In that case, you know, 
 Laura, we shall only be with him about six weeks 
 longer ; so I hope our friends will forgive us for for- 
 giving him." 
 
 " They are fond of him, that is the fact," observed 
 Mrs. Melcombe ; "and to be sure the other brother, 
 wanting to marry Miss Graham, does seem to make 
 some difference, some excuse; but as to his illness, 
 I don't think much of that. I remember when his 
 old father came here to the funeral, I remarked that 
 Valentine looked overgrown, and not strong, and 
 Mr. Mortimer said he had been very delicate himself 
 all his youth, and often had a cough (far more deli- 
 cate, in fact, than his son was) ; but he had outgrown 
 it, and enjoyed very fair health for many years." 
 
 Then Laura went on reading : — 
 
 " Besides, we think that, though Dorothea refused 
 St. George point blank when he made her an offer, 
 yet she would hardly write to him every week as
 
 -3° 1 ATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 she docs, if she did not like him, and he would 
 hardly be so very silent and reserved about her, and 
 yet evidently in such good spirits, if he did not think 
 that something in the end would come of it." 
 
 ' No," said Mrs. Melcombe, laughing in a cynical 
 spirit, " the ridiculous scrape they are in does not 
 end with Valentine. If he was really ill, there could 
 be no thought of his marriage with this other girl ; 
 and, besides, Miss Graham (if this is true) will have 
 far the best of the two brothers. St. George, as they 
 are so fond of calling him (I suppose because Giles is 
 such an ugly name), is far better off than Valentine, 
 and has ten times more sense.'' 
 
 "Dorothea is gone to the Isle of Wight," con- 
 tinued Laura, finishing the letter, " to live with some 
 old friends. She has no relatives, poor girl, except- 
 ing a father, who is somewhere at the other end of 
 the world, and he seems to take very little notice of 
 her. There is, indeed, an old uncle, but he lives at 
 sea ; he is almost always at sea in his yacht, and her 
 only brother sails with him; but nobody knows in 
 the least where they are now. It is very sad for her, 
 and she told St. George, and sister too, that she had 
 only loved Val out of gratitude, because he seemed so
 
 VALENTINE. 23 1 
 
 much attached to tier, and because she wanted some- 
 body to devote herself to." 
 
 In her next letter Liz told Laura that she herself 
 was to be married shortly to Dick A'Court, " who 
 says he fell in love with me when we two used to 
 add up the coal-and-clothing cards." In these words, 
 and in no more, the information was imparted, 
 and the rest of the letter was so stiff and formal that 
 Laura's pleasure in the correspondence ended with 
 it. The realities of life were beginning to make her 
 child-friend feel sober and reticent. 
 
 Laura wrote a long effusive letter in reply, full of 
 tender congratulations on the high lot that awaited 
 Liz as the helpmeet of a devoted clergyman, also on 
 the joys of happy lovers ; but this composition did 
 not touch the feelings of Liz in the right place. 
 " Just as if I had not told her," she thought, " that 
 Emily was come home from India, and that I had 
 consented to accept Dick partly to please her, be- 
 cause she was sure I should be sorry for it afterwards 
 if I didn't So I dare say I should have been," she 
 continued thoughtfully. " In fact, I am almost sure 
 of it. But I know very well, whatever Emily may 
 say, that Dick will make me do just as he likes. I
 
 232 l All'.I) Tl I BE FREE. 
 
 am sure I shall have to practise those quire boys of his, 
 and they will bawl in my ears and call me teacher." 
 
 So thinking, Liz allowed herself to drift towards 
 matrimony without enthusiasm, but with a general 
 notion that, as most people were married sooner or 
 later, no doubt matrimony was the proper thing and 
 the best thing on the whole. " And I shall certainly 
 go through with it, now I have promised," she further 
 reflected, "for it would never do for another of us to 
 behave badly just at the last." 
 
 It was the last week in March, and Laura was 
 loitering through the garden one morning before 
 breakfast, when Mrs. Melcombe came out to her in 
 some excitement with a note in her hand, which had 
 been sent on from the inn, and which set forth that 
 Mi. Brandon, having business in that immediate 
 neighbourhood, would, if agreeable to her, do himself 
 the pleasure of calling some time that morning. He 
 added that he had brought a book for Miss Mel- 
 combe from his sister. 
 
 "I have sent to the inn," said Mrs. Melcombe, 
 " to beg that he will come on here to breakfast." 
 
 Laura had been gathering a bunch of violets, and 
 she rushed up-stairs and put them into her hair.
 
 VALENTINE. 233 
 
 Then in a great hurry she changed her toilette, and, 
 after ascertaining that the guest had arrived, she came 
 languidly into the breakfast room, a straw-hat hang- 
 ing by its strings from her arm, and filled with prim- 
 roses and other flowers. She felt as she approached 
 that all this looked quite romantic, but it did not 
 look so real and so unpremeditated as might have 
 been wished. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe had also changed her array. 
 Little Peter, like most other children, was always the 
 picture of cleanly neatness when first he left his 
 nurse's hand in the morning, and his mother was 
 much pleased at the evident interest with which their 
 guest regarded him, asking him various questions 
 about his lessons, his sports, and his pony. She 
 had been deeply gratified at the kind way in which 
 all the Mortimers and their connections had received 
 her boy ; none of them seemed at all jealous. Even 
 Valentine had never hinted or even looked at her as 
 if he felt that the property ought not to have gone to 
 the younger branch. 
 
 Peter, now ten years old, and but a small boy for 
 his age, had an average degree of intelligence ; and 
 as he sat winking and blinking in the morning sun-
 
 234 FATED TO HE FRKE. 
 
 shine, he constantly shook back a lock of hair that 
 fell over his forehead, till Brandon, quietly putting 
 his hand to it, moved it away, and while the boy 
 related some childish adventure that he had encour- 
 aged him to talk of, looked at him with scrutinizing 
 and, as it seemed to his mother, with almost anxious 
 attention. 
 
 "Peter has been very poorly several times this 
 winter," she remarked. " I mean shortly to take him 
 out for change of air." 
 
 " His forehead looks pale," said Brandon, with- 
 drawing his hand, and for a minute or two he seemed 
 lost in thought, till Airs. Melcombe, expressing a 
 hope that he would stay at her house as long as his 
 affairs detained him in that neighbourhood, he 
 accepted her invitation with great readiness. He 
 would spend that day and the next with her, and, 
 if she would permit it, he would walk with young 
 hopeful to his tutor's house, and come back again in 
 time for luncheon. 
 
 " I declare, he scarcely spoke to me all breakfast- 
 time," thought Laura. " I consider him decidedly 
 a proud man, and any one might think he had come- 
 to see Peter rather than to see us."
 
 VALENTINE. 235 
 
 Brandon evidently did wish to walk with the boy, 
 and accordingly rose as soon as he had finished his 
 breakfast, Mrs. Melcombe giving him some direc- 
 tions, and a key to let himself in with by a side gate. 
 
 All the intelligence Brandon possessed, and all his 
 keenness of observation, he exercised during his walk 
 with the little heir. He could generally attract chil- 
 dren, and Peter was already well inclined toward him, 
 for he had shown himself to be knowing about a 
 country boy's pleasures ; also he knew all about the 
 little Mortimers and their doings. 
 
 Brandon wished to see Melcombe, even to exa- 
 mine some parts of the house and grounds, and he 
 wanted if possible to hear something more about the 
 ghost story; but it did not suit him to betray any 
 special interest. So he left it to work its way to the 
 surface if it would. It was not the business he had 
 come about, but he had undertaken to transact that, 
 on purpose because it gave him a chance of looking 
 at the place. 
 
 This was the deep glen, then, that he had heard 
 Valentine speak of? 
 
 " Yes ; and mother says the old uncle Mortimer 
 (that one who lived at Wigfield) improved it so
 
 2,^6 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 much; he had so many trees thinned out. and a pond 
 dug where there used to be a swamp. We've got 
 some carp in that pond. Do you think, if I fed 
 them, they would gel tame? " 
 
 Brandon told some anecdote of certain carp that 
 he had seen abroad, and then asked — 
 
 " Do you like the glen, my boy — is it a favourite 
 place of yours ? " 
 
 " Pretty well," answered Peter. " There are not 
 so many nests, though, as there used to be. It used 
 to be quite dark with trees." 
 
 " Did you like it then ? " 
 
 " Yes, it was jolly ; but " 
 
 " But what ? " asked Brandon carelessly. 
 
 " Grandmother didn't like it," said the boy. 
 
 Brandon longed to ask why. 
 
 " She was very old, my grandmother." 
 
 " Yes. And so she didn't like the glen ? " 
 
 " No; but the old uncle has had a walk, a sort of 
 path, made through it; and mamma says I may like 
 it as much as I please, so docs aunt Laura. " You 
 know," continued the child, in an argumentative tone, 
 "there's no place in the world where somebody hasn't 
 died."
 
 VALENTINE. 237 
 
 " Now, what does this mean?" thought Brandon. 
 " I would fain raise the ghost if I could. Is he 
 coming up now, or is he not?" 
 
 Presently, however, Peter made some allusion to 
 the family misfortune- — the death of the eldest son, 
 by which Brandon perceived that it had taken place 
 in the glen. He then dropped the subject, nothing 
 more that was said till a few minutes before they 
 reached the tutor's lodgings being of the least 
 interest. Then, as they turned the edge of a wood, 
 Peter looked back. 
 
 " You won't forget the turn of the lane you are to 
 take, will you, Mr. Brandon? and you've got the key?" 
 
 " Yes," said Brandon. 
 
 " It's a green sort of door, in the park-paling. A 
 new one has been made, because that one was so 
 shabby. It's the one my uncles went through when 
 they ran away, you know." 
 
 " What uncles ? " asked Brandon, not at all sus- 
 pecting the truth, and not much interested. 
 
 " Why, that one who belonged to you," said Peter, 
 " and the other one who belongs to Bertie and Hugh. 
 Didn't you know?" he exclaimed, having observed 
 the momentary flash of surprise that Brandon made
 
 238 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 haste to conceal. " They ran away," he repeated, 
 as Brandon walked beside him making no answer, 
 " a very long time before my mamma was born, and 
 they never came back any more till I was nearly six 
 years old.'' 
 
 " So that's your tutor's house, is it ? " said 
 Brandon, and thereupon he took leave of him. 
 
 " Amazing ! " he said to himself as he walked 
 away. " What next, I wonder? " 
 
 As he returned he revolved this information in his 
 mind with increasing surprise. John Mortimer had 
 a proud and confident way of talking about his father 
 that did not sound as if he knew that he had begun 
 life by running away from home. Valentine, he was 
 well aware, knew nothing about it. 
 
 Coming on, he turned aside to talk to some men 
 who were digging a well. He knew how to talk to 
 working people, ami, what is more to the purpose, he 
 knew how to make them talk ; but though they prof- 
 fered a good deal of information about the neighbour- 
 hood, nothing was said that gave him any of the 
 knowledge lie wanted. And shortly he went on, and 
 let himself in at the little gate with his key. It was 
 not yet eleven o'clock, and as he did not want to see
 
 VALENTINE. 239 
 
 the ladies of the family so soon, he determined to go 
 down into the steep glen and look about him. 
 
 He had no doubt now that to this place the 
 superstitious story belonged. 
 
 First, he skirted it all about. From above it was 
 nearly as round as a cup, and as deep in proportion 
 to its size. The large old trees had been left, and 
 appeared almost to fill it up, their softly rounded 
 heads coming to within three feet of the level where 
 he stood. All the mother birds — rooks, jays, 
 thrushes, and pigeons — were plainly in view under 
 him, as they sat brooding on their nests among the 
 topmost twigs, and there was a great cawing and 
 crowing of the cock-birds while they flew about and 
 fed their mates. The leaves were not out ; their 
 buds only looked like green eggs spotting the trees, 
 excepting that here and there a horse-chestnut, 
 forwarder than its brethren, was pushing its crum- 
 pled foliage out of the pale-pink sheath. Every- 
 where saplings had been cut down, and numbers of 
 them strewed the damp mossy ground ; but light 
 penetrated, and water trinkled, there was a pleasant 
 scent of herbs and flowers, and the whole place was 
 cheerful with growth and spring.
 
 240 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 A set of winding steps cut in the soft, red ruck 
 led into the glen just where the side was steepest, 
 and Brandon, intent on discovery, sprang lightly 
 down them. He wandered almost everywhere about 
 the place. It seemed to hold within itself a 
 different climate from the world above, where keen 
 spring air was stirring; here hardly a breath moved, 
 and in the soft sheltered warmth the leaves appeared 
 visibly to be expanding. He forgot his object, also 
 another object that he had in view (the business, in 
 fact, which had brought him), leaned against the 
 trunk of a horse-chestnut, listened to the missel- 
 thrushes, looked at a pine-tree a little way off, that 
 was letting down a mist of golden dust, and pre- 
 sently lost himself in a reverie, finding, as is the 
 way with a lover, that the scene present, whatever 
 it may happen to be, was helping to master his every- 
 day self, was indeed just the scene to semi him 
 plunging yet further down into the depths of his 
 passionate dream. 
 
 He had stood leaning against the tree, with his 
 hat at his feet and his arms folded, for perhaps half 
 an hour. He had inherited a world (with an ideal 
 companion), had become absorbed into a lifetime of
 
 VALENTINE. 24 1 
 
 hope ; and his love appeared to grow without let or 
 hindrance in the growing freshness and glorious ex- 
 pansion of the spring. 
 
 Half an hour of hope and joy consoles for much 
 foregone trouble, and further satisfies the heart by 
 making it an easier thing to believe in more yet to 
 come. 
 
 A sudden exclamation and a little crash roused 
 him. 
 
 Laura ! She had come to visit her favourite tree, 
 and lo ! a man there at last, leaning against it lost 
 in thought, and so absolutely still that she had not 
 noticed him. 
 
 She knew in an instant that this was not Joseph, 
 and yet as the sight of him flashed on her sense 
 before recognition, the nothingness she always found 
 gave way to a feeling as of something real, that 
 almost might have been the right thing. As for him, 
 though he saw her flitting figure, she did not for the 
 twinkling of an eye pass for the ghost he had come 
 to look for. He roused himself up in an instant. 
 " Whew ! " was his inward thought, " she is alone ; 
 what could be so lucky ! I'll do the business at 
 once, and get it over." 
 
 vol. 1. R
 
 -?.}- ! All I) TO BE FREE. 
 
 Picking up his hat, and sinking at every step into 
 the soft cushions of moss, he accordingly approached 
 her and said, but perhaps just a little coldly, " I did 
 not expect to see you here, Miss Melcombe." 
 
 Laura perceived this slight tinge of coldness as 
 plainly as he did the improvement in her appear- 
 ance since he had first seen her in the morning, 
 for surprise at detecting him had overpowered her 
 affectation. She had coloured from having been 
 startled, and while she, from habit, moved on 
 mechanically to the tree, she answered quite simply 
 and naturally that she walked that^way almost every 
 day. 
 
 Brandon turned and walked with her. Opposite 
 to the said tree, and very near it, was another, under 
 which stood a bench. Laura sat down, ami while 
 pointing out the spot where certain herons had built 
 their platformdike nests, began to recover herself, or 
 rather to put on the damaging affectation which in 
 a moment of forgetfulness she had thrown off. 
 
 Brandon did not sit beside her, but while she 
 arranged her dress to her mind, threw her plaid shawl 
 into becoming folds, and laying her hand on her 
 bracelet, furtively drew the ornament upon it to the
 
 VALENTINE. 243 
 
 upper side, he looked at her and thought what a 
 goose she was. 
 
 She wore a straw hat with so wide a brim that as 
 he stood before her he did not see her face, and he 
 was not sorry for this ; it was not his business to 
 reprove her, but what he had to say would, he sup- 
 posed, put her a good deal out of countenance. 
 
 He was just about to speak, and Laura was in the 
 full enjoyment of feeling how romantic it was to be 
 there alone widr a young man, was just wishing that 
 some of her friends could be looking down from 
 above to see this interesting picture, and draw certain 
 conclusions, when a decidedly sharp voice called out 
 from behind, " Laura ! what can you be doing here ? 
 You know I don't like you to be for ever coming to 
 that tree. — Laura ! " 
 
 " Yes, I'm here," said Laura, and Mrs. Melcombe, 
 arrayed in blue poplin, stepped into view, and made 
 Brandon feel very foolish and Laura very cross. 
 
 " Oh ! you've brought Mr. Brandon here to see 
 the carp," said Amelia graciously, but she hardly 
 knew what to think, and they all presently went to 
 the pond, and watched the creatures flashing up their 
 golden sides, each wondering all the time what the
 
 244 FATED TO HE FREE. 
 
 two others were thinking of. Then as it was nearly 
 lunch time, Amelia and Laura proceeded to leave 
 i he dell, Brandon attending them and helping them 
 up the steps. He was rather vexed that he had not 
 been able to say his say and give Laura a certain 
 packet that he had in his possession ; and as the 
 afternoon presently clouded over and it began to 
 pour with rain, he hardly knew what to do with 
 himself till the bright idea occurred to him that 
 he would ask Mrs. Melcombe to show him the old 
 house. 
 
 Up and down stairs and into a good many rooms 
 they all three proceeded together. Hardly any pic- 
 tures to found a question or a theory on; no old 
 china with a story belonging to it; no brown books 
 that had been loved by dead Melcombes. This 
 could not have been a studious race. Not a single 
 anecdote was told of the dead all the time they went 
 over the place, till at last Mrs. Melcombe unlocked 
 the door of a dark, old-fashioned sitting-room up- 
 stairs, and going to the shutters opened one of them, 
 
 . tog, " This is the room in which the dear old 
 grandmother spent the later years of her life." 
 
 This really was an interesting old room. Laura
 
 VALENTINE. 245 
 
 and Amelia folded back the shutters with a genuine 
 air of reverence and feeling. It was most evident 
 that they had loved this woman whose son had for- 
 bidden her to leave her property to him. 
 
 Two or three dark old pictures hung on the walls, 
 and there was a cabinet on which Laura laying her 
 hand, said — 
 
 "The dear grandmother kept all her letters here." 
 " Indeed," Brandon answered ; " it must have been 
 very interesting to you to look them over. (And 
 yet," he thought, " you don't look as if you had found 
 in them anything of much interest.") 
 
 "We have never opened it," said Mrs. Mel- 
 combe. " Mr. Mortimer, when he was here, pro- 
 posed to look over and sort all the letters for me, but 
 I declined his offer." 
 
 (" And no doubt made him miserable by so 
 doing") was Brandon's next thought. 
 
 " I shall keep the key for my dear boy," she con- 
 tinued, " and give it to him when he comes of age." 
 
 ("To find out something that he will wish he 
 didn't know,") thought Brandon again. (" That 
 cabinet, as likely as not, contains the evidence of if, 
 whatever if is.")
 
 246 I A I l.l 1 TO BE FREE. 
 
 •' And in this gallery outside," she proceeded, " the 
 dear grandmother used to walk every day." 
 
 Brandon perceived that he had got to the core and 
 heart of the place at last. His interest was so intense 
 that he failed to conceal it. He walked to the 
 window and noticed the pouring rain that was strea- 
 ming between the rustic pillars of the balustrades 
 into the garden below. He examined the pictures; 
 only two of them were portraits, but in the back- 
 ground of one was an undoubted representation of 
 the house itself; the other was a portrait of a beauti- 
 ful boy in a blue jacket and a shirt with a wide frill 
 laid back and open at the neck. Under his arm 
 appeared the head of a greyish dog. 
 
 "That creature," Brandon thought, " is almost exactly 
 like my old dog Smokey. I am very much mistaken 
 if this is not the portrait of one of his ancestors." 
 
 He turned to ask some question about it, and 
 observed to his surprise that Mrs. Mclcombe had 
 left the room, and he was alone with Laura, who had 
 seated herself on a sofa and taken a long piece of 
 crochet-work from her pocket, which she was doing 
 almost with the air of one who waits patiently till 
 somebody else has finished his investigations.
 
 VALENTINE. 247 
 
 " I thought you would be interested in that 
 picture," she said ; " you recognise it, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " It used not to be here," said Laura ; " the dear 
 grandmother, as long as she lived, always had it 
 in her bedroom. It's Mr. Mortimer, your step- 
 father, when he was a boy, and that was his dog, a 
 great favourite ; when he ran away the dog disap- 
 peared — it was always supposed that it ran after him. 
 I suppose," continued Laura, impelled to say this 
 to some one who was sure to be impressed by it — 
 " I suppose nobody ever did mourn as my grand- 
 mother did over the loss of those two sons. Yet she 
 never used to blame them." 
 
 They did run away then, and they did keep away, 
 and yet she did not blame them. How deeply 
 pathetic these things seemed. Whatever it might be 
 that had made his step-father write that letter, it 
 appeared now to be thrown back to the time when he 
 had divided himself thus from his family and taken 
 his boy brother with him. 
 
 "And that other portrait," said Laura, "we found 
 up in one of the garrets, and hung here when the 
 house was restored. It is the portrait of my grand-
 
 248 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 mother's only brother, who was sixteen or eighteen 
 years younger than she was. His name was Melcombe, 
 which was her maiden name, but ours, you know, was 
 really Mortimer. It is very much darkened by time 
 and neglect, and never was of any particular value." 
 
 " What has he got under his arm ? " said Brandon. 
 
 " I think it is a cocked hat or some kind of hat. I 
 think they wore cocked hats then in the navy ; he 
 was a lieutenant in the navy. You see some sort of 
 gold lace on it, and on the hilt of his sword." 
 
 " Did he die at sea?" asked Brandon. 
 
 " Yes. My great-grandfather left this place to his 
 son, and as he died unmarried it was to come to our 
 eldest uncle, and then to grandmother, as it did, you 
 know." 
 
 " ' Its name was Melcombe, and it came from the 
 sea,' " Brandon repeated inwardly, adding, " Well, 
 the ghost can have had nothing to do with this 
 mystery. I shall trouble myself no more about 
 him." 
 
 " He was only about a year older than my oldest 
 uncle," proceeded Laura, " for grandmother married 
 at seventeen." 
 
 Brandon looked again. Something in the two
 
 VALENTINE. 249 
 
 pictures reminded him of the portraits of the Flam- 
 bourgh family. They had evidently been done by 
 the same artist. Each youth had something under 
 his left arm, each was turning his face slightly, and 
 they both looked the same way. Young Daniel 
 Mortimer was so placed that his quiet eyes seemed to 
 be always regarding the hearth, now empty of warmth. 
 The other, hung on the same wall, seemed to look 
 out into the garden, and Laura said in a sentimental 
 way that, considering the evident love she had borne 
 her grandmother, was not at all out of place. 
 
 " There is a bed of lilies that dear grandmother 
 used to love to watch, and Amelia and I thought it 
 interesting when we had had this picture put up to 
 observe that its eyes seemed to fall on the same 
 place. They were not friends, my grandmother and 
 her brother, and no doubt after his death my grand- 
 mother laid their frequent quarrels to heart, for she 
 could never bear to mention him, though she had a 
 beautiful monument put up to his memory. You 
 must go and see it, Mr. Brandon. We have lately 
 had it cleaned, and dear grandmother's name added 
 under his." 
 
 " I will," said Brandon.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VKNERABLE ANCIENTRY. 
 
 Even .i"; the sparrow findeth an house, and the swallow a nost for 
 herself where slic may lay her young, so 1 seek thine altars, O Lord of 
 Hosts, my King and my God."— Psalm Uxxiv., Marginal translation. 
 
 P) ISING early the next morning, Brandon found 
 that he had an hour to spare before breakfast, 
 and sallied forth for an early walk. A delicate hoar- 
 frost still made white the shade, and sparkled all over 
 the sombre leaves of some fine yew-trees that grew 
 outside the garden wall. 
 
 Walking up a little rise, he saw the weathercock 
 and one turret of a church tower peering over the 
 edge of a small steep hill, close at hand, and turning 
 toward it he went briskly on, under the lee of a short 
 fir plantation, all the grass being pure and fresh with 
 hoar-frost, which melted in every hollow and shadow 
 as fast as the sun came round to it. 
 
 The house was too large and pretentious for the
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 251 
 
 grounds it stood in, these being hardly extensive 
 
 
 
 enough to be called a park ; they consisted of finely 
 varied wood and dell, and were laid out in grass and 
 fed off by sheep. 
 
 He passed through a gate into the churchyard, 
 which had a very little valley all to itself, the land 
 rising on every side so as to make a deep nest for it. 
 Such a venerable, low, long church ! taking old age so 
 quietly, covering itself with ivy and ferns, and having 
 a general air of mossiness, and subsidence into the 
 bosom of the earth again, from whence its brown old 
 stones had been quarried. For, as is often the case 
 with an old burial-place, the soil had greatly risen, 
 so that one who walked betw r een the graves could 
 see the whole interior of the place through the 
 windows. The tiled roof, sparkling and white with 
 the morning frost, was beginning to drip, and dew 
 shone on the melting rime, while all around the en- 
 closure orchards were planted, and the trees leaned 
 over their boughs. 
 
 A woman, stepping from a cottage on the rise, held 
 up a great key to him, and he advanced, took it, and 
 told her he would return it. 
 
 A large heavy thing it was, that looked as if it
 
 2 5-2 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 might be hundreds of years old ; he turned the lock 
 with it and stepped in, walking down the small brick 
 aisle, observing the ancient oaken seats, the quaint 
 pulpit, and strange brasses ; till, white, staring, ob- 
 trusive, and all out of taste, he saw in the chancel what 
 he had come to look for, a great white marble monu- 
 ment, on the south side ; four fluttering cherubs with 
 short wings that appeared to hold up a marble slab, 
 while two weeping figures knelt below. First was 
 recorded on the slab the death of Augustus Cuthbert 
 Melcombe, only son of Cuthbert Melcombe, gent., 
 of this place. Then followed the date of his birth, 
 and there was no date of death, merely the informa- 
 tion that he was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. 
 Brandon copied this inscription into his note-book. 
 
 Below was the name of the young man's only 
 sister, aged ninety-seven, " universally beloved and 
 respected ; " then the solemn words used before 
 death by the aged patriarch, " I have waited for Thy 
 Salvation, O Lord." All about the chancel were 
 various small tablets in memory of the successive- 
 vicars of the place and their families, but no others 
 with the name of Melcombe on them. The whole 
 building was so overflowing with the records of
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 253 
 
 human creatures, inside and out, it appeared as if 
 so saturated with man's thoughts, so used to man's 
 prayers and tears, so about presently to decline and 
 subside into the earth as he does, that there was 
 almost an effort in beliving that it was empty of the 
 beings it seemed to be a part of — empty of those 
 whom we call the living. 
 
 It was easy to move reverently and feel awed in 
 the face of this venerable ancientry. This was the 
 place, then, where that poor woman had worshipped 
 whose son " had never judged her." 
 
 " If I settled," he thought, "in a new country, 
 this is the sort of scene that, from time to time, would 
 recur to my thoughts and get hold of me, with 
 almost intolerable power to make life one craving for 
 home. 
 
 " How hard to take root in a soil my fathers never 
 ploughed ! Let me abide where my story grew, 
 where my dead are laid, in a country full of days, 
 full of the echoes of old Englishmen's talk, and 
 whose sunsets are stained as if with the blood shed 
 for their liberties." 
 
 He left the church, noticing, as he went down 
 the aisle, numbers of dogs'-eared books in the
 
 2 54 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 different pews, and the narrow window at the east 
 end now letting in long shafts of sunshine ; but 
 there was nothing to inform him of any fact that 
 threw light on his step-father's letter, and he re- 
 turned the key to the sexton's wife, and went back 
 to breakfast, telling Mrs. Melcombe where he had 
 been, and remarking that there was no date of 
 death on Augustus Melcombe's tomb. 
 
 "I think they did not know the date," she replied. 
 " It was during the long French war that he died, 
 and they were some time uncertain of the fact, but 
 at length the eldest son going to London, wrote 
 his mother an account of how he had met with the 
 captain of his young uncle's ship, and had been 
 told of his death at sea, somewhere near the West 
 Indies. The dear grandmother showed me that 
 letter," observed Mrs. Melcombe, " when first I 
 married." 
 
 Brandon listened attentively, and when he was 
 alone set that down also in his note-book, then 
 considering that neither the ghost nor the young 
 lieutenant need trouble him further, he felt that all 
 his suspicions were cast loose into a fathomless sea. 
 from which he could fish nothing up; but the little
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 255 
 
 heir was well and happy, and he devoutly hoped 
 that he would remain so, and save to himself the 
 anxiety of showing, and to Valentine the pain and 
 doubt that would come of reading the letter. 
 
 Mrs. Melcombe, narrow as were her thoughts, 
 was, notwithstanding, a schemer in a small way. She 
 had felt that Brandon must have had something to 
 say to Laura when she herself coming up had inter- 
 rupted him. Laura had few reserves from her, so 
 when she had ascertained that nothing had occurred 
 when she had left them together in the grandmother's 
 sitting-room but such talk as naturally arose out of 
 the visit to it, she resolved to give him another op- 
 portunity, and after breakfast was about to propose a 
 walk, when he helped her by asking her to show 
 him that room again. 
 
 " I should like so much to have a photograph of 
 Mr. Mortimer's picture," he said ; " may I see it 
 again ? " 
 
 Nothing more easy. They all went up to the 
 room ; a fire had been lighted to air it, because its 
 atmosphere had felt chilly the day before. Laura 
 seated herself again on the sofa. Brandon, with pen 
 and ink, began trying to make a sketch of the por-
 
 256 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 trait, and very soon found himself alone with Laura, 
 as he had fully expected would be the case. Where- 
 upon, sitting with his back to her, and working away 
 at his etching, he presently said — 
 
 " I mentioned yesterday to Mrs. Melcombe that I 
 had come on business." 
 
 " Yes," Laura answered. 
 
 " So as it concerns only you, I will, if you please, 
 explain it now." 
 
 As he leaned slightly round towards her Laura 
 looked up, but she was mute through surprise. There 
 was something in this voice at once penetrative and 
 sweet ; but now she was again conscious of what 
 sounded like a delicately-hinted reproof. 
 
 " A young man," he proceeded, " whom I have 
 known almost all my life — in fact, I may call him 
 a friend of mine — told me of an event that had taken 
 place — he called it a misfortune that had befallen 
 him. It had greatly unsettled him, he said, for a 
 long time; and now that he was getting over it, 
 and wanted to forget it, he wished for a change, 
 would like to go abroad, and asked if I could help 
 him. I have many foreign acquaintances. It so 
 rhanced that I had just been applied to by one of
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 257 
 
 them to send him out an Englishman, a clerk, to help 
 him with his English correspondence. So I proposed 
 to this young fellow to go, and he gladly consented." 
 
 Laura said nothing. Brandon's words did not lead 
 her to think of Joseph. So she thought of him, 
 wishing she had been so led. She noticed, how- 
 ever, a slight emphasis in the words which informed 
 her that the young man, whoever he was, " was 
 getting over his misfortune, and wanted to forget it.'' 
 
 " It was very kind of you," she said at last, after 
 a long pause. 
 
 Brandon turned. Her words were ambiguous, 
 and he wished to be understood. "You observe, 
 no doubt, Miss Melcombe," he said, "that I am 
 speaking of Joseph Swan ? " 
 
 " Joseph Swan ! " Laura repeated, " then he is 
 going away ? " 
 
 "Yes; but when I had secured this situation for 
 him, he said he felt that he must tell me what had 
 occurred. He told me of an attachment that he 
 had formed, and whatever I may think as to the 
 prudence displayed in the affair, you know best 
 whether he was at all to blame. He had received 
 certain promises, so he assured me, and for a long 
 
 vol. I. s
 
 258 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 time he had buoyed himself up with hope, but after 
 that, feeling himself very much injured, and know- 
 ing that he had been deceive;!, he had determined 
 to go away." 
 
 Laura had never expected to have her conduct 
 brought home to her, and she had actually been 
 almost unaware that she was to blame. 
 •' It was Amelia's doing," she murmured. 
 Brandon was anxious to speak guardedly, and 
 would not mention Joseph's name again lest Mrs. 
 Melcombe should enter suddenly and hear it, so he 
 answered, " Yes ; and the young man told me he- 
 knew you were very much afraid of your sister-in-law. 
 It appears, however, that you had written to him." 
 " I did, two or three times," said Laura. 
 " So in case you should in after years feel anxious 
 as to what had become of those letters, or should 
 feel some compunction for groundless hopes excited 
 and for causeless caprice, I undertook to tell you as 
 a message from this young man, that, considering 
 you to be completely under the dominion of your 
 sister-in-law, he does not at all blame you, he does 
 not admit that you are in fault ; in one sense, now 
 that he can look back on his attachment as over, he
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 259 
 
 declares that he is the batter for it, because it induced 
 him to work hard at improving himself. He is to go 
 out to Santo Domingo, where, in a new climate, 
 and hearing a new language, he can begin life afresh ; 
 but he wishes you to be assured that he shall never 
 trouble or annoy you, and he returns you your letters. 
 I promised to say all this to you as a message from 
 this young man — a young man who, whatever the 
 world may call him, deserves, I think, by you (and 
 me) to be from henceforth always regarded as a 
 gentleman. Will you allow me to give you this 
 packet ? " 
 
 He had risen as he spoke, and while approaching 
 her produced a small packet carefully done up ; but 
 Laura did not stir. She had dropped her hands on 
 her knees, and he, stooping, laid it upon them, 
 when meeting her eyes for a moment, he observed 
 with amazement and discomfiture that she was silent 
 not from shame and compunction for what had 
 seemed very unfeminine and heartless conduct, but 
 from a rapture that seemed too deep for words. 
 
 " Miss Melcombe ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, in a low voice. " It is an 
 island that he is going to then. I always thought
 
 •z6o i nn id BE IK I i . 
 
 I should not mind marrying him if he would go to a 
 desert island. And so he loved me, really and truly 3 " 
 
 " It appears that he did, some time ago" said 
 Brandon, rather pointedly. 
 
 •Does an)' one else know," Laura asked, "but 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes ; John Mortimer does." 
 
 Laura blushed deeply. 
 
 "Joseph told him first about this affair, but did 
 not divulge the lady's name. After all was settled, 
 he acknowledged to us both that you were the lady. 
 John was very glad that I was willing personally to 
 give the letters into your own hands again." 
 
 " I suppose he thought I had been very impru- 
 dent ? " 
 
 Brandon recalled the scene. John had in fact 
 expressed himself to that effect in no measured 
 terms; but he had been pleasant and even cordial 
 to Joseph, partly because the young man declared 
 the thing to be quite over, partly because he did 
 him the justice to remember that such an acquaint- 
 ance must always have been begun by the woman. 
 It could not possibly be Joe's doing that he had 
 corresponded with Laura Melcombe.
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 261 
 
 Laura repeated her words. 
 
 " I suppose he thought I had been very impru- 
 dent ? " 
 
 " Perhaps he did." 
 
 " Perhaps he thought I had been heartless too ? " 
 
 " Not to bring the thing to a decided and honour- 
 able termination ? — yes, probably. He remarked that 
 it certainly was most unnecessary to have behaved 
 as you have done." 
 
 " How so, Mr. Brandon ? " 
 
 " I believe, indeed I am sure, that you are of age ?!' 
 
 " Yes, I am. He meant that no one can really 
 prevent my doing as I please ; but Amelia wanted 
 me to ignore the whole thing because she was so 
 ashamed of him and his people. - ' 
 
 " He told John so." 
 
 " And what did he answer ? " 
 
 " Among other things, he said he was glad it was 
 all over." 
 
 " Yes," said Laura, not in the least impressed by 
 this hint, "but what else ? " 
 
 " He said, ' Joe, you ought to have been above 
 wanting to marry any woman who was ashamed of 
 you. / wouldn't do such a thing on any account.' "
 
 262 FATED TO BE FREE. 
 
 " He said that ?" cried Laura, rather startled. 
 
 "Yes. and I quite agreed with him — I told J 
 that I did." 
 
 " Did he say anything more ?" 
 
 Brandon hesitated, and at length, finding that she 
 would wait till he spoke, he said — 
 
 " He told Joe he ought to be thankful to have 
 the thing over, and said that he had come out of 
 it well, and the lady had not." 
 
 "Amelia is not half so unkind as you are," said 
 Laura, when she had made him say this, and a quiet 
 tear stole down her cheek and dropped on her hand. 
 
 " Pardon me ! 1 think that for myself I have 
 expressed no opinion but this one, that Joe Swan 
 deserves your respect for the manly care he has taken 
 to shield you from blame, spare you anxiety, and 
 terminate the matter properly." 
 
 ••Terminate!" repeated Laura; "yes. that is 
 where you are so unkind." 
 
 " Am I expected to help her to bring it on again ?" 
 thought Brandon. "No; I have a great respect 
 for fools, and they must marry like other people; 
 but oh, Joey, Joey Swan, if you are one, which I 
 thought you the other day (and the soul of honour
 
 VENERABLE ANCIENTRY. 2b% 
 
 6 
 
 too !), I think if you still cared about it, you could 
 soon get yourself mated with a greater one still ! 
 Laura Melcombe would be at least a fair match for 
 you in that particular. Rut no, Joey, I decline to 
 interfere any further." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND C ., CITY KOAD. LONDON.
 
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